Page 105 - Winterling's Chasing the Wind

CHAPTER 30 - Effect of Career on Family

While working with the Weather Bureau at Imeson Airport and living in our first house
in Riverview, I often worked nights or evenings; consequently, I had time to spend at
home. Some of that time I spent in the yard trying to get the arid sandy property
landscaped by hauling sawdust from an old mill in Oceanway. Virginia kept the home
spotless while the boys played in the backyard.

We occasionally had visits to the hospital. Our second child always seemed to be the
one involved. The first time while only a few months old, Stevie got a smallpox
vaccination that had caused an infection in the folds of his neck. He spent a week in
Wolfson Children’s Hospital. A little more than a year later, he was playing on the
swing set and encountered sharp pains in his side. He was diagnosed with a hernia and
went to the hospital again for surgery.

After I began working at Channel 4, I worked from 10 AM to Midnight. I mainly had
time with the family on my dinner break or on weekends. Now as a public figure, my
two sons, Frank and Steve, were in Elementary School and were frequently asked if
they were going to be a weatherman like me. Both of them were mainly interested in
athletics, playing organized baseball and football. When Frank joined a Tadpole
baseball team, the Giants, they went to a playoff his first year. I remember being told of
an inning that finished with a triple play. To this day, I have never seen one!

Both boys played baseball with the Sans Souci organization. When their games were
moved to Fletcher Morgan Park behind Hogan-Spring Glen School, Virginia and I
operated the Concession stand, assisted by Bill and Arie Willis and Roy and Marie
Feltman. Our boys were both on their Junior and Senior High School baseball teams.

Frank was an excellent pitcher, but one Christmas he received a Boy Scout pocket
knife. Unfortunately while closing it, he cut his index figure. We met a surgeon, Dr.
Albert Fechtel, at his office who gave him stitches and he returned to the mound the
next spring. While in high school, Frank discovered a lump below his shoulder on his
right arm. It was not long after he had watched the TV movie about Chicago Bear Brian
Piccolo who lost his battle with cancer. We were very concerned as he was admitted to
Memorial Hospital, but much relieved to learn that it was only a blocked duct to a
lymph gland.

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