Beginnings

Where to begin?  The cliche is the beginning of course, but which one?  His birth?  Mine?  When our lives took different paths as I became an adult?  Or where this is now?

(sigh and just start typing GZ)

My dad, George Ronald, was born in February 11, 1941 as George Galenda in Pottsville PA.  Within 2 years his parents would be dead, killed in an automobile accident.  He would be adopted and become George Zahorchek.  Within a few years, his father, George Edward would change and shorten the family name to Zack.  

His youth and upbringing is lost to history and my only knowledge of it is what he shared with me over the course of innumerable quarter conversations.  His father was physically abusive.  His mother had significant health issues and would pass at a young age.  He was aware of his adoption and didn't understand why other members of his biological family didn't take him and with the adoptions separated him from his older sister.  He'd confront his biological uncles later with this question and get no satisfaction in their responses.  He'd grow up in New York City.

He met my mother Libby (Liboria Giovelli) when he was 17 and she was 15 when on a date at movie theatre - they were both on a date with other respective friends and shortly thereafter they started dating.  From an incredibly young age, he was fascinating and deeply called to the fire department and everything about it:  the trucks, the sirens, the heroism, the fire house, the uniform, the camaraderie.  Just before turning 20, he joined the Army.  He'd go to Japan, Korea, Vietnam and serve in various roles, including as a tankman.  He'd marry Libby on June 27, 1963.   They married in a court house - there are no pictures from a wedding with the family. She had just turned 20 (June 19) and he was 22.  They started their married life.  

There are pockets of other stories in there.  Run ins with the law as youth. Various jobs he had as a kid. Interactions with his father.  Serving as an alter boy.   Challenges he had in the neighborhood he was in as an outsider to the predominant culture.  Libby's challenges with her own family and the hell she had gone through. His interaction with her family and her three Italian brothers who were initially not impressed with a "Polack."  How Libby's mother welcomed him in.  How he was a bigger kid and made fun of for being fat.  How they took steps to get away from it, particularly his father, but remain connected to her family.

Growing up, I'd hear these stories.  In retrospect, I heard them but I didn't have the skills or the character to listen to them.  They were a background music that I had an awareness to, but I never deeply unraveled them or what they meant.  

I knew however that my parents had a start that had faced challenges and they had made choices to work to overcome them.  They had faltered in places, but had a start that was built on a foundation of their marriage for each other.  They did not get out of it unscathed - no, looking back I can say their scars would run deep and impact their physical and mental health for the rest of their lives.