We all associate Memorial Day and Labor Day with the beginning and the end of summer. The one holiday in between is The Fourth of July which stands alone as a summer classic with the birth of our Nation. Summertime has always seems to bring everyone together with the warm weather and an abundance of activities. It always seems sorrowful to see Labor Day and the end of summer come. I guess for me it is still a reminder of going back to school but, over the years I have found there is more terrific weather to enjoy through the fall so Labor Day does not seem as disappointing me as it is more the memories of the end of summer.
This year during our anniversary getaway my wife and I do annually was a time of reflection for me. This blog post was going to be about pizza boardwalks and Labor Day on the Jersey Shore. But during my search for video I had changed my mind. After spending two nice days in Atlantic City we took a ride into Ocean City about eight to ten miles south of Atlantic City. As Pam and I had talked about her experiences with the weekends we spent going to my father’s place in Ocean City I decided there was not too much more to reminess about. My family seemed to be the ones that invented the dis in functional families. (“WARNING: Step parents can be hazardous to functional families and in their relationships.”) This is where I had a breakthrough! I decided there was a much happier story another twenty miles south in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey. This story is not really about Wildwood Crest it is the people who kept a family together for years going to Wildwood Crest as a family.
This story is about my father-in-law who died a few weeks after Labor Day about a month short of seven years ago now. Coming from a divorced family I can only admire how my father-in-law lived his life and how he never stopped loving his wife who had died ten years prior to him. My wife and I had inherited at the time he passed what was the only possession he had not liquidated when he moved in with my sister-in-law, her husband and three sons. But, it was not just the car we inherited we inherited a collection of some of his favorite travelling music. What was in this collection of music is music from the mid 1950’s to 2004. Yes almost fifty years of his favorite music.
There is a real intimate aspect to each relationship and with the music Chuck listened to in the in the ten years between time his wife passed and he passed was a true testament to how much he loved one person. It takes someone with real character to share who he was not only with his wife but three daughters and three sons and never stop having the feelings he had with who was the nucleus of his life and his family. This nucleus is apparent though all his children and in their relationships with their spouses. As Pam and I celebrate our thirty-second anniversary this week I know Pam and I have met many milestones not yet met by any other family member or our friends of our generation but, Pam and I still have not hit the milestone of the thirty seven years Chuck and Patsy shared before she passed.
Being the individual that married the first daughter and the oldest sibling of the family was not an easy position for me but somehow I got through Chuck’s premarital Boot Camp. In fact Chuck’s Premarital Boot Camp closed its doors after Pam and I were married. The two other candidates who came to the plate in the next few years found the doors closed. Lucky them! When you think of Chuck in his early days growing up in the Kensington section of Philadelphia and that he was a training sergeant in the 82nd Airborne during the Korea War, Chuck’s boot camp was not always easy. But after Pam and I were finally married a real easy going side came out in him especially as he became a grandparent. I think sixteen grandchildren is not a bad accomplishment for a lifetime and he got to greet every new grandchild as they came into the world. Not a bad accomplishment either. Now with Labor Day coming I know on the seventh year after his passing Chuck will be there in spirit as his second Great Grand-daughter is born just about three years after his first Great Grand-daughter was born. It seems funny that the first two great Grandchildren who came or are coming around Labor Day at four and seven years. Not too far from the date he passed and a good coincidence none the same considering how much he loved his grandchildren.
Loving is remembering life and starting a family at the cusp of an Era at the height of the baby boom!
When you think about how a family started I look at pictures of my mother-in-law and with the dark hair and style with how much she resembled Patsy Cline. It was the era of Buddy Holey, Richy Valens and mysterious private plane crashes. It was no wonder Chuck was a big fan of American Pie the Don Mclean song we always seemed to sing every time we went out as a family when we went to night clubs in the Wildwoods or Cape May. Patsy was a part of many of those memorable family nights out. In fact she was always with us as long as Chuck was there.
You take the time to understand someone over a period of thirty years and you feel stronger about the person than when you met them is a credit to their growth as person and yourself. I knew Chuck from the time I was a mid-teens to the time my children were just entering their twenties. The family side of Chuck with the constant growth as a family man is what I always admired about him. Even in his wife’s absence for ten years he never missed a beat with his family or his passion for his wife.
When you look at someone as being ordinary and why would you read about them you have to really try just to be ordinary yourself. We read novels and biographies everyday about ordinary everyday people. It all depends on the author and how the author wants to associate the story with his character how we view them. When we think of holidays it never hurts anyone to take the time to think of those in our past. Good people should be memorialized and holidays are not time grieve but to fondly remember. When I think of anyone that has lived a life of accomplishment it all depends what those accomplishments are. When we think of holidays we cannot forget about those we have loved and admired or we will lose the spirit of any holiday. Every Holiday in one way or another either gives tribute to something, someone or a tradition. In this world when we all look to heroes and celebrities sometimes we do not have to look too far past our back door for a hero or a celebrity. There is more than likely someone in your own family when you take the time to look and all they have to be is someone important to us and not necessarily the rest of the world.
There are love songs and stories surrounding us in the movies and in novels. Sometimes it seems like I have lived my life knowing a love song and story through someone elses eyes. It is the story of a rugged man that grew up in the rugged streets of Kensington. He went into the Airborne and quickly was made a training Sargeant. Chuck was not a very tall or big man but he was larger than life to his friends and those who he loved while he left his mark where ever he went by being a kind person, an elite Bell of Pennsylvania Technician and a good father. It was almost like he wanted Pam and I to find that collection of music so we could continue the romance he had with Patsy. Or, it was our twenty-fifth anniversary present which was same day of the year he and Patsy shared as their anniversary. Who knows only Chuck himself? The music he listened to as he traveled by himself while he reminisced and never stopped loving his soul mate, best friend and who he shared his most treasured part of life with. His family!!!
My sister-in-law Patty’s husband Hugh put it in the right way, "Before Chuck passed we had the honor of having stay with us for his last months of his life. But, Pam and Scot had the honor of spending the last Labor Day in one of his favorite places where so many memories were stored while engaging in some of his favorite activities with some of his favorite people." In this big old Green House at the corners of New Jersey and Lotus Avenues in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey.
There is a certain treasure as Pam and I have while we travel. It is the way we remember Dad or Chuck as I called him. Here is Pam’s and my Tribute to you Chuck husband, father, friend, good neighbor, and Working Class Hero!
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