A day for real mourning; RIP Angelo Cammarata

(880 words)

Yesterday was a great day. I spoke before 250 members of the Pennsylvania Librarians Association and it couldn’t have gone better. It was a true home run. I’ve never enjoyed a longer and more raucous ovation.

Honest, some were in tears and all laughed. They loved me and my message. It was a big payday, too, with speaker’s fee and more than $600 in book sales.

But that’s a topic for another day.

Today is a day for mourning.

If you think I’m talking about the Pirates loss, man, you’re missing the big picture.

Angelo Cammarata is dead.

He was 101.

He was, oh, so much more.

He was one of the two most memorable and beloved — and lovable — men I’ve ever known.

Both are in the Guinness Book of World Records for vastly different reasons.

And someday I’m going to see if I belong in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the reporter who’s friendly with most people who are in the Guinness Book of World Records.

I’ve always sought out the company of interesting people and tried to learn how they chose to live.

That’s how I became friends with Ange and John Clouse.

Having been to all but two of the world’s countries, islands and territories, Clouse was the world’s most traveled man. A decorated combat veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, Clouse swore if he ever got out of the Ardennes intact he was going live an entirely original life.

He did just that.

He was maybe the most swashbuckling storyteller I’ve ever known. Absolutely hilarious. He was married and divorced six times. 

Cammarata was married to the same woman, the late Marietta, for more than 70 years and became world famous for rarely leaving the same building.

He is in the Guinness book for being the world’s longest serving bartender. He poured his first beer at his father’s old North Side tavern at midnight on April 7, 1933, the exact moment killjoy Prohibition in Pennsylvania was repealed.

I believe the Greatest Generation would have been worthy of being deemed the Greatest Generation if the only men in the Greatest Generation were Clouse and Cammarata.

It’s a pity Clouse never traveled to West View. These two men that seemed to have so little in common would have reveled in one another’s company.

I’ve never met two people with more genuine warmth and affection for their fellow man. It’s a joyful exuberance for the innate humanity that flickers within every human struggler.

Clouse discovered it by going all over the world. Cammarata by letting the world come to him.

I guess the best story I have about him is from 2006 when I was teaching narrative non-fiction at Point Park University and had Ange come in to be the final exam.

I was all about getting students to learn everything they could about a subject by asking incisive questions.

He was 97. I told him to simply answer their questions.

I introduced him by saying, “This is Angelo Cammarata. He is your final exam.”

The students went through about 15 minutes of increasingly frustrated questions — Where do you live? What do you do? — all the answers to which made this uncommon man seem increasingly common.

Then one exasperated student finally blurted out, “What makes you so special?”

That’s when he told them about being recognized by Guinness. 

He told them about the friendships he’s enjoyed, the family to whom he was devoted, the importance of persistence, and why he felt sad for people who choose to be pessimists.

He talked about how he’d made it a part of his daily routine to drive a cherished old friend to and from the bar because he knew how much Cammarata’s camaraderie meant to the old man — and to him.

He talked about all the customers he’d served, the spirits he’d lifted, the marriages he’d saved, the suicides he’d prevented.

How, he was asked, did he find the words for these humble heroics?

“Didn’t need to. Most people who are having trouble don’t need advice. They just need someone who’ll listen.”

He did this all with a gentle manner and smile so warm and engaging he made Fred Rogers look like a sourpuss.

Later, me and the whole class went back with him to the bar where this famous gent poured us all beers.

It was funny, I’d spent 12 weeks trying to teach them how to succeed as writers, but in two breezy hours he taught them all they’d ever need to know about how to succeed as people.

One of the perfunctory questions I often ask subjects is about the best years of their lives. Many respond with “college,” or “When the kids were young,” or some other slim sampling of our portion.

Ange forever endeared himself to me when I asked him that question and he thoughtfully said, “I think they were the years from between when I was 35 and 80. Those were just really great years.”

Talk about seeing the big picture.

So pardon me if I’m not all weepy about my beloved Pirates getting bumped from the playoffs.

On this day, I don’t feel like any sort of loser.

I'm one of life's real winners.

I was friends with Angelo Cammarata.

Related . . .

When taverns usurp church; a bartender retires

A beloved — and legendary — bartender turns 100

A great fan; a better man (Steelers honor Ange)

I’m seeking a 25-year-old friend

The future of Edward Snowden

Correcting the family vacation detox

(699 words)

I hear it’s common for fathers on their deathbeds to lament they didn’t spend more time with their children.

That’s not me. I foresee my deathbed regret being I didn’t spend more time watching TV.

I wonder if I’d have agreed to the deal if someone had warned me just how much parenting would cut into my TV viewing. There’s so many shows I want to watch, so much sports I want to witness, but I want to set a good example for our girls and that last bit is killing me.

I love our daughters and all the time I get to spend with them, but sometimes you just have to say enough’s enough.

Maybe it’s feeling acute because we just got back from vacation, which is in many ways like being confined to a minimum security cell block, albeit one where you spend lots of time slathering lotion on one another. And call me naive, but I just don’t see that much SPF 30 being distributed in the slam.

But like being in prison, it’s just the four of you for days and days in the car or the house or at the beach.  Eat, play, travel — everything is done as a unit.

A friend saw a picture I’d posted and speculated it must have been difficult to leave the Outer Banks.

Yes, it was wonderful, but I’ll admit I drove faster and more recklessly on the way home than I did on the way down. Of course, the way down included a visit with the in-laws so a certain amount of deliberate dawdling must be factored in.

But six days was plenty. 

Another problem is I can’t ease off the fathering pedal. I’m a very potent father.

Not in the way father-of-19 Jim Bob Duggan is potent, certainly, but I’m always looking for ways to shape the children in the hopes they’ll avoid becoming uncouth morons that make up such a large swath of our national demography.

And, for God’s sake, I have to do all this sober.

Val and I enjoyed some wine and beers on the trip, but I was very responsible. I’m very aware that my daughters are always watching me and I need to set a good example.

So when I got home Saturday I ran straight to the bar. I missed my friends, I missed swearing and I missed behaving in ways middle school health teachers say will lead to my early demise.

Many people go on vacation to change unhealthy behaviors. They need to detox.

When I get home from vacation I need to REtox.

That’s what’s scheduled for this week. I coincidentally will be visited by two very good friends the next two days who’ll assist me in the debauch. 

There’s still time for you to make it to The Pond for lunch today. My legendary friend Angelo Cammarata and his two sons are coming for the afternoon.

The Guinness Book of World Records cited him in 1987 for being the world’s longest serving bartender. He poured his first beer on April 7, 1933, at midnight, the exact moment killjoy Prohibition in America ended. He poured them clear through 2009 when he had to retire for health reasons.

Not his.

His 59-year-old son suffered a heart attack and could no longer run the bar.

When the Steelers sought to honor their most devout fans by having them submit 5-word reasons, Camm’s was “Season ticket holder since 1933.” 

I attended his 100th birthday in March. He’s one of the greatest men I’ve ever known.

I once asked him when he was 92 to pinpoint the best years of his life, figuring he’d give a very narrow answer. He didn’t.

“For me, the best years were from when I was 40 to about 75. Those were just really great years.”

What an inspiration.

And then tomorrow a buddy from Ohio University is stopping by for golf, Steeler camp and all the associated silliness.

During stops at home, my daughters will see me laughing, having fun, being social and enjoying life the way it ought to be.

What they won’t see me doing is sitting on my rear watching hours and hours of TV.

That’s something I hope to do again one day when the girls are done watching me.

Related . . .

When taverns usurp church

A beloved and legendary bartender retires

I’m seeking a 25-year-old friend

When men tell men they’re becoming fathers

A beloved -- and legendary -- bartender turns 100

(825 words)

I devote a lot of time anguishing over and writing about how difficult it is for me to earn money. Writing, as I often tell literary aspirants, is not a livelihood that leads many to wealth or solvency even.

But here’s the caveat: It enriches in so many other soulful ways. In those intangibles, I’m practically Thurston Howell the Fourth. 

I was reminded yesterday of one of the biggest intangibles. Well, maybe not the biggest, but certainly the oldest and one of the very best.

Yesterday, I was flattered to be invited to the 100th birthday party of the great Angelo Cammarata. He’s the Guinness Book of World Records longest serving bartender, having poured his first beer at midnight on April 7, 1933, the exact instant Prohibition in America ended.

He “retired” for health reasons in 2009. It wasn’t his health that was the concern. His then 59-year-old son, John, who with his Dad and brother Frank co-owned Cammarata’s Cafe in Pittsburgh’s West View neighborhood, had heart problems and decided it was time to sell the bar.

The end of Camm’s historic run was considered significant enough for CBS News to send human interest correspondent Steve Hartman to cover the party. It’s not often the retirement of a humble bartender makes the national news. 

Hartman’s a prince of guy, but he wasn’t invited Sunday.

I was.

I was one of about 100 people at the party, but only one of maybe two or three who wasn’t either a Cammarata or a Cammarata in-law.

“It’s only his children and grandchildren,” John told me. “We had to draw a lot of lines. If we’d have invited all the relatives or everyone who wanted to be here, we’d have had to rent out Heinz Field.”

In fact, that’s already sort of happened. 

Ang’s picture was on every single Steeler ticket for the home game on Sept. 16, 2012. That was the season the Steelers designated “Year of the Fan.” It honored what it considered 10 of the most distinctive Steeler fans chosen by applicants who had to submit a three-word reason why they were worthy.

Ang’s trio was “Tickets since 1933.”

That was the year Art Rooney Sr. formed the Steelers. Ang was one of the first season ticket holders in Steeler history. He’s the only surviving Steeler season ticket holder to have bought his season tickets off the Steeler founder.

It was a great party. I got to meet Ang’s sister!

His older sister.

She’s 103.

And the seating chart placed me at the head table right there with Ang. John told me the family consider me a pivotal figure in Ang’s legend. I’ve written about him for various local and national publications about a half dozen times. Many of the stories were displayed on a table at the ballroom entrance.

I’d seen a newspaper story about him getting into the Guinness Book of World Records and pitched the idea to National Enquirer back in about 1997 when doing wacky and fun features for them was all I did.

So that was part of the job for me. I drove out to West View and met Ang and did a story about him. It’s what I did and was paid $630 for the duty.

That I got to meet Ang, his family and friends and enjoy an afternoon at the bar was just what I guess you’d call a perk.

Every couple of years he’d become more and more legendary and every couple of years I’d pitch his story to another magazine and snag another assignment.

And back to Camm’s I’d go.

Again, I was just doing my job. That putting beer in my belly was part of putting bread on my table was just a happy bonus.

During one of those trips when we’d talk God, politics, football and everything in the universe, I asked him about the best years of his life. Many people will answer that general question with an epoch that had clear definition; high school or maybe college or back when the kids were kids.

Ang’s answer I think illuminates what joy this wonderful humanist gleaned from the generous portion he’s been given.

“For me, the best years were I think from when I was 35 to about 80. Those were just really great years.”

If I didn’t love him before that -- and I’m pretty sure I did --  I’ve loved him ever since. A lot.

My many contributions were given flattering mention by MC John Blackstock and many family members who’d read and shared my stories.

I could never make them understand that I was really just doing my job and I was being compensated for my time.

So to me, telling Ang’s story was just part of my job in which I had a mercenary self-interest.

Becoming friends with Ang and his family, now that was a perk.

But, oh, my, what a perk.

Related . . .

When taverns usurp church; a bartender retires

A great fan, a better man

I’m seeking a 25-year-old friend

I'm seeking a 25-year-old friend

(819 words)

I plan on spending the next few months or so seeing if I can find a friendly 25 year old eager to spend time with me. We’ll squander hours in the bar giggling and yapping about all sorts of things.

And, sorry ladies, but my new buddy has got to be a guy.

I abide by the matrimonial conventions that say it’s a bad idea for a guy like me to devote free time to a 25-year-old girl. More than than, my wife abides them. We both understand it’d be controversial for me to say, “Oh, hey, hon, Britney and I are going bowling tonight. Don’t wait up.”

So it’s got to be a dude.

There are two reasons I find myself on this quest: This year I turned 50 and Joe turned 75.

Fifty is a take-stock birthday. It inspires you to think about where you’ve been, where you’re going and all the fun friendlies who’ve been riding shot gun all along the way.

Joe turning 75 was something else.

He’s one of the seven bar Joes (remember we’re down a Joe since Baseball Joe sadly passed away in June). He’s at once the oldest Joe and the most childish one. He’s rarely serious, is great with cartoon sound effects and makes outrageously filthy comments about girls the local TV stations hire to convey news about things like traffic jams on the Parkway East.

So, of course, I love him. He’s just a great guy. We golf and drink together a good bit and he helped me put the new bathroom floor in a couple of months ago.

It gave me pause when he turned 75 a few months ago. I thought, “Wow. One of my best buddies is ancient.”

It struck me as unusual. Then I got to thinking about it and I realized in my life it’s been anything but. I’ve always been friends with colorful old men.

Sure, most of them have been cranky bartenders, but their perspectives have really enriched my life. They share their insights on history, culture and what it was like when women stopped wearing bras and started using the pill.

And the neat symmetry of me turning 50 and Joe turning 75 got me to thinking how beneficial it is to have friendships spread out over the quarter century marks.

Let’s start with babies, as good a place to start as there’s ever been. I adore holding babies.

I don’t have any babies in my life right now, but our daughters, ages 12 and 7, must still either give in to my demands for compulsory cuddling or else submit to up to 10 minutes of vicious tickling.

On the other extreme, I am good friends with at least one 100 year old. He may be 98 or so, but once you’re north of 90 it’s okay to round up.

He’s the famous Angelo Cammarata, the Guinness World Record holder for longest serving bartender. I encourage you to read the link about him from last year when the Pittsburgh Steelers honored this monumental man (that's him up top).

I remember once asking him what the best years of his long life were, and I’ll never forget his answer, which he gave after a long, thoughtful pause.

“To me, the years from between when I was 40 to 75 were just really great.”

Oh, I love that man.

And 50-year-old friends? Hell, I have a glut of them.

But 25 year old friendships have somehow become a vacancy. I could probably meet more 25 year olds, but then I’d have to go to places where I don’t like the music, the bartenders or most of the 25 year olds there whose evident tastelessness has rendered them beyond my help.

I guess I’m at an age where I’m feeling restless to share some of the lessons I’ve learned.

I see so many young people of that age consumed with ambition, uncertainties over romance and employment, and confusion over whether music will ever improve.

I want to tell them to relax, that everything’s going to work out all right. Well, everything but music which has been in steep decline since 1986.

Maybe what I’m really wishing I could do is send the 50-year-old me back in time to talk to the 25-year-old version.

I’d tell him that he’s going to spend a good bit of the next quarter century worrying about money, status and other things that don’t matter. And if he’d only understand how blissful his life will be if his only concerns are the well-being of his friends and the ones he loves.

And if 25 years from now, Val and I are grandparents to newborns and I can still sit in that bar and hear my 100-year-old buddy Joe tell filthy jokes about the pretty traffic girls I’ll know I was right.

Related . . .

Ang Cammarata: A great fan, a better man

The Pond loses a really good Joe

Grammy Thoughts: Recall all music since 1986

A galling story on useless body parts

Re-run Sunday! A great fan, a better man

That’s my very good buddy, Angelo Cammarata, above and on the front of this week’s Steeler ticket. The team has declared this “The Year of The Fan” and is honoring noteworthy fans on tickets each week.

Calling this gentleman a great Steeler fan diminishes his remarkable life.

To me, he’s one of the kindest and warmest men I’ve ever met.

You can read what the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote about him in this link, and what I wrote about him in 2009 right here.

(647 words)

I don’t know what this says about me as a person, but I have more soulful revelations in taverns than I ever do in church. Happened again Saturday.

That was last call for Angelo Cammarata, the man who is arguably the world’s most historic bartender.

Guinness declared Cammarata, 95, the world’s longest serving bartender way back in 1987.

Ange poured his first beer when he was 19. It was the stroke of midnight on April 7, 1933, the exact instant that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt told a thirsty America that -- hallelujah -- killjoy Prohibition was over.

He’s been pouring them ever since. There may be older bartenders, but none who’ve tended longer. He’s known no other job.

The streak came to an end Saturday. Cammarata’s in the West View neighborhood near Pittsburgh, is closing for health reasons.

Not his.

His 59-year-old son John suffered a heart attack last year and can no longer keep up with the demands. The family sold the bar.

I wrote about Ange in 1999 for National Enquirer. This man born in 1915 (he remembers seeing disabled Civil War veterans in military parades) holds a sort of world record for me, too, as my most evergreen subject. Every year he kept persevering, I’d pitch his story to someone else, eventually landing profiles in Playboy, Men’s Health and a handful of other publications.

Ange was the final exam in 2006 when I taught a non-fiction writing class at Point Park University. I wanted to see if the students had learned to detect a magnificent story where none appeared to exist.

Tell a group of 20-somethings that they’re final grade will be based on a two-hour full-class question-and-answer session with a 92-year-old man and three-quarters of them will look like they want to heave their holstered cell phones at your head.

Not when a final grade’s on the line.

I sat and listened to 15-minutes of perfunctory questions about where he lived and what he did, before one exasperated student blurted out impatiently, “Just what makes you so special?”

That’s when the place began to fill with magic.

He told us about what it’s like to be married to the same woman, Mary, for 70 years, that beer once cost a nickel, and that Negro League legend and Cammarata customer Josh Gibson was a pretty cool dude.

He told us about the simple joy of making a new friend, that he considers himself living proof that second-hand smoke dangers are overrated, and that he believes he’s the luckiest man in the world.

Afterwards, we all went to his bar and he poured us beers. If nothing else, at least some of those students will look up from text messaging and wonder about the life experiences of that unassuming stranger at the bus stop.

CBS news reporter, Steve Hartman was there Saturday to do a story. He does the Evening News slice of life pieces and that wonderful “Everybody Has A Story” segment. I told him my favorite Camm quote came after I asked him to pinpoint the best years of his life. Camm’s response: “For me, it was the years from when I was 40 to about 75. Those were really great years.”

I’m truly blessed to have him call me a friend.

He went out of his way to introduce me to his family and all the friendly customers who consider him part of theirs.

He made me feel like a big shot.

That this gentleman always duplicated that sort of lavish treatment with each and every customer does nothing to diminish the honor.

I didn’t go to church the next day. Not that I was hungover. Far from it.

I didn’t go because I believe those two hours in that bar bestowed me with a lifetime’s worth of proper religious education.

When taverns usurp church: a bartender retires

I don’t know what this says about me as a person, but I have more soulful revelations in taverns than I ever do in church. Happened again Saturday.

That was last call for Angelo Cammarata, the man who is arguably the world’s most historic bartender.

Says who?

Says me and the Guinness Book of World Records.

Guinness declared the 95-year-old Cammarata the world’s longest serving bartender way back in 1987.

Ang poured his first beer at his father’s grocery store when he was 19. It was the stroke of midnight on April 7, 1933, the exact instant that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt told a thirsty America that -- hallelujah -- killjoy Prohibition was over and so were the days of Cammaratas selling groceries. His father saw the future and it was sudsy.

Ang's been pouring them ever since. There may be older bartenders, but none who’ve tended longer. He’s known no other job.

The streak came to an end Saturday. Cammarata’s in the West View neighborhood near Pittsburgh, is closing for health reasons.

Not his.

His 59-year-old son John suffered a heart attack last year and can no longer keep up with the demands. The family sold the bar.

I wrote about Ang in 1999 for National Enquirer. This man born in 1915 (he remembers seeing disabled Civil War veterans in military parades) holds a sort of world record for me, too, as my most evergreen story. Every year he kept persevering, I’d pitch him to someone else, eventually landing his story in Playboy, Men’s Health and a handful of other publications.

Ang was the final exam in 2006 when I taught a non-fiction writing class at Point Park University.

I wanted to see if the students had learned to detect a magnificent story where none appeared to exist.

Tell a group of 20-somethings that they’re final grade will be based on a two-hour full-class question-and-answer session with a 92-year-old man and three-quarters of them will look like they want to heave their holstered cell phones at your head. Most of us will make little more than polite conversation with someone that aged.

Not when a final grade’s on the line.

I sat and listened to 15-minutes of perfunctory questions about where he lived (“West View, north of Pittsburgh”) and what he did for a living (“I’m a bartender”), before one exasperated student blurted out impatiently, “Just what makes you so special?”

That’s when the place began to fill with magic.

He told us about what it’s like to be married to the same woman, Mary, for 70 years (and that sounds like a record, too), that beer once cost a nickel, that he’s sympathetic to today’s kids, and that Negro League legend and Cammarata customer Josh Gibson was a pretty cool dude.

He told us about the simple joy of making a new friend, that he considers himself living proof that second-hand smoke dangers are overrated and that he believes he’s the luckiest man in the world.

Afterwards, we all went to his bar and he poured us beers. If nothing else, at least some of those students will look up from text messaging and wonder about the life experiences of that unassuming stranger at the bus stop.

CBS news reporter, Steve Hartman was there. He’s does the Evening News slice of life pieces and that wonderful “Everybody Has A Story” segment. I’ve always admired his work and was thrilled to see he’d nosed his way to one of my favorite subjects.

I told him my favorite Camm quote came after I asked him to pinpoint the best years of his life. Camm’s response: “For me, it was the years from when I was 40 to about 75. Those were just really great years.”

I’m truly blessed to have him call me a friend.

He went out of his way to introduce me to his family and all the friendly customers who consider him part of theirs.

He made me feel like a big shot.

That this gentleman always duplicated that sort of lavish treatment with each and every customer does nothing to diminish the honor.

I didn’t go to church the next day. Not that I was hungover. Far from it.

I didn’t go because I believe those two hours in that bar equalled a lifetime’s worth of proper religious education.