About Me
It is very strange to actually sit down and think about me and what to write that will make sense.
Beginning…
Middle Europe is really a rainy, foggy, cold, damp and miserable place. Czech Republic to be exact. Dead center of the continent. I miss it a lot. I guess the adventurer in me has been there from early on. Ever since I can remember I was crawling through some castle ruins and busting my kneecaps on a valley cliff overlooking Berounka river.
Favorite Place Where I grew up.
The summers were great. You just can’t beat the feeling of climbing a cherry orchard with bunch of dirty mates and devouring all cherries in sight. It gets even more adventurous when they send the German Sheppard dogs after you for enjoying the local cherries. You just haven’t lived if you never sneaked through a corn or wheat field early in the morning to get those fresh apples or pears from the nearby orchard and when you emerge you are starring at double barrel shotgun of the local watchman. That was always a rush.
Mushroom picking in the forest at 4:30 AM, nothing like waking up wild pigs in the brush……..they do have sharp tusks I noticed. Skinny dipping in the rivers was fun for a while, until the girls showed up. I did fish a lot with grandpa but just could not develop the patience he possessed. I and my cousin always ended up playing space travel games in the nearby willow tree. My favorite tree is the weeping willow… did you know it hurts a lot when you fall out of one straight into foot deep mud. I thought I should share this particular piece of information… It is also painful when you run into a twenty foot boulder hiding in the middle of the river where you are swimming.
The childhood was great and I am glad I lived in a place and time where we had to burn candles and eat potatoes with butter for dinner.
One day in the summer of my fourth grade we had a visit from an unknown person to me but a well known politician from Chicago by the name of Henry Hyde. Very tall man I remember, but then again I was ten, and the next year I met Arnold in Chicago who also was a very big man.
But, to get to the story…..
You see my mother and father were political refugees from my country. In 1967 when I was born, my father was promptly imprisoned by the communist party for speaking out against the government and sentenced to work in the uranium mines. He escaped along with my uncle through a ventilation shaft when someone tried to kill them by rolling a huge boulder on top of them through a ventilation shaft in the mine they were standing under. His adventure took him across the Carpathian Mountains into Greece, Italy, France and Germany. In Germany he was granted a passage to USA from the USA government and my mother joined him in 1968, without me. I was the Collateral. My uncles immigrated to South Africa. My parents like everybody else took a ride through the greatest city in the world.. New York City, and settled in South Chicago, Cicero. Henry Hyde was the Senator there at the time.
My Parents were married here.
Many people don’t know how life was in communist controlled country during that time, and here are just a few.
1. Absolutely no religion could be practiced publicly. Church attendance was forbidden and churches became storage units. Some families I remember could practice religion but only around midnight. I still remember seeing them always at night, kids and all walking to the local church grounds.
2. Boy Scouts before communism were big in my country. All of a sudden they were called Pioneers.
3. No outward speaking about the government. My dad’s problem.
4. Absolutely no business ownership, all was under common ownership.
5. Unless you had money in the bank you had to work, they always found work for you.
6. No traveling outside of the country. Period.
7. Certain foods became scarce; I heard they were shipping it to Russia.
Our Church
So, in 1978, ten years of never knowing my parents I was given the permission by the Communist Party to leave Europe and immigrate to the USA to be with my parents. You see, I since childhood was blacklisted by the communists and forbidden to attend any higher education then high school. My job was picked out for me ahead of time… coal miner.
But, Henry Hyde (Wiki) to forward his political career took it upon himself to help unite kids behind the iron curtain with their parents in Chicago. I was bargained for and my price was? To this day I don’t know the title, but it was a book. Kind of humbling when you find out your life is worth a book. I wonder if it was Hard Back Cover.
I celebrated my eleventh birthday in Chicago. It was somewhat of a shock coming to America, leaving everyone you ever knew behind and not knowing what’s next. Let’s see… I learned English in four months and was pretty good in school. The challenging times came in high school. Imagine a five floor high school that took up an entire city block. Morton East High named after a general I think. Every gang in Chicago went to that school. Guns, knives, drugs and violence was normal in the neighborhood and the school. In this kind of environment a person cannot have much of a fear.
I still had good time. All it took was one day in study hall I met Donny, kid I worked out in the school gym with, he was older and in different grade. We got be be pretty good friends and played chess in study hall library. Now my other friends name was Aries short for Aristotle, as you can tell I lived in an all Italian neighborhood. What I didn’t know, is that Donny was an under boss in one of the many Italian gangs where I lived. I didn’t care, our chess matches were good. Nobody ever bothered me in this Chicago high school. Some of the gangs in my school that I can recall were: 26, 22, kings and queens, greasers, purple spiders and some I don’t want to mention.
At fifteen I came to Florida. My parents got divorced when I was fourteen and separated like any immigrant family does when they come here. Now, Florida is a different place and speed from a city like Chicago. We moved to North Miami which was a pretty cool place. The high school was terrible. There were no gangs but everybody was snorting coke in school during classes. It was the weirdest thing I ever witnessed in my life. By this time I have experienced and seen a lot of stuff. Anyway, I became a beach kid. My hair developed highlights and girls liked it. If there is anything I can say about Florida it is this, some of the most beautiful kickass girls I ever been with and met are from Florida.
Skimpy bathing suits, running through waves and partying by the ocean is the best way to grow up. I never understood the coke thing though, never even tried it… and believe me when you have friends you will be offered everything and when you say no they just want to give it to you more. I went to the gym instead.
At sixteen I was on my own in Miami getting by. My mother left and I was by myself in Florida. Fun in the Sun! I used to work at a food store and next door was a women’s health workout spa. So one hot day, as I am handling the bananas by the entrance, this cute good looking Latina brunette walks in dressed in little pink and white stripped workout suit and wearing matching leg warmers. She is definitely a little older then me probably like twenty or twenty one but a real 10, she looks at me, gives me cute sexy smile, says hello, I say hello back and she keeps walking. Cool. I never ever forgot those gorgeous big beautiful brown eyes of hers, the little nose and full luscious kissable red lips.
Eight years later I married her in St. James Catholic Church.
I did a lot of things over the last twenty years including real estate redevelopment, foreclosure sales and acquisition, service businesses etc…
It was a lot of fun and always a learning experience. One thing nobody can ever train you or prepare you for is balancing life, marriage, kids, business and love life all at one time. I think I am very close in achieving this balance finally now. My wife and I value our relationship and life together very much, even during hard times it just grows stronger, amazing she is. Who would of thought back when I was sixteen throwing around bananas in a food store, I was saying hello to the love of my life. You just never know! So, one must always be ready. I think I have a strong bond with her because I love her and I know her for very long time. She is the one gift to me, God spared no expense for. My son is the same.
Now, little older and just a little wiser I embark on the super adventure of all time…. Changing the world one hand at a time….
The Helpful Hands Foundation a non profit to help and to change many lives.
It has become a real challenge, but I think, a very worthwhile one indeed…
This is my adventure… Welcome