In 1984 my father died.
My dad was a pretty amazing person. For years before and after, I would run into people who knew either him or something related to him. Once, during a taxi ride to Capitol Hill for some NRA business, I had the feeling that the driver was part of Washington that was of my father's era...a time when the media meant the Daily News, The Washington Post, The Washington Time Herald and The Evening Star. Dad read them all faithfully. Back then despite the historians' accounts to the contrary, the social and racial "barriers" were not all that important. At least they weren't to real Washingtonians who grew up in neighborhoods that were Italian and Jewish and Greek and Black and Irish and the mutts who mixed a little bit of everything in their bloodlines.
The driver was black with an attitude we now see only in "comfort food." He seemed like an old neighbor or cousin with the only difference a bit more pigment than most of my family except during the summer months. At any rate I opened the conversation with "did you know Coolbreeze or maybe you knew him as 'Johnny the Breadman.'" The look and smile that came over the taxi diver could have been straight from Morgan Freeman in "Driving Miss Daisy."
"Most honest bookie in DC! Aways paid off if you won."
He donated bread or paid for the food for banquets honoring inner city kids. He got jobs for youngsters suffering physical or mental handicaps. Where "professionals" in the medical fields failed, he was able to get severely autistic kids to respond to the kindness in his soul. He ignored the black/white employment barriers in place when he drove a County Fair (now Wonder) Bread truck. Then Blacks were only allowed to load and unload the trucks and do janitorial type chores around the bakery. Dad said "bullsh*t" and trained the first Black truckdriver/salesman in the city. We knew him by the name "Diddie."
One of the stops he served (places where he delivered bread) was Georgetown University. Some students asked him for advice on how to set up a student run deli on campus. In return they named their Italian coldcut sub "The Aquilino."
During the riots, when DC police were standing guard against looters over Georgetown shops, he bought a few cases of glass bottle Coca Colas and ducked into, I think Clydes (also one of his stops). He poured half the content of each bottle out and replaced it with (my guess) bourbon or VO or Canadian Club then went outside and gave each officer lining the blocks a bottle. His way of making the best of a difficult time.
Oh, I might add this too. The County Fair Bakery was located off an alley near the old Griffith Stadium. I think it was "S" Street. As he drove his truck down the alley, one of the "rioters" spit on his windshield and let loose with some unflattering words about white folk. The truck had no doors so it only took a moment for the angry gent to catch a glimpse of the white guy driving the vehicle. When he realized it was my dad, the good fellow said something to the effect of "Scuse me, CoolBreeze" and used his sleeve to wipe clean the windshield.
That was my dad.
After the funeral and after I returned to work at NRA, I got a phone call from a retired DC cop. I won't mention his last name but he was one of the great ones...and I've known and admired more than a few. He was a friend of my father's. He became a friend of mine despite the age difference. His first name was George.
"John. It's going to take about three years before the loss of your father really hits you." We chatted about his father's death and my father's life.
I've always tried to emulate my dad in that I didn't and don't believe lying to anyone is worth the effort. I also don't tolerate pure BS from anyone no matter their status in life. Might explain my face-off with General Swartzkopf years ago and why I consider him a colossal ass today. But I digress.
George was right. About three years later, while driving God knows where and quite alone, without warning the tears began to flow.
But no one ever told me about the time line associated with the death of a child. No one told me whether it was right or wrong to become infuriated at the sight of a child whose embalmed flesh or at least what you could see unhidden by the burial suit looked exactly like the cadavers from the German death camps that I've viewed countless times over the past six decades plus. From the first time I saw those photos, I hated what the Germans did during the decade in which I was born. Those images stay with me whenever anyone mouths the word "Jew" in a demeaning way. They are part of the reason I will never buy into the gutless nonsense spewed by oh so nice people who "deplore" guns and military responses to those who do evil. The analogy is not a stretch. To use the socially acceptable term, his body was cremated without me or his brother being consulted or being able to voice our objections. Cremated...burned...what's the damn difference?
Johnny's fingers in the coffin were shrunken...the flesh missing with skin clinging to meatless bones.
I can't express the horror that swept through me at the sight the day of his funeral.
Today, two years later, the phone call I received the night he died continues to haunt me.
"Johnny's dead. He gave up. He just quit eating."
I can honestly believe Johnny "gave up." He was taken from his friends. He was taken from his family. He could not speak although his facial expressions were quite eloquent. He couldn't move. He was kept in a dimly lit room watching videos over and over.
But, the concept that "he just quit eating" made no sense. It made no sense in exactly the way that his mother described him liking, I believe, a chocolate flavored nutrition drink more than other flavors made no sense.
Johnny didn't eat. He couldn't distinguish flavors. He was fed via a machine/pump and a tube that fed directly to his stomach. No tastebuds there.
Johnny far outlived the years his physicians predicted he would thrive. (To Be Continued.)
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