The man who taught me how to program in Basic on a Commodore 64 somehow managed to creep back into the norms of his age group. He does check e-mail every few days. I managed to convince him to text message, but when his autocorrect sent me a message that just said "L.T. run." Once I calmed down and found out what happened, I figured maybe just talking in person was a better idea.
My dad was a pool hustler who never bet on himself. Instead he just hung out in a pool hall on Main Street in Flushing, besting all challengers while his friends cashed in on side bets and bought all his drinks as a thank you.
My dad was a bouncer in a dance club when he met my mom. With his nerdy 60s glasses (I now have the same pair, thank you hipsters) and novel in hand, my mom figured out pretty quickly that he wasn't your average street tough. He made money off his size (6'3") and strength, but underneath was the kind of mind that could do almost anything.
My mom, however, wasn't really interested in marrying a college dropout. She talked him into going back to college, and between Fordham and Queens college he got his bachelors, then his Masters, and certification to teach high school math.
While in grad school, he earned money working for Howard Hughes. He was a paralegal, and worked the overnight shift at Hughes' law office, manning a phone line that only Howard had the number to. You see, that was the only way the reclusive magnate could avoid ever getting a busy signal. He did speak to the man several times. He would get home from work in the middle of the night, at 4 or 5 AM. Newly married, he lived with my mom in a tiny apartment in Jackson Heights. At the time, the neighborhood was so dangerous that he would call her from a payphone in the subway so she could watch him walk home, ready to call 911 if anything happened.
He then spent decades as a rather unconventional math teacher. His students knew him as brilliant, tough, and hilarious. He cracked jokes constantly, but his strict classroom manner meant that few students ever guessed of his colorful Queens past.
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