Honoring his father, an American hero
Gary Caruso
Capitol Comments
As the millennium whirled by, my father began his 11th year as mayor of my hometown: Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. In the spring of 1999 he had completed the enormous two-year task of organizing an initiative that constructed a plaza and erected a statue of hometown international singing personality Perry Como. My father was looking forward to his own re-election campaign next year for a fourth term, a la FDR, and he had organized a committee to plan our city's 200th birthday celebration in 2002. For him, life was busy and rewarding until he suddenly passed away following spleen surgery early Friday morning of Memorial Day weekend.
It was befitting that my father, a World War II veteran, should pass away on one of his favorite weekends. He had carefully prepared his speech for the council president to deliver while he recuperated in the hospital. He belonged to the "greatest generation," one of those ordinary Americans who during his youth was called to save democracy for our world. He was one of those World War II veterans who are currently dying at a rate of 33,000 per month. May 2000 was my father's month.
I have often thought about how for years the date of our deaths quietly slips by unnoticed until it forever marks our passing. Previously, the only May date of any significance to me was May 20th, marking my Notre Dame graduation. May had no meaning to me. Now May 26th is a date I will always despise.
For me, life has changed. Nothing has the importance or priority it once had, and I am no longer afraid to die. My father passed away peacefully in his hospital bed the day after his operation while I prepared to leave Washington to see him. The previous evening when I called him, he had lifted the phone and immediately hung up without speaking to me because he was in no condition to talk. He was the first of our immediate family born into this world and the first to depart. He was our family trailblazer.
I should have seen it coming. The previous Christmas was the best he ever enjoyed with a house full of relatives — an old Italian myth says that your best Christmas is usually your last. Almost as a final goodbye, he spent Easter 2000 at my sister's in Indianapolis, a holiday he always spent at home. After serving as a lector on Palm Sunday, the priest gave me a huge palm with dozens of stems from our ceremony — something that made me feel uncomfortable. The day before the operation, my father sounded too cheery on the phone. Just prior to his operation, his very close friend, a Protestant minister, prayed with my brother and mother in the hospital at 5 a.m. — while my father had tears in his eyes.
I also know that his spirit is with us. The Saturday of the funeral weekend, my dog awoke early with a long howl. My father had always let him out several times before I arose from bed. The week after the funeral, my mother had to investigate our garage door going up by itself after a decade of never opening. Recently, when my mother and I found an envelope of several hundred dollars in my father's papers, I asked her if he had forgotten about it or just squirreled it away. Before she answered, the window shade abruptly flew up. We had a hearty laugh that he had spoken to us.
My father had been an educator. Just two weeks before his death, I was fortunate to accompany him to the unearthing of a time capsule at one of his former schools ... a capsule he helped bury 25 years ago. That Mother's Day weekend was my farewell weekend with him. We had planted flowers along the wall, which he had admired the last two weeks of his life and he paid for the flowers with his new debit ATM card. It was the first time he used it since I had pestered him just weeks before. Last fall, he made his farewell when he joined me at the White House where he recalled marching as a Boy Scout down Pennsylvania Avenue for President Roosevelt.
My father was raised in an ethnically diversified immigrant ghetto where tolerance and friendship were a way of life. He learned devotion to his country, his faith, his family and his community. His Italian immigrant parents taught him two things: that your honor lies in the good reputation of your family name and that education is the key to success.
Education was not the only key to his success. Love for and loyalty to his neighbors were driving factors in a fierce friendship he extended to others. He spearheaded the Como statue project and visualized expanding recognition for another famous singer, Bobby Vinton, as well as other hometown personalities. In fact, in 1991, when Broadway actor Paul Binotto performed at Ford's Theater, my father arranged to go up on the very stage where John Wilkes Booth leapt from President Lincoln's box, to present a Canonsburg proclamation to one of her native sons.
My father would have celebrated his 60th high school reunion this year. He was loyal to his fellow classmates — like while on our tour in Rome, Italy, when he and I posed as doctors to enter a hospital to see a classmate who had broken her hip while visiting the Vatican. His friendship also extended to strangers like a man who fainted in an Italian cathedral during that same European visit. My father rushed over to help the man when I, along with others, simply stood by and watched.
He was able to re-trace his steps in Italy where he fought and visit his fallen comrades who were buried there. I recall him telling of the time during Word War II when he brought an old man, who was banished by his children, to a cold barn, back into the house where he set up the old man's bed next to a fireplace. Then my father established his Army observation post in that very room so that he could guarantee the old man's comfort.
One thing that always intrigued me was the circular scars located on the outside of my father's shins. He told me that that is where his army boots rubbed during the war. He was at peace with his war experience and never thought much of those scars or complained.
It is relatively easy for me to be at peace with my father's passing. The timing, weather, participation and wonderful tributes to him were as though the weekend had been ordained from above. Newspapers featured his picture in spreads that took a third of the front page. Our congressman, state, county and local officials visited the funeral home. Flowers were sent from Bobby Vinton, the White House and many others. I now know how Jackie Kennedy must have felt participating as well as planning each detail of the funeral proceedings ranging from the publication of the mass program to writing the eulogy to the complex details of the arrangement of the funeral procession.
My father's procession closed our flag-lined main street while it extended for several blocks. It included 23 military veterans in uniform, 45 honorary current and former elected officials that included the lieutenant governor of the state, 12 police officers in three police cars, eight firemen and a fire truck, an ambulance and street maintenance truck among dozens of automobiles. As a final tribute, the hearse paused for a moment in front of the plaza he helped create at the municipal building.
My father lived a rich and full life thanks to those who knew him. It's not difficult to know why so many said such kind comments. My father always made time for everyone: children and adults, men and women of every race or creed, those with important positions and titles; those who are passed by on the street as though never seen; those with doctorate degrees and those with handicaps. If someone crossed his path, he had time to talk.
I cannot recall how many times our family heard someone say, "Dan Caruso was like a father to me." I cannot count the number of times that I personally heard people say that Dan Caruso was so energetic, did so much, had so much more to do — that he was a one-of-a-kind person who can never be replaced. Another person said that my father was liked by so many because "he never threw a stone in anyone's path."
To me, there seems to be a thin line between politics, which tends to polarize people and public service, which separates politics from friendship. My father always tried to separate politics from parts of his life where he felt it did not belong. In fact, he felt so strongly about his Catholic faith that my father retired as a Eucharistic minister because he believed that his political standing might force a parishioner to feel uncomfortable when receiving communion from my father.
I've always thought that Senator Ted Kennedy's remarks about his brother Robert described my father. Kennedy said, "He was a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it. Saw poverty and tried to cure it. Saw war and tried to stop it."
My sister saved "Success" by Ralph Waldo Emerson and had planned to make a plaque for my father once he retired as mayor. It reads:
"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
I have asked others to join me in celebrating my father's life by passing his friendship onto others, by being as helpful, by showing loyalty and respect to others. Those are his greatest successes ... those are the reasons why we in his family loved him.
To those who called him husband, father, brother, Pap-Pap, Mayor, boss, teammate, coach, colleague or Danny ...
... He called them "friend."
Gary J. Caruso, Notre Dame '73, is serving in President Clinton's administration as a congressional and public affairs director and is currently assisting Vice President Gore's White House Empowerment Commission. His column appears every other Friday, and his e-mail address is Hottline@aol.com.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Monday, September 11, 2000
