03/04/2024
Today I remember my father. The Colonel. John S Kruk. born dec 12 1919- died March 4 1992.
It took a long time for me to understand my father. It took having a few kids of my own and an understanding of history. I was hatched when my Dad was about 50. Or as he said he found me under a flat rock. So he was always a bit older than most of my friends Dads. He didnt coach my sports, but he did drive me all over the East Coast to hockey games. And came to see me play baseball when he wasn’t at work.
But by the time I was born he had lived through the Depression, tried out for the Big leagues as a lefty pitcher
Got into Notre Dame to play Basketball then got drafted and fought in 2 wars. He said Korea was worse for him than Ww2, in Korea An an assassin tried to kill him in his tent! He did not succeed obviously, and my Father somehow earned a Distinguished Flying Cross Medal while in the Army! Then he raised 4 very strong very different and often odd loud artistic children. So by the time kid 5 came around, me, he had seen and done more than most humans. And my Dad was a far bigger badass than you would have ever thought when you saw him,He rarely talked about the war, but I imagine having to see and often order soldiers to do what you must in war, weighed heavily upon him. Despite the “Right” or “Wrong” of it, we leave the judgment to the almighty, But i am certain these images were in his mind and perhaps tortured him in someway?
yet he was always there, always helping out in an emergency, he kept the operation rolling. He would be Watching the Mets yelling at their mishaps. The best part (most of the time) for John S Kruk is He married basically the Marilyn Monroe of NYC!
boy she was a tornado hurricane and an Earthquake wrapped into one! Alicia Nowicki (95!)
So today I remember my Father, I still wish he had lived longer, I still miss him. I still marvel at how he did all that, and survived, and then had me. Hug your father! you may not understand him yet! But one day you will wish you could, I guarantee that.