Discovering my father's Mafia connections has led me down many uneasy and unusual avenues. Learning about Dad attending the first Appalachin was truly a turning point for me in finding out who and what he was.
One day I was talking with a man I had known for about 10 years named Charlie. Charlie was a gruff sort, an Italian American with a quick wit and a swaggering boldness about him. He talked incessantly about his ‘compadres,’ his ‘Gumbas,’ and their tough guy antics, often to my
chagrin. I never knew what he would say next, but one day he apparently had something to tell me:
“Hey Adele! I know your father!” he said with a smile.
“My father? How do you know my father?” I asked trying to act like it was no big deal, but it
was a very big deal to me, as I still believed that my father had reportedly “died” a few years prior to the conversation.
“He was at the first Apalachin meeting.”
“How do YOU know?”
I asked with all the forced indignation I could muster.
“Because it was at my house in Apalachin, New York!”
I’m not sure what I said after that, but I knew what he was telling me was important in understanding my father’s world. Many, many years later, I looked up the First Apalachin
Meeting on the internet, and was shocked by what I read. The First Apalachin was an historic event in November 1957 of the American Mafia. It was reportedly the first and
largest American underworld organizational meeting of the American Mafia including all the
crime families of New York/New Jersey with over 100 mobsters present! I was crestfallen and baffled.
How in the world coukd Charlie possibly know my father in the present tense since he had reportedly died in September 1975? If what he was saying was true , it meant that Howie was still alive and had participated in this meeting when I was just 4 months old! With Dad’s bent towards lawlessness, and his early background living in the Bronx, it all seemed to make sense and was also even more validation of ‘Birds of a Feather Flock Together.’ For me, this single
piece of information served as the biggest red flag of all for the other déjà vu experiences and nuances I had lived through. From that point forward, I felt like I had a new and most uncomfortable understanding about Howie and his world. However, somehow still wanting to think the best of Dad, I buried the memory until it resurfaced in later years. Actually, this memory re-emerged when I first learned about “Uncle Meyer” Lansky from the TV documentary about the New York /New Jersey crime families, as the show had talked about the First
Apalachin meeting.
Clearly, dealing with the unknown is hard, harder in fact, than facing cold truth. Eventually, I became able to find purpose in knowing about Howie’s World--praying for him and his
associates who were involved in various aspects of his activities, and it gave me great relief to do
so. Why? Because I believe every soul can repent and turn to God, regardless of past “activities.”
In fact, in the Catholic tradition, I continue to pray for them by name and my prayers for them includes the Divine Mercy Prayer:
“Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell,
and lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy.”
At a point in her life when all of the pieces seemed to be falling into place for the author, childhood trauma she had kept compartmentalized and locked away within her subconscious emerged as physical and mental illness, leaving her with seemingly irreversible neuromuscular damage, severe depression, and PTSD. Her years of struggling for a diagnosis of her life altering physical symptoms directed her to the mind, body, spirit connection that can have a negative effect on both physical and mental health when the three are disconnected as a result of buried memories of childhood trauma. Within her writing, the author has included a detailed workshop section with questions designed to help the reader uncover possible buried childhood memories of trauma within their own life, along with suggestions for steps to healing through turning to God and allowing Jesus to come into their life to stand beside them as their personal Savior.
If your father did attend the meeting, he was probably a made man and very good at keeping his secret life from his daughter. I believe you meant, "World-preying."
These timeless quotations culled from the celebrated corpus of writings by W.E.B. Du Bois are presented with illuminating introductory essays by Aberjhani. Narration of the Audible book performed by Catherine Byers.
One day I was talking with a man I had known for about 10 years named Charlie. Charlie was a gruff sort, an Italian American with a quick wit and a swaggering boldness about him. He talked incessantly about his ‘compadres,’ his ‘Gumbas,’ and their tough guy antics, often to my
