Papa Always Said:
“The way a man starts out…doesn’t always mean that’s how he’ll end up”!
Of course, he meant that even if you began as poor, (in America), if you studied hard, worked hard & you could end up financially secure.
…” Well Papa do have a story for you…” 🙄
Remember that boyfriend, Jackie, that I went with before I married my husband at 18? (The one that lived across the street from us in Brooklyn in the 1950’s). Well 53 years later, when we both became widowed, (as senior citizens), we found one another again.
It was at a reunion of old friends made for us. He was 76, & I was73… at the time of the reunion. (Never had we met or spoken in all the years). Our lives had taken us on different paths and places.
From that affair we became boyfriend & girlfriend…like we were teenagers…once more. 💕
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Older age crept in, and the romance morphed into only loving emails & phone calls. It had become “G.I.” (geographically inconvenient) & Covid didn’t help, either.
Now, Papa if you remember he was the poorest boy in our humble neighborhood. His father couldn’t seem to hold a job. The family suffered so.
Jackie had to go to work early & attend Brooklyn College at night.
He had to support his mother & father…having to work 2 jobs.
Then as many neighborhood boys… Jackie was drafted for the Vietnamese War.
He didn’t marry until he was 39, he tells me, because as a teenager, I broke his heart. 💔 Sorry… 😢me!
His children & my grandchildren are the same age.
They’ve all met once at my place for dinner. (All are college graduate professionals). 🎓🎓🎓🎓🎓🎓We were so proud! 🙂🙂
😓Here’s the kicker, Papa…Jackie’s not well these days.
… He came out of the hospital, again this week, to find out a cousin he met, (only once), had died.
… This rich cousin, who had no living relations remaining… except Jackie & his aged brother, Jules.
**They are the only heirs to share his 20 million Estate…
“Holy…true Fairy tale, Papa, huh”?
(My Papa 1900–1973) 🧡
