Grandfathers Past And Present
And A Daring Raid By Army Rangers
By RICHARD MEEHAN With ANDY THIBAULT
The Cool Justice Report
www.cooljustice.blogspot.com
Dec. 28, 2006
EDITOR'S NOTE: This column is available for reprint courtesy of The Cool Justice Report, http://cooljustice.blogspot.com
I sat the other evening with my youngest son, Rich watching Christmas movies and having one of our talks. I noticed we were in a good groove as the talks had increased in frequency.
Richie was a late life surprise as we learned that my wife and I were expecting our fifth son at the age of 43. There is a 10-year difference between him and the next youngest, Tim. Everyone else is grown and out of the house.
People told us that having a child at that age would keep us young. It's true, although at Little League and Peewee football we always looked like the grandparents.
Hopefully, we have gotten it all figured out by now. We sometimes wonder. But, as we gained on the experience side, Rich missed the chance to know his grandfathers better.
My wife's dad died when he was eight, and Rich's memories of him are strained by the time that has passed. Kathy's dad was a man of little education, leaving school in the eighth grade to work to help his family.
John Mucci was a simple man with a gift. He could play the trumpet. With no formal education outside of music, he spent most of his later adult life painting nosecones for then Avco-Lycoming in Stratford.
From him I learned that for a union man there was one source for all knowledge more sacred than any encyclopedia: the guys in the shop. No matter what the topic, once he invoked, "The guys in the shop said . . . , " all debate ended. I found myself at times trying to make a point about the law, presumptuous of me with four years of college and three years of law school. No matter, once "the guys in the shop" spoke it was akin to the Pope speaking ex cathedra.
John was a diminutive figure with this marvelous mane of white hair. I met my wife when we were 16 years old. I recall the rare times he permitted her to date at that young age, going to their modest home across the street from the cemetery in Stratford, on a Saturday. There he would be gussied up in his tuxedo ready to play another gig. His was the big band sound of the era of Tommy Dorsey. He had studied trumpet in New York City, a rare accomplishment for the son of immigrant parents.
His other claim to fame was his cousin, Col. Henry Mucci, founder of the Army Rangers. The "Colonel" as everyone around Bridgeport called him, was memorialized in the book, The Ghost Soldiers, the basis for the 2005 movie, The Great Raid. Henry Mucci led about 120 Rangers who liberated survivors of the Bataan Death March from a prison camp 30 miles behind enemy lines in the Philippines. Gen. Douglas Macarthur awarded Mucci the Distinguished Service Cross. The colonel had lived with my father-in-law's family as a youngster before his appointment to West Point.
It was a great source of pride in John Mucci's life that the state named the lower section of Route 8 in Bridgeport as the Colonel Henry Mucci Highway.
This little Italian leprechaun could blow that horn with the best of any of them. I recall sitting with him as he would listen to a recording and then write out each melody or harmony line for the various instruments like a stenographer taking dictation. Each time we hear a great horn player we think back to this marvelous little man and his amazing gift.
Richie spent two more years with my dad before he passed on. We sat and reminisced about him the other night as we watched the Jimmy Stewart classic, It's a Wonderful Life. It was my Dad's favorite movie. In particular he loved the English character actor, Henry Travers, who played Clarence Oddbody, the would-be guardian angel trying to earn his wings. In his later years my dad actually favored Clarence in his likeness.
In contrast to the life my father-in-law led, my dad pursued a different dream. He labored as a Bridgeport cop for 14 years, nine of which he spent in night school -- first at the University of Bridgeport for 5 years; then a wearying four-year trek to Hartford to the University of Connecticut Law School, eventually becoming the first cop in Connecticut to become a lawyer. Richie got to go fishing and attend Giant games with his grandpa. In his later years we spent a great deal of time together; simple time on the boat or just sitting in front of the tube on a Sunday afternoon.
Watching Jimmy Stewart's character, George Bailey, lament to Clarence Oddbody, I shared with Rich one of my fondest Christmas memories. I was raised in an era where Christmas wasn't yet a major marketing extravaganza.
It was a simple time in the mid-50's and we were literally as poor as church mice. We lived in a third floor attic apartment through the kindness of my grandparents, who lived downstairs. Each Christmas Eve my dad walked the beat on the East side of Bridgeport. We would go to sleep that night, no Christmas tree in the modest living room. We would awaken Christmas morning to what was a true Christmas miracle. There was the tree with modest presents. No Nintendo Wii or Playstation3. It didn't matter; to us it was still a miracle.
Every Christmas eve for nine years it was the same. My dad would finish his shift and a local merchant who sold Christmas trees would give him one of the last stragglers to take home. To us it was the Rockefeller Center tree come to life. Dad, being a true Irishman, of course, would stop at the local pub to hoist a few before finally arriving, perhaps with a little too much Christmas cheer in him ready to transform that tiny living room into our Christmas miracle.
Each of these men, in his own way, brought a richness to Richie's young life. As time passes I am now becoming the gray-bearded Papa to a growing brood of granddaughters -- six at last count, with no end in sight. Hopefully, as the years pass and they become young women, there will be some special memory of this papa they will carry with them. For now we cherish the memories of these two.
Bridgeport attorney Richard Meehan Jr. was the lead defense counsel for former Bridgeport Mayor Joseph Ganim's corruption trial. Meehan is certified as a criminal trial specialist by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Meehan has also obtained multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements in complex medical and dental malpractice and personal injury litigation. He is a past president of the Greater Bridgeport Bar Association and appears regularly on Court TV. Website, www.meehanlaw.com
Andy Thibault, author of Law & Justice In Everyday Life and a private investigator, is an adjunct lecturer of English and a mentor in the MFA writing program at Western Connecticut State University. Thibault also serves as a consulting editor for the literary journal Connecticut Review. Website, www.andythibault.com and Blog, http://cooljustice.blogspot.com
Law & Justice In Everyday Life by Andy Thibault at Amazon.com
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