Mostly
Racin' Stuff
By
Tom Avenengo
Volume # 242
09/10/2015
This week's
special photo:
A wedding day photo. It's a day I'll never forget - September 11,
1960. May God bless my beautiful bride!
Special from
me:
Yes the first few parts of this week's column will be
mostly about my late wife, Joan, and me, and some about our immediate
family. It's funny how one gets hooked
up with a member of the opposite sex, especially when one has his eye on
another one! That's what happened to me
- thank God! Yes Delores Corridini
(could be miss-spelled) was quite an attractive young lady when I first saw/met
her, while working with the Grand Union in their Suffern, NY store after I had
graduated from High School, back in 1956.
But, maybe lucky for me, per her family, she was "spoken
for". Then Delores got a friend of
hers (Joan) a job at the store, too.
Joan worked there for a while, then she left. Later on, we met up again.
From "Back in the Day":
Note:
This is basically a continuation from the above, and is quite
lengthy. After all, it's a quick review
of my life with Joanie and our five children.
Joan and I met up again a short time later
- this time at the Grand Union in Monsey, NY.
I was the "Second man" in the Produce department and she was a
meat wrapper. One Friday, my boss, Ralph
Palumbo, who had been giving Joan rides to and from work, asked if I might be
able to take her home after work. No
problem on my end! Joan lived with her
parents, and a couple of other brothers and a sister in Sloatsburg, NY. So, after work, we got into my MG, and off we
went to where she lived. We parked in
the driveway, and talked. And
talked. And talked, some more. Finally it was time for me to leave. On my way back to Pearl River, NY, where I
was still living with my mother and stepfather.
I believe I got home a little after 3:00 AM. I remember it being 3:00 AM as I passed the
store we worked in, and noticed the produce truck was there, dropping of our
load for the next day. After that, I was
the steady ride for Joan, both to and from work.
Our real first date was to a big midget
race at the one mile track in Trenton, NJ.
It had been rained out the previous week when Ronny Colombo and I
went. With me having my MG, and Ron
having his Corvette, there was a slight problem. Luckily, Ron had someone else to go with him,
so that little problem was solved. When
Joan and I got to the track, we parked behind the bleachers on the front
straight. Ron & his friend were
already there. Ron gave his friend his
rain check, and his friend brought it down to us. So for that race (250 or 300 miles) I got her
in free.
Joanie and I attended quite a few races,
either together or with other friends.
She loved the indoor TQ races that were held in the armory in Teaneck,
NJ. And, she didn't mind getting dirty
at Langhorne, either!
The above photo was taken on our wedding
day, September 11, 1960. Left to
right: My step father John F.X. Clynes,
Sr., my mother Kathryn Clynes, my father-in-law, Harry Rose, my mother-in-law
Kathleen Rose, My loving wife, Joan, and me.
Eventually, I did pop the question, and
without hesitation, she agreed to marry me, even knowing that I would be
getting drafted into the US Army at any time.
September 11, 1960 was the day we married. December 2nd was the day the government
needed my service in the Army. Yes, it
did kinda suck. After basic training, I
stayed at Ft Dix and got into my advanced training, which was the Basic Army
Administration Course. I did have some
typing in high school, and it came right back to me. After a few days I was informed by our WAC
instructor that I really didn't need the typing course - I was up to about 50
WPM. After completion of the course, I
was sent to Ft. Bliss, Texas, in May of 1961.
I was interviewed by a Sergeant Harold Redfern. Guess he kinda liked me, because I ended up
working for him in his section. We
handled all the class assignments for those that were there for the guided
missile school, then once completed, we would re-assign them to various places
in the world. Our section also handled
promotions in rank for the enlisted personnel, too. Gradually, I did get up to the rank of E-5.
Meanwhile, my wife, who was in the
"family way" was able to get down to El Paso in August of 1961. Our first child, Judith Ann, was born on
November 22nd, 1961. While in Texas, we
had our second child - another daughter.
Sandra Lucienne, on March 9th, in
1963. In a way, Judy really spoiled
us. She loved to sleep. Sandy was a complete opposite. I was honorably discharged in February
1964. After a trip across the lower 48,
we stopped off in Florida to see my brother, "Jim", and his wife,
Henrietta. Then after a few days, it was
time to head north.
I did go back to work with the Grand
Union, but they could not find an opening for me that was fairly close to home,
so after a couple of weeks, I left. I
started working for a trailer park in Harriman, NY. After that it was a door to door delivery man
for Dugan Brother Bakeries. Our son, Tom
Jr. was born on July 7, 1965. Once they
closed up, I landed a job at the Arrow Shirt Company, in Chester, NY. Worked myself up to running the night
shift. Eventually, Arrow decided to make
a move to Atlanta. I decided not to go
with them. On May 31, 1968, our second
son, Eric, was born. On January 13,
1969, I returned to work with the Grand Union, going into the Greenwood Lake,
NY store as a Produce Manager. Our last
child, another daughter, Sarah, was born on March 9, 1973.
Hey, I'll kid you not, we did go through
some rough times, on occasion. Part of
life is to be successful. At times I
was. At other times, not so much. Financially, it was pretty hard, what with me
being the only one working. The
wife? She had a full time job with the
kids and keeping the house livable. Do I
regret it? Hell no! Would do it all again in a heartbeat. I can tell you this though - I'm extremely
proud of our five children, and the way my wife (yes, it was mostly her doing)
brought them up. I always enjoyed
walking into the house after a hard days work and have all five kids jump me to
"beat up" on dad. Yes, there
were a lot of good times.
And a photo taken some years after our
wedding. I do believe it was when we
lived on Farmingdale Road in Washingtonville, NY. Believe it or not, when things were right, we
could hear the stock car races from the Orange County Fairgrounds, in
Middletown, NY. Yes, you can see how
much my wife loved me in this photo. I
have to consider myself to be one lucky SOB to have asked her to marry me and
she agreed to. Such a wonderful woman!
Eventually we got a couple of
"Fun" karts, and had a blast with them. Then Tom had a street stock he ran a few
times. Eric started racing karts. Most of the kids always looked forward to
going to the races at Middletown on Saturday nights - as long as Eric wasn't
racing the kart at Accord. Tom got
married and moved up-state, in New York.
While there he raced a kart on occasion, too. Eric, who remained fairly close to us,
eventually got himself a modified stock car.
He had a lot of help from the Jashembowski brothers, as far as getting a
new body for it and an excellent deal on
an engine from them, too. Brett Hearn
was our source of getting used tires.
There's no telling how good Eric would have been in that modified, since
he had some family issues of his own, and sold the car. I can still recall at an Eastern States
Weekend when Eric went onto the track with Danny Johnson for a warm up session,
and Danny couldn't get passed him. A
fouled plug while waiting to go out for his time trial really did him in for
that weekend. Hey, at times, sh*t happens,
ya know?
On October 31, 2003, Joanie and I
purchased a house in Port Jervis, NY. We
managed to survive, even with me not being employed, but on disability, then
retirement. Joanie also stated getting
Social Security a while before we bought the house. Yes, things were a little rough, but we
survived. Thank God the house needed no
major repairs while we lived there.
Health wise, we were both doing pretty
good - so I thought. Joanie started
having some "stomach" problems.
It was found that she had a cancerous growth in her lower intestine. Surgery was performed, and, according to the
doctor, they had gotten it all.
Meanwhile, we had taken a couple of trips down to Cape Coral, Florida,
to visit our daughter Sandy, and her kids that had also moved down there. Joanie loved it there, as did I. When we returned back north to Port Jervis in
early 2014, one of the first things I did was have a "For Sale" sign
put up in front of our house. Yes, we
were going to move down to Florida. Sadly,
we didn't have one single "bite" on the house. Then, out of nowhere, Joanie started feeling
sick again. Basically the same thing as
when she had her first surgery. So, it
was back into the hospital, again. The
doctor was fairly certain it was a blockage, like the first time. So she was scheduled for more surgery on the
afternoon of July 1, 2014. I arrived at
the hospital at around 11:00 AM, and attempted to get a visitors pass for her
room, to see her before the surgery. Sad
to say, she was already in surgery. You
have no idea as to how that hurt.
Technically, she never pulled out of that surgery. She had many tumors inside. I was told her heart had stopped beating for
about 20 minutes, but they got it going again.
Sadly, that didn't help, and whatever damage was done with her
"out" for those 20 minutes, was a major problem. Our two sons, Tom & Eric were in the room
with me, with her, when she passed away.
God, but I miss her so much, as do all the other members of our
family. They say time heals all
wounds. I kinda don't believe that. Joanie was the love of my life and will
always be the love of my life! I miss
her like hell, that's for sure. She was
so much looking forward to living down here in Florida, where it's been a year
now (almost) for me being here.
Joan, Hun,
Mom, Mommy, Nanny fought extremely hard to stay on this earth. However, God had
other plans and called her back on July 3, 2014, at 75 years of age. Her whole
family told her she had been so brave, fought so hard, but it was time to go be
with her sisters, family, enjoy the beach, and be at peace with no more pain
So this September 11th would have been our
55th wedding anniversary. I have to
figure I'll be thinking of her all day long - thinking back to the day we
became husband and wife - two people in love - forever. Thank you Joanie for accepting me to be your
husband! It's a day I will never, ever
forget, the day you left us. And, I'll
never forget the love you had for me!
Until we meet again, my love!
Her obituary:
http://www.grayparkerfuneralhome.com/tribute/details/1375/Joan_M_Avenengo/obituary.html#tribute-start
Racin’
stuff:
Kenny
Sands (light blue shirt) and crew at work on Labor day, removing the old seats
in the covered grand stand.
Yup! New seating will be being put in the covered
grandstands. Even though I'm down in
Florida now, I'm glad to see some major improvements being made to the
OCFS. I first started going there way
back in 1946 to watch the midgets on the smaller paved track that was in the
infield of today's track. My first stock
car race had to be in 1964 or 1965. All
I can recall is Russ Delp won the feature in the "Mushroom Special". My kids and I spent many a Saturday at
OCFS. In the beginning it was in the
drive-in section. Later on, we went into
the half covered stands. My son, Eric,
continues to sit in those half covered stands, today.
Note: I do believe the photo above was taken by
Ralph Corwin.
NASCAR's
thorny throwback problem: the Confederate flag
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nascar-from-the-marbles/nascar-s-thorny-throwback-problem--the-confederate-flag-004046532.html
Note: Quite an interesting read!