No, I don’t think I’ve ever been anyone’s hero. Perhaps some may regard me as a mentor or role model, but not as a hero. At least I’ve not receive any reward for heroism. It’s not too late for that, though. If I have been a hero to someone then arranging for a delivery of a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts to me every Friday would be great.

I’ve had television heroes in my childhood days. At the top of the list would be George Reeves who was the original TV Superman. I watched a lot of westerns and the good guy who wore the white hat was always a hero for me. The Adventures of the Lone Ranger and his faithful companion Tonto provided heroic tales on radio first and TV later. My favorite cowboy was Roy Rogers who I idolized long before he started making Double R Bar Burgers. Then there was Perry Mason who never lost a case. How could someone like him who valued Truth, Justice and the American Way not be a hero? Or wait, was that Superman?

There have been many famous sports heroes in my life. While most Yankees fans worshipped Mickey Mantle or Yogi Berra as their Yankee hero, mine was Gil McDougald. He was never the star player, but he took the time to send me an autographed picture and baseball when I was quite ill as a child. That was arranged by a nun at St. Patrick’s School who was a cousin of Gil. Locally, and again when I was bedridden, I was visited by Joby Vancosky and Bobby Schultze who were the two stars of a very good St. Patrick’s high school basketball team in the early ’50s. It was not like Babe Ruth visiting a kid in a hospital and promising to hit a home run that day for him, but Joby and Bobby lifted my spirits and they became heroes of mine.

My Dad, of course, was my No. 2 hero and I would have to list Joe English right behind him. My brother-in-law was a hero for me because he became the older brother I needed and didn’t have. Also, the fact that he was such a great husband for my sister didn’t hurt his ranking. There were five other persons who I admired when I was a child, and they were Mike Needham, Paul Dwyer, Paul O’Hora, Father John Neary , and my Uncle Jack.

Mike Needham was a Scranton hero because he fought in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II and was severely wounded. My family knew him because he was in our parish. He later served as our state delegate in the Pennsylvania General Assembly. He was a true patriot. Paul Dwyer lived next door to me. He was a very good high school baseball player and also played football. Although he was 9 years older than me he always found time to chat and to play catch with me. I wanted to be like him when I grew up, to be willing to befriend a little boy, so I guess that makes him one of my heroes. Paul O’Hora fell off a ladder in his 30’s while painting a house and so damaged his spinal cord that he became confined to a wheelchair. He was an avid bowler before his accident. He invented a “stick” with a bottom wide enough to surround a bowling ball and allow him to push the ball down the lane. I was in awe of how he didn’t let his handicap prevent him from an activity he loved and I was honored to be on the same team with him in our parish bowling league.

Speaking of bowling, I am reminded that in a league championship match when I was 20 years old I rolled a 653 series (3 games over 200) and led my team to the mountaintop, so yes to the first question, I was indeed a hero on that occasion.

Father John was my grandmother’s nephew. He was a parish priest in Cleveland. Each summer he would vacation in Scranton for a week. While there he would celebrate morning Mass on one or two days and I was his altar boy. After Mass he would come to our house for breakfast. I became enthralled by him because when he took his collar off and was not doing any priestly duty he was just like other men. He laughed and joked, wore summer clothes, smoked stogies, drank some beer, and played golf with my Uncle Mike Gallagher. He was a Cleveland Indian fan and I was a Yankee fan, and since those teams were rivals in the 50’s we had many baseball conversations. I thought he was really cool for a man of the cloth and I so looked forward to his annual visit that he was like a hero in my childhood eyes. 

Uncle Jack was a younger brother of my father and Uncle Bill. He had 8 kids and lived in the Green Ridge section of Scranton. On many Sunday nights he would visit our house, bringing along 2 or 3 of his kids. He was a salesman for Wilson’s meats and one of his customers was Skettino’s, the grocery store across the street from us. Whenever he made that sales call he would stop by for a visit and spend some time chatting with me. I admired Uncle Jack for being such a good family man for his own children and with his three siblings who lived in Scranton, and also because he had a knack for fixing things. Whenever we had a leaky faucet, a toilet problem or other matter that required repair my father and Uncle Bill would say “hold off on calling a plumber or repairman – let Jack take a look and see if he can fix it”. Usually he could and did.

The Candy Man was certainly one of my childhood heroes. That would be Mr. Connors who procured our Christmas candy every year. He would come to our house before Thanksgiving with a suitcase full of various candy, including my favorite, the wonderful Ox Heart chocolate cream drops which were not available at local stores. Aunt Ann, Jackie and I (and sometimes Joan if she was around and not hanging out with her friends on Main Avenue when the Candy Man cometh) would select the candies to order and they would arrive about a week before Christmas. There were three other vendors who would regularly stop at our house, at least when the weather was not brutal. They were the Huckleberry Lady, the Popcorn Man, and Mr. Softee. I watched with wonder how the Huckleberry Lady could walk the streets and alleys with that basket of huckleberries balanced somehow on her head, all the while shouting “Huc-Kill-Berries”. I watched with anticipation the elderly Popcorn Man pushing his popcorn-making cart up the hill towards our house, with sweat dripping down from his brow on a hot summer day. Jackie and I listened for the jingle played from the Mr. Softee truck as it made its way to our house, hearing it in sufficient time to obtain 25 cents from an adult in the house so we could buy a soft ice cream cone. I loved huckleberry pie which Grandma made, a mid-afternoon popcorn snack, and a post-dinner ice cream treat, and so I waited with bated breath for the arrival of the Huckleberry Lady, the Popcorn Man, and Mr. Softee. On the days they stopped at our house they were my heroes for the day. I never saw them from November through February, however. I guess they migrated south for the winter months.

If Dad was my No. 2 hero as proclaimed above, who was my No. 1 hero, you ask? It’s my wife, of course, for putting up with me for over 43 years.