The Day Things Changed
Today I will be a fabulist. Today I will tell you a story.
In the 1930s or perhaps early 1940s, two young people fell in love. They came from like Camden City backgrounds, knew a lot of the same people, had lots of things in common, etc.
But it was not to be. A world war ensued, one went off to the South Pacific in the Navy, and the two drifted apart, marrying others and going about their lives. I knew none of this, having not been born yet.
When I came to be in the late 1950s, I had a father, Nicholas Frese, and a mother, Anna Corvino. They were old to be having children, my mother being 38, my father 53. As life transpired, the two simply did not get along. There was strife in the household, loud arguments, separations, and finally, when I was about eight or nine years old, they divorced once and for all.
Around 1968, my mother started seeing a gentleman name Anthony Logandro. I first remember him coming to see my little league games at Whitman Park in Camden, NJ.
I liked him from the start. He was an avid bowler and he taught me the game, which I took to like a fish to water. By the time I was in 7th grade, I was carrying an average of 171, which was no small feat in those days. I loved the game.
At that time, we lived with my grandfather, Carmine Corvino, in a row house in South Camden (1257 Decatur Street). When grandpop died in December of 1970, my mom could no longer afford to keep the house, so she sold it and we moved in with Tony and his two dogs (named Chipper and, of all things, Nicky), into a small, three-bedroom house in Audubon Park, NJ. It was a weird move for me because the high school I would attend, St. Joseph, was actually just down Decatur Street from where we lived, a two-minute walk. Instead, I would now need a ride to school.
But as with most things in life, we figured it all out and moved on with it.
I grew very fond of "the old man," as we all called him. He and his family, daughter Nancy and son Tony, became a big part of my life. We went bowling together probably several times per week, he in leagues and me open bowling as lanes were available. He hit softballs to me in the field across the street from our duplex. He taught me to drive. He became, for all intents and purposes, my father.
Life went on as it does, and everything that might have been abnormal became absolutely normal. I played ball, went to high school, bowled, and worked in the old man's gas station pumping gas and changing spark plugs and tires. I was not the type to enjoy getting my hands dirty, but he made me work there anyway. I hated it, but I did it. The cool part was that I could get gas for free at any time of the day or night, as I had the keys to the station!
I went to college in 1976, commuting, of course. "Why spend money on room and board when you can live right here?" Though I was accepted at Temple University, Glassboro State College became the only choice. They both had good Journalism programs; one was closer and cheaper. Decision made.
In 1977, my life changed drastically. I met a girl, and we got pregnant, and we eloped, telling no one until after the fact. Coincidentally, my mother and Tony got married that very same year.
Nicole was born in 1978, and I moved from our home in Audubon Park and got an apartment. Later, in 1982, we had a son who I named Tony after my step father. Once again, life moved on its path, as it always does. John Lennon once wrote, "life is what happens when you're busy making plans," and so it did.
Between 1978 and 1995, many things happened, many gigs were played, many people came and went.
On January 2, 1995, my dear mother passed away from congestive heart failure. She was a smoker, and she was 76-years-old. Tony Logandro was heart-broken, and he was not the same man any longer. He once told me that he could not even enjoy bowling any longer because he had no one to come home and brag to.
It was a very sad time, but it was short-lived. The old man was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer in September of that year. On January 2, 1996, with my step brother, asleep on the couch in Audubon Park caring for him, the old man went to join his Annie. He was 83. My brother swears that he awoke to see a vision of my mother walking up the steps to the bedroom, and when he went up there, the old man was gone.
I guess she came to get him.
Once again, life moved on. In 2002, my sweet Nicole passed from this place, an event I'm glad neither the old man nor my mom were alive to see. There was another divorce in 2015, mine, and there was more baseball, more gigs, and more of life doing what it inevitably does.
A year or so later, I found a new person to share my life with, a girl I had once dated back in 1976. Maybe we should have always been together, but as with those other lovers back in the 1930-40s, life apparently had other plans. We had both found others and moved on. She married someone else, as did I. A familiar tale, perhaps.
We were married on February 14, 2022, and suddenly it is 2025 and I am old.
A few months ago, I decided to try and learn more about my father's side of the family, the Frese side. I did not know much about them due to the divorce. I knew my father had a dark past, not having held a job until he was 38, and working as a "collector" for the local Philly mob. I knew his best childhood friend went to the electric chair for murder. I knew he had a previous marriage and a daughter, Phyliss, a half-sister who would have been much older than me. I knew he loved baseball and was nicknamed "Brownie" in his youth, after the long-defunct St. Louis Browns.
We had a relationship over the years, but not much of one, and he passed in 1988 at the age of 83.
On April 1, 2025, I received the results of my DNA test. Not surprisingly in the least, my DNA says that I am 99% Italian; 50% Southwestern Italy and 50% Sicilian, with just a less-than 1% hint of Spanish thrown in there for flavor. None of that was surprising in the least.
The next part was pretty surprising.
The first relative that appeared in Ancestry shares 15% DNA with me. Her name is Rita Logandro. The second was Frank Logandro, also a 15% match to me. They are my first cousins.
It turns out that those young lovers from the 1930s and 1940s had shared something else for all these years, a great secret that they took to their graves, never sharing the information with anyone, not even their son.
I am Nicholas Logandro.