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“Give him a car, a little gas and away he goes,” the yearbook says, and Danny always went his own way. He came to Sea Cliff after only two and a half years at St. Boniface because, “I was a wise ass. I got beat up with the pointer, the ruler, the erasers. My mother finally said, ‘You gotta take a straight walk down the street to the other school.’” Even the formidable Dorothea Comfort couldn’t hold him down. “I took detention class from her,” he says. He would sit in detention hall, often with Billy Duffy (’55) and do things “just to bust her chops.” He gave Dave Schweers a run for the money in narrowly losing the superlative, “Teachers’ Trial,” although he swears he does not know why he caused so many trials and tribulations.
Danny’s parents had emigrated from Poland when they were teenagers, sponsored by someone in Queens, but they eventually came to Sea Cliff and opened the Quality Meats butcher shop on Glen Cove Avenue and bought a home at 41 Franklin Ave. Danny worked for the family shop while in school, a job that knocked him out of a basketball season. “I was forced to work in the butcher shop. I nearly got my fingers taken off when I was cleaning the slicer machine and a young lady walked by and that year I couldn’t play basketball.” A nearby doc sewed his fingertips back on his left hand and he earned his varsity letter.
After graduation Danny went to Farmingdale technical college for for drafting and math, but “A female got involved and I quit that.” For the next few years he had odd jobs, one of which was Tappen Beach lifeguard. Basically he lived at home and says, “I didn’t take any responsibility. I goofed around, had a good time” until the US Army drafted him 1963. “I took tests and all of a sudden the computer said I was qualified” for chemical warfare training. The Army assigned him to Maryland’s Aberdeen Proving grounds, but he often traveled around the country “escorting things that didn’t exist. One time I was in a Moon Suit for several days.” His responsibility was to rescue the researchers if anything spilled. Beyond that, he says he signed a statement saying he would not talk about the specifics of what he did, and he still won’t. Looking back on how many in our time evaded and avoided the draft by a variety of ruses, Danny says, “I did my part. I didn’t claim to be religious or married. I did my time.”
The rest of his life, he says, is simple. When he finished his two years of service, “All of a sudden I worked for UPS and 37 years later I was retired.” Danny worked in the UPS package handling operations. He also got married in 1968 and divorced in 1971 and for consolation bought himself a Corvette convertible. He remarried in 1973 and his daughter Diane was born that same year. She now works in pharmaceuticals and lives in Maryland. The next year Danny gave up smoking and drinking after he found himself driving home at night with his eyes closed. “It was too much. I did it cold turkey.” Danny’s wife died in 2004.
Since then Danny has again been going through life in his own way, accompanied only by his dog, half border collie, half pointer, and three tanks of tropical fish. “I get up when I want to. I go to sleep when I want to. I have my dog. I have my tropical fish.” He says he has the usual problems that come with this age, including arthritis in the joints. “If a ten dollar bill falls on the floor I’ll bend down to pick it up but I can’t stand back up.” Nevertheless, he enjoys doing what he wants, when he wants and being his own boss. “I see these people shopping together and the poor guy gets browbeat. I think I’m okay.”
