My Dad Jules - August 31, 1931 - April 23, 1992

My dad was a cool guy. He was good natured, had a great sense of humor and could talk more than a woman.

My mom and dad were married October 4. I do not remember what year. The picture below is my dad and mom on their wedding day. My dad was born and raised in Woodbine. My mom in Northeast Philly. My mom had a relative that lived across the street from my dad. This is how they met.

My dad is the kind of guy that got more handsome the older he got.

After my dad and mom got married, they went for a ride one day. This was a thing with them. Whenever they got bored my dad would say to my mom "Hey Hon, do you want to go for a ride?". My mom's response was always "yes Hon." So they took a ride and ended up in The Villas. My dad and mom both fell in love with the area. There was an old gas station on the corner and my dad decided he wanted to open a gas station and repair cars. They bought a small two bedroom house and this is how I became Villas Girl.

My dad was a very handy guy. When my brother and me came along, it was time to expand the house. My dad did most of the work. When I was old enough, I would be right next to my dad hammering or whatever it was he was doing. I learned a lot from him. He never lost patience with me. Now when something needs to be done around the house, I try and tackle it. Most times I can complete the job. Sometimes not, but my dad taught me well.

One of my dad's favorite things to do was fish. We used to go out whenever he could. Most times we would go fishing in the ocean. Most times there were a lot of swells. It took me some time to get my sea legs. Not my dad. Just as soon as he cast out, he was sitting there with a jersey tomato sandwich with mayo dripping down his chin with a big grin.

Sometimes someone would come into the station and ask him if he wanted to go fishing. If he could, he would come home, pack the cooler and go. Here he is with his greasy shirt holding two weakfish.

My dad's first station was Esso which of course changed name to Exxon. Exxon decided to close his station in The Villas and offered him the station in Rio Grande. He accepted. There was a house next to this station and an older man by the name of Mr. Hand lived there. Mr. Hand always had cats, but being a busy road, most got killed or just ran away. A guy came into the station with a kitten and asked my dad if he knew anyone who would want a kitten? My dad said that Mr. Hand would probably want him. My dad took the kitten. When Mr. Hand came home, my dad asked him if he wanted the kitten. Mr. Hand promptly said, "I don't want anymore God Damned cats." My dad call my mom and said, "Do you think Lisa would want a kitten?". My mom said "No". Well my dad came home with Tigger. When I got home from school, there sat my dad with that shitty I've been up to something grin. My mom looked pissed. I set my books down on the sofa and saw something move. It was Tigger and for me it was love at first sight.

This is my dad and Tigger snoozing away. This is a rare picture and one never to be gotten again. You see Tigger and my dad were buddies, but we had a couple of dogs. My mom was afraid that Tigger would blind the dogs so she had Tigger declawed. My dad and the vet looked a lot alike. Tigger never treated my dad the same. The only time Tigger would have anything to do with him is if he had ham, as this was Tigger's favorite. I think that this hurt my dad's feelings that Tigger didn't want anything to do with him.

This is my dad on Christmas morning 1987. There wasn't to many times that my dad didn't have a smile on his face.

Here he is acting silly.

Here he is with another silly face.

My dad and I used to get into trouble with my mom. One of the funniest was one night when I got home from work, my dad as antsy. We decided that we would clean the kitchen. We took everything out of the cabinets and loaded them in the dishwasher. We didn't have dishwasher detergent, so we decided to use dish soap. I started putting some in and my dad said don't put to much in. Another squirt later and I was happy. We started the dishwasher. Next thing we knew, there was suds coming out from top, sides and bottom. We of course started laughing. We opened it up and scoped out suds. This went on for a long time. Finally, we were suds free. The next morning my mom went into the kitchen and we heard her yelling, "What the hell did you two do? The carpet in front of the dishwasher is soaked. I knew you two were up to something last night with all the laughing." My dad and I just looked at one another and laughed.

My dad had his first heart attack at the station in Rio Grande. He would be there after he closed to do paperwork. He passed out there, didn't tell any one and didn't go to the doctors. We found out six months later what happened after his second heart attack. Turned out he had congestive heart failure. He worked for a little while after, but soon had to stop. This about killed him. He had been active his whole life and now he could barely walk to the bathroom and back without being out of breath. My boyfriend at the time, Jack, lived in Northeast Philly with his grandparents. I would go up during my day's off. One time I took a latch hook with me and was working on it while Jack was working. His grandmom was watching what I was doing. She went upstairs and came back with two Hummel latch hooks. She asked me if I wanted them. I told her that they were hers. She said she didn't want them. I said that I might be able to get my dad to do them and that my mom loved Hummels. When I came home I went over to mom and dad's. I asked my dad if he wanted to do those latch hooks. He just gave me a look. I left them there. I guess he got bored because he would spend hours at the kitchen table working on them. After they were done, he made frames for them and hung them in the living room. This made both him and I feel good. It gave him something to do and he felt good doing it.

I had moved to a third floor apartment in Cape May. Sometimes he would come down and we would have dinner. It was hard for him sometimes because I was 35 steps up. One time I had bought a queen size sofa sleeper. I called him and told him I was making dinner and that the sofa was being delivered if he wanted to come down. He did. When the delivery truck pulled up, I went down to meet them. They said where do you want it. I looked up, pointed and said up there. Their expression was priceless. I went up stairs to move the chair. My dad was in the kitchen. The delivery guys got the sofa upstairs. I said I don't think it is going to fit. My dad started to laugh and I just looked at him. The sofa did fit. After they left I asked my dad what was so funny. He said, "the guys heard you say 'I don't think it's going to fit', and the one guy said 'oh no, it will fit. We'll make it fit. If it doesn't fit, we'll throw it out the window before we take it back down those stairs." We got a good laugh from that.

My dad had an appointment at Deborah (I know I spelled that wrong) Hospital for a stress test. My mom asked me to go with him. My dad drove. On the way, he asked if I had been to the casinos? I said that I had not. He said "you mean you never snuck in?" I said "no". He asked if I wanted to go. I said yes. After he had the stress test, I drove. It really wiped him out. I asked him if he still wanted to go? He said yes. He directed me to Atlantic City. On the way, he said, "don't tell your mother that I took you to the casino. She'll kill me." Well we went to the buffet. OMG. I ate so much I could barely move. Now for the big moment. As we are walking to the casino floor he told me to walk next to him and look like I was old enough to get in. What. How I am supposed to do that. We got in no problem. He got me quarters and I went to the slots. I was listening to the radio and playing the slots. My dad, of course, found people to talk to. The people he was talking to were security guards. Next thing my machine is dinging and the lights are going off. One security came over and stood on one side of me. The other security guard on the other side. I'm saying to myself, "Oh shit. That's it. I'm dead. I'm going to jail." Luckily it was a small win and they didn't say anything. I was soooo pissed off at my dad. He just stood there with a shitty grin on his face. Needless to say, I didn't play again and I waited until I was 21 before I went back. On the way home, my dad and I laughed about that. I never did tell my mom that we went.

Another funny story, that I was not part of, is my dad took my Auntie Violet to the hospital to have cataract surgery. He waited until she was done and ready to go home. It was a beautiful day outside and while he was waiting, he went out and sat on a bench by the emergency room. It was a good thing he was near the ER because he ended up being a patient. While he was sitting on the bench, he somehow ended up with splinters in his ass. He ended up fighting with them in the ER because they wanted to charge his insurance for services. He said that he got the splinters from their bench outside their ER. They ended rendering services for free. We all got a kick out of this. My dad being the good natured guy he was, took it all in stride.

There are many more stories I can tell you about my dad and I, but that could take several pages. The ones I have told you have a lot of meaning to me. They all do, but these ones most of all.

My dad died at the young age of 60. I was 25. I wish my dad was still here. There is still more things that I need to learn from him. I know we still would be getting into mischief and laughing the whole time. I know that my dad would be proud of some of the things that I have accomplished with my life. I miss my dad very much. We had such a good relationship. I was, after all, daddy's little girl. Love and miss you Dad.