Consequences

When TZ and I decided to marry, my father informed me that he and my mother would not attend our wedding.   She was not for me according to him.

Our relationship had been rocky, arguably broken by those who could observe it, but that edict put a nail in the door that closed things pretty hard.  He'd apologize years later, and with those recants we'd still have relations, conversations, and even laughs with each other, but that exchange left a hard long standing scar among other paper cut wounds.  

I am not sure what he had hoped to accomplish with that play.  It wasn't like I was in a book, walking away to be a baron of some land trust, forgoing that to marry some girl of non-royal stock.  "Yeah Dad, you are right - I decided to tell her we won't marry, but perhaps she could be my concubine."  Instead, it left me angry and my wife with a resentment.  

Even years later, when I'd try to explain the good he had done in my life, that choice by him was a bold-italicized-underline that was impossible to overlook.  I wonder if I ever got to truly forgiving him.  Or if I should have.  Or if I held that interaction as a way to keep him at arms length.  Perhaps that was appropriate anyway.   While there is nothing I can do about that with him now, I look at relations I have now where I have placed a person in the so called "penalty box" ... 

His choice on that matter of our wedding, and other decisions he made planted a seed in me that became a principle in how I approach our children (now adults) ... and that is to let them live their lives.  I recognize it sounds basic, but I have seen that it is one of those things that is "simple but not easy."

Echoes

People will ask, "were you and your father close?"  If I am being honest, I will answer we were not.  In some cases, there is a follow up probing question:  "what were the issues?"  For years I have had a chambered answer for that, and respond that he never moved past seeing me as a kid, and that he never figured out how to transition our relationship as I became an adult.  

But another answer is that I feel I often didn't meet his expectations.  

As a child I didn't have a calling for a career like he had (he had always wanted to be a firefighter) but I expected to go college.  He couldn't understand this and thought I just felt entitled, partly the result of growing up in the more white collar town of South Windsor.  

I'd regularly go my own way for long stretches.  I disappear into the woods or on bike rides.  I'd head more often to a friend's house versus bringing them over to ours.  I'd go out to have dinner with a girl I was interested in or with her family versus bringing them to my house.  

I didn't come home every weekend from college.  He'd tell me how I didn't know anything, that I was milquetoast in character.  Arguments would only further wedge between us and I decided not to come home one year for Thanksgiving and instead spent the day on my own with a walk on the Nipmuck Trail.  

Sometimes I just wanted to do what I wanted to do.  I'd often prioritize decisions for my own self interest.  It is fair to call some of that selfishness, or some of it just seeking independence.  Sometimes I didn't want to engage with what was at home.  He'd accuse me of being embarrassed of them.  While that didn't seem to ring entirely true, in retrospect there is a sliver of truth in some parts of that.  In going through his things, I smell the old smells.  East coast mildew mixed with tobacco smoke and recall how much they bothered me and how I didn't want to have to deal with that as a kid.  I didn't even know it that way then.  

I'd move across the country.    My brother would grumble about how our father was in his shit all the time and I would just see how they invited each other into their shared chaos.  I didn't come back from Colorado to share the grandkids with him and my mom.  Holiday calls were often strained.  I could feel the expectation that I was supposed to be there.  But I wasn't.  When my brother died, I didn't fill the role of the son he wanted.  I wasn't there with him when my mother's health declined and she died.  

With her passing, I offered up a move to the west for him to start the next chapter of his life.  I made it known however that our relationship would be on terms that I had defined.  He decided to stay in Connecticut, in part because that is where he had been for 30 years at that point, but it was also clear he would not move with me setting such boundaries.  Again, expectations not met.  

All these were part of or fed a narrative for him that I didn't love him or my mother as I should.  He straight up told me that he thought that was an outcome of my knowledge of being adopted.  I never believed that and told him that, but there was no convincing him.  He felt telling me of my adoption when I was 12 effectively lost me to him.  

This of course is ... complicated.  Not all our interactions were troubled:  there were plenty of kind and loving ones as well.   There were plenty of places where he was proud of me and he told me so.  

As I walked the dog this AM, I could still feel the tug of his expectations in the echoes of my head.  I was supposed to call him today, even if it was just to check the box that I had, even if it was that I only half listened to him drone on about politics or his latest ailments. 

Of course, I can't call him.  But I can feel that wiring of his expectations and me not meeting them.  

These echoes ... they are all in the "firmware."  And with seeing it, I am beginning to see how it may be wired into other behaviors or thoughts I have.  Some of those have fostered into habits that many would describe as "disciplined" or "effective" ... but honestly some are more chaotic and create stories that are unfruitful, and unnecessary (ha! maybe all of this blog?!).  

He may have had expectations I would never meet.  But I also came up short in places I could have put my ego or selfishness aside.  And seeing that and deciding what I do with my choices in the future .., there is an gift in that opportunity.  

Johnny the Barber

I sorta knew that at my father's funeral service there would be a something that caught me off guard.  I wasn't sure what it would be.  I tried to imagine scenarios.  Would a family member show up from Florida unexpectedly?  Would someone be angry with me?  What if no one actually showed up?  I knew there would be a something that I would have to "roll with," simply because I couldn't know what it would be.

Nonetheless ... 

... I was deeply surprised when my father's barber, Johnny Dagostino showed up.  Johnny is 87, cut hair for over 60 years at his shop, cut my father's hair for 50 plus years, gave me my very first haircut.  I had not seen him since I was probably 17.  I didn't recognize him at first, but with his words ... I recognized the deeply accented Italian voice, and then the elfish gleam in his smile.  It tapped into memories I didn't even know that were there.

He had grown a beard, apparently letting it grow since his retirement.  His wife shared that his memory was starting to fail him.  Several of the other "old timers" at the service were also happy to see the community icon, and laughed at how they missed the copies of "Sports Illustrated" he kept in the back of the shop they would browse as they waited for their haircut.  

I couldn't shake an odd thought ... that 50 years ago the life of my father, me, this barber ... would intertwine briefly, for something as simple as a haircut and then come to this moment all that time later.  Would we have believed it if we somehow were told all those years ago that we'd meet again at the funeral of my father?  

In the last handful of years, I have come back to deeply enjoying the moment of a haircut.  In that chair at that time, I am unbothered by the calls of the world.  There is just the drone of the scissors clipping or the clippers buzzing and the small talk of sports or what the barber or I am doing this weekend.  The pinnacle moment comes with the application of the hot shaving cream to the back of the neck and then pull of the razor against the skin.   All of it - the sound, the smell, the feel ... it goes back to moments when Johnny first would put the apron over me and tie the wrap around my neck.  

I realized that I thought I had not thought of Johnny for years, but I actually had thought of him hundreds of times ... everytime I got in that chair ... now with Louie or his son Gary in Broomfield instead.  But Johnny was there in some way each and every time.  

The scripts run really fucking deep.   

Notes from the eulogy

The following are the notes I used for my father's eulogy on Saturday.   I did consider that in this being the first one I have ever delivered, in some way, my father was still giving me opportunities for lessons, even in his death.  

I did improve a bit off this, so there were other things said.  

I intend to continue to post about this for a bit.  My father's passing and the events around it have provided quite a bit of reflection and thinking.  It is helpful for me to write about that.  

Thank you.  Thank you all for coming as we remember George Ronald Zack.  I am also George Zack, oldest son of George Ronald Zack. 

I want to tell you a few stories about my dad.  As you’d expect, I have no lack of stories about him.  After all, he is the man I have known longer than anyone else in my life.   But first, I’d like to invite anyone who would like to say anything or share anything about him to feel free to do so. 

Thank you.  About my father … 

I could tell you stories about the things he loved. 

He loved good food, like a good steak or baked stuffed shrimp.   He would conjure up his own bar-b-que sauce for the things he grilled.  He loved soft boiled eggs with cottage cheese with a hefty dose of Lawry’s seasoning salt.    He loved foods I can’t understand still to this day – like stuffed cabbage – he called them gulumpkies or blind pigeons.  He loved mint jelly on lamb chops or creamed corn.   He loved Rein’s Deli in Vernon.  He loved ice cream cakes from Carvel called “Fudgie the Whale.”  He loved a good egg sandwich from Augie’s.  He loved kielbasa with a good dollop of strong horseradish.  He did not like cooked carrots for what it is worth.   

He loved a good haircut – and went to the same barber – Johnny’s in East Hartford for over 50 years to clean up what little hair he had.

He loved to ride on his lawn mower in the yard, with a straw hat, and a Hawaiian shirt while enjoying a cigar.

He loved boxing back when it was on ABC Wide World of Sports. 

He loved big gas guzzling American made cars like the Ford LTD or a Cadillac

He loved to read a newspaper in the chair – enough that he had two newspaper subscriptions:  The Hartford Courant and the Journal Inquirer, even though he didn’t really like the Inquirer.  He would call it the “Urinal Inquirer.”  

He loved military history. 

He loved to drive.  He could drive anything.  He drove a tank in the Army.  He drove a pumper as a fireman.  He drove buses.  He drove commercial rigs.  He loved to drive.  I remember his left arm being a deep tan on his otherwise very white body as he always had it hanging out of the window when he drove.  

He loved Hosmer Mountain Soda.  He had a particular love for the Birch Beer and the Cream Soda from there. 

He loved a good comedy – “Monty Python and The Holy Grail” for example, but also a good serious movie like “Patton” or “The Godfather.”  

He loved good music and would listen to Pavarotti.  It made for quite a mix of musical flavors after my mom had pumped Diana Ross hits from the 8-track on the big furniture stereo. 

He loved the rescue and chase of the fire department.  I grew up with a scanner radio right next to the kitchen table.  It had the chips for the frequencies of SW PD and Fire, Hartford fire and a few other first responder channels.   If an interesting call came in, he’d go and check it out even if wasn’t on duty.  I’d joke with him that most people who are dealing with a burning building are trying to get out and get away.  He wanted to go in.  He loved the fire department. 

He loved to talk.  He could talk to anybody.   

And he loved dogs.  As far back as I can we remember we had dogs.  We had cats too.  But I think he was more of a dog person.   I even know about a dog my parents had before I was born – “Corky” – because they spoke of her years after I arrived.  But we had Manny, Monty, Pepper,  Penny and countless others.   In one of our last conversations, he asked about my family’s dog, and he smiled as I shared a video with him of our dog.

He loved a little Italian girl from Brooklyn he met when he was 17 named Liboria Giovelli more than anything else.  Libby was my mom. She was his world. 

I could also tell you the story of how his life was difficult.
His parents were killed in a car accident when he was an infant.  He was separated from his biological sister in a subsequent adoption.  His adoptive father was a man with a disciplinarian and one with a heavy hand and a belt in times when it was okay to raise kids that way.  His adoptive mother passed away at a young age.   George and Libby learned they couldn’t physically have their own children.   One of his sons got their foot caught in a lawn mower in their backyard.  He retired regretfully from the FD at an early age because of a work-related injury.  His youngest son, my brother, took his own life at the age of 25.  His wife, my mom, passed to poor health at 63. His oldest son, me, moved to the other side of the country.  And so, he lived alone for the last two decades of his life.

So I think really his story was about how he was trying to live a life of pivoting to be better.
He married his high school sweetheart and together they navigated an incredible life of joy, challenges, pain, and laughter.  He joined the Army at 19, went to Vietnam in the 60s. 

He came back from Asia and achieved his greatest career dream of becoming a professional firefighter. He studied his ass off to do the best he could on the firefighter test so he could get that job.  He became the seventh firefighter paramedic on all of CT when it was an uncommon achievement. Mom would iron his uniforms, starching the collar heavy when people used to do that.    

He and my Mom adopted two boys, me and my brother John, to create a family.  They made a point to move out of the city to make for a better place to be – near his work, near her parents, but a place with a yard, woods, a large garden, streets with kids playing in them, and good schools.  We grew up in South Windsor on Ellington Road.. 

He started his own side hustle business “South Windsor Maintenance.”  When he was forced to retire from the HFD due to an injury - He worked for Connecticut Transit for 23 years.   I think he won a Safe Driver Achievement Pin every year he was there. 

My brother John was troubled nearly all his life.  My father and my mom did everything they could to make a better way for him.  It didn’t work out the way that any of us wanted but they never gave up on John. 

After my brother passed, my mother’s health began to decline quickly as well.  With her passing he found a life of service and principle in the Masonic community. 

I could tell you the story of things he taught or tried to teach me.

My dad always seemed to be trying to teach me things when I was young.  Some things he was more successful at than others.   For example, he taught me how to turn out of a snow skid in a car in an empty parking lot.  In a different parking lot, he taught me to ride a bike.  He tried to teach me how to throw and hit a baseball:  he threw to me thousands of times but I never really got it – I was just too uncoordinated. 

He taught me how to get a job, the importance of hard work and with that, how to keep a job..  “Be the first to show up and the last to leave.”   He landed me my first real jobs – first delivering the Journal Inquirer on a bicycle after school and then later at the restaurant we’d get pizza from:  Ellington Pizza. 

He made sure my brother and I knew how to swim.   In his job as a firefighter, he saw people, including kids, drown.  He made sure we were good swimmers by getting us lessons and having us practice in our pool. 

He was a kid raised in the city, but he introduced me to a love of the outdoors by taking us camping at Hidden Acres in Preston CT.   As a child he had once spent a week at a camp and so he decided to send me.  I ended up at YMCA Camp Woodstock – a place in later years I would meet my wife, Tracy.  

He taught me about a good garden. I forgot how big it was until I looked at pictures of it with Tracy this week.  It was big.  Bigger than some folks yards with squash, tomatoes, corn, pumpkins, peppers, broccoli … 

Of course, like any young man growing up, I always didn’t take well to some of his lessons.  I spent a lot of time washing and rewashing and drying dishes to learn to do it right and with the hottest of water.   He saw me playing air guitar to the local rock and roll station one time while drying the dishes and a week later there was a guitar in my hands.  He wanted me to play like Johnny Cash or BB King.  I wanted to play like Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix.  I still play a bit of all of them still to this day. 

Once when I did something stupid, I don’t know what it was now, but I am sure it was stupid, he asked me what I was thinking.   Like any teenager, I said, I didn’t know.  So, to have me think about it he had me roll pennies.  He had a water jug from an office that he had filled about 2/3 of the way up.  I must have rolled about a hundred dollars with pennies as he had me think about what I had done. 

Another time my brother and I decided to dig a tunnel under the shed in the backyard and all the way back to the house and into the basement.  I can only imagine what Dad was thinking as he saw us marching to behind the shed, 20 yards from the house, with shovels, rakes and other equipment.  By the time he got to us we had a hole down about four feet.  He told us we weren’t in trouble, but we had to fill the hole.  But if he ever came back and the earth in the hole was lower than the earth around it, then we’d be in trouble. 

Looking back, I can see he was trying to find a way to raise his sons in a way better than than he had been raised.  

One lesson he taught me came with four words.  “Do a square job.”   He started South Windsor Maintenance in the 70s as a side hustle.  He saw that he could make a few bucks cleaning the large front windows to South Windsor Pharmacy.  He offered and somehow even got to marketing the business at the pharmacy with advertising on matchbooks there.  His company’s slogan was “We do a square job.”  He was specifically talking about the cleaning of windows, and that there would be no streaks and that they’d get into the corners of the window.  The job was not done if it was not a square job.  It mattered to him.  The business grew for several years, doing various maintenance for business throughout South Windsor and Manchester.  The slogan was applied if he was doing cleaning windows, doing landscaping. 

Do a square job.  I think of that every time I clean windows to this day.

My father and I had a talk on the phone in late January.  I mentioned to him how I had now become the old guy at work.  And that I was modeling to the people I worked with some of the same things he had taught me.   Work hard.  Stand up when you shake someone’s hand.  Button your suit coat when you stand up.  Your word is your bond.  And do a square job. 

I think he liked hearing that.  

In that call, he also told me how he’d bid for a job for SW Maintenance for so many hours.  He would then tell the small crew he had hired what he bid it for.  If he said it was bid for 3 hours and they got it done in 2, he’d pay them for the 3. 

 If they had done a square job.  If they messed up and cut corners and had to come back and do it again and it took them four, they would still get paid for 3.  They had to do a square job.  He was proud that his crew loved this philosophy, and they almost always got done ahead of time, happy and well paid. 

My father’s life, like most of our lives, was a contradiction of difficulties and victories, dreams, and nightmares.  He made good choices and bad choice, got a lot of things right and got some things wrong.  

But he kept trying to do what he thought was a square job.  Like all of us he sometimes came up short, but he kept trying. 

We can all learn from that from his life.  By living this way, he made for better lives – for my mom, for my brother, and for me.  He created a better world for me, which in turn has been the foundation for better lives for his grandchildren. His grandchildren are both college graduates.  His granddaughter, Kali, has lived in two countries for multiple years, Germany and Japan.  His grandson, John, works in Colorado in cancer research.

My dad was a guy that had enough difficulty thrown at him that he could have understandably taken a different path.  But he looked to do a square job and make things better for those around him.

And I think that is the story I want to remember him most by.

Thank you

I’d like to thank you all for coming and remembering my father. George Ronald Zack, with us.  Thank you to the Ulhmar family for being such great neighbors to my father over the last three decades.  Thank you to Sam Ranno, his DAV contact, who was a great friends and advocate for my father as a veteran.   Special thank you to the Masons:  being a Mason was such an important part of my father’s life in the last thirty years.  In my conversations with Walt Grubbe, we agreed that in many ways the Mason’s saved my father’s life, particularly after the passing of my mother.  It saved his life, because being a Mason was so much of his life.

There is a part of the table we have set up with pins, patches, and other things that we welcome you to take if you like. Most of these are Mason items but there are other items in there as well.  Please, feel free to take it if you wish and leverage it however you like in.  He would be happy to know it has moved on in memory of him. 

Go and do a square job.   

Thank you. 

 And thank you Dad.

Guilt

As I watched him in his final hours, I did cry.  

I recognized that I was crying in part because he was passing.   His chapter was over and I'd never be able to talk with him on the phone again.  I'd never get to hear him grumble about Democrats or the weatherman sensationalizing the weather.  I long knew that the day would come when that would be the case, but it was realizing that it had arrived.  He was, like we all do, going to die.

But I was also crying because I recognized there was so much of it all we had screwed up.  Could we have made other choices over all those days we had?  I was overwhelmed with paradoxes ... the weight of what our history was, knowing I couldn't change it, recognizing that even if I chose differently along the way it might not have made a difference.  The honesty of recognizing the choices I made are "me."  I made them for me.  

In that regard, I was not only crying for his passing.  I was crying for me in seeing that  while we got a lot right, we got a lot wrong.  Logically I know that is the nature, and perhaps the beauty? ... of any deep long term relationship.  No shadow without the sun out.  

But I don't want to forget that moment of my crying and hurt at his bedside.   I want to somehow learn from it so its uploaded into my personal firmware.  I don't know if I really have that capability or if I will just succumb to plodding my days along, thinking that writing a handful of blog posts about it is enough.   

Sports

My father tried me in a variety of sports.  All around 8 years old, I started with baseball, basketball and football. 

Football was dropped first.  I think my dad saw me get clocked and he thought that was enough of that.  

Basketball hung for a bit longer.   He hung a hoop in the backyard off a large tree.  I wasn't really well coordinated or athletically inclined so it really didn't work out.  

Baseball was a thing for a bit.  But I was horrible at it.  I couldn't throw, hit or field well.  He tried though.  Thousands of throws in the back yard back and forth.  Pitched to me.  Grounders, pop flies.  

He took it up a bit too, taking on Little League umpiring and enjoying it.  But I was straight up horrible at the game.  I knew a lot about it, and followed it, but I couldn't play for my life.  I stole second base one time with another runner on it.  It was really bad.  

My lack of success in it of course led to a lack of confidence and some lack of enjoyment.  And so I didn't want to do it as much.  He asked why I wasn't practicing and I said something without thinking as you are likely to do when you are 11.  I said "baseball is just something to do."  That really upset him.  If it was just something to do, then why are you doing it?

Baseball came to an end for me when I was 13.  I got relegated to a minor league after tryouts.  Because I was a bit older and thus bigger than some other kids, I was then doing okay in that league.  My father came to a game - saw what was happening and pulled me out.  He just couldn't take it.  

That would have been the end of my sport life I guess but around the same time I ran a mile in Junior High.  I had actually done some running before that on my own, but that mile under Ken Collins' eye at Timothy Edwards set a spark of sorts.  

Running of course is where non-coordinated kids could foster some athletic success.  Work enough at it and in most cases you are going to get some results out of it, and almost always you will improve.  I turned out to be an athlete after all - even performing better at it than most of those athletes who came from basketball or other sports.  

My parents never came to a track or cross country meet in my high school career.  They sheepishly asked a couple times if I wanted them to and I simply said no.  I had no bitter feelings about it.  I just thought going to watch a bunch of chickened boned people run through the woods or in circles on a track for 20 minutes seemed unnecessary.  I couldn't see what would be enjoyable in that for them.  I also didn't want to deal with the overhead of wondering about my parents on race day.  Could my mom show up at a meet and go the whole time without smoking a cigarette?

I have no animosity for them not coming to my meets, but I do scratch my head a bit looking back at that and having raised my own kids.  Ah, it is in the past and I guess it doesn't matter now.  

But with running, I was starting to separate some.  There were other things I was starting to do to get away:  ride my bike for distances, found some guys to play D&D in their basement with, hang out in the woods, and then hang with other runners and jump off local bridges into creeks.   The other sports had been shared, but running was mine.  

Guitar

When I was 12 or 13, I was in the kitchen drying dishes.  I was listening 106.9 WCCC.  It was a rock and roll radio station, playing the songs of Led Zep, Rush, Van Halen along with groups long forgotten like Zebra and White Lion.  My father saw me playing guitar.  Or actually he saw me playing air guitar. 

A few weeks later he got me a cheap electric guitar, an amp and got me plugged me into some lessons in Vernon CT.  My teacher there for a bit was Jamie Sherwood.  I can't remember the name of the place but I want to say it was Morley Music.   Jamie was great and had the ear to transcribe a few tunes for me - like Red Barchetta and Stairway.  

I also took a class at my junior high as a freshman (we did junior high as 7, 8, 9) then with Johnny Prytko.  I got the basics of cowboy and bar chords, major and pentatonic scales, and picked up a few tunes from friends, Guitar Player magazine and the little "paper" records in the centerfold.  

As a young teen it was easy for me to blow off homework and practice for an hour a day.  I think I had lessons for about a year with my father driving me over to them.  He wanted me to play like BB King.  I wanted to play like Jimmy Page.  I try to play like both of them (and others) now.  

So, in some way, I have been playing guitar now for 40 plus years.  He set me up to do that.  It was quite a gift that he gave me.  

I played guitar at his bedside on the last day of his life.  I wanted him to hear how I could play now and what he gave to me.  I am not sure if he heard it or not.  I think he did as his eyes fluttered a bit with the playing but I can't absolutely say.  

So, again, thanks Dad.

Outdoors

Somewhere I developed an appreciation and a love for the outdoors.  

With the passing of my father and this fumbling accounting of my memories of him, I have wondered what things he passed to me - the age old nature versus nurture question.  As I unpack what scripting he had on my life versus the choices I made, I have been contemplating what wheels he put into motion that may have set this desire to be in outdoor spaces.  

I recall early family camping experiences at Hidden Acres in Preston CT along the Quinnebaug River.  We never did that in a tent, but instead we stayed in one of the cabins, and for a short period there was even a pop-up trailer.  Those experiences included time around a campfire, feeding ducks by the river, and enjoying in the woods.  

He told me as a kid he went to summer camp for one week as a child.  He never went again but he loved it so much he wanted to have me go.  I was at any number of day camps; ones like Camp Holiday Hill and started going to the "sleep away" camp, Camp Woodstock, for at least a couple weeks every summer.  Woodstock in particular became an indelible finger print on my life.  In addition to experiencing the outdoors and basic skills with that, I'd spend hours swimming (eventually becoming a certified Red Cross Guard).  It was critical in my father's view that I'd be a good swimmer.  He was deeply concerned about his children drowning and he mitigated the heck out of that (we even had an outdoor above ground pool at our house in South Windsor).  I'd eventually be a program director at Woodstock, and live at the camp year round during my time at UCONN.  

Some of that he set into motion for sure.  Some of it was the path that I chose once the doors were opened.  

We never backpacked or fished or did any winter camping.  We dabbled in Scouts but that didn't work out for us (different story, post).   But this guy who was an inner city firefighter had some love for the outside that he passed on to me that I have taken my own way with.  

Thanks for that Pop.  

Early disagreements

I can look back now and see when and where some deep seeds of difference were planted between my father and me.  Some were his perspectives on life versus mine.  Some were were deeper - usually about his expectations of me.  As I aged from child to teenager to young man, these seeds had taken to deeper root.  Honestly, some were never resolved.  With his passing, arguably they never will be ... or they are?

An example of perspectives ... as I entered my second decade of life, my father wanted to know what my "calling" was.  He knew from the time he was a young child that he wanted to be a firefighter.  Everything about it was compelling to him:  the trucks, the firehouse, the insanity of running into a burning building when everyone was running out, the heroism of saving people, the risk ... It was what he wanted to do more than anything else.  

I had no such calling.  Even today in adult life, I regularly explore my purpose - what I want to do, what I am capable of doing, what pays the bills and what will have impact.  I certainly didn't have a great idea as to what this was when I was 10.  I mostly wanted to hang out in the woods or listen to music.  I had no idea what I wanted to do and I certainly didn't have a deep calling. 

This was incomprehensible to him.  Of course you have to have a calling - what is it.  Asking me over and over only created tension, often with me falling apart emotionally.  And that didn't help either. 

An example of expectations ... well, which example?  So many ... so many places where I didn't meet his expectations.  As a student, as an athlete, the girls I dated, my moving to Colorado, and my not being there for him to name a few

And he let me know it.   This is not to say he never said he was proud of me or that he loved me.  He did do that.  But he also let me know clearly, and often, and usually with emotion, where I was failing to meet expectations.  

I have tried to box these in a positive:  perhaps by not knowing my calling, I do continue to seek what it is and enjoy that process.  Perhaps by having a parent whose expectations I didn't meet, set me up to consider what my expectations were for myself.  

Is that putting too much lipstick on a pig for the sake of being positive?

It has over the last near three decades have me deeply consider what sort of parent I have wanted to be.  I have certainly had my own short comings there too but I can see where I took some hard right turns in how I took on this role compared to him.  

Which, of course, leaves me wondering if the gift was having those experiences after all.  

"Son of Dad"

Ok. Slightly different take on the series of posts related to my father.  

Stephen Wilson Jr released an album "Son of Dad" in 2023.  I have had it on "heavy rotation" for over a year.  Stephen Wilson Jr straight up goes at the relationship with his father in this album.  Oh yeah, 30 plus songs.  And it is straight up amazing.  

Check 'em out.  

Origins

My parents shared with me that I was adopted at the age of 12.   I had no clue of this prior.  They also shared that my younger brother was adopted.  They had no intention of sharing this information, but as my brother was facing various difficulties they took on professional counseling.  That counseling led to questions to my parents about how my mother's / brother's pregnancy had been:  was there alcohol, drug, other complications.  That of course which opened a box that it was not my mother's pregnancy with him.  

The details of our adoptions are stories unto themselves.  Adoptions out of Florida through Helen Tanos Hope in the late 60s and 70s, what they meant at that time in the US versus other options, how they were managed ... it is thousands of stories actually for those people.  

I never took the knowledge of my adoption as something that fundamentally changed me.  Even at the age of 12, I felt I knew who my parents were:  George and Libby as they were the people who were raising me.  I also decided at that young age that I held no animosity towards those in my biological lineage:  I didn't know their circumstances and if anything, perhaps I held some gratitude in that they believed a life could be better for infant me elsewhere.  I also felt no desire to seek those people out.  I recognized that it could be better if my adoption was left in the past.  I preferred to focus on where I was and where I'd go versus dwell on that past.  And I also felt that any sort of searching I could do would be insulting to my parents.

My father however felt that my knowledge of this somehow changed our relationship.  In retrospect, I think some of the natural changes that come with becoming a teen - where I would challenge or disregard him - he interpreted that as a reaction to me being adopted.  He told me this, and despite my telling him that was not true, he'd hold onto it ("if it is not that, then why do act that way / did you do such and such?").

It would become a wrinkle - one of many - in our relationship.  It was one that I'd give no credibility to, but as I moved away from my family and often kept distance as I grew - he'd mention that he'd see that as some root cause.  He regretted ever telling me, in part because he felt it broke my mother's heart.  

I still have no desire to seek that past, even though it is apparently easier than ever with genetic testing, search angels, etc.  George and Libby were my parents.  

Do a square job

With my father's passing, there has been a mix of reflections of ... well everything.  The good, the bad, the early years, the later years, the lack of connection, things I forgot, things that I have drummed into deep truth in my mind that I am now questioning.

Our last real conversation came was on January 8.  We talked after that, but only for short snippets.  On that day in January I called him from Sunnyvale CA while taking an extended dawn walk into my work.  

He had become aware that I had made a shift in my work from my own consulting business to working for a a corporation.  We talked about that, and I shared how I was "the old guy" at work now.  I reflected to him some of the lessons I learned from him regarding work as a child and their applicability still.  

In the 70s, he started a side hustle:  "South Windsor Maintenance."  I think it started with him doing large window cleanings for the front of the local pharmacy, but then extended to general maintenance, cleaning and land scaping for various local businesses.  He had a small crew of guys that would do the work for him.  I remember weekends as a kid where he'd be doing a job at a place of Rte 5 in South Windsor.  He'd be cutting their large lawn and I'd be in the parking lot riding my bike around.  I'd be in tow with him at several of these jobs, sometimes doing some of the work too.  

On this January 8 call, he shared with me how he did marketing of South Windsor Maintenance by having matchbooks at the pharmacy with his logo, contact info on the book.  How about that for an advert scheme gone by?  

He also shared how if he bid a job for 3 hours, he tell his crew that is what he was going to pay them for.  If they got it done (and done right) in 2, he'd still pay them for the 3.  If they screwed it up and it took longer, they still would get paid for three.  He was proud of how his guys loved that - and almost always got done early and were happy to be paid well.  

He also shared that the company logo was "We do a square job."  It came from the windows - where it was really apparent to him that to complete clean a window, you had to get all the way into the corners - and to work the entirety of the square without streaks.  "Do a square job."  It meant do all the things you need to do to complete the work, and don't ... well, cut corners.  

I actually think of that every time I clean a window or a mirror or even a computer screen.  It is deeply encoded into my firmware.  

Do a square job.  

Time

 

My best guess is that this is a picture from the winter of 96-97.  I would have recently moved to CO after grad school at UCONN the May before.  My father would have been 55-56.  My mother 53-54.  My brother would have been 23-24.

In my mind's eye, this is how I remember them mostly.  

My brother would be dead by the 98 - taking his own life violently after holding up a gas station - at the age of 25, most likely drug related.   My mother's health was starting to fail should would live to 63 with cause of death listed as pneumonia - but there were any number of other morbidities as well.  My father, despite being overweight, having high blood pressure, likely being diabetic - would live for another 28 years.  

It is hard for me to comprehend this photo.  In it, my brother is the same age as our son (who shares his name).  I am older now than my mother in that photo.  I am the same age as my father.  It is like one of those size of the universe statements ... they can tell you something and you understand the words but you can't quite comprehend it.  I can't comprehend that their ages in this picture.   Really - I am the same age as my father in that picture?

I also simultaneously can't fathom that I will live to nearly 84 but then think if he did of course I will.  I know that is as much chance as anything of course, but those voices bounce around in my pea brain.  

While I spoke to my family after leaving for the Rocky Mountain, I never saw my brother alive in person after I headed west.  I only saw my mother one more time in person -  at his funeral.  I saw my father a handful of times.  He never came to CO, and decided to live out his days in CT.  

The three of them will be committed together to a Veteran's (my brother was also in the Army) Cemetery in March.  

Hang Nine

In 1973, at the age of three, I was involved in a lawn mower accident.  

Arguably, the incident is just that - an incident.  Life moved on and it is just a small part of my history, a footnote (ha?) mentioned on occasion.  

As the accident left me with one less toe, at some point in the 70s, my father came up with the moniker "Hang Nine."  I recall we were laughing at how I couldn't effectively wear flip flops because of the gap between my large toe and the next toe.  He noted I couldn't ever "hang ten" with the surfers, and the joke was made.  I hung onto the name and I use it still today (Hang Nine on IG is where I post most of my musical stuff).  The name seemed to fit:  surf this life with what you got, regardless of circumstance, and ride it well.  

I recall a conversation with my father somewhere in the past decade where I referenced the nickname.  He expressed some dismay, some hurt and some shame regarding the incident.   The nickname seemed to him as a way where I was parading it.  I didn't feel that way about it, but I could understand how he was in that space.  I didn't stop using it.  

It was obviously a traumatic event.  Frankly, I am feeling the circumstances of it here 50 plus years later with the decline in my running. leg strength discrepancies and a knee cap that has moved into a position that it should not be in.  It is a small price in light of what could have been:  as a young child I could have been killed (1970s lawn mowers are not what they are today), I may have lost my whole foot, I could have been impaired in walking for life.  Instead, I recovered and ... well, my bipedal motion has been pretty solid.  

I don't know if I really recall the event.  I think I do - but I don't know if that is memories that I made and imprinted on my head given how I heard about it at as a very young age.  I count it as the first memory I have.  I feel I remember it because I remember aspects of it that seem to be more than the mechanics I would have from just a story:  how I ran up behind the lawn mower my mother was riding  in an attempt to surprise her, her hearing my scream over the roar of the mower, her carrying me to my father who was pushing a mower in the front yard and the complete shock on his face. 

I was lucky.  I ended up with a doc, who as I understand it was fresh back from Vietnam.  I imagine he saw much worse injuries than mine.  He mended the foot, was unable to keep one toe.  A decade later I'd win a conference championship in track - an incident that had more impact on my development as a human than that damn lawnmower.   Despite the abnormality, I was able to enlist in the Air Force with a simple waiver.  

How it all came to that ... ah, who knows.  It was an accident.  Mistakes were made, and I was part of that.  But my parents felt they failed.  I get it - I'd feel the same.  I never held it against them and told them so and even pointed to my accomplishments on my two feet as evidence.    It was one of those messy things in life, complicated by perspectives, circumstance, and lost to the haze of history and the stories we tell ourselves and each other.  

Hang Nine then, Hang Nine still.  

He loved dogs

I've been working through my father's obituary.  I pulled items from the Resolutions that the Masons shared and made some modifications.  I shared it with my father's neighbor who provided me some feedback.  He doesn't really have internet, so I sent it to him via text and he sent me back a picture of some things he asked to be considered included.  

It was a good reminder for me in a few ways.  

The neighbor, Mike, was his neighbor for the last 35 years.  That is longer than I have been in CO.  They shared a life of experiences.   The reminder was I am not the only one mourning my father's passing and the hole his death has left is pretty large for some people.

And yeah.  Dogs.  I can't ever recall as a kid not having a dog.  We always had at least one dog.  My father loved them but in that way that was with the a "what the heck is that dog doing now" sort of growl but with a grin behind it.  

Dogs, cats, squirrels.  It was a something I think he and my mother bonded over a lot.  The cuteness and craziness that comes with animals.  And that lawnmower.  And the weird hats.  Yeah.  Lots of that in the soup mix tide.  

I managed to talk it all through over the phone with my neighbor this AM without breaking down.  Can't say that is the case as I type this.  Thankfully work will give me a bit of a reprieve from that.  

Resolutions

In his later years my father became a Mason.  I am not sure if this is true, but it seemed to give him an outlet of hope, community, shared purpose, and charity that I think he needed post the suicide of my brother and as my mother's health declined.   Post her passing it became most of his social self.   He was deeply proud of the organization and his involvement.   

When we'd converse on the phone, he'd almost always share something about his involvement:  doing CHIPS programs, singing with the Shriners, going on a trip to a show with his brothers, serving as a tiler at a meeting.  He encouraged me to join, showed me his lodge during a trip to CT in 2006, talked about the various sects he had joined, the study and commitment he had to show to achieve degrees he had as a Mason.  

This all came after I had left CT in 1996 so I never really saw it.  In 2022, the Masons reached out to me to help with a write up for him for a lifetime achievement award.  After he received it, and he saw his name enshrined on a wall with other recipients on a wall in the lodge.  A friend of his from the lodge shared how my father at 82 looked up with child like wonder and swelled with pride that his name would be up there "forever."

His lodge contacted me yesterday to share they would read "resolutions" at their meeting last night.  Much of the resolutions come from the same write up when he received the award a couple years back, and I expect much of this to be part of his obituary.

Columbia Lodge No. 25 A.F. & A.M.

Columbia Lodge No. 25 Chartered May 18, 1793

Orient Lodge No. 62 Chartered September 18, 1822

Daskam Lodge No. 86 Chartered May 11, 1859

RESOLUTIONS ON THE LIFE OF BROTHER GEORGE R. ZACK

On February 1, 2025 the Grand Master of the Universe called Brother George R. Zack to

His home in the Grand Lodge on High. Brother George has finished his task, laid down

the working tools of his earthly life and left for the Land of Eternal Sunshine.

George was born February 11, 1941, in Pottsville, PA. He joined the United States Army

in 1960, and completed Basic Training at Fort Dix.  As a Private First Class, he served

overseas as an Armored Tank Crew Man on M-48A1 Patton Tanks.  George was

deployed to Vietnam as part of the Armed Forces Expeditionary in 1963-1964. 

Returning to Fort Dix towards the end of his term in the Army, he served as a drill

instructor and also worked in the fire department on base. 

George married Liboria (Libby) Zack in 1963.  After working in the New York Fire

Patrol, George took a position with the Hartford Fire Department at Engine 8 in 1968. 

George served as a firefighter for Engine 8 through 1978. In 1974, George became one

of the first half dozen Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) in the state of Connecticut

who was also a firefighter (he notably and proudly "maxed" the practical exam for this). 

 George proudly points to much of his success as a firefighter coming from the

unwavering support from his wife Libby.  An unexpected work injury brought an earlier

than expected retirement.  

 George and Libby had two sons, George and John. Their son, John, passed away in

1998.  His son George, Jr. lives in Colorado with his wife Tracy and George’s two

grandchildren, Kali and John.  

George was a Connecticut Transit bus driver from 1979 to 2003, when he then retired

from the workforce.  George's love of his life, and wife of 43 years, Libby, passed away

in 2006. 

George was raised to the sublime degree of a Master Mason on October 9, 2000 in Silas

Deane Lodge #147. He became a member of Columbia #25 in 2010 when Silas Deane

Lodge went dark. George served in the offices of Marshall, Junior Deacon, and Senior

Deacon at Silas Deane, and served for many years as Tiler at Columbia #25. In 2022,

Columbia Lodge honored George’s years of service by presenting to him the Emerson C.

Reed at the lodge’s annual Awards Night. George was a member of the craft for almost

25 years.

George was a 32 nd Degree Mason at the Scottish Rite Valley of Hartford, and also a

member of the York Rite Bodies – Pythagoras Chapter #17 of Royal Arch Masons,

Wolcott Council #1 of Royal and Select Masters, and Washington Commandery #1 of

Knights Templar. He served in the office of Sentinel for many years in both the Chapter

and the Commandery.

Brother George was a believer in the Tenets and Principles of Masonry and carried his

beliefs into his various activities. To his son George, Jr., his daughter-in-law, and

grandchildren, we offer our sincere sympathy, but trust that they are comforted by our

faith that:

God saw the road was getting rough,

The hills were hard to climb,

So gently He closed the weary eyes,

And whispered, “Peace be thine”.

Therefore, Be It Resolved: That we, the members of Columbia Lodge No. 25, A.F. &

A.M., express our appreciation for the contributions that were made to our Order by

Brother George R. Zack.

Be It Further Resolved: That we mourn his passing in the knowledge that his service was

in the name of Brotherhood. The sadness in the hearts of his friends is the sincerest token

of respect that those who mourn his passing can offer.

Therefore, Be It Further Resolved: That these resolutions be spread upon the records of

Columbia Lodge No. 25, A.F. & A.M. and a copy sent to the family of our departed

Brother.

Respectively submitted,

Walter Grube, Secretary 

Stuff

I don't really have a plan as to how this plays out.  I recognize that my father's passing has ... "thrown me off balance" and I have a desire to reconcile that.  I have some thought that writing about it will help move towards that reckoning.  I don't know if that is true.  And as I sat at the keys this AM and looked in this very messy closet of my head, I don't know what to pick up next.  There is no real order to this, no plan.  I'm not sure I will do this every day to some conclusion or if it will just peter out or if it just goes on indefinitely.

I feel like I am managing well.  I walk.  I go to work.  I interact.  I am working through planning his funeral.  I have the swells of sadness and tears that I have learned come with the passing of a loved one.  Hell, I still get choked up about that dog we lost on July 2, 2022 even though I am "over it."  I even smile at how when I see that wave come with the lip quiver, I think for a moment that I can control it - and it is as if that thought forces some deep operating system level override to show I can't.  

Nothing brings on these tides more than "stuff."  Going through stuff I have not seen in years, some I haven't seen in three decades.  Stuff that I had complete forgot about, buried somewhere in the recesses of my mind.  Like a movie I saw as a kid - it is never there in my day to day but it is buried in my firmware and can be accessed.  And now opening that file brings opens a lot of other ones.  The tide comes in.  I'd say the dam breaks, but one was not even built there in as much things were just buried.  

And, wheee ... go for that ride.  

Yeah, stuff.  Meaningless stuff.  Stuff that no one else would put any value to.  Stuff that will be thrown out.  Stuff that somehow I now recall as part of the scenery.  Maybe once or maybe as part of a backdrop for decades.   His passing and going through this stuff ... pictures of course, but trinkets, license plates, clocks, books and ... stuff.  

And he wrote his name on everything.  I mean this man felt the need to label everything with a black magic marker.  ZACK.  Made me feel a bit stupid when he did that with all my underwear when I went to summer camp.  

It is stuff that tells pieces of a story of him, his wife, my brother, his family, his life and me.  And as the stuff goes to the trash, to Goodwill, to others who want it, or becomes part of my stuff, the story fades.  

It ain't all sad and bad.  Even the ones that come with mourning or regret are lined with recognizing that having these are a gift unto themselves.  It creates a moment of pause, recognition, reflection and that is its own workout.  

Beginnings

Where to begin?  The cliche is the beginning of course, but which one?  His birth?  Mine?  When our lives took different paths as I became an adult?  Or where this is now?

(sigh and just start typing GZ)

My dad, George Ronald, was born in February 11, 1941 as George Galenda in Pottsville PA.  Within 2 years his parents would be dead, killed in an automobile accident.  He would be adopted and become George Zahorchek.  Within a few years, his father, George Edward would change and shorten the family name to Zack.  

His youth and upbringing is lost to history and my only knowledge of it is what he shared with me over the course of innumerable quarter conversations.  His father was physically abusive.  His mother had significant health issues and would pass at a young age.  He was aware of his adoption and didn't understand why other members of his biological family didn't take him and with the adoptions separated him from his older sister.  He'd confront his biological uncles later with this question and get no satisfaction in their responses.  He'd grow up in New York City.

He met my mother Libby (Liboria Giovelli) when he was 17 and she was 15 when on a date at movie theatre - they were both on a date with other respective friends and shortly thereafter they started dating.  From an incredibly young age, he was fascinating and deeply called to the fire department and everything about it:  the trucks, the sirens, the heroism, the fire house, the uniform, the camaraderie.  Just before turning 20, he joined the Army.  He'd go to Japan, Korea, Vietnam and serve in various roles, including as a tankman.  He'd marry Libby on June 27, 1963.   They married in a court house - there are no pictures from a wedding with the family. She had just turned 20 (June 19) and he was 22.  They started their married life.  

There are pockets of other stories in there.  Run ins with the law as youth. Various jobs he had as a kid. Interactions with his father.  Serving as an alter boy.   Challenges he had in the neighborhood he was in as an outsider to the predominant culture.  Libby's challenges with her own family and the hell she had gone through. His interaction with her family and her three Italian brothers who were initially not impressed with a "Polack."  How Libby's mother welcomed him in.  How he was a bigger kid and made fun of for being fat.  How they took steps to get away from it, particularly his father, but remain connected to her family.

Growing up, I'd hear these stories.  In retrospect, I heard them but I didn't have the skills or the character to listen to them.  They were a background music that I had an awareness to, but I never deeply unraveled them or what they meant.  

I knew however that my parents had a start that had faced challenges and they had made choices to work to overcome them.  They had faltered in places, but had a start that was built on a foundation of their marriage for each other.  They did not get out of it unscathed - no, looking back I can say their scars would run deep and impact their physical and mental health for the rest of their lives.