I couldn’t estimate how much my dad squandered gambling, but I can hear my mother screaming at him over the decades about the thousands upon thousands of bucks he “pissed away.” He never did buy a house, which didn’t really trouble him, so I gather he never thought to sock away money for a down payment. He preferred to “invest” his funds elsewhere. He did ultimately lose the interest in betting the ponies when the Alzheimer’s seized him, but that was not until he was well into his eighties. He was a good handicapper, however, which might sound funny given his track record. I wouldn’t know from personal experience, but my guess is you would have to be a superhuman handicapper to stay in the black, much less make a living off playing the ponies.
He did declare bankruptcy once, in the late 1960s. This development sounded grim to my adolescent ears, and later I published a poem related to the subject that caught his eye, the one poem of mine he ever mentioned. He ran across it in my first book of poems, which was published with some small fanfare by a university press when I was twenty-five, a poem entitled “My Father Declares Bankruptcy,” which ends this way:
I notice my name
Is missing from the list of creditors.
How much do I owe? What court can settle
Our accounts?
All right, it ain’t “Ode to a Nightingale,” and he made brutally clear he didn’t like it, but unlike with Keats and his moronic critics, no great poet was devastated as a result. Others might share his low opinion, though maybe not the editors of the respected literary magazine that initially printed it. When I presented my parents a copy of the book I presumed neither of them would open it. My father’s take on the whole poetry enterprise was blunt: “Won’t pay the light bills,” he declared. True enough, but who tipped him off? Beyond that, I felt terrible that I had hurt his feelings, not that that was my intention. I couldn’t defend myself.
He often said to me, and he might have said as much that impromtu poetry review day, “You got some kinda fresh head.” It might have been a common expression, but I cannot recall anybody else ever saying that. What did fresh head connote? It seemed to indicate something like naïve, or stupid, or overambitious, or overreaching, or foolish, or pathetic. All those meanings would have fit the context, given his dismissal of me.
He did not pursue a lifelong career as a small-time criminal. In fact, once he got to California, I have no solid information that he was ever again up to his old tricks—except for gambling. Instead, he worked in one dairy or another, in the freezer or driving milk trucks, mostly. He brought home lots of milk, butter, and ice cream, which we were made to understand was a perk of the job, and I have no suspicion he was stealing, but maybe I do indeed have a fresh head.
Whatever his vocational aspirations may have been as a young man, besides gambler, I have no idea. But his life did indeed take a remarkable turn in the 1980s.
•
That was when he got involved in labor union politics, and won nine consecutive elections, first as a business agent and then as secretary-treasurer (effectively the chief operating officer) of a Teamster milk drivers’ local in the East Bay. He took pride in the job and worked very hard, and gave every evidence of relishing the schmoozing and deal-making and breaking bread—as he liked to term it—that came with the job. His executive style filtered down into his home. When he left a note on the breakfast table, to get his wife’s attention he wrote at the top, in big neatly shaped letters, “MEMO.” And when his grandson got his first big job, he was suitably proud; once the boy became partner in the firm, the labor organizer saddled him with a new identity: Mario became “Management.” This happened when my son, fresh out of college, chose to live with his grandparents for about a year in an arrangement they all relished.
Obviously, my father was well-liked—nine straight election victories don’t happen by pure chance. Whatever he did to be effective in a charged political and business context, he must have possessed mad skills at compartmentalization. He negotiated complex union contracts, he fought off adversaries, he sat across from the fat cats who owned the companies and seemed to hold his own. He must have thought consecutively around people who weren’t in his family. He must have taken notes, and when he gave speeches to the rank and file he must have made sense and been persuasive. His Brother Teamster leaders always spoke of him in laudatory terms. Nine consecutive elections is no small feat.
Recently I came across a flyer printed for one of his early reelection campaigns for business agent that went out to the rank and file, to invoke wonderful union lingo. If memory serves, and I’m certain in this case it does, I composed some of it, or at least revised it, relying upon his notes and a rough draft he handed over. If I couldn’t be 100 percent certain, I would guess I did contribute because he couldn’t type, and his prose wasn’t consistent in terms of standard syntax or grammar. Unlike with my poetry, my prose composition efforts must have met with his approval. And I must have felt pretty good about it, too, because I kept a few flyers, which I came across some thirty or so years later at the bottom of a file drawer when I moved offices.
•
Dear Sisters and Brothers:
Some people learn on the job.
Some people learn from the job.
As your Business Agent these last three years, I did both.
There’s nothing fancy about being a Business Agent. It just means working hard for you all day long. That’s something you can’t learn in schools or conferences. Every day—every single day since you voted for me—I have had the chance to serve my brothers and sisters in the Union.
[He details a few of his specific accomplishments.]
But this sounds like I’m blowing my own horn. And I know as well as anyone that there’s always a lot more to do, always a long way to go. How many nights I spent at some plant working out a tense situation. How many times I cooled off an angry or an unreasonable employer. How many late night and early morning phone calls from my brothers and sisters who felt misused or wronged. As I say, there’s a lot more to do.
I’ve been a member since 1962. I know the jobs and the plants from the inside. I’ve been a boxman and a cleanup man, I’ve worked in ice cream production, milk production, and as an ice cream truck driver. I understand first hand the hard work you’re doing. You can bet one thing: I won’t forget any of that when I sit down at the bargaining table.
Let’s talk. I want to let you know what I stand for.
I want to keep working for you. Everyday, as your Business Agent, I’m on your time.
•
One could highlight the self-conscious disparagement of formal schooling, or underscore his righteous pursuit of justice on behalf of the put-upon working stiff. Equally, though, one could note the overriding sincerity of his tone, as well as his appeal to the fundamental fair-mindedness of his adopted brothers and sisters. He mixed in self-advertisement with modest self-abnegation. Nice touch, no? And he wanted them to appreciate in no uncertain terms that he understood firsthand the hard work they were paid to do, for which they should be paid more after he negotiated the next contract. He pleaded for their trust, which he hoped he had earned. And they gave it to him: they reelected him, again and again.
(Side note: having a sealed criminal file, as he did indeed have, would have been a boon to his employment or election prospects, because being a convicted felon would have conceivably jeopardized his union ambitions—the feds were all over the Teamsters, after all.)
He was also pragmatic and anything but sanguine as to the benefits of organized labor. For instance, when I was a restaurant general manager I detected the grouchy stirrings of a unionization effort led by a few malcontents. My dad gave me counsel off the record. (Now that I think about it, everything he ever said to me seemed to be off whatever the record could possibly be.) I may have asked for some advice; I cannot recall. And neither can I summon up the substance of his advice on how to avoid the complications of a union shop. I do recall that we made the facts abundantly clear to employees: our wage and benefit package exceeded union standards—without employees paying those pesky, needless dues. I’d like to think that we treated everybody respectfully, compassionately, professionally; that was our intention. The net: the vote to unionize fell well short. Then we fired all the rabble-rousers. Kidding—no reprisals, honest. We weren’t tempted, and we also weren’t stupid. The Labor Commission would have handed us our heads on a platter.
When he retired from his union, following his long run, Teamster leaders gathered for a big send-off in Oakland. He himself was left speechless, literally, at the celebration. By which I mean Popey stood up to the podium and could not utter a single world, not one. But the crowd cheered for him nonetheless. He was embraced by his colleagues, and sincerely. And he was loved by many, including his longtime and long-suffering administrative assistant. Janine was genuinely bereaved when I informed her of his passing. She sent a beautiful and impressive wreath for his memorial and sat in her pew teary-eyed throughout the services.