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My Prayers for you, Dear ConorMacNessa.

Here is what I wrote about my Daddy:

My first memory of My Daddy is him, young and vibrant, with an incredible head of curly black hair, playing the Boston Pops on the “HiFi” in the living room. I would march around the living room and sing along with the Classical Music. I even remember the melodies of the pieces he played.

When Stereophonic Sound became available, the old HiFi didn’t cut the mustard anymore. Daddy wanted the absolute BEST so he got a huge Motorola, with a giant 15” woofer, two tweeters, and two mid-range speakers. Then he proceeded to fill our home with the most wonderful music...everything from Calypso to Opera.

Dad had a rugged job at the time, as a cable-splicer for New England Telephone & Telegraph Company. During Blizzards and Hurricanes, Dad ofter would “pull an all-nighter” to keep Boston’s Telephone Service Going. He climbed telephone poles and went down into manholes. He was so good at teaching others that the Phone Company promoted him to teach Safety, CPR, and First Aid to ALL employees.

Dad was a Veteran of WW2 and Korea. He served in the US Navy on the USS Dade and saw action in Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and many other sea battles. He was the Ship’s Photographer, and he took thousands of pictures upon which I gazed in wonder as a child. Some of them were very scary, but I was fascinated by them. I also was fascinated by Dad’s photography. He used a Speed Graphic Camera to photograph weddings and portraits. He developed and printed the pictures in a basement darkroom, and from the time I was about 8, I was his “darkroom assistant”. I also helped load the bulky film plates for a wedding shoot, which involved a stack of over 100 plates. With Daddy’s growing family, it was necessary to have two jobs.

Dad was a wonderful teacher. I would ask questions like: “Why is Stereo better than Mono?” or, “How do movies projectors work?”, or even “What is electricity?” and he would ALWAYS have the answer, and would patiently draw pictures and diagrams for me till I understood. But the biggest lesson he taught me was when I was about 6 years old, I asked “What does the “Our Father (Lord’s Prayer)” mean? ( I always thought that “trespasses” meant going into somebody’s yard without their permission). Well, Daddy sat down with me, and went through The Lord’s Prayer line by line, word by word. It was the BEST explanation I have ever heard, and I have heard a LOT of them.

At the age of 9, I was presented with a Wollansak Reel-to-reel tape recorder. It belonged to Dad’s friend Ed Monahan, who had recorded a song from Iolanthe (Faint Heart Never Won Fair Lady). After showing me how to use it, I KNEW I was in love..with Gilbert & Sullivan, and Audio Recording! I am now a recording engineer myself and have a small digital studio in my home.

The following year , Dad took me to The D’Oyly Carte Opera Company to see Iolanthe live on the stage. The Company was Gilbert & Sullivan’s original troupe, and they came from London every two years. And every two years Dad would take me, first to an elegant dinner and then to The Opera.We also went to the Boston Pops, The Boston Symphony, and various Russian Dance Troupes that would tour the world.

Dad wasn’t into the early classics , although he did have a few records by Mozart, Bach, and Vivaldi. His tastes ran from Beethoven and onward, up to The Great Russian Composers, like Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Borodin, Moussorgsky, Prokofiev, and Rimsky-Korsakov.. He introduced me to my favorite piece of music, Scheherazade.

Dad also taught me how to sail a boat (which HE learned as the son of a Gloucester Fisherman in the days when the Fishing Fleet was under sail), and we had a little red sailboat that we would carry to Furnace Pond in Pembroke on top of the car.

I could go on and on about my Daddy, He was the biggest influence in my life, my mentor, my teacher, and my friend. He was from a generation called “The Greatest”, and that is certainly true.

May You Rest in Peace, Daddy, and Rejoice in the Joy of Heaven.

Love
Mary-Lou