That’s a wrap.
It’s official: As of September 1, I am a retiree. As a longshoreman, I gave up the best “retirement job” in the world, but I’m 72, and it was time.
I had long contemplated this move, looking forward to my wife retiring from her teaching job and us entering our “golden years” and traveling the world together. That all came crashing down, however, with my wife’s sudden and unexpected death earlier this year. Even though most of my peers have been long retired, Deb would not have let me retire without a long “debate,” but that became a moot point.
You’re right if you think retirement on top of losing my wife of 49 years might be too big of a psychic plunge all at once, but her death is a constant reminder that life is short. If I don’t have to work and I remain in relatively good health, I should probably try to enjoy what time I have left, even if it is a struggle.
Besides, as longtime readers know, dock work was my second career. I would have retired years ago if my first career hadn’t ended so unexpectedly, and I became what I had always called myself, an “accidental” longshoreman.
The son of a longshoreman from a family of longshoremen, I only began longshoring after being laid off at the L.A. Times in 2004. That unceremonious parting ended a nearly 33-year career as a sports writer/copy editor/news editor in the newspaper business that started in 1969 as a sports stringer for the News-Pilot. With the internet and social media marking the beginning of the end of the newspaper industry, it was only after being let go at the Times that I regretted the earlier opportunities I had passed up to become a longshoreman.
I made an abortive attempt at sales at Green Hills Memorial Park; fortunately, I also got a casual card the same year. I was no salesman, and I also never did learn how to park a 20-foot chassis, but the hours on the docks as a casual added up, and in 2018, I became a registered longshoreman. I was only sworn in as an A book in April, but Deb’s death in May changed everything.
I’m writing this in part as a farewell to my longshore colleagues who are still working, especially those I worked with for so many years as a casual and who, after that long slog, were finally registered. There is only a small circle of ILWU friends I remain in touch with, and, of course, living in San Pedro, I will continue to run into longshoremen, both retired and working, nearly every day.
That’s already happened to me at the Eastview dog park, where you can find me most mornings.
So far, Jack the dog and Jude the cat are the ones happiest I have retired. The only other “benefit” I can think of for now is I can attend funerals without taking a day off, and sadly, there have been way too many of those (see below).
IN MEMORIAM
Last month, you read about how four deaths in one week touched the San Pedro sports community. That same week, two other longtime San Pedrans died, two men with whom I was well acquainted who weren’t headline-makers but whose careers and later volunteer work impacted the lives of thousands.
Vito Giacalone.
Vito Giacalone died on October 6 at the age of 100. He was well known in San Pedro as owner of Vic’s Seafood Company for 35 years. I remember him from the ‘50s and ‘60s, back when eating meat on Fridays was still a sin for Catholics. That’s when I would hear a horn honk as Giacalone’s white panel truck, laden with fresh fish on ice, pulled up outside our house as he drove through San Pedro.
He knew my parents through the Mazzini Club when it was a mainstay of the Italian-American community, was a longtime Elk, and served as usher at Mary Star of the Sea for 65 years. Giacalone and his wife, Mary, also helped feed and clothe the homeless for many years as volunteers with Mary Star’s Christian Care Program.
I don’t know if Giacalone and Ed Kise ever met, but I’m sure if they did, they would have become fast friends. They both exemplified the trait of servanthood as practiced by Jesus at churches less than a mile apart on Seventh Street: While Giacalone, a lifelong Catholic, was a fixture at Mary Star, Kise, a lifelong Lutheran, could be found exercising the gift of helps at Trinity Lutheran.
Kise ministered at Trinity’s midmonth services for years, was an usher when my family started attending in the ‘80s, helped start the Crossing ministry, an ecumenical outreach to the homeless in Downtown San Pedro, in the ‘80s, and later launched Trinity’s pantry ministry that is still feeding the less fortunate. Serving others came naturally. The Brooklyn native moved to Los Angeles in 1981 when he got a job with the county’s Children and Family Services.
Kise died the day after Giacalone on October 7 at age 91, having lived out one of his favorite Bible verses, “…always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (1 Cor. 15:58)
A quote from Albert Einstein used at Giacalone’s funeral serves as an appropriate epitaph for both men: “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” spt
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