I just spent most of an hour on the
phone with Frank Franze, Class of 1950, who lives in Slidell, Louisiana after
spending a lot of his life in Texas and in the Air Force as a mechanic.
It felt like we were in Frank’s Dad’s
old, old car again, tooling around Marion County, the car that had pedals on
the floor that Frank had to use to change gears. Three pedals, for the gas, the
brake and the gear-shifting.
Frank’s voice sounded great. His
attitude is even greater.
Through National Geographic he had a
DNA test. Turns out, Frank said, that he’s the same bloodline as Marie
Antoinette and Jesse James. Sure hope Frank doesn’t get beheaded or shot at
high noon!
Frank refused to put his latest love,
Nanette Couturie, who had a stroke, in a nursing home, and cared for her himself.
Did a damn good job, too. Frank the Nightingale nursed her love so well that
they are back to going out to dinner and enjoying life together.
Frank, who was in the Air Force for 20
years plus 40 days, and I agreed that Thailand and its people are marvelous.
“You could set your camera down and walk away and it would be there when you
got back,” Frank said.
I told Frank how, when Paula and I
visited Thailand, that a fellow passenger on our tour bus lost her wallet with
$550 in it. The Thai help found the wallet with the $550 still in it!
When Frank’s second wife died, he
said, his doctor had a prescription for him. Find another woman and you’ll live
longer. Statistics prove it. A man living with a woman lives longer than a man
living alone.
So, Frank said, “I decided to look
around and find me one.”
By the way, Frank said, his DNA test
showed that “I have more Italian in me than people living in Rome!”
Frank’s bloodline started in Africa,
moved briefly to the Middle East, then made its way to Italy. Invading armies,
which iraped the women, are responsible for a lot of the mixed blood in all of
us.
In my case, my DNA showed me 10%
Neanderthal (Paula says it’s more than that), with a lot of Italian (my mother
was born in Pellizzano in northern Italy, where her father and his ancestors
lived and died for 500 years without leaving the town), Polish (my grandfather
Martin Olesky … Marcin when he was born in Molgilno, Poland), Austrian, French,
German, Ukraine (Jews, mostly, who changed to Catholic when they moved to
Poland, probably to keep from being killed as Jews) and a dollop of English.
Frank has survived a heart attack.
Long enough ago that, Frank said, “My doctor says when they scanned my heart
recently that I looked like I never had a heart attack.”
Frank has trouble with both knees but
has put off having knee replacement surgery. “The knees only hurt in bad
weather,” Frank said. I had my right knee replaced. It was hell for 2 months
after the surgery but since then life has been a lot better without all the
severe pain I had before I got my store-bought knee.
Frank, who grew up in Four States, lives in Slidell,
Louisiana. Previously, he resided in Jasper, Texas until after his second wife,
Linda Corkern Franze, passed away in 2013. Frank spent 15 years inspecting space shuttles for
Lockheed Martin in Louisiana.
Frank has been to 42 states and all the countries that
the Air Force took him to, but he doesn’t travel much any more.
Frank and his first wife, Earline Brownell Franze, from Lake Charles,
Louisiana, passed away in 1981 after 27 years of marriage. They had three daughters – Barbara Franze Bell,
married to Steve Bell, whose children are Amanda, Stevie and Erin; and Amanda
Franze Calhoun, married to Pate Calhoun, whose children are Marley and Cooper;
and Carol Franze Presbindowski and Brent Presbindowski, whose children are
Jacob and Rebecca and who met after Hurricane Katrina destroyed both their
homes when they found shelter and each other.
Kathryn
Ann Manuel Marshall, Class of 1960, who lives in Columbia, Maryland, is Frank’s
cousin. Her aunts are the late Ann Manuel Richardson of Colorado and Virginia
Manuel Eddy, both Class of 1950. Frank, his wife Linda, Kathryn, my sister
Jackie Olesky Straight, Class of 1950, who lives in Rivesville, and I got
together for a meal in Morgantown in 2012 before a WVU Mountaineers football
game.
Frank and Donald “Jake” Halpenny were the chaffuers for
the whimsically named Gang That Terrorized Marion County (because we weren’t
mean enough to do that). Frank would drive one of his dad’s vehicles from their
Everson home and pick up Gang members along the way. My house on Church Street
in Monongah was the last stop. I could barely get into the back of the pickup
there were so many in it.
People like Bucky Satterfield, a retired West Virginia
Highway Patrol Officer living in St. Albans; and the late Joe Manzo and Sonny
Godby.
While cavorting with The Gang That Terrorized Marion
County, Frank was known as Bruno. I was Junebug. Lawrence Godby was Sonny.
Steven Satterfield was Bucky. Anthony Eates was Tony. Donald Halpenny was Jake.
Bob Kasper was Satch, because he wore a cap like Huntz Hall, who played Satch
in “The Bowery Boys” movies. Anthony DeMary, Jr. was Plumber. Ronnie Delovich
was Cooley. Donald Harbert was Duane, his middle name. James Starcher was
Judge. Joe Manzo went by Joe, which made name an outlier without a nickname.
Don would cajole
his father into letting him use the Henry J, which made a lot of noise the
night it sideswiped a bridge on our way to Clarksburg so that Duane Harbert of
Worthington could make it to the train in time to join the Navy after a night
of drinking and partying. No injuries. The Henry J. got the worst of it. It was
Kaiser’s experiment with small cars.
Jake, clarinetist in the United Mine
Workers and Vingle bands, is a widower living in Fairmont.
And then there
was the night that Duane (I didn’t know his first name was Donald for another
60 years) drove the car owned by his father, Thoburn Elementary principal Frank
Harbert. Police tracked dad down from the license plate after we were caught
swimming at 3 a.m. in the Fairmont Field Club pool. Rich folks in Fairmont didn’t
like the coal miners’ sons playing without authorization in their pool.
We would sneak into drive-ins (except for
two who had to be in the vehicle) to save the money for a gallon job of draft
beer we got at Drummond’s restaurant just before U.S. 19 meets Country Club
Road, “borrow” watermelons to eat while skinny-dipping in the river and got
thrown out of a Clarksburg theater, but I put that one on Ronnie “Cooley”
Delovich, with his “Be nice; don’t fight” remark to the theater manager who
came to our row to ask us to shush.
Bob Kasper and I have been friends since we
began first grade at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic School in Monongah. We
attended school together at P&P, Monongah High and one year at Fairmont
State before I transferred to WVU. Satch and Sonny Godby tried to enter the
Marines together, but Bob’s dental plates kept him out. Bob settled for the
Army and a stint in Germany. Sonny flew many missions in Vietnam as a Marine
combat pilot and had a long life with Carol Yost Godby before he passed away.
Later, Carol, a Farmington High graduate, joined Sonny in the Hereafter.
Ah, those were the days, my friend. I thought they’d
never end. But they did, except in my memories.
