Father's Day: In Remembrance of Dads & Granddads

My grandfather had eight grandchildren. All of us have always affectionately referred to him as “Pop-Pop.” I, however, in addition to this, took some time ago to calling him by the nickname that he received by his friends in virtue of his employment at Hostess Cupcakes: “Twinkie.”

My grandparents lived just five or six blocks from my mother’s house while I was growing up, so my siblings and I were there constantly. All of my close relatives, in fact, were there more often than not. But I was particularly close to him, for I spent hours and hours throughout the years speaking with him about the life that he had.

He would tell me about his childhood in Depression-era New York where he was raised by my German immigrant great-grandparents. Twinkie recalled being a kid of about seven or eight in the small Queens neighborhood of College Point when his mother would give him $11.00 in cash each month to pay her mortgage. He shared with me his passion for baseball, a game in which he and his buddies engaged daily during his youth, and swimming, which he did just as frequently in the river separating Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx. It was while he was swimming at ten years old when he got the word from a friend that his father had died. Back in those days, he would inform me, long before air conditioning and funeral homes, the deceased would be laid out in their families’ homes for up to three days under fans, and some widows would wear nothing but black for the entire year.

Twinkie riveted me with stories of Saturday matinee films that cost only a dime and of riding the subway throughout all five boroughs of New York for only a nickel. He remembered Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth playing ball at a local park in College Point while they were “barnstorming.” As a kid, he told me, he caddied for Bert Lahrer, “the cowardly lion” of The Wizard of Oz (he didn’t like Lahrer because of his foul language), and not long after entering high school he quit and began work at his first job for Schulz Soda. He worked twelve hours a day six days a week for a weekly income of $28.00, all but $5.00 of which he gave to his mother.

My grandfather, like my father, had a great sense of humor. He was drafted into the army during World War II, but he was stationed the entire time in Hawaii. He always joked about “the great sunburn of ’43.” Twinkie’s laughter alone was contagiously funny.

Like my father, there is an endless supply of anecdotes about my grandfather and his impact on me that I could share.

On April 3, 2007, just a little over four months after my father died, Twinkie passed away at home in bed with his wife of nearly 61 years -- my “Nona” -- by his side. Although he was considerably older than my father -- he was 82 -- his death was still sudden. I eulogized him at his funeral.

The passing of my grandfather marked the passing of an era. As of that day, the two men who, in their own respective ways, did most to facilitate my growth from boyhood to manhood were gone. Yet the impressions they left on me are indelible.

On this Fathers’ Day, I’d like to tell them that I love and thank them.

Happy Fathers’ Day.