TRUE BLUE: FONZI TYPE HOOD

Earlier this month, I had a paperback book printed up of the True Blue interview to give to my father for his birthday (and he loved it). The website I printed the book through, Blurb, lists the book on their website so anyone can buy it. What do you know! You can check it out here.

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Cynthia: Before we get to the police stuff, tell me about how you met mom.

Dad: Oh, I met mom in junior high school. H. Frank Carey High School. Actually, I met mom on Valentine’s Day. It was a Valentine’s Day dance at St. Catherine’s of Sienna in Franklin Square. I wasn’t Catholic, I was Lutheran. Mom was Catholic. She just stood out of the crowd. She was the one woman I was looking at, a young lady, she was fourteen-years-old and I was fifteen. I asked her to dance and we were dating ever since. We dated all through high school. Junior high school and high school. I was twenty-two and she was twenty-one when we got married.

Cynthia: You got into a lot of trouble in school. Can you talk about that?

Dad: I used to cut class a lot. I hated English, now I love English. I love history. At that time classes just didn’t interest me. I think boys mature at a much slower rate than women do and at my age, at sixteen or seventeen, the only thing I was interested was pretty girls. So I was out of school a lot. I did graduate, though I was in a lot of trouble. I got suspended several times. And (laughs) I remember my assistant principal saying to me one day, he says, “Well, you don’t look like you’re college material, but I bet you become a cop! Most of you hoods, you Fonzie-type hoods, become cops.” (Laughs) And sure enough, I did.