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.