MY FATHER Foreword, Feb. 16, 2014 By Stephen Shooster
My father always wanted to write the story of his family. Many years ago, he wrote the framework deliberately expressing himself with plain-spoken humility. I have tried my best to grant him that wish. In writing my father’s memoir, I feel a sense of completion. Working every morn- ing for years, I felt compelled like never before to get it done. Some of my fondest memories were sitting with him, side-by-side reading our notes and adjusting them as directed. A memoir is a form of discovery. Perhaps the most poignant thing I learned is that my father worked almost every day of his life, from high school through his sunset years, including the difficult time near the end, as he was receiving blood transfusions. I will never forget him asking me to take him to work after 4-6 hours of treatment. He never missed a day’s work without a very good reason. 1972, at the age of 48, he was out of work for two years. I believe that experience may have been the toughest of his entire life. He was lost. Not a good place to be with four kids ready for college. How he navigated those times and what he ended up doing are now remark- able and lasting. At the age of 50, he began to build a business starting with ten employees to one of over a thousand. Finally, at the age of 88, he won The Sun-Sentinel Excalibur Award - businessman of the year. It was a lifetime achievement. One of the key tenets my father lived by was the simple expression; Face It. In doing so, he told us, Fears usually outweigh reality. Facing them will frequently dispel whatever is holding you back. Boy, did he face it. Fresh out of high school, impatient with the army draft during WWII, he enlisted. Deployed as a medic in the Pacif- ic theater, he volunteered for paratrooper duty. His application stated ‘full and bounding,’ but he was denied. The division was already full because all of his peers stepped up, too!
It is no wonder his was called The Greatest Generation. My father returned from the war deeply scarred by combat fatigue. Combat fatigue is also known to doctors as a psychiatric collapse, or in common parlance, a nervous breakdown. Back then, mental illness was considered a character flaw. To reveal it, was to admit weakness. My dad had the insight to recognize a medical condition. Even so, it would be a year before he told his parents. He opted for psychiatric treatment at his own expense, secretly working a night job to pay. He recovered, but not without suffering through multiple electroshock therapy treat- ments. He went on to marry and live what we would consider more than a normal life, a life to be emulated. One thing that my dad always wanted, was financial independence. He dreamed that one day he would be his own boss. His vision was large enough to imagine being able to bring his kids into a business with him. Not only did all four of us join, but most of our spouses too! My father’s life was marked by challeng- es. He boiled those down to another expres- sion: All you have to do to succeed is get up one more time than you fall down. Smiling he would hold a brass chamber pot he kept ‘under his coffee table at the office and say,’ I’ll always have a pot to piss in. We all laughed. In later years, my father faced it again and again, conquering multiple life-threatening medical conditions, but in the end, he could not beat leukemia. Can you imagine what might have happened if America did not drop the nucle- ar bomb on Japan? For us, this is a theoreti- cal exercise, but for him it was existential. He and his comrades were all preparing for the invasion of the main islands of Japan. Based on their war experience, they already knew the enemy was groomed and hardened for a tenacious fight. Casualties upwards of 70% were expected.
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