Chapter 1

Just A Regular Kid From Ohio

Padua

Franciscan

High School in

Parma, Ohio has tuition fees to rival

any

university,

struggled

yet

and

my

parents

somehow

scraped

enough together to send me there, a

private Catholic school for boys. The
absence

of girls really didn't

phase

me too much because I was engrossed

Sociology, and Political Science.
survived Algebra, and tolerated
interesting course

I took

Religion" which exposed

in my studies, especially History,

I had a terrible aversion to Chemistry,

my Latin classes. But by far, the most

in my four years at

Padua was "Comparative

me for the first time in my life to the fact that

not everyone in the world was Catholic and caucasian!

in a bleached

white

suburb

of Parma

Indeed, growing up

on the outskirts

of Cleveland,

I can't even recall meeting anyone from another race or creed until high
school and I remember the look of horror on my father's
brought

home

that moment

a new

friend

I made

prejudices,

where

impeccably

honest and pillars of integrity.

including policemen

my

tolerant

another

Charles

I attended

yet

world
and

Until

free

politicians

of
were

Sadly, I got my first dose of

reality from my own father. Thankfully,

and objective.

when I

who happened to be black.

I had been living in a white idealistic

everyone

face

mother

was

Catholic

bit more

school

(St.

Borremeo Elementary School) where by age seven Catholoc

dogma had been drilled into me by the nuns to the point where
recite a good portion of the Bible by memory.
like most everyone

in this world,

I could

Like most Americans and

I did not get to choose

my religion,

I
1

inherited it automatically

from my family when

I was

born into

this

world. Today I am almost a Christian, in ideals anyway - by my own choice,

but I will never subject my children to the same private Catholic schooling I
experienced.

They will have a choice about their own creed.

Padua High School had a good reputation for turning out successful people and
still does. Our alumni include many judges, politicians, and entrepreneurs who did
well in life. As kids I remember the Tower Challenge. A group of us decided
that only people who took risks in life succeeded, much like the famous Robin
Williams movie Dead Poets Society. To show that we were pledged to succeed
we all demonstrated that we were willing to take risks by c limbing the 1,000 meter
TV tower behind our high school and attaching our class of 72 flag at the pinnacle.
Perhaps three of four groups of seniors did it before we got caught, some
students were suspended and the TV Station built a 10 foot fence around the
tower. But I can still remember the spectacular view and only regret that I did not
take a camera with me.

Actually, I went to two high schools at the same time actually. I also attended
Normandy High School, which was the top vocational school in Ohio at the time. I
attended drafting classes there every morning so that one day I could become an
architect.

I always admired skyscrapers and long fancy bridges as a kid but

always thought they could look more modern, futuristic, and appealing.

By

learning drafting, I had planned for my future profession in architectural design.

Mr. Mike Yackin was our teacher and he taught me well. I have designed my own
home which I have never had the money to build, and I have also designed an
underwater resort and marine sanctuary that I would like to build in China before I
die. But attending Normandy made me miss my lunch hour as I had to walk to
Padua, about two miles away in time for afternoon classes at 1:00.
2

Normandy High School is where I spent my mornings for two years of high school

Attending school gave me my first exposure to girls where I would meet my first
sweetheart Karen Butler at Normandy Fiday night football game, except she was
from Parma Senior High, our opponent. Having two high schools gave me a
great social life with always some high school activity to attend. Padua was
famous for our double-decker dance night where we had two bands playing at
the same time one in the main floor auditorium and one in the basement
cafeteria. If you were a high schooler in Parma in the late 60s and 70s, Padua
dances is where you went to meet your first love. Mine was a great gal. She was
beautiful, humorous, and perhaps a bit impulsive. Most of all she was fun and
sexy and although we gave each other our virginity and vowed to marry she died
in a horrible car accident only three years after we first met. I did not even date
another girl for three years after she passed. I still miss her loyal friendship today.

Our family wasnt poor, but both my mom and dad had to work to keep the
bills paid and raise me.

In fact, my father often worked two jobs as an

institutional food salesman, and as a sports umpire and referee, and then
later as an entrepreneur and investor, although he got a late start in that regard.
My mom spent over twenty years waiting tables and being a Hostess at one
3

of Clevelands most historic restaurants Called Petes Wayside Inn. It was not a
fancy place but one where local politicians and lawyers met to work out zoning

issues and problems. The food was good, servings ample and my mom was quite
popular there where she was simply known as Marty.
spoiled

me quite well,

brothers and sisters.

but I would

have preferred

As an only child, they

less toys and more

I would need the trusted allies found only within a

family in years to come.

I grew up in a house my dad built for my mom that looks like the one below which
is actually our neighbors home on Gilbert Avenue. Our family home was stolen
by a cooked lawyer in 2006 (explained in another chapter) Most people from
4

Parma die in Parma, and on our street today perhaps half of the residents half
lived there all their lives. I was one of the few who flew from the nest before age
twenty.

As

a child

by the

I remember

nuns

being

told

at school that policemen

were our friends, people to go to if

we had a problem. They could always
be trusted

to protect

us.

reassured o f this every

cruiser

would

drive

the pronouncement
SERVE".

time

I was
a

police

by and

I read

painted on the side of the car "TO

It was disrespectful

PROTECT

AND

for me to call a policeman anything other

than "officer" or "sir" and like most young boys, I looked up to these guys
and hoped they always caught the "bad guys". Every Sunday night I
would watch Ephram Zimbelist Jr. portray the noble FBI agent on TV, and
I simply assumed

all FBI agents were cut from the

same

cloth.

inconceivable t o me that they could ever be the "bad guys".

It was
My own

son will not be so blindly misled by this father. Life's realities are not
always

experiences

Norman

Rockwell

in life could

painting, and

I think many of my horrible

have been avoided

had I not been raised in a

religious environment where only ideals were taught and not the realities of
life. I never even heard the word
sixteen

years

of

my

"corruption"

for

life. Perhaps our children

the
should

first

fifteen

or

read as many

newspapers as fairy tales, so as not to be as shocked by reality as I was.

My dad was an avid baseball player and fanatic.

He played professional baseball in his youth and
was in development with the New York Giants
and was gaining personal fame for his speed and
base stealing abilities. But he and his dad bought
a butcher shop in New York (a few years before I
was even born) and just met my mom before the
Giants announced they would be moving to San
Francisco. My dad chose to remain with his b utcher shop investment and my
mom lucky for me!

Ironically, the New York Giants won the World

Championship the year I was born and years later I would find the team photo
sent to my dad from Willy Mays that said To Ray, Wish you were here Willy I
always found that photo to be a contradiction as I had always thought my dad to
have a tint of racism in his blood. Perhaps baseball made him more color blind.
But growing up, I was well trained in the fine art of baseball and played on the
best team in Parma. I was No. 8 and the center fielder for the Blackhawks. I
wore my gold and black jersey with great pride. We had an awesome team that
went undefeated two years in a row and I think my dad secretly wanted me to
finish the professional baseball career that he had started.

When my dad passed away in 1974, I did not recognize nor even know the name
Dusty Roads, but he visited the funeral home and talked with me for about ten
minutes like an uncle mostly about baseball. He said my dad could have bee n a
baseball great, but as he said Love got in the way. He told me my father was
the quickest base stealer he ever knew and that he was given the nick name in
the minor league of running deer. After he left I was told by my mom that Dusty
was once one of my dads mentors when he was playing ball and how proud my
dad was to introduce her to him at the Polo Grounds after some try-outs. But
since they were both competing for the same guy, Im not sure how they took to
6

one another back in the 50s, I regret that I do not have my family album here in
China, but my mother was stunning with movie star looks and curves. Had she
been taller, she could have been a model. My dad scored a home run with her, as
she would sometimes have to remind him. Bob Lemon, Herb Score, and Bob
Feller of the Cleveland Indians also came to the funeral home.

When I was a kid, my dad twice arranged for me to be a bat boy for the Cleveland
Indian just for two games in 1960 and again in 1963, just so I could feel the big
leagues. It was exciting for sure as I got to meet Rocky Colavito, Vic Davilio,
Gary Bell, Norm Cash, Herb Score, Sam McDowell, and Mudcat. At age six I
caught the baseball bug. My mom always said that she was a mistress because
my dads true love was baseball. As my dad told me two months after he invested
in the Swift Premium Meats butcher shop, he was called up from the farm team.
He said he actually cried for an hour. I think my mom convinced him that a family
was more important than the $9,000 contract he was offered because he didnt
change his mind.

My dad was one of the founders of PAAF

(Parma Amateur Athletic Federation) which
put Parma on the National map as The
Softball Capital Of America and brought the
National Softball Championships to Parma
along with his best friend Lenny Jindra.
Coaching my own sons baseball team in Canada really brought back fond
memories of how my dad spent an hour every day after work teaching me the
intricacies of a proper swing of the bat, stealing a base, sliding home, and
catching and throwing on the run. I have to admit, he was that good. In 1993 he
was ironically inducted into the American Softball Hall of Fame, not for his playing
skills, but for being one of the best umpires in America. The photo of Ray
7

Gorcyca on the internet is not of the best quality, but at least he left his mark for
my grandchildren to see one day. I was truly impressed most about my dad at his
funeral when I counted 89 cars in the funeral procession. I had no clue he had so
many friends. I just wish I had been one of them before he passed.

My dad and his friends brought National Softball Championships to Parma.

Sitting

in my comparative

religion

class

was

both

fascinating

and

enlightening for me, especially after I saw how it correlated with my history
classes.
could

So many historical events, entire world

be traced

to religious

disputes

of various

economies, and wars

severity. The "Glorious

Crusades" horrified me however, and I could never justify no r reco ncile

how any God could sanction such a slaughter and my curiosity got the best
of me.

I started reading other books by authors of many religious

and found much different

perspectives

of the very same event.

belief
Thus I

learned my very first lesson in what I now call "Perspective Analysis" and
it changed the way I thought for the rest of my life.

I could never again

look at any issue without taking at least three or four different points of
view into consideration.

For years I was adamantly against abortion and

would condemn anyone who even attempted to argue in favor of it. But as
8

I matured. I found myself putting myself in the hypothetical situation of a

mother who was
and

raped,

recently

widowed, or imperiled

by the

birth,

I suddenly became more tolerant and realized the world is never really

just black or white.

No country is pure

"wrong" - even my own. Likewise,

of September
perspective.

11,. 2001

and

good or evil,

nor "right" or

I can now look at the horrible events

understand

more

than

the American

I graduated in 1972 from Padua, not knowing where my life

would lead me but with a feeling of confidence that I was prepared for
anything the world had to offer. In retrospect, I was the epitome of naivete.

But none of these issues really affected my own life, and of course it was
easy for me to offer gratuitous
But that all changed
in Vietnam.

commentary

on other people's problems.

when my friends started getting drafted to go fight

Kent State was only a hour drive from Parma and the true story

and full impact of Vietnam War had yet to surface.

Like most Americans I

wanted a decisive victory and just assumed that the war our nation was
waging was for a good and justifiable cause or we wouldn't
the first place. I even found myself supporting

be there in

the war in a "letter to the

Editor" of the Cleveland Press.

But one fine morning, a buddy of mine called to tell me he just received his
draft notice and wanted to know if I wanted to buy his GTO.

I was suddenly

and rudely awakened to the fact that in less than six months I'd turn 18 and
might just find myself sitting in some rice patty or jungle fighting this war.
Would I really be capable of
democracy?

killing

total

strangers

in the

name

of

I grew consumed with the thought and found it difficult to

think of anything else.

serve my country.

After all, I was an American and born with a duty to

Surely I thought myself to be true blue and patriotic but I

still could not relish the thought of killing people.

Strangely enough,

I
9

never thought that I myself could actually be killed in such a war, after
all high school graduates

are invincible

you know!

I fe lt compelled to

serve m y country even though I never received a draft notice.

I broached the subject with my father, and for the first time in my life, realized
that he too had faced the same decisions

in his youth during the Korean

War and he enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard, an entity I didn't even knew
existed.

I suddenly

search and rescue

became
missions

intrigued
were

with the Coast

Guard

whose

to save people instead of killing them.

This unique concept appealed to me and as luck would have it, a neighbor
down the street just happened to be a Coast Guard recruiter.
spent a full day enticing
captivated

me with the promise

Allan B o r i s

of adventure

and

I was

by the idea of plying the deep blue seas and plucking victims

from the mouth of death. I could serve my country without killing anyone. Perfect. I
had solved my first ethical dilemma in life although my mom did not like my decision
at all.

My friends thought
paying

I was nuts, especially since at age 17, I had a high-

management

trainee

job

with

Republic

Steel

in Cleveland,

on the day shift no less, which they all envied and would kill for.

I was an

assistant production scheduler in the 72" roll mill and it was my job to
ensure

"production

introduced

efficiency"

to Republic

job

I was promoted

to after being

Steel as a mere mail clerk for six months.

But

spending the rest of my life in the dark hot caverns of a smelly steel mill
really didn't do much for my ego and desire for adventure.

I wanted my

life to be meaningful somehow, and the U.S. Coast Guard seemed to make
the most sense to me at the time.

10

Joining the Coast Guard would also serve another selfish purpose for me by
getting me away from my father with whom
at odds with because

I was always finding myself

he could never acknowledge

my right as a human

being to disagree with him - about anything. He was a good man and a
father who loved me in his own ways but the generation gap took it's toll
on the both of us.

Now that he's gone

I miss him badly and regret we

never had the chance to reconcile our differences

trivial.

How

important

they

which

now

all seemed years ago though.

seem

so

It's amazing

what time will do to one's "perspective analysis".

Against the tearful pleas of my mother, I joined

the U.S. Coast Guard in

September of 1974. I guess being an only child my mother feared the worst,
since even some Coast Guard units were seeing action in Vietnam doing
river patrols and rescues at sea.

I took my oath of service and the bus

ticket they gave me to transport my butt to basic training in Cape May, New
Jersey.
shape

Being a high school wrestler and football

at the

time

so boot camp seemed

found myself actually having fun and

around

the world,

making

player,

I was in great

like a breeze to me and I

some

unique friends

from

Brian Barbaris from North Jersey, Luis Guzman and

Vince Brinker from Puerto Rico, and Rick Gordon from New York city.
Our few s ho r t months together were nothing less than a blast as we played
the drill sergeant's

games.

Our drill sergeant,

Chief

Cooley

was

impossible to hate - one helluva nice guy who we all liked, respected, and
would be proud

to have as an uncle.

Boot camp

with

it's 5:00 am

exercises, hours of drills and training, would have been a real drag without
Chief Cooley and my little group of friends.

But a few weeks prior to graduation, I got word in the middle of the night
that there was a terrible accident, my dad was injured, and I had to be
11

rushed home to Ohio.

I was gone by sunrise, flown home in the back seat

of an Air Force F-4 Phantom only to be told the truth - my father

had a

suffered a fatal heart attack and I was delivered home for his funeral.
seemed impossible
was

gone

and

but my dad, a very healthy

my

mother

was devastated.

any emotions, and suddenly my world

specimen

of

It

man

I was too shocked to have

was turned

upside down.

Guilt

soon set in for all the arguments I had with him and regret was a growing
commodity
anyone

that overwhelmed

other than myself.

me, though

I was too proud to admit it to

I guess my greatest secret was that despite

everything, I really loved my father and in recent years, didn't find the
courage to tell him so.

After

the funeral,

I spent a few days alone

comfort her as best as I could.

informing
from

me that since

my obligations

caused

some

hot debate

my mother trying

to

A letter came from the U.S. Coast Guard

I was

to serve

with

an only child,

out the

between

balance

I would

be released

of my enlistment. This

my mother and

I since

I had fully

intended to stay home in Ohio with my mom even though I was thoroughly
enjoying my new career in the Coast Guard, and from the letters
been writing

I had

home from Cape May, my mother. k new of my excitement.

Like any mother, mine wanted me to be happy, even if it meant seeing

her only twice or thrice a year during holidays. After coming to terms with
our family's

reality and my future

prospects

and a desire for a college

education on the G.I. Bill (Uncle Sam's tab), I returned to the surprise of
Chief Cooley to Cape May to complete
my mother was there

on

the

parade

my training.
grounds

On graduation
as

we

marched

review, and afterwards she assured me that I had made the right decision.

day
in
In

my heart I agreed at the time, but now, 25 years later, I am not so sure.
12

Academically,

I finished second in my class of 36 cadets.

the week off for my father's funeral,

was relevant only because one's

Had I not missed

I would have finished first.

This

ranking in the class determined

your

duty assignment to a Coast Guard unit and now I had second choice of
all the posted duty assignments.

And the duty station I wanted

most

(Lifeboat

Station Cleveland)

was not available. In fa c t t h e

available

duty station

was

an icebreaker in Michigan which was an

nobody

wanted.

assignment

Sailors

in the Coast

nearest

Guard

who

had

disciplinary problems were often sent to ice-breakers or buoy-tenders as a

form of punishment, since duty aboard these
very

hard

work and

or

two types

of ships

entailed

long stretches at sea away from family, friends,

and lovers.

The Coast Guard Ba se in San Juan is a 5 minute walk to the famous El Moro Fort

I passed on the Michigan detail and chose a slot open in sunny Puerto
Rico, laying smack dab in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. It was a shore
station at the Coast Guard's Greater Antilles Section (GANTSEC)

in the

island's capitol of San Juan - truly a miniature Spanish

version

York

restaurants,

City,

casinos.

complete

with

multitude of nightclubs,

It was a long way from Ohio but my mom

argued

of New
and

little about
13

taking

winter

vacations

found

free flights

in the Caribbean, and as a serviceman, I always

home to Ohio on MAC flights

Puerto Rico was a real plum o f an assignment

actually being paid to live and work there.

(Military Air Command).

and I couldnt believe I was

It was, and still is a natural

paradise with crystalline aqua waters, miles of white sand beaches, and a
laid back attitude of it's people that cannot be described.

This tour of

duty would surely be heaven I thought, but in the end my heaven would
prove to be a real hell.

I dedicate the below photo to all my good friends and neighbors back in
Parma. Perhaps only they will understand.

In any wealthy society, you will certainly find a wealth of greed and
corruption. - The Author

Cpyright 1995-2014 By Bruce A. Gorcyca All Rights Reserved

14