My Dad’s Many Loves

By Mary Ellen Pollock-Raneri for Hometown magazine

My dad loved Punxsutawney and all its stores, churches, and restaurants. He loved all the folks who made the town tick. Dad drove around the main street on a Friday evening, just to see the parade of folks who used to linger there; he tooted the horn of his old blue station wagon in a salute to friends or neighbors who hung out on the corner of the G.C. Murphy store. He parked his car in an old lot on North Gilpin Street and strolled up to chat with the television guy who had the TV store. Later, he drove to the gas station and shot the breeze with the owner. Dad knew the manager of every grocery store and market; he was on first-name basis with the tellers in the bank. His favorite waitress always got him a sugared doughnut, and his favorite check-out clerk at the market always had time to chit-chat.

My Dad loved his home, a yellow-brick house that he scrimped and saved to build in Fairview on a little piece of land that he purchased in 1955.

My dad loved his old, blue wheelbarrow. Next to my mom and me, I think that the rusted, rickety wheelbarrow was his greatest possession. His father, a coal miner who hailed from Coral Pennsylvania, presented my dad with this prize when I was a little girl. Over the years, dad probably dug more holes than a pack of gophers; he hauled more dirt than a backhoe at a mall construction site; and he enjoyed every moment of his labor. His blue metal companion and he single handedly – rather, double handedly – landscaped our house, performed multiple septic tank digs, and mulched more flower beds than any other father-wheelbarrow team in history.

My dad loved being on time. In all the years my father worked, he was never late for his job. He was never late for any occasion, whether a birthday party, a Mass at church, a doctor appointment, or even picking me up from school or my mom up from work. When he arrived home for lunch – you could set the clock by his landing time – you could make his fried egg sandwich, put it on a dish, and he would walk through the front door with a big smile on his face. His favorite gift was a watch or a clock, and I treasure his wrist watches. I love to smell his leather watch bands, which, to this day –years after his passing – still have a faint scent of Old Spice cologne.

My dad loved animals. I will always remember the day he brought home a stray, bedraggled police dog and tenderly bathed him in our washtub in the basement. Dad took me to a real wiener dog ranch when I was a kid. There, he let me pick out my first dachshund puppy that he named Gus. Other dogs followed: Heidi, Augie, Lilly, and Alfredo – Dad cared for all of them up to the end. I particularly remember him wrapping one of them in a little baby blanket and nursing it back to health after a surgery. I also recall when my father burst into tears at his 50th anniversary party as he struggled to tell some guests that his dog, Heidi, had just traveled to the Rainbow Bridge.

“Did you know that my little doggy just died,” he whispered to my uncle and aunt. Then, a tear rolled down his cheek, and he bowed his head.

My dad loved ketchup and lots of it. He slathered it on hotdogs and hamburgers. He dipped his French fries in it and never felt a bit embarrassed about pouring it on a juicy sirloin steak or prime rib. Dad even squeezed it into vegetable soup and irreverently put it on meatball sandwiches.

My dad loved parades. My father went to every parade in Punxsutawney and held my hand as I walked in the snow during one Halloween at the annual procession. Dressed in my dreaded gray snow pants, Dad led me along with the other Halloween parade participants on a chilly October evening in the 1950s. As a former World War II veteran who played trumpet and was part of the Army band, Dad could not contain himself at a robust rendition of the “The Stars and Stripes Forever” or “The Washington Post March.” He hummed, tapped, and even marched in place from

“Dad and Me” – original artwork by Mary Ellen Raneri (8.5x10.5 sandpaper [cut out], rag paper, acrylic paint, ink, black walnut dye). his spot on the sidewalk as the parade streamed past him. To this day, I cannot listen to any John Philip Sousa marches without shedding a wistful tear.

Dad loved shining his shoes. He loved polishing his State Police, shiny, black, leather uppers until you could see his face in the shine. Seated beside him at our kitchen table, I studied him every night as he buffed his black police shoes with Kiwi polish and used a torn T-shirt as a polishing rag. Dad also loved shoes without laces and the tongues removed. Yes, my father created slip-on garden shoes, long before they were in style or invented, for that matter. Typically, he took a pair of garden shears and designed his outdoor wear from an old pair of beat-up tennis shoes. Dad was light years ahead of shoe designers and didn’t even know it.

Dad loved drawing pictures for me when I was a little girl. While we waited in the old blue station wagon to pick up Mom from work, my dad patiently sketched the same thing: two squares connected at the corners – then adding a chimney with a puff of smoke, windows, and a door. Sometimes, seated at our kitchen table, my father drew funny cartoons with little bald stick people and dogs with big noses. Fascinated, I thought Dad was a phenomenal artistic genius and made him do those drawings over and over.

Dad loved spaghetti. He loved to buy Cumberland brand spaghetti at Mr. Infantino’s little store near the bridge in town. In addition, when he ate pasta, he tried to speak with a fake Italian accent, which was kind of amusing since he was Slovak and German. Nonetheless, my Italian grandmother entertained his chopped Italian and continued to ply him with her juicy meatballs, braciole, and of course, spaghetti soaked in her delectable homemade sauce.

“Take-a some more-a, Bernie (which was my dad’s middle name),” my grandmother used her broken English to cajole my father into extra helpings of her pasta.

Dad usually replied with, “good-a spaghet,” and thought he had completely mastered the Italian language.

Dad loved all the bar and grills in Punxsutawney. The Findley Hotel, The Blue Tavern, Murdock’s, and Villella’s in Elk Run were several of his favorites. He generally stopped at a “beer garden” for a beer or two after he mowed the lawn.

Dad loved Westerns. Part of my childhood television menu included Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Bonanza, The Virginian, and Wagon Train. Usually, on a Saturday night, we all watched Gunsmoke (my father admired Festus), and we munched on doughnuts that Dad brought home from the McKenzie Bakery. Life just couldn’t get any better than that!

Dad loved mowing the lawn. It was his “thing,” and no one was qualified enough to do it properly.

I can still see Daddy dressed in frayed, pale blue shorts that hung almost off his skinny behind and