School Story:
John grew up on horseback, but he would spend his life wearing out shoes. John’s family lived on the Bodmen estate in Brookville where his father worked and John and his three sisters played. John and his sisters had their own horses. “It was like living out in the old West, really.” And being the older brother, “I was the king of the pile. John could do no wrong.”
The drawback was that he had no other kids to play with. “I couldn’t wait to go to school,” he says, and throughout he enjoyed the community that school meant for him. If he had it to do over again, “I’d go back to school in a minute.” His best friends in school were guys who knew how to have a good time—Brud Neice, Doug Andrews, Jimmy O’Donnell (’56), Bob Johnston, and Ted Rydzewski.
A year after leaving school John was at the Knotty Pine in Glen Head with several friends when a few girls from Glen Cove came in. He danced with a girl named Jo and in 1961 he married her. That same year he left his work in a Glen Cover store and became a Glen Head mail carrier. Jo and John’s daughter Barbara was born in 1968.
For 21 years John would wear out many shoes delivering mail until he switched to a “mounted route” driving the mail around Brookville until he retired in 2001. As a walking mailman John became known as the Pied Piper because of the kids who would spy him on the street and walk along with him to their homes as he dropped off their mail. He was as much at ease talking to little kids as he was talking to good friends. “If you didn’t like people and kids, you might as well have quit that job.”
One day in his late thirties John was at the Glenwood fire department where he volunteered and decided to join several friends who were going out to play golf. He continues to play whenever he can. “I’m no Tiger Woods,” he says, but he scores in the 90s and plays with his son-in-law and grandson. He also works part time at the firehouse and is an Advanced Medical Technician. Jo has retired after 29 years of work as a medical assistant. They both enjoy having their son and their two grandsons in nearby Lindenhurst.
