I'm so tired. You're already complaining about the weight of the microphone. Cute. It's very heavy.
Dad, Blaze motion. Welcome to be the people. Did you know that was the name of my podcast? Yes, I did.
How are you feeling? Are you nervous? A little bit. It's a little strange.
Why? Why? Because I'm talking to my daughter through a microphone. Yeah, but this is cool.
I'm glad that I'm going to have this forever. Okay. All right. So I have a lot of questions, but I want to introduce you to the listeners.
I wanted to have you on the podcast. Well, A, because you're my favorite man. And you know, I'm not a, I'm kind of a man hater. So that's a big compliment.
Well, thank you. And also, and also you've had a very rich life. You've had a lot that's gone on in your life. So I wanted to ask you about it.
Yeah, many experiences. So you grew up as the seventh of nine children. That's correct. What did it feel like to be the seventh?
Did you feel like you got lost in the shuffle at all? Or was it more of like a built-in community? Yeah, I didn't really know any different. You know, being the seventh of nine.
It just, that was my normal, you know? I don't really remember the other two, my two younger brothers as babies or anything. It was just, you know, it was just always a big family and always doing things with everyone. Having a good time.
You know, it, like I said, it was my, that was my normal. I didn't know any different. Do you feel like you took on a role like Peacemaker, Observer or Treblemaker? No, that, the Peacemaker was more Joe, the oldest.
You know, he would always control everybody. Maybe I'm one of the younger ones. You know, I really couldn't cause too much trouble because as soon as I would try, they would put me in my place. You know?
So it was like, hey, you're one of the younger ones knocking off, you know, behave yourself. You know, it really wasn't, it really wasn't, it didn't really feel like I had a role in the family. Okay. You kind of just followed orders.
Yes. Yep. I feel like I've heard so many of the stories just from my upbringing, but what would you say was like the most trouble that you guys got, and I say guys because it was eight boys, one girl. What would you say was like the most trouble that you guys got into together?
That you're allowed to say. Yeah. Well, when my, when my grandfather built the house for my parents, it was the only house on the whole block. The field next to it, we used to play firefighter.
We would set the field on fire and then put it out. And one time the wind whipped up and it got out of control and the fire company had to come to put the fire out. So how would you put it out with the hose and buckets of water? We'd have the buckets of water ready and have the hose ready.
And you know, once it got to a certain point, we'd go, okay, here we go. We're going to put it out now. And that time before we could put it out, it, the whole field was up. How would you start the fire matches and gas?
Oh my God, I didn't know you used gasoline. Sure. How else are you going to start to field on fire? How many times did you do it before that time?
Oh, 10 to 20. And it was all of you together. Well, there'd be a group of us. It wouldn't be everybody at all at once, but it would be like, hey, we're bored today.
Let's play firefighter. Let's set the field on fire. So, you know, we were playing the end, but not really. Correct.
And did you take turns lighting the field? Of course. Yeah. And it was Eddie that time.
Yes. Eddie is the one who started that one, happened to start that one. And, you know, we all ran away once when we heard the sirens come and we're like, okay, let's get out of here. I remember, I'm glad you tell me that story a lot.
What was dinner like? Again, you know, being one of the younger ones, I'm sure Joe experienced, you know, the addition of each sibling to the dinner table. But, you know, all I ever knew was, hey, the table was filled with people. And there was always enough food for all of us.
What you put on your plate, you had to eat. And you know, you could always go back for more. But the rule was, if you take too much and put it on your plate, well, the next time mom and dad were going to fill your plate, if you didn't eat everything that you took. So, you made sure that, you know, you took what you thought you could eat.
So, again, if there was left on the table, you could take more. I also want to set the scene for everyone that this, how, what would you say was the square footage of this house? Oh, well, there were two rooms upstairs. It was a very small, you want to call it a Cape Cod, but it had no windows to the front or rear of the house upstairs, just one window at each end wall upstairs.
And the walls came up about three feet and then started to angle to the ceiling. Well, the eight boys occupied those two rooms upstairs. There was a double bed and two single beds upstairs in each room. So you rotated through.
So sometimes you were sleeping with one of your brothers and then sometimes you had a single bed. So it was quite crowded up there. And one bathroom. And one full bathroom and there was an extra toilet downstairs in the basement.
So if it got crowded, you have to go down there. What would mom make for dinner a lot? There were cast rolls. Yeah, a lot of cast rolls, but a lot of Polish food, hams, you know, ham went a long way.
My dad was business partners with a butcher. They own race horses. And he also owned two bars in the city of Reading. So a lot of the things that we would get would be at wholesale prices and being partners with a butcher, the butcher gave them deals on meats and everything.
I didn't know this as a child growing up, but we would have T-bone stakes every other week or so. And as I became an adult, I realized that talking to my friends and everything, people were like, you had steak that often? Yeah. That was my normal because of my father's connections with people.
And we weren't rich by any stretch of the imagination, but we weren't destitute. We always had food to eat and enjoyed life. Yeah. What were some of the top, I would say, three non-negotiable rules in your house?
Yeah, keep your hands off of other people's clothes, money. Okay. And do your chores. Everybody had jobs to do and you did your chores and you helped out.
What do you think you learned about people just by having so many siblings? Just how to communicate and not be afraid to talk to people. My dad always used to say, there's two types of people in this world. There's good people and bad people.
He used to determine a-holes. You know? You're lots of curse. So he would say, you know, there's assholes and there's good people.
And your job is to let them show you which one they are. Don't prejudge them. Again, that was, you know, he owned businesses and you didn't want a customer to walk in the door. You didn't prejudge the customer.
They're people and let them show you whether they're good or not. You know, there was a black man who sat at the end of the bar. His name was Richie and everybody called him Uncle Richie. I was a teenager before my brothers told me, you know, he's really not your uncle.
But I was like, no, that's my uncle Richie. You know, that's what we call him. And that's what he was like, everyone's uncle. So, you know, again, to me, it didn't matter, you know, what you look like, what you sounded like, it was how you treated people and how you acted.
You know, whether you were good or not. Yeah. Okay. So was it right after high school?
I actually realized I don't know the answer to this that you joined the Navy. No, right out of high school. Again, one of my dad's bits of wisdom. I was very immature when I graduated high school.
I graduated at 17. And I didn't know what I wanted to do. So he said, hey, you can live at the house as long as you want. You can live there rent free if you get a job.
If you don't get a job, you're going to pay me rent. So that was his way of saying you're not going to be a freeloader. So I got a job as an accounting clerk for an insurance company in the city of Reading. And I started on July 1st on a Friday because my boss said, if you start on Friday, July 1st, you'll get Monday off as a paid holiday.
Okay, that makes sense. Work one day, get the next day off as a paid holiday. And I worked there for seven months. But after as it was approaching Christmas, you know, I was still hanging out with some of the kids in the neighborhood that were still in high school.
And I sort of just felt a little like, okay, I got to do something. I got to do something with my life and get out of here. So that's when I started to do what my older brothers had been in a service. They were both in the Navy.
My father was in the Navy. So I thought, well, let me go see about joining military. So I went and talked to the recruiter. And I worked at that insurance company from July through the end of January and in the middle of February, I left for the Navy.
What did that where did you go? I went to Great Lakes training center, which is about half an hour north of Chicago. I went through boot camp there and then went through electronics school there, electronics technician school. So we would go down into Chicago for different events.
And the great thing about being in a service, most of the bases have a USO office and you go there and just ask what they had for free. We went to see a Chicago Bears game. We went to Chicago Cubs games. We went to concerts.
I saw Bob Dylan one weekend at Chicago Bulls Arena and the following weekend I saw the Beach Boys. So two totally different audiences, but great experiences nonetheless. In the summertime we got tickets. We saw Chris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge in concert together at Raveenia Park for free through the USO.
I'd never knew this. Sure, we went up to Milwaukee, which was just over the border into Wisconsin. We had tickets there to see baseball games. I saw a Green Bay Packers game up there.
We were always going to the USO saying, okay, what do you have? Freebies. How long were you there? I was there from February until Thanksgiving Eve.
We graduated Thanksgiving Eve from school and got shipped out. So I was able to come home for Thanksgiving before I was transferring down to Orlando, Florida for nuclear power school. A couple of questions. Were you scared to go to boot camp?
No, my older brothers had told me their experiences in boot camp. In movies you hear these horror stories and you see these glomerized or non-glomerized versions of the drill sergeants and everything. They put you through the ringer because they're trying to test your mental capacity to make sure that you're not going to crack under pressure. But generally they're not out to hurt anyone.
They're just trying to instill the military discipline and you're going to need to obey orders. You take a track there as far as the fact that you ended up taking the nuclear route. So before you go in, you take a test. It's called the Azvab test.
And based on the scores you get there, they offer you different things. I knew I was guaranteed the nuclear power program, but there are three specialties that go into that. An electronics technician, an electrician's mate, and a machinist mate. So the electronics technician was my first choice, but you really don't know which of the three you're going to get.
I knew I was going to be in a nuclear power program, but didn't know which of those three. I knew that based on how you did on the test. Did you get really good grades in high school? I was capable of good grades, but the first grading session, I would always do well, and then it would tail off throughout the year because I was having more fun than schooling.
But your brain is wired to be very mathematical. Yes. So you took, what did you end up getting of those three positions? The electronics technician.
Okay. Which in the nuclear power program, everyone considers that to be the top category. Okay. So top in the nuclear power program, fast forward, how many years later trying to teach your creative daughter math at the kitchen table?
Oh. I wasn't asking you to comment on it. It's just saying it's ironic. Yes.
Please don't comment on it. Okay. So when you went to Orlando, is that when you first went on the submarine or no? No, Orlando at that point in time, that's where the nuclear power school was.
So I went down there, got there in February, no, December, but it's really funny because the nuclear power school was so backlogged with students trying to start school that I was basically sent to Orlando and given a six month temporary assignment working as a clerk in an office in the officer's side of the nuclear power school to wait for my class to start. Okay. My class didn't actually start until like May or June. So I spent five or six months in Orlando just waiting for school to start again.
You're just hanging out during the day and then at night you have no real duties or anything. So we're all just goofing around playing sports going out, you know, again, going to the USO, what tickets do you have available? I must have gone to Disney in Orlando every other weekend for free, you know, for months, you know, there was a group of us that would be like, okay, what are we doing this weekend? Hey, let's go get tickets and just walk around Disney, go on some rides and, you know, when we get bored, we leave.
So at this point, were you only like 18 or 19? I was 18. Wow. No, 19 in Florida.
I graduated 17 turned 18 in November, went in the military. So when I left the Great Lakes area, I just turned 19 and spent 19 through 20. So you couldn't drink that whole time that you were in Orlando on the military base. You can.
What? At 18 when you're in the military on the base, you're allowed to drink. So how does that make any sense? I could drink alcohol.
I could drink beer. I couldn't drink hard liquor. So they have rules on the base that you could drink. They call it 3.2 beer.
You could drink beer that contained less than 3.2 and less percent alcohol. So you were drinking like light beers and things like that. You weren't drinking the Molson double X and stuff that, you know, was like 5, 6% alcohol. Yeah.
But I couldn't get hard liquor either. Wow. But at least you could have a drink. Okay.
So once you started school, how long was that program? That was six months. So we did six months of it was just completely in class training, but you learned everything about a nuclear power plant, the chemistry, the physics and all the controls that go along with it, all the safeguards that the Navy put into place. Did you like it?
It was quite interesting. Was it hard? Very hard. You go through six months of training taking and you're tested the entire time.
So you have to pass the test. There were people that flunked out and the last thing that happened, you had a 400 question test. We should. 400 question final and you had to get 250 questions correct.
And it was a four or five hour test. How many did you get right? You don't know. All they told you was whether you passed or failed.
And if you failed, you went before review board for them to figure out why you failed, and what you were going to do after that. So they just told you whether you passed or failed. And that test was on a Monday and on Sunday we were all in all of our training materials were classified. So you did all your homework and all your studying and everything in the building.
You had a locker where you locked everything up. Because it's like where they're like government secrets in there? Classified material about the nuclear power. So you do you still keep all that tight up here?
Oh sure. But you know certain things. Have you ever told mom? Well, there's general things that you can I mean you can compare it to the nuclear power industry that's available commercially.
It's just you know the way the military ran it versus a commercial power plant here. You know, it's just a little different. That's exciting. So I'm sorry Sunday night before your test you were all.
Well, it was it was during the day we were all there and we're we're studying and studying we were studying all weekend. And I just said everybody like it was like 11 o'clock in the morning. I'm like, I'm I'm burnout. I can't do this anymore.
If I if I stay here all day tomorrow, I'm just going to be you know a zombie taking this test. I'm like, I'm I'm going to the beach. We were an hour away from Daytona. I said, I'm I'm going to Daytona.
I'm going to hang out. Just you know, you could you could park your car on the beach. You could drive on the beach. So we were going there.
We got up to leave a couple guys. They don't get with you. We got up to leave and we put our books away and we look at each other. We can't do this.
We we got to go back and study. We walk back in the room sat down another half hour. I was no, I'm done. I'm really done.
Let's go. So we packed up. We went to Daytona for the day and just relaxed and we were probably the sharpest people the next day taking that test. Everybody else like you said, they were like zombies and we were just, you know, looking at the car.
We were going, man, I feel good. You know, we just got some sun. Yeah. So what a great life lesson.
Yeah. And then we left we left there right before Christmas and from there I went up to the Saratoga Springs, New York, Boston spa. They have a base up there that has working nuclear power plants. And that's where you complete your training to actually work on replica vessels of the Navy.
So there was a partial submarine. There was a destroyer inside this big giant concrete ball. It was the B1G ball destroyer, one general electric. I was on the S3G submarine third generation GE power plant.
But they're replicas. They're working. Yeah. When I say replica, they're partial ships and boats that they have the power plant in them, but you're walking through hatches.
You're looking. So it's basically like you're on a military ship running the power plant and it's built to scale. It is the operating power plant that you would be working on in a submarine or on a destroyer. And that's how you finish your program.
You actually work on the power plant. You learn all the systems and then you test there. Again, it's a review board of three or four people that are asking you questions about any and every system in the power plant. So even though I was an electronics technician, I have to know the mechanical side of the plant.
I have to know the electrical side of the plant, any electronic side of the plant. Wow. So they ask you questions about everything because in an emergency, you have to make sure that the plant stays safe. As an aside, this is obviously pre-cell phone.
So like, oh, yes. Are you just right at home? Like do mama and pop up? No, that you're like climbing and doing this well.
Sure. Snail mail. Yep. Lots of letters.
Well, as you know, one of the things that Sue did, my wife, your mother, after my oldest brother and his wife have now both passed away when they were cleaning out the house, Zach wrote home the letters that people were just going to throw away and they were letters that I wrote to my nephew and two of my brothers that were in the military also wrote to my nephew. So we would just write letters home telling people how we were doing. And what they've all right back. Sure.
When I was in boot camp, everybody would get a care package from home. Yeah. They'd get cookies, chocolate chip cookies, get these kinds of cookies. So my mom and everyone in my boot camp class loved it.
She was sending sticks of pepperoni. Something completely different. Here, here's a treat, a stick of pepperoni. So we would take chunks of the pepperoni and pass it around and everybody would get some pepperoni.
Something different. That's cool. You still buy those sticks at the farmer's market. Yeah.
Once in a while. Once in a while. Yeah. So was that the last stop before you went to the submarine?
No. When I was in Saratoga, that was again another six months I got there in December time frame. And we were all graduating around May, May, June. But I had applied when I was down in Orlando for the ROTC program to become an officer.
And when I was up in Saratoga Springs, I was informed that I was accepted into the program. And I had my choice when I graduated from the nuclear power program. I had my choice. I could go to the University of California in Berkeley or Penn State as part of the ROTC programs or be deployed on a submarine out of Remurton, Washington.
And I thought, eh, if I go to Penn State, I'm close to home. So I chose Penn State and I went to Penn State then for two years. But at the beginning of my junior year, I had to sign a new contract for the Navy that if I completed my degree, then I would owe the Navy another four or five years as an officer. And I had met my future wife at Penn State and didn't really see us being a military family.
So I opted out. So I left Penn State that year. And that's when they assigned me to the submarine. You were with mom while you were on the submarine.
Yes. Why is my timeline so skewed? I don't know. That's crazy.
So you were there two years already that mom and then went to the other side of the country. No, not to the other side of the country. The submarine I was always out of, grot in Connecticut. Oh, I thought you said Washington.
Well, that would have been before I started Penn State. So when I left Penn State, I got assigned to a submarine because I was already on the East Coast. And I only had about 15 months left to serve in the Navy. They had an opening for someone of my specialty in Connecticut.
So I got assigned to a fast attack submarine, the USS City of Corpus Christi, which was a Los Angeles class, Los Angeles class attack submarine. So I got assigned there, got there in January of 83 and was discharged from the Navy in February of 84. So you only had to be on the submarine for a year. 13 months.
Yes. And you lived on the submarine for all 13 months. I was assigned to the submarine for 13 months. When we were in port, we had dorm rooms that we stayed in on the Navy base.
So we had a room there. Like we were in a shipyard one time for three months. So we lived in the dorms, but we got to drive down to the shipyard every day and work on the submarine. What was the longest you were ever actually on the submarine underwater?
11 days. 11 straight days. Was that mentally tough? Again, I always joke with people and say, no, I actually had more room on the submarine to move around and to sleep and storage for my clothes and everything than I did when I was a kid at home.
I've been training for this my whole life. Yeah. Yeah. With sleeping in one room with four kids in it, I had more room on the submarine than I did in a bedroom back home.
But you weren't seeing the sun? To me, I just never really thought about it. It was one of those things that there were guys that would go stir crazy. We had one guy that you could see after about a week, he started to change his mental attitude, stop shaving and things like that.
To me, I just never really thought about it. It just seemed... What if there was a medical emergency? If there would have been a medical emergency that you needed to get off, they would have come up and make contact and got you off and got you to what you needed.
How far down were you? See, there's something that we're not allowed to say. So the military, you can say... There's a book called Jane's Fighting Ships.
They had what they called test depth and crush depth. So the military knew that once you went to a certain depth, then you risked the submarine imploding. As we all know, what happens when you go down too far and it's not structurally sound. So they had what they called test depth that you went as deep as that and that was it.
So people would ask you questions like, how deep were you? And you go, we were out there, but you don't really say how deep you go or how fast you go. But there's a book called Jane's Fighting Ships that has some really good information in it. So if you read that, you can sort of gauge what happened.
Would you guys... I'm just thinking of the times, like it was the 80s, as far as masculinity goes, would it be normal to talk about where you're at mentally or emotionally or would everyone try and be tough? Yeah, on the submarine, no one really talks about that. It's more just hiding your mental state as much as you can.
If you were freaking out, you really didn't try to go to somebody and talk to about it. Again, I never really witnessed it in one or two people and you could see it. You might say something to them and try to bring them out of it, just what's joking with them and things. But you didn't really get into serious heart to heart conversations.
When we were off duty, we'd watch back when there were videotapes. We'd watch videos of movies. One of our favorites was a movie which had me chase modern problems. And Dabney Coleman, we all say lines from the movie.
When we'd be back in the engine room working, if somebody was having an off day or something, maybe you'd throw a movie quote out to them and they'd look at you and you'd have a little smile on your face and they'd perk up a little. It wasn't the heart to heart, talk about your mental capacity. But obviously when you're on the submarine, you're not getting mail. Correct.
You're not getting anything. And I didn't realize at that point, so you would only known Mom for two years before you basically planned that decision because you knew that you wanted to start a family with her and be with her. Yes. Yeah.
And you'd only known her for two years. Just about two years. And you just kneel. I love that.
That's so sweet. How long did you go without seeing her? Well, sometimes it was months on end. Wow.
When I'd be up there, you didn't always get enough time off to travel that far. I don't know. During that year, maybe I saw it three or four times. Now, while I was on a submarine, that was 1983.
That's when my younger brother was killed in a plane crash. So luckily, we were in port that I was available and I could come home for the funeral and everything. But that was in May. But I don't know, June, July, August, there were a couple months where, you know, didn't see.
Yeah. How long did they give you to come home? I think I was off for like a week or 10 days or something. That's nice.
You know, because he was in the, he was in the air force when it happened. So it was a military funeral as well. So they were very understanding and like I said, we were in port. We were in the shipyard.
So it's not like we were deploying to see at any point in time around then. So they were very generous with allowing me to stay home. The ship that you were on, does it still exist? No.
It is decommissioned. In fact, the conning tower is now a statue memorial in the city of Corpus Christi. Have you seen it? I've seen it online, but not, I haven't been there.
When I was on a summer, we actually went to Corpus Christi, Texas and the people of Corpus Christi were like enamored with us. They were overjoyed. They held a lottery for people to win tickets to come for a tour of the submarine. Wow.
So while we were there, we couldn't spend a dime. We went out and people were buying us drinks. People were inviting us to their homes for dinners. They were having parties, picnics, and you know, they were inviting all their friends and they'd invite 10 to 20 of us from the, from the boat.
And you know, just have us there as guests, you know, to talk to us and show us a good time in the city of Corpus Christi. That's cool. When you actually went underwater, were you on a mission or was it just like, were you traveling or you allowed to say? We were going places so that the purpose of a fast attack submarine is to go out, it's a submarine hunter or a ship hunter, what we like to call targets.
We always say, when you're out on the ocean, you want to be in a target or on a boat. A submarine is a boat. If you're a thousand people at the surface of the water, you want to be on a target or on a boat. So you don't want to be on a surface ship that got destroyed by a submarine.
But our goal was to go out and hide and find other submarines and track them or just, you know, get lost so that no one could track us so that in time of a war, you know, we could, if there was someone in front of us that we were tracking, then we could get, we could eliminate that target without them ever knowing that we were there. So we were just cruising the Atlantic Ocean. And the captain and the navigators knew where we were supposed to go. You know, I'm sure that every submarine that was in the Atlantic had a grid that they were covering.
You know, went to different areas and just went around. Now, when I was when I was there, we actually went to Fort Lauderdale for a few days, then we went to Puerto Rico and then we went to St. Croix and then from St. Croix, we went to Corpus Christi.
It's hard to imagine a port where a submarine can like emerge. Do you have to get into port before you know going in and out of New London, Connecticut, Grote and Connecticut, you actually, it's a river. So you're on the surface until you get out far enough and then you submerge. Okay.
So you're coming to the different ports, you're coming to the surface out to sea, you know, a few miles and then you come in. That way you can see the other traffic that's there and they can see you. Okay. Because if you're coming in underwater, you don't know when you're coming up.
If there's something above you that you're going to run into. Does the Navy itself build the submarines? There's, I know it at the, in Connecticut, it's general dynamics is the company that the Navy contracts to build the submarines. But you are there working alongside the shipbuilders as the ship is getting built.
The crew is assigned to that ship or submarine and then you are actually working there while, while the vessel's being built. My brother Jean was down in Newport, New York, Virginia. They were building a ship down there. That was his assignment when he was a machinist mate in the nuclear power program.
So he was on new construction as well and they were building a surface ship. So he was assigned to that. Dad, it's so cool. I feel like I could ask you a thousand more.
I feel like I learned so much about you just now. Like I always, I'm like, yeah, my dad was on a submarine and you know, I have like my whole shtick, but thank you for sharing all that. Oh, you're welcome. I have so many other questions for you.
So let's finish this section really quick. How do you think the Navy changed you? I think it just gave me a little more discipline. You know, I was, like I said, when I graduated high school, I was a little immature.
I was one of the goofy kids in the class, you know, always goofing around with doing stuff and the military gave me a little more discipline and it gave me the, you know, when you go to work, you don't always like what your boss wants you to do. But in the military, you learn to follow orders. So it's like, okay, you don't always understand why you're doing what you're doing. And sometimes when you're working for a company, the boss may understand, you know, why he wants you to do something.
You may not understand it and that's why you don't like it. But you know, in the long run, you sort of figure it out. And that's where when I became a boss, I learned, well, I knew from the military to communicate better about why we're doing things. That's one of the things that the military always used to teach you.
It's a job to do, but this is why you're doing this job and why it's so important to do it. You know, so when you become a boss somewhere, you don't just give people tasks to do. You explain to them the big picture of that task where it fits into the company and why you're doing it and how it's good for everyone. Yeah.
Do you think if you would have opted to stay or to extend your contract that you would have like really rose in the Navy? It's difficult. The military only promotes so many people. It's not like when you go to work at a job that if you prove yourself, you can go to your boss and their bosses and show them all the good stuff that you've been doing and why you deserve a promotion.
In the military, they only take so many promotions per year. So it's really the best of the best of the best get promoted. So you could be doing a really good job in your area, but maybe you're, you know, maybe you're in the top 20%, but they only take the top 10%. So I probably could have lasted for 20 years.
And then, you know, after 20 years, you get a pension from the military. If you stay longer, every year longer you stay, you get a higher pension. But most people, if you make a 20, you know, then you can retire at any time. Do you ever let yourself think that way or do you just kind of?
No, I, everyone said why I think about it, but I'm like, well, you know, I would have been 37, 38 when I, you know, after 20 years. But then I think, yeah, yeah, like you could have retired at 37. Well, I could have retired from the military at 38, but I would have had to get another job because the pension wouldn't have been able to, I wouldn't have been able to live off of that forever. You know, but you know, it would have been nice now, you know, now that I am fully retired, that a military pension with your Social Security would be great.
But it's also a burden on, you know, being away from your friends and family when you're out to see, you know, especially in a Navy, if you're on a ship, sometimes you're out to see for six to nine months, you know, and that takes a toll on a family. So it's, you make different choices. It's, you need to have the family that really wants to be there. I mean, we came back from deployments and houses would be empty.
The spouse would be gone to be a dear John letter and hey, I'm done. You know, I can't do this. So those are the things that, you know, you see that happening. You're like, well, I think if I would have stayed in the Navy for 20 years, I probably wouldn't have been married.
Yeah. And you always knew you wanted to have a family of your own. Yep. So what was it like becoming a dad for the first time?
I know the second time was better, but. Well, like they say, you're never, everybody says, well, I wait until, you know, I have the money or, you know, I'm prepared. Well, you never have enough money. You're never prepared to have a child.
No training manuals. Everybody can tell you, oh, you're going to do this. You're going to do that. But every, every child is different.
And he just learns you go. It's just, well, my father probably put it best when he came to the hospital to see his act when he was born. And my father wasn't a very religious person, but he looked at me and said, how can you not believe in a God when you see a baby being born? And you know, this little infant like this, because it's truly as a miracle.
Yeah. So you just, you know, it's, it's unbridled love. It's just unconditional love. You know, and that's, that's what it is.
Well, you definitely gave that to us. What was something that was really important for you to instill in your kids? The same thing my dad showed me, you know, everybody let, let people prove to you, you know, what they are, whether they're good or bad. And for you to just be, you know, true to yourself and to be a good person and to respect other people, you know.
Was there anything from your childhood that you were like, I really want my kids to have that? Um, maybe a sense of exploration. You know, I traveled the country twice with my mom and dad and my two youngest brothers by car. We had a pop up camper one time and the first time we traveled across country, it was my older brother Eddie had a Volkswagen camper van.
My dad borrowed it from him and the five of us jumped an air and traveled around the country and seeing different things. What do you mean the five of us? You, Eddie? No, my mom and dad, me and Tony and Brian.
Oh, nice. So it was me and the three youngest. But it was, you know, I, with you guys, we had a motor home. So we try to do the same thing, show you different things and, you know, take your camping and take it different places and give me that sense of exploration that, you know, learn things and see things.
You know, don't have just a neighborhood mentality of, oh, this is where I live and this is what the world is like, you know, just get out there and see different things. Yeah. Well, you definitely did that for us. What is the biggest difference between being a dad and being a grandfather?
The discipline. There's not as much discipline. I mean, we don't let the kids run rampant, but you know, everyone always says it. I said it to my dad when the way he treated you and Zach, I mean, Zach says it to us.
We laugh all the time that, yeah, we would never give our kids that much candy or that much cereal. But oh, yeah, we give it to the grandkids, you know. Yeah, it's just different. One of the jokes I would tell people is if I would know how great it is to be a grandparent, I would have skipped having kids and went straight to be a grandparent.
Yeah, it's such a hilarious joke. Ha ha ha. I'm just kidding. Okay.
And speaking of how many years have you and mom been married now? Well, we got married in 1987. Don't make me do math. Oh, is your coming up on your 40th?
No, we're coming up on 39th. Okay. 39th this year. 40th next year.
Something that people misunderstand about long marriages. Like what's a common misconception? That it's easy. You know, any marriage you have to work at.
People that get divorced, you know, it's because they have issues and, you know, we always think they just don't work at it enough. And sometimes it's inevitable. It just wasn't a good match to begin with. It was a mistake to even get married.
But but a long marriage, you just need to work at it. You know, something happens. You work together to resolve it. You know, you don't let things linger.
That's something that mom has taught you. What has she taught me? I didn't already know. My goodness.
Dad, don't get yourself in trouble. Um, maybe, maybe empathy. Yeah. Um, just be a little softer, um, with everyone, you know, again, being in a large family, there was, you know, there were strict rules.
I wouldn't say strict rules, but there was, you know, you didn't goof around too much because of it could turn into chaos very easily. Um, and in the military, you know, also going through rules and everything. Um, but just being a little softer with people and not, you know, always trying to force, force their hand. You've become such a softy and I love it.
I'm sorry. Does that embarrass you that I said that? No, not at all. Okay.
I admit it. I admit it. I love it about you. Um, okay.
So now that you're retired, what matters more that you have more time? Well, it's just being able to spend more time with, with my friends doing things I like, spending time with the kids, the grandkids, um, traveling more, you know, and not, not worrying about, you know, what's going on in the workplace, um, commuting to work and being on the road, um, you know, traveling for work, um, you know, all those things. Again, they all take a toll on your physical and mental wellbeing. You know, now it's just, okay, what are we doing today?
You know, where are we going? Who are we going with? Um, and just just enjoying life much more. Yeah.
Um, all right. Last question. What does a good life mean to you? I think a good life just means having a lot of friends, um, having a good time with everyone, having a respect of, you know, a lot of people and the people that, that you interact with.
Um, yeah, I think that's, it's not money. It's not things. It's just, you know, people and having a lot of, a lot of friends that you can just relate to and, and enjoy doing things with. Well, I think you have a lot of friends because you're such a good person.
Oh, thank you. So thanks for doing this for me. Is there anything else I didn't ask you about? I'm sorry.
I had so many questions about the Navy. That was so interesting. Well, that's, that is one experience. Did you want to touch on like why it is that I'm your favorite child at all?
You are my favorite daughter. I admit that to everyone. Cute. Cute.
Well, dad, this was really cool. Thanks for doing this for me. And I hope anyone who listened got a lesson on what it means to be a good man. Hey, welcome.
Thank you very much. A good person, a good dad, just all around. I love you. Love you too.
Thanks for being here. Thanks for listening, everyone. Bye. Bye.