5 Men who helped shape me and will be in my next book as featured characters

I have sat here for the last hour or maybe even longer thinking on how to start this and how it would be framed and so on, but for some reason the words didn’t seem to jump onto the screen themselves. I have added 5 men that have made a significant contribution to my life and how I turned out as characters in a science Fiction book I am almost done writing.

This is going to be a serious and for me an emotional post, I am going to talk about a few men in my life as I was growing up that helped shape me to be who I am and taught me what a man was, and I mean what a real man is, a father, husband, and a man who is taken serious but doesn’t bully people to do what he wants. A man who understands when to be strong and when to have mercy, when to have patience, when there is no patience left, and when to just sit there and be quit because someone just needs you to be next to them. These men mean, and some meant, a lot to me, three have passed away. These five men are featured characters in a book I have been trying to write for about 6 years now, and with the passing of my Uncle Ronnie this past year, yes he is one of the five, I am vowing to all that read this that I am going to finish this book this year, hopefully by the end of summer.

First and foremost is my Dad:

Carmine Henry Sardella: A guy couldn’t ask for a better father, I have tried and hopefully succeeded in being half the man he is. I never feared my father, I did what he asked, well most of the time, there were a few years I wont mention here in college, not because I feared what would happen if I didn’t, but because I respected him so much I wouldn’t dream of not listening to him, I always knew no matter what I did wrong, he may punish me, but he would always listen and help me through whatever it was I did wrong, even when I was a dumb 19 year old who deserved punishment from the courts, my Dad stood by my side and fought harder for me then I had fought for myself. As a young child in the early 70’s I remember watching the tv and they would talk about the Vietnam war a lot, as an 8 year old it can be horrifying to see what used to be broadcast about the war, nothing like today, back then you watched all the coffins coming off the planes. It was quit scary. And back then it was towards the end of the war and on the news they talked about the draft all the time and I remember asking my father if I would be drafted and have to go fight in Vietnam. And he kneeled down to look me in the eye and he said to me “sometimes men are needed to defend our country, and I hope you never do” then he smiled and said “but if they call you up don’t worry I will join and go with you and beat up the bad guys.” For those of you very young reading this, try to remember this was probably around 1973 and the family dynamics where different then. I grew up in a home where my Dad was affectionate and told you how much he loved you. That wasn’t always the case back then. So when he said that to me I was concerned, because I never knew my dad to have a mean bone in his body and didn’t think him capable of beating up the bad guys. At least not until the day he took me and my little sister Tracey to the Mastic Beach Carnival, it used to be in this field across from the Fire House….. It was dark and it was summertime so it had to be pretty late, for some reason my other three siblings weren’t with us, the other two younger ones probably were just too young to go and my older brother may have been in Breezy point at the time with my aunt and uncle.

So to set the stage for you my sister Tracey when she was a child, liked to wear dresses, white ones to be exact, this was the 70’s little girls didn’t wear pants, and it had rained earlier in the day, the reason I know this is because I remember they had put cardboard all around on the ground so as not to walk in the mud as you were waiting on line for either food or to get on a ride or play a game…… well as we were online, I don’t remember what for, three men probably in their twenties, but I don’t know for sure, came crashing into the line and knocked my sister Tracey to the ground, in the mud, in her white dress with her ribbon in her hair.

I remember being so mad and wishing I was Bruce Lee, he was still alive back then and considered the premier bad ass of the day, cause then I would beat them up. Well no sooner did I think it, my father did it. And I don’t mean he pushed these guys and threatened them…. My dad didn’t say a word, and the three of them never had a chance, my father put all three to the ground in seconds, I remember watching them cry in pain with one guy holding his face and blood all over him. People cleared away from us and gave my dad room and he finished all three guys off, then he picked up my sister and carried her and grabbed my hand, he told me to look at the ground and don’t say anything to anyone. We walked at a fast pace to our car and we drove home, I remember being in a daze I couldn’t believe what I had just seen… I was thinking my Dad could probably beat up Bruce Lee even…. Then he started to talk to me, and this is when I think I moved from being a little boy to starting to understand what it is to grow up to be a man… he said, “I did what had to be done, we look out for our own, and we protect our own no matter what, it isn’t pretty and I know it may seem scary, but as a man you have to fight, there is no way you will be able to grow up without being in a few, it is ugly but it is just how it is. But never forget, just because you can beat someone up doesn’t mean you should.”

I could go on for hours about my Dad and growing up, but I think you get the jist of what I am trying to say.

The rest of the men I will mention are in no particular order just how I ended up writing them. But I will keep it shorter because I don’t want you to not finish because you feel there is too much here.

My Uncle James “Jimmy” Adams is married to my Mom’s sister Jo-ann. I can’t put exactly my finger on it, meaning why I respect him and love him so much, I will say I was scared of him when I was very young, but soon found it to be his banter more then anything, he is just this great guy, another one who you could turn to when the chips are down, and always finds a way to make you do the right thing without having to demand it from you. There is a common theme to all these men and that they all are men of great character. He was a NYPD officer he worked undercover Narcotics I think, for many years. He is a guy anyone would be proud to call his uncle and I have such respect for him and that is the reason he plays a big part in this book.

My Uncle Ronald “Ronny” Durham who passed away just recently, he was married to my Mom’s sister Diane, who is also my Godmother. I really took his death hard, I didn’t talk to anyone about it though but I sobbed on the inside and still feel the pain of it. I loved him dearly, he was a highly decorated Vietnam Veteran, purple heart, silver star, and bronze star, among others he received. I believe he did three tours in total, two in a row and then a year off to recover from wounds and then another year after that. He was probably the funniest man I ever knew, and he was to this day the most patriotic man I ever met, he instilled in my my love of country more then anyone else, it was his influence and guidance that made the very first vote I ever got to cast as an 18 year old, be cast for Ronald Reagan in 1984. I remember calling him up and telling him about it and how proud he was of me. And it is hard for me to not tear up thinking about him now.

My Uncle Eugene Martucci he was my godfather and married to my Dad’s sister Aunt Millie, and if you’re Italian you have an Aunt Millie, never met one who didn’t. Like the rest a man of great character and capable of great feats of kindness…. This country was built by people like him, men who never looked at something and said it couldn’t be done, Uncle Eugene looked at a problem and said, “Let’s see if we can make this right.” And found a way to make it happen, McGyver didn’t have shit on my Uncle, he could take a rubber band and toothpick and fix a car…. I think he may have done that a few times to. And he loved his family, he surrounded himself with them and loved them unconditionally, I think what I learned form him was that anything is possible, the words “can’t do” are opposites and don’t belong with each other. I miss him a lot, and think of him often.

The next man isn’t an Uncle or a cousin or even blood related. He is my Dads best friend Artie Hennessy. Best friends have a way of transcending family, you don’t get to choose who your family is, but you certainly choose who your best friend is. I still can remember walking into their home in Center Moriches, and he would smile and call me over. He would look me up and down and say, ”I think you got taller Raymond, let me see your muscles.” Of which I would make the biggest muscle a young boy could muster to which he would say, “Wow you definitely have big muscles, are you lifting weights or something?” I would say yes, and he would then laugh at me knowing we didn’t have any weights at our house and I was just being a boy. I used to say that to my son while he was growing up, and I say it to my nephews, and now I say it to my grandson who doesn’t even wait for me to ask anymore, he runs up to me and says “Look at my muscles Grandpa, just like Ironman.” And I smile and think of Artie. So if any of his children read this know that it isn’t just your lives he touched, I still remember and he lives on in the gesture he shared with me to the gesture I share with my grandson.

There are other men in my life that have added to it, but these men stand out, they deserve to be remembered. Maybe this book is my attempt to immortalize them in the written word, I don’t want the world to forget them ,because I certainly never will.