Thursday, July 13, 2023
I never really thought of it, but looking back over the last six decades, other than my wife, John was my best friend.
1966 & 1967 we spent almost every Saturday night watching Rangers hockey on channel 9 while drinking Budweiser beer & chain smoking cigarettes in the basement of my house on Longview Road.
From 1969 until the early ‘70s we smoked a lot of pot, drank a lot of Buds, and listened to music, music, and more music.
Bowling
We were teammates on the 1968 Schreiber High Varsity Bowling team, as well as men’s bowling leagues on and off for the following 50 years. Unlike most of us, he never lost his temper or complained about bad luck with the sport, and bowled a perfect 300 game at the age of 60.
From 1976-1979 he helped us out at our North Shore Auctions warehouse on a weekly basis for no pay.
Moving: Soundview Gardens 1973, Vanderbilt Ave. Manhasset, 1974, 12 Maple Street Port Washington 1976, Woodlawn Rd., Port Washington, 1979, Sea Cliff in 1981. He helped us every time.
In 1997, I bit off off more than I could chew when we moved 3 generations from Long Island and purchased a family compound in Dutchess County consisting of 3 houses and a barn, all constructed before 1900. There wasn’t one structure that didn’t require serious updating of every kind.
Strocky made a three hour round trip from Long Island almost every weekend for more than two years to help with the carpentry. Friday night at the compound consisted of beer drinking and listening to old time tunes on the jukebox. Saturdays and Sundays consisted of carpentry in the morning, golf in the afternoon, beer, burgers and jukebox at night. Then he went back to Port Washington Monday mornings to do the carpentry that he actually got paid for.
He did the same for our friend Bill Chaffers house on Fire Island.
When he reached the ripe old age of 70, his health started to desert him. He had three toes removed because of diabetes, followed by open heart surgery, and Parkisons Disease. We spoke on the phone
on a fairly regular basis, and never complained about his illnesses.
Shortly after his toes were removed, he moved in with his mother to take care her because she was suffering from prolonged Alzheimers Disease.
Strocky was just about the kindest, most descent and generous person with his time that I ever knew.
There was no way that I could ever repay him for what he did for me and my family.
Jeff Stogner
