Slightly Off Topic-TBob is this Near You?

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Posted By: Joe Pelaez

I want you to know, that I understand every word that you are saying.
I want to apologize for not going deeper into what I was trying to convey.
If I had, you would not have felt the need to explain your story.
However, after hearing it ... I applaud you.

Now, let me try to explain what lead to going against my peers. ... not a very popular move.

I was going to mention this before, but I was getting tired, and also I felt that it might have been over bearingly boring to the younger crowd ... proof of that was the rooster I saw after my last post.

The thirties and the depression, were tough times for my parents, and everyone else living during that period.
My being born in 1931, just two years after the crash, didn't help matters.
My father was a baker, specialized in all kinds of French pastry, and during that time he apparently got another source of income as a suppliment.
I can recall seeing people selling apples on the street corners.

Anyway, there got to be trouble in River City.
During the late thirties, he went to Leavensworth, and it wasn't on a scholarship.
During the very early forties, being that he was a Cuban citizen, he was deported to Cuba.
My mother was really going through some tough times.
My father, during the war, joined the Merchant Marines, and became a baker on troop ships during the whole war.
He was on the Murmunsk run to Russia, England, Mediterranean, India ..... All over the submarine world.
That's how we got to see him.
Eveytime he would dock in New York, he would appear like Hamlets ghost, and we would find out where he's been, because during the war, they would get there orders of their destination ... out at sea.
When the war was over, we got some help from some politicians, and because of his service in the Merchant Marines during the whole war, they helped obtain American citizenship for my father.
He's the only man that I know of that was deported from the United States of America ... and later made a citizen of same.
I'm very proud of my departed father.

Leon, he was a representative from National Maritime Union, and eventually retired from the NMU.

There were times that I would go and pick him up from the ports of NY.
You always had to be checked out when you're leaving.
Some times they over do it.
Leon, he would just look at me and say.
"You pay, and you pay, and you pay."

Folks, going against my peer pressure was easy.
My mother had gone through enough.
I wasn't about to add more to her problems, and it worked out.