Month: October 2021

The summer of 2008 was nice and calm. A mixture of hockey tournaments and visits to LBI for some beach and crabbing fun. Not much to talk about. Joe was getting ready for another season with the Philadelphia Little Flyers and working hard at it. Nick was getting ready for his first year at Holy Ghost Prep and too, working hard at it. Lori and I decided to have a barbecue birthday party for Joey. Invite family and friends and some of Joe’s teammates over to our home in UM.

It was a beautiful day in September and we had a pretty large turnout to celebrate Joe’s twelfth on the 21st. The boys decided to follow Joe around the corner to a neighbors house to have some fun. The house had a huge hill right in front, some forty or fifty feet tall. They were running up and down and rolling down, whatever twelve year old boys do. As the hot dogs and hamburgers were grilling, Joe’s friend Kevin came running to the deck of our house yelling for help. I calmed him down for a second and he said that Joe was hurt bad. Really bad. I took off running towards a sound that began to become louder and louder. Horrible screaming was coming from around the corner and I couldn’t get there quick enough. It was bad… really bad.

The boys were running up and down the hill, chasing each other. Joe was chasing Kevin’s brother Colin down the hill when Colin tripped in front of him. Joe tried to jump over Colin and launched himself in the air. He landed on the sidewalk, trying to brace himself on his right hand to cushion his fall. When I reached him, Joe was lying on the grass between the sidewalk and the street. His arm was somewhat covered by his head and he was shaking. In shock. The next thing I saw almost made me throw up. His hand was facing 90 degrees from his forearm. A double compound fracture with the bones sticking out of his skin. When he landed, both bones in his arm snapped in half. It was horrible. I dialed 911 on my cell immediately and asked for an ambulance to get there as quick as possible. I knew that there was nothing that I could do other than to try and comfort him. He couldn’t be moved. I rubbed his back and spoke to him to keep him alert. I didn’t know what else to do. I told him to try to breath deep and relax the best he could until the ambulance got there. In true Joe fashion, he snapped back at me…” Relax!!! Do you not see my Fuc@!%*ing arm!!!” OMG.

In a few minutes, a car pulled up with a paramedic inside and well, she almost threw up too! Joey was irate by this point and said ” Where is the freaking ambulance!”. I can’t imagine how much pain he was in. The paramedic apologized. There were so many calls that afternoon that none were available just yet. She took his vitals and examined him the best she could just as the ambulance arrived. They loaded him up quickly on a backboard, stabilizing his arm to prevent more injury. Luckily, there wasn’t a lot of blood and the break hadn’t caused injury to the main vessels in his arm. As soon as he was in the ambulance, the paramedics broke protocol and administered Morphine right away to ease his pain. This was one tough motherf#$@*ing kid. I rode to Abington hospital with the first paramedic to arrive while Lori followed in our car. Everyone was really shooken up, especially Joe’s friends. The party, unfortunately, ended soon thereafter.

We arrived at the hospital quickly and the ER received Joe right away. The docs decided to call in an orthopedic specialist immediately and while we were waiting, they were thinking about flying him to CHOP in downtown Philadelphia. Since his fracture was compound, there was a great risk for infection. He had dirt and other debris in the wound that needed to be taken care of right away. The Surgeon got there and decided that there was no time to waste. He would operate immediately. This was so scary. Yet another time Lori and I would have to see one of our boys taken away into a serious surgery. Joe’s friends all had arrived at the hospital soon after us. They were so worried about him. The nurses let them back to see him before the surgery. He was actually hysterical. Funny that is. He was very high on Morphine and man was he in rare form. They all laughed as he rambled on and on. Finally, the surgery team was ready to go and took him down to the operating room area. It was a Sunday and not much staff were around. The Surgeon introduced himself to Joe and wrote in Blue magic marker “This one”, on his right hand. When the Surgeon stepped away, Joe whispered to us to get him another Surgeon right now! “Is this guy serious?”, he said. “He has to mark which arm to operate on!” “He can’t tell which one’s broken!” It was a great laugh at such a tense and terrible moment. The operation took a few hours but was very successful. He came out into recovery with a huge cast and an even better sense of humor. Post-op anesthesia recovery comedy. The nurses loved him.

A few days in the hospital to recover and make sure that there was no infection was the beginning of a long and arduous journey to normalcy for this poor kid. He would miss the majority of his hockey season and come back to of course, more controversy. I’ll leave that for another blog. There was no question though…we were so proud of him. This was a “Bad Break” and he handled it like a man. A real Man.

Next Up: The Gold Rush

As we cruised into the end of the year a lot was going on besides the usual Christmas prep and holiday mayhem at the store. Nick got his acceptance letter to Holy Ghost Prep, a very prestigious Catholic private High School. He was so happy and Lori and I very proud. He was also named Captain of the Upper Moreland Middle school ice hockey team as the team voted him in. Maybe he wasn’t the best player on the team, but it spoke to his character and all around liking by all of the players. He was also voted as one of two players to represent the team at the SHSHL All Star game. This didn’t sit well with Joe since he was the third leading scorer in the whole league as a sixth grader and a Defenseman… Lol. This season was my first as the middle school head coach and as usual it would be a real trip. Luckily, the season would go on break for the holidays so I was able to concentrate on the store. This task was also like coaching a team of sorts. Eight salespeople, three gift wrappers, and hoards of customers, I would have to be more like a quarterback calling out options while listening to every sales pitch going on throughout the store. I would jump from customer to customer, closing one sale and heading over to another if I thought that my employee was losing the deal or I thought that the gift wasn’t the perfect choice for the customer. Twenty five straight days of that is grueling but financially satisfying and necessary for the survival of your business, especially as a Jeweler. We ended up again with a great season and extremely satisfied customers. A team well coached and quarterbacked always wins championships!

That brings us back to our hockey team. A group of young sixth to eighth graders with varying degrees of talent and multiple personalities. My sixth graders were the talented group of club players and Joey one of the only AAA players in the league. His mouth and his skill made him very controversial with all of the competition. In fact, Elementary school kids at Lori’s school in the North Penn district would tell her before our games against North Penn how their older brothers were going to get Joe. Never happened, he always got them…Lol. We finished the season in the middle of the pack but somehow made it to the championship game for the Suburban league title. We would face Archbishop Wood, a team of all eighth graders, in front of about 400 fans. We had lost all three games that we played before against them. Their coach came by our locker room and wished us well before the contest. Nice gesture. I closed the door behind him and said “Alright boys, this is how we beat them tonight!” How…Miracle-esque!

The team followed my instructions to the letter and we were beating them through two periods of play to their chagrin. The bigger and stronger team, Wood came back to lead the game towards the end of the third period. Joey used his chirping skills to gain us a power play with minutes to go and we tied the game up with seconds to spare and end the third period. Our boys were spent by now and I knew that to win the game, I would have to shorten the bench. I asked the eighth graders, our less experienced crew, if they were ok with that. If not, we would continue to roll our lines as usual. They wanted to win though and though they played a great game, agreed to my request. A five minute overtime would be played to determine the league champions. I set up plays for the opening face off and asked our goalie Brett to hang in there a little longer. He stood on his head all game! Joey would control the puck in the defensive zone and get the puck deep into the offensive zone. Play went on for two minutes and we got a face off in their zone. I called a time out to rest my five players that were out on the ice the whole time. I set up a play for the face off when my center Matt said, ” Coach, I’m done”. He was exhausted! I told him to take a drink, follow the plan and give me the best thirty seconds of play he ever had. Guess what? GOOAALL! And guess who scored it? Yep, Matt! As he collapsed, literally crying on the ice, the whole team piled on him in a huge celebration. The other team broke sticks over the boards in disbelief and the fans were cheering wildly. What a great moment for these boys.

Controversy, well of course there was. After the season, I put my request in to coach the JV team next season. No Brainer, right? Wrong. Request denied. Apparantly, I found out that some of the eighth graders thought that I pushed them a little too hard. Well, that was my job. And the Little League incident in the spring, well that was “controversial” too. Oh well, we were putting a bid on a beautiful new house in Doylestown, Nick was moving on to Holy Ghost and Joe kicking ass in AAA for the Little Flyers. Time to move on from UM anyway…for now. Also, another great report on my annual blood test. Nothing tops that.

A quick sidenote… Besides the usual politics and BS that comes with coaching youth sports, the ability to interact, shape and improve the lives of young men and women is priceless. I relished every moment. Take our goalie Brett for instance. His mom took me aside a few years prior to give me a laundry list of health issues Brett had, before I coached him in his first”Learn to play” session. Serious stuff. She was very afraid of him participating in such a rough game but Brett wanted to be a hockey player. She wouldn’t deny him. All that I knew was that if he started flailing his arms, I needed to hang him upside down from the net posts and then get him to the hospital. Whew! Luckily, that only happened once in four years. The summer before the Middle School season, I ran into the family in a Lee’s Hoagie House restaurant. His dad told me that Brett wasn’t sure that he wanted to play hockey anymore. I straightened out that situation with Brett real quick. I was so happy for Brett when we won the championship. He was such a great kid. His mom forwarded me a school project that he did soon thereafter about a person he admired very much. It was beautifully written about “Coach Keenan”. That says it all for me. Thanks, Brett.

Next up: A Bad Break

As we continued to mourn the loss of Nonno, 2007 would be a very busy year. Nicky was becoming a teenager, playing tennis for UMMS and prepping for his entrance exam for Holy Ghost Prep. Go Nick! Joey was preparing for the Little Flyers tryouts again for next season and starting baseball. I would come out of retirement to coach baseball again for his team. This season would be a real trip. Our team would end up with a 17-0 record, a great accomplishment for a great group of kids. The journey to get there was wrought with controversy and emotional ups and downs. My assistant coach was a great dad and guy going through a terrible time with his own long battle with cancer. It was not going well and his two boys were really hurting. They were both on our team and compassion was the main word when handling their issues. It was a tough time. Our championship game ended with a great win and I put the coaches son in to pitch the last 3 innings where he won the game. Tears were flowing and the team rejoiced their phenomenal season until, of course, a deranged parent told the other teams coach to protest the game on a substitution technicality. The teams coach called in the Umpires, lodged the ridiculous protest which made the championship invalid until a board hearing in two weeks was held to discuss the outcome. The team could not celebrate their perfect season. These were ten to twelve year old kids…Nice job parents. Well, needless to say, this led to a big fistfight in the stands among parents and the police coming out in force to control the melee. My team and I remained in the dugout until the fracas subsided…totally disgusted. The outcome…an apology by the opposing coach and the championship restored. Nice job…Too little, too late. The boys never got a chance to celebrate their season.

The rest of the summer included a week in the Pocono mountains where we relaxed, fished, went to the Pocono 500…amazing, and a wild ride in the pouring rain to Pocono General Hospital where I was throwing up out of the car window as another freaking kidney stone attack beat me up. Oh well, just another day in my life! After the mountains, a hockey trip to Boston! What a great town! We toured Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Fenway Park, the TD Gardens, USS Constitution, Boston Aquarium and saw The Blue Man Group! The hockey was great and the trip spectacular. Last up, the final ” Team Belaggio” golf outing.

Like I mentioned earlier, running the “Team Belaggio” event was a labor of love and a lot of labor. This would be my last hurrah. My goal was to reach a grand total of 100k in donations to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. We followed the same game plan with golf, prizes, raffles, great food and Texas Hold-em Poker after the banquet dinner. We did it! All total, we surpassed the 100k goal for the four years of the event. It was a fabulous day. Everyone reached deep into their pockets and the donations exceeded the past three years by far. A job well done by all of my crew and a wonderful sense of accomplishment for such a great cause. This was now eleven years since my diagnoses and a few months after Dr. Dave gave me my all clear, thumbs up, keep the faith, annual report. Now it’s time to get ready for the holidays. This has been a great year for business so I know that the season was going to explode! Fingers crossed.

Another footnote : This blog marks my 100th post so far! I really appreciate everyone who has followed along on my journey. That being said, I need to give love to a great woman who always gave her time to so many charities including my own. A fixture at the front table at all “Team Belaggio” events as well as a major donor and great friend to our family, Helen Piszek Nelson lost her own battle with cancer this week. She fought valiantly over the past five years with class and dignity, always commenting kindly on my blog while she endured. She will be greatly missed. RIP Helen❤. I also would be remiss in not mentioning my partner in baseball, Coach Jack Bennis. He too lost his battle with cancer a short time after our season. A wonderful Dad, Husband and friend, his boys carry on his legacy turning out to be great young men ❤.

Yep, Cancer Sucks

Next up: Another Championship and More Controversy

It was February, 4th, 2007. Super Bowl Sunday. The Colts were preparing to battle it out with the Chicago Bears. Joey was playing in his Basketball game with UM Hoops. This was torture. Nick and I watched as the other teams parents went crazy, as usual. I told the league not to keep him in his normal age bracket. First game was 36 to 6. Joe had 32 points. You can take it from there. Anyway, we put up with the usual BS and actually, it was pretty funny. I got the call just before 3 pm and took it outside the Gymnasium. Lori was composed but her voice was shaking… Nonno passed away at 2:45. He had been failing quickly and Lor had driven up to the Bronx the morning before. The Peduzzi family were all there as his heart failed and his battle ended. A little more than two years since his horrible fall and brain injury, his big heart gave out and Nonno was gone. The boys would be so upset. Nonno was a big part of their life… and they…his. He loved watching them play sports. He loved to teach them how to cook. He loved to cook. From the first day I came to New York, every visit thereafter, holidays, etc. It was all about the food. “Are you hungry?” “What do you want to eat?” This was the standard greeting by Nonno when you walked in his house. It was great. An accomplished chef, butcher and recent retiree of the “Culinary Institute of America” in Hyde Park, NY. The food he prepared was always spectacular… and Italian.

After Joe’s game, I broke the news to the boys on our car ride home. They were so upset. This was the first loss they had ever experienced in their lives and a big loss it was. We went home and called mom and tried to comfort her. I knew she needed to talk to her boys. My parents came over the next morning so that I could head to NY. In a few days, they would join us for the funeral. And what a funeral it was. For two and a half days, friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, Italian Club members, etc. came to mourn and celebrate Nonno’s life. It seemed like the whole Bronx showed up! A heart-felt and appropriate farewell to such a warm, friendly, wonderful man. So many of Lori’s friends turned out too. She really needed them. I was so happy to see the love. The boys arrived on the last day and very maturely said their goodbyes. We were very proud of them. The funeral concluded with a drive- by past the Peduzzi home by the funeral procession and the internment at a beautiful cemetery in the burbs. Italo “Norman” “Nonno” Peduzzi would be greatly missed.

The boys and I would need to really pick it up for Mom. As tough as she was, this was new territory for us. Super Bowl Sunday would take on a whole new meaning going forward. Aunt Susan would take over the holiday helm in the Bronx and have to recreate Nonno’s recipes for posterity. Big shoes to fill. As for me, I had my annual bloodwork coming up in a month. Fingers crossed, let’s hope for some good news.

Next Up: Life Goes On and the Last “Team Belaggio” Event