IN MEMORIAM -- My Father's Passing
Adam Eugene Menozzi (December 3, 1916 -- July 16, 2006)
I’m a little late with this one. I thought I’d have a memoriam page all set on this site but a little over a year since my father died, I’m still cleaning up, picking up, tossing out, making do, fixing up, clearing out, and winding down. I feel like I’d been preparing for this imminent death all my life. He just wasn’t supposed to live as long as he did and after a certain point I think I got comfortable in his seeming immortality. Now I understand that you can never prepare for the loss of someone you love, even if imminent. There’s nothing that can prepare you for the void that happens when it’s over.
Dad, or Pops! as I called him, died at the ripe old age of 89. As far as we’re concerned, he died way too soon. He was healthy up until the last couple of years when the mind starts to go and a routine examination reveals a polyp that eventually turns out to be what you think it could be and then reveals that it has taken root in other areas and has been with him longer than anyone could have imagined. You see, the fact that my father lived until he was 89, was nothing short of a miracle. A true blue miracle. When you hear the phrase love conquers all, well, it certainly did in this case. My father’s life expectancy according to his family history by all accounts and purposes should have ended decades before it did. He was the last surviving member of his parents, three sisters and two brothers; he was the fifth oldest. His father passed at 67, his mother in her 60’s, two sisters in their 60’s, one in her 50’s, one brother at 28 and another from heartbreak at 70. Almost all of them died from cancer or complications from cancer. He watched his father die a horrible death from spinal cancer when he was 17 and his brother followed a few years later leaving behind two young sons and a wife. My father talked about his family all the time. His memories and stories about his family and their exploits, his childhood, his adolescence, his struggle for work as a young adult and his ache to live his dreams in baseball, were prolific and entertaining. The glimpses of history in his life and meeting such greats as Babe Ruth and Joe Louis, helping run his father’s restaurant in Detroit, the Depression and its aftermath, are far better than any PBS documentary.
He was a courageous man in the true sense of the word. His family was wealthy before the Depression. His father sold stoves and then owned his own famous restaurant, open 24 hours, well known for its homey atmosphere and fine cuisine, in downtown Detroit in the early part of the 20th century. As a kid he would get change out of his father’s pockets to ride the trolley to see the shows in the theaters downtown. He had three older sisters who all went to college. His sister Alice, was a beloved teacher. Another sister, Mary, became a nurse. Norma, the oldest, married and worked various odd jobs. She was a top salesperson at an upscale department store in tony Grosse Pointe. She is famous for going to work in her housecoats and bluntly telling customers they could get the same item cheaper somewhere else. They loved her for it and came back to buy from her again and again. They were a rather raucous family and enjoyed get-togethers, dancing, great food. My father always spoke well of his mother. He thought the world of his father. The boys, Adam, Joe and Filbert, were the younger half of the family and after the Depression, they weren’t able to send them off to college. My grandfather lost his beloved restaurant. And four years later, my father watched his father wither away from a robust man of 240 pounds to a man of 90 skeletal pounds and hair so long it ran down his back because it hurt too much to cut it.
Dad played semi-professional baseball and softball with the famed minor leagues of the day. He had tryouts with the Detroit Tigers, Pittsburgh Pirates and Brooklyn Dodgers. He played a year with the Batavia minor league in 1939, played shortstop and second base, with a .300 batting average, .397 on-base average and .320 slugging average, before deciding to quit baseball due to muscle injuries in both of his legs that left him unable to walk without the aid of a cane. He recovered but moved back home to help his mother save the house which she eventually had to sell.
He married a waitress named Flo and raised her son for 15 years before divorcing her. When he married my mother, their honeymoon was money down on a three bedroom bungalow in a new suburb about 10 miles outside of Detroit. One evening early in their first year, the stepson came back to visit my father with his new wife. He thanked my father for staying to raise him.
Dad eventually got his apprentice card and became a skilled tool and die maker. One time he cut off his thumb in the shaper and had to have it reattached. He retired on disability because of a major heart attack that turned into a lifelong heart condition. The doctor told him he’d have to quit smoking and change his diet or he would die and he did, cold turkey. Never saw him with another cigarette again and as hard as it was to change some of his eating habits, he did it. Not even so much as a beer with dinner in his beloved steins.
Never saw a man so happy to have a family. He adored us, both my sister and I, and he adored his wife even more. My father always said he was nothing without my mother. He always said she was a good woman, hard working and smart and he respected and appreciated that she had a profession, that she enjoyed it immensely and contributed much to the financial success of the household.
Even though he had his dreams cut short, he was never bitter about it. He took it in stride as part of life and he moved along. He could surprise me with his deeper understanding of human nature and his astuteness about people’s personalities. He never thought anyone I went out with was good enough for me and he was right. It unnerved him no end when people, especially men, were not responsible with money. This from a guy who loved to play the horses. But he knew when to stop and he knew the meaning of responsibility. I remember the first boyfriend I had, after I broke up with him, my father told me what he really thought. He said, “I didn’t like him. I didn’t like his pointed shoes.” I knew what he meant. The guy ultimately enjoyed his own self more than me.
He was generous to a fault, kind and always had a good word to say to make someone feel better. Always kidding around with people trying to make them laugh. Always had a joke, even if they were stolen from Henny Youngman much of time. He hurt when he heard things on the news about children, animals or the elderly or even those in other countries at war. He couldn’t understand men who went hunting. He’d see a deer and say, “Now look at that. How can you kill that?” Prejudice was foreign to him. He played ball with Joe Louis and his Brown Bombers back in the days when African Americans couldn’t play professional baseball. He and Joe used to rib each other about the games.
He loved music. He loved a song “with a good orchestration.” I grew up to all the best jazz music and crooners. It’s why I love to sing and dance. Vicki Carr, Andy Williams, Tony Bennett, Al Hirt, Bert Kempaert and even B.J. Thomas ‘cause Dad loved that song, “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.”
He paid for voice lessons, dance lessons, piano lessons and all those years in college to become a teacher, like his sister. It was my turn to take change out of his pocket for those things and he always trusted me. He was always so proud of me. Didn’t matter what I did. He would say I was his “secketary.” I didn’t have to work to make him proud. He knew I was class and poise and grace and he would have been too humble to admit it but I got it from him.
He didn’t understand stupidity or people trying to be something they weren’t. He didn’t believe in kissin’ ass or compromising values for a piece of anything. Dignity, integrity, character, those were things you mustn’t lose. Stand up for what’s right even if it isn’t the popular thing. Remember the little guy. And be thankful for what you have always. And don't hang out with "no rubby dubs."
He went to mass every week because that’s the way he knew to give thanks for everything in his life. He wasn’t there to be a good Catholic. He could have cared less about that although he and a number of priests enjoyed a good night at the racetrack now and then. He had faith. And that is courage. And that is what I hardly ever see in any one I meet anymore. And it’s why I loved my father so much and why I miss him and why I will always miss him. None of this, of course, does him justice and only makes a dent in the true spirit of the man, but I feel so honored to have known him.
I’m just happy I realized these things before he passed away and I’m glad in the last years I was able to tell him so much of what I’ve written here.
Play ball, Pops.
I’m a little late with this one. I thought I’d have a memoriam page all set on this site but a little over a year since my father died, I’m still cleaning up, picking up, tossing out, making do, fixing up, clearing out, and winding down. I feel like I’d been preparing for this imminent death all my life. He just wasn’t supposed to live as long as he did and after a certain point I think I got comfortable in his seeming immortality. Now I understand that you can never prepare for the loss of someone you love, even if imminent. There’s nothing that can prepare you for the void that happens when it’s over.
Dad, or Pops! as I called him, died at the ripe old age of 89. As far as we’re concerned, he died way too soon. He was healthy up until the last couple of years when the mind starts to go and a routine examination reveals a polyp that eventually turns out to be what you think it could be and then reveals that it has taken root in other areas and has been with him longer than anyone could have imagined. You see, the fact that my father lived until he was 89, was nothing short of a miracle. A true blue miracle. When you hear the phrase love conquers all, well, it certainly did in this case. My father’s life expectancy according to his family history by all accounts and purposes should have ended decades before it did. He was the last surviving member of his parents, three sisters and two brothers; he was the fifth oldest. His father passed at 67, his mother in her 60’s, two sisters in their 60’s, one in her 50’s, one brother at 28 and another from heartbreak at 70. Almost all of them died from cancer or complications from cancer. He watched his father die a horrible death from spinal cancer when he was 17 and his brother followed a few years later leaving behind two young sons and a wife. My father talked about his family all the time. His memories and stories about his family and their exploits, his childhood, his adolescence, his struggle for work as a young adult and his ache to live his dreams in baseball, were prolific and entertaining. The glimpses of history in his life and meeting such greats as Babe Ruth and Joe Louis, helping run his father’s restaurant in Detroit, the Depression and its aftermath, are far better than any PBS documentary.
He was a courageous man in the true sense of the word. His family was wealthy before the Depression. His father sold stoves and then owned his own famous restaurant, open 24 hours, well known for its homey atmosphere and fine cuisine, in downtown Detroit in the early part of the 20th century. As a kid he would get change out of his father’s pockets to ride the trolley to see the shows in the theaters downtown. He had three older sisters who all went to college. His sister Alice, was a beloved teacher. Another sister, Mary, became a nurse. Norma, the oldest, married and worked various odd jobs. She was a top salesperson at an upscale department store in tony Grosse Pointe. She is famous for going to work in her housecoats and bluntly telling customers they could get the same item cheaper somewhere else. They loved her for it and came back to buy from her again and again. They were a rather raucous family and enjoyed get-togethers, dancing, great food. My father always spoke well of his mother. He thought the world of his father. The boys, Adam, Joe and Filbert, were the younger half of the family and after the Depression, they weren’t able to send them off to college. My grandfather lost his beloved restaurant. And four years later, my father watched his father wither away from a robust man of 240 pounds to a man of 90 skeletal pounds and hair so long it ran down his back because it hurt too much to cut it.
Dad played semi-professional baseball and softball with the famed minor leagues of the day. He had tryouts with the Detroit Tigers, Pittsburgh Pirates and Brooklyn Dodgers. He played a year with the Batavia minor league in 1939, played shortstop and second base, with a .300 batting average, .397 on-base average and .320 slugging average, before deciding to quit baseball due to muscle injuries in both of his legs that left him unable to walk without the aid of a cane. He recovered but moved back home to help his mother save the house which she eventually had to sell.
He married a waitress named Flo and raised her son for 15 years before divorcing her. When he married my mother, their honeymoon was money down on a three bedroom bungalow in a new suburb about 10 miles outside of Detroit. One evening early in their first year, the stepson came back to visit my father with his new wife. He thanked my father for staying to raise him.
Dad eventually got his apprentice card and became a skilled tool and die maker. One time he cut off his thumb in the shaper and had to have it reattached. He retired on disability because of a major heart attack that turned into a lifelong heart condition. The doctor told him he’d have to quit smoking and change his diet or he would die and he did, cold turkey. Never saw him with another cigarette again and as hard as it was to change some of his eating habits, he did it. Not even so much as a beer with dinner in his beloved steins.
Never saw a man so happy to have a family. He adored us, both my sister and I, and he adored his wife even more. My father always said he was nothing without my mother. He always said she was a good woman, hard working and smart and he respected and appreciated that she had a profession, that she enjoyed it immensely and contributed much to the financial success of the household.
Even though he had his dreams cut short, he was never bitter about it. He took it in stride as part of life and he moved along. He could surprise me with his deeper understanding of human nature and his astuteness about people’s personalities. He never thought anyone I went out with was good enough for me and he was right. It unnerved him no end when people, especially men, were not responsible with money. This from a guy who loved to play the horses. But he knew when to stop and he knew the meaning of responsibility. I remember the first boyfriend I had, after I broke up with him, my father told me what he really thought. He said, “I didn’t like him. I didn’t like his pointed shoes.” I knew what he meant. The guy ultimately enjoyed his own self more than me.
He was generous to a fault, kind and always had a good word to say to make someone feel better. Always kidding around with people trying to make them laugh. Always had a joke, even if they were stolen from Henny Youngman much of time. He hurt when he heard things on the news about children, animals or the elderly or even those in other countries at war. He couldn’t understand men who went hunting. He’d see a deer and say, “Now look at that. How can you kill that?” Prejudice was foreign to him. He played ball with Joe Louis and his Brown Bombers back in the days when African Americans couldn’t play professional baseball. He and Joe used to rib each other about the games.
He loved music. He loved a song “with a good orchestration.” I grew up to all the best jazz music and crooners. It’s why I love to sing and dance. Vicki Carr, Andy Williams, Tony Bennett, Al Hirt, Bert Kempaert and even B.J. Thomas ‘cause Dad loved that song, “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.”
He paid for voice lessons, dance lessons, piano lessons and all those years in college to become a teacher, like his sister. It was my turn to take change out of his pocket for those things and he always trusted me. He was always so proud of me. Didn’t matter what I did. He would say I was his “secketary.” I didn’t have to work to make him proud. He knew I was class and poise and grace and he would have been too humble to admit it but I got it from him.
He didn’t understand stupidity or people trying to be something they weren’t. He didn’t believe in kissin’ ass or compromising values for a piece of anything. Dignity, integrity, character, those were things you mustn’t lose. Stand up for what’s right even if it isn’t the popular thing. Remember the little guy. And be thankful for what you have always. And don't hang out with "no rubby dubs."
He went to mass every week because that’s the way he knew to give thanks for everything in his life. He wasn’t there to be a good Catholic. He could have cared less about that although he and a number of priests enjoyed a good night at the racetrack now and then. He had faith. And that is courage. And that is what I hardly ever see in any one I meet anymore. And it’s why I loved my father so much and why I miss him and why I will always miss him. None of this, of course, does him justice and only makes a dent in the true spirit of the man, but I feel so honored to have known him.
I’m just happy I realized these things before he passed away and I’m glad in the last years I was able to tell him so much of what I’ve written here.
Play ball, Pops.
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