In 1963, my father took a picture of his dad and mom on top of the Chrysler Building. They had come from Elyria, Ohio, to New York City to the second tallest building in the world to look at the tallest building in the world.
They also came to New York City to visit the expecting Funk “kids.” None of the pictures taken that day show my mother, which makes me suspect my dad was doing the good-husband-thing by giving his parents a tour of the big city so that his wife could take a break from the doting relatives.
I was born in February 1954 in Flushing Hospital in Queens.
At the time, my parents lived in an upstairs apartment in a house across the water from LaGuardia Airport. The family who owned the home was The Slocums. They became lifelong friends of my parents. Babies have a way of bonding families.
I didn’t know my dad’s parents well. My grandmother died of a heart attack when I was still a toddler. In 1959 we moved to California from Nyack, New York. My grandfather stayed in Elyria.
My grandfather, Louis W. Funk, left, is given a gold watch at his retirement.
My brother Kevin was hellbent on shoveling something, even if it was bits of ice and gravel from the driveway.
He worked for a local trucking firm as a driver, and when he retired from the trucking business, he was feted in the local newspaper — the good old days for working stiffs.
The only time I remember being in his house was in 1968. The California Funks went there for Christmas. My brother and I were hoping, praying even, that it would snow. Growing up in Altadena meant it never snowed. We wanted one Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby white Christmas. But not this year. First time in years, according to my grandpa. Undeterred, my brother went out one morning with a giant snow shovel to try to shovel the ice off the drive. He made a lot of noise and probably woke the neighbors.
We did see Santa deliver the milk one morning. He drove a white truck and stopped at several houses on the block, including my grandpa’s and brought “the white stuff” to the front porch.
You could say we had a white Christmas after all – Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby all rolled into one.
Santa makes deliveries in a Bauer Dairy delivery truck in Elyria, Ohio.