Driving to Work

All of my teen years, I would work with my father on weekends and holidays. He worked a ten hour day six days a week. The commute to work was one hour each way. He owned a successful business in Nassau Country. On the way to work he would tell me stories of how he came to the US, talk about his family in Greece, and I learned who my father was and what drove him in life. Some of his words ring like bells in my head.

When it came to money, he had been up and he had been down. He would say “Health is Wealth.” If you are healthy you could always go to work, and make it back.

On another day I pointed to a very expensive car and he said “A Cadillac doesn’t care who drives it!”. Not to diminish the quality of the car but to indicate, the person behind the wheel, and his or her character was more important.

Another time he was thinking of buying another business, and I said something like, he could make a lot of money. He turned to me and said, “I never told you why I went into business, did I?” I said “No”. He went on to explain that when he came to the US, he could not speak English. So although he had quite a good education for his day, he could not get a civil service job like a policeman, fireman or any other civil service job. In contrast to the Irish or English who had English as their native tongue. I could be fired at any time! He sad. “I had to find a job where I could not be fired; I had to buy a job!” I had to guarantee my job and my security. Ownership was the only way I could do it. It wasn’t only about the money, the prestige of being a successful businessman and role model for other members of his community where also his motivation.

As he became more and more successful, he became a vice-president, treasurer, and president of his Nassau, Suffolk Owners Association. Every year we would go to their formal dinner dance and he would sit on the Dais with my mother. We did this for over twenty years until he retired in 1971 at 69 years old. He sold the business, and the very next year the association he had been so active in for all those years did not even send him an invitation to the Dinner dance. He retired to Miller Place near the water. All the trophies and plaques given to him over the years for his service were hanging in the family room. I remember him taking them all down and throwing them in the trash and saying “I would have paid for the tickets!” He was deeply hurt.

Even in retirement he was quite prosperous, but as he got older he once said, “The more things you own the more things own you!” managing them became a problem.

Money was never a problem in my household. My mother Queen Rose was doted on and she had her minks and Persian lamb coats, finest jewelry, etc. Rosie had very particular tastes when it came to shopping for groceries and she would have it delivered to the house. However, my mother was frugal, with a depression era mentality and she was not frivolous. She had grown up in the worst of times in Germany during and after WWI. Food was a luxury then. But she savored good food and only served the best now that she could afford it.

As for my father, he took hard work in stride; his attitude toward money was summed up one day in the car. “Money can’t make you happy; it only makes life a little bit easier!” “It’s like gas in a car with a full tank you can go far without it you don’t go very far.”

Every day I think back and feel truly blessed to have had such devoted, unselfish, thoughtful, humble and loving parents.