I’ve been fortunate in my life, much as I posted back on Mother’s Day, to have had several “Fathers” in my life. My real Father, and fellow Cardinal fan, my Uncle Joe a.k.a Big Daddy, chief among them. Beyond those two, who I will get to in just a moment, there’s a few others I would love to remember here first. Some are still with us, others have passed on. It is a shorter list than the Mother’s list, but an equally crucial one in the development of me. One and all have had a key hand in the core tenets of who I am in the best ways possible. I mused over this occurrence in my life, the extended Mothers and Fathers beyond my immediate ones, earlier today. I believe it’s a function of being the youngest, first of all, and being the youngest throughout my extended family, and then there’s the relative rarity of boys in the Pedrolie family tree, which I think creates a bond between us all that’s a little different.
Two who are no longer with us are my two Grandfather’s: Grandpa Jack Barrett and Grandpa Pedrolie, a.k. Pop. Both of them I spent quite some time with – especially Grandpa Jack (also once known as Jarrin’ Jack Barrett.) Both me were, to me growing up, larger than life characters. Grandpa Jack was a bull of a man, with a deep, rough voice, and huge, iron paws for hands. I actually look a lot like him, even my hands nowadays. I’ll glance down at them and see his pinky rings. He used to reach out and grab me by the top of my head when I would scoot by as a little one on Elm Ave in St. Louis. He had a vise grip, but he’d just be playing and I’d laugh and laugh, unable to break free. He LOVED westerns and was a bit of a self-made man in his youth – with wild stories of working Jack London style in West Texas and off the coast of California as a young man. He was a pretty hard man, set in his ways, but he had a tender heart to. In the summers with him and my beloved Mimi, my grandmother, we would stay up late playing rummy tile in the kitchen. Mimi always accusing him of cheating, which he probably was for fun. He taught me how to shoot a rifle (yes, a real rifle) when I couldn’t have been more that eight or so in his basement workshop, much to Mimi’s consternation and chagrin. I couldn’t hold the darn thing, so he set it up on a ladder with some magazines stuffed in a box down at one end as a target. I climbed up on the ladder and took hold of the .22 with him close behind me, making sure I didn’t pop off the ladder. I can still recall the smell of gunpowder in the dank workshop followed by Mimi hollering down the stairs in alarm. I thought it was pretty cool. We used to go swimming when I’d visit and he taught me how to shoot pool, too. That was me standing on a chair and using the cue helper most of the time to shoot. He loved it.
Then there’s Grandpa Pedrolie or Pop as he was better known. The love of the St. Louis Cardinals flowed from him – a gift to my dad, his son, and then to me. I loved it when the three of us, on visits to Wichita or Phoenix, later on, could get going on the Redbirds and baseball. A legacy of rooting for that ball club that stretched back to the start of the twentieth century and the dawn of professional baseball as we know it. My Grandfather had seen Ruth, Mantle, Dizzy Dean, Stan the Man – all the true greats, both Cardinal and otherwise, play. Invariably, he would tell his favorite story of being outside the gates in ’26 or ’27 at old Sportsman Park (a.k.a. Busch I) when future Hall of Famer, pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander stumbled out of a taxi, drunk, and walked past. Alexander is the third winningest pitcher in all of Major League History and in ’26 he would be instrumental in the Cardinals World Series victory over the Yankees. Pop was, most of all, a storyteller. He was a master conversational storyteller – always ready to launch into a tale, even if it was a bit tall. I think I got my storytelling instincts from him and my father, who’s pretty good at it, too. I have an indelible image of Pop at cocktail hour, gibson in hand, deep in the telling of a story – maybe about his sister dating a bootlegger during prohibition, or life on the East side of St. Louis, growing up in the Italian ghetto there. He’d crunch on his cocktail onion for a pause, or lead back in with a “You see…” He knew how to give a story a little flair, a little drama. I still regret, and always will, not getting his stories down on tape. He was a reader of the newspaper (and that was about it) and a lover of Johnny Carson.
Then there’s my brother, Chris. We’re separated by quite a few years, of course. Twelve altogether, actually, so much of life has taken us in separate directions. But when we lived in St. Louis, he and I shared a room. I can’t begin to express how that amazes me to this day. The poor guy, through his teenage years, had to bunk down with an infant/toddler/small child. There should be some kind of medal for that. I mean when I had a nightmare, I didn’t usually head for my parents room – I scurried across to his side of the room and woke him up. Suffice to say he had a profound influence on me during those formative years and I looked up to him for just about everything. So much so that years later, in college when I was playing in bands and fully pursuing life as a writer/hopeful rock star, during a Christmas holiday we all sat watching our home movies – largely of that era – and my Mom turned at one point and looked at me and said, “I should’ve separated you two from the start.” You see, I thoroughly soaked up all of Chris interests as a high schooler in the 70s – Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, Van Halen I – all things Rock N’ Roll, for starters; the love of Coppola comes from Chris, as well as just about all things television. He was a big TV fan, so therefore I paid much closer attention to it than a child my age probably would’ve to shows like Hill Street Blues, Soap, All in the Family, SWAT, Cheers, Saturday Night Live at the start and so much more. But probably most of all, you could say that Chris was the one who inadvertently game me the notion I could write. He was a journalism major in College and after his first summer in the Marine Corps Reserve, which was during his last two years of school, Chris returned to classes that fall where he wrote for an assignment a story about Boot Camp. I remember reading this, not too long after he graduated, and being mesmerized. I had watched him train on his own before going and connected the dots that he was writing about a true life experience. This brought the notion to me that I could do the same. It took a little bit for that to all unfold – but it was a key part of the big bang that lead to me pursuing writing so full force starting in eighth grade that has lead to now.
Then there’s my Uncle Joe, or as he is known affectionately – Big Daddy. It’s tough to put into words all that my Uncle Joe has meant and done for me – mainly through simple example. We’ve walked a lot of the same roads and he’s always been a guiding light in that regard. Since I was quite little, we shared a certain connection. In those early days he was a bit rambunctious and I was pretty mesmerized. I loved, and still do to this day, getting to spend time with him. In Wichita, when I would come to visit I would often be slated to stay with Grandma and Grandpa Pedrolie, but invariably Uncle Joe would hijack me and we would roll all around town in his cadillac. Or, we’d go down to his Wallpaper and Paint store and I’d help, or best of all I’d go with him to the golf course and be his “caddy” which meant getting to drive the cart. He’s another great storyteller. When we’d drive through Wichita he’d tell me all about the history of it and growing up there, or about his brothers and him off at boarding school back in high school when he first dated my Aunt. Big Daddy cuts quite a figure anywhere he goes and all of Wichita would know Big Joe Vosburgh. I’d soak it all up when I’d get to tag-a-long. Ultimately though, what’s key about Big Daddy is that he has the biggest heart of anyone I know, is bound by an honest selflessness, and is always willing to extend the hand of help to someone in true need. I marvel at his character to this day and try to learn from him every step of the way. I can safely say that I would not be where I am today if he hadn’t blazed a trail for me, and that there aren’t enough words to detail his many, many gifts.
Lastly, there’s my Dad. Whom I share my love of the St. Louis Cardinals with, for one. It is a binding passion for us, that I suspect drives my Mom a bit nuts when we’re talking baseball at Christmas. Though this is a past time, I mention it here because my Father’s Day gift for him, when I was in Chicago would be two tickets to see the Cards play the Cubs at Wrigley. It’s been some time since we’ve been able to do that, and I always think about it. What I wouldn’t give for a day at Wrigley together watching the game. My father is a great reader, a devourer of books; which he passed along to me, thankfully. It is another passion we share. I recall, the times after Sunday brunch when we might stop by Odegard’s Bookstore on Grand and browse the stacks for a bit, before heading on home. He’s also a great lover of classic Woody Allen movies, which is another place that my love of movies stems from. Never, absolutely never, have I ever heard someone laugh as hard as I have when I’ve watched BROADWAY DANNY ROSE with my father. Most of all, though, I think of the little things along the way that Dad would do that nursed along this drive to write, or my love of music. My favorite among them, the saturday trips to the St. Claire Broiler in St. Paul for breakfast and then the trip to The Comic Book Shoppee where I shop for comic books. Or, the surprise gift for Christmas, just out of college, when he gave me one of the first copies of FINAL DRAFT, a screenwriting software that I still use today and is now the industry standard. Or walking through Mid-Town Manhattan, on a trip to the Big Apple for my 16th birthday, to get tickets to see the Minneapolis punk band, Husker Du, at the Ritz that night. Though the show was canceled for a death in the band’s extended family, I’m still impressed that not only did we make the hike, in the rain, to the ticket window, but that he was willing to go with me. There are many other moments, but they all underscore one thing – my Dad’s always been there and been giving, even when it didn’t always make sense. That’s pretty selfless and wonderful, as well.
So, thanks for hanging in there with me, if you read all the way through. There’s so much left unsaid about these men, and their influence on me. I’ll stop here and leave it simply with a deep, heartfelt Thank You.
