An Unforgettable Character

An Unforgettable Character


I remember a feature in “Readers Digest called “The Most Unforgettable Character I Ever Met.” We all have had our share of characters come and go in our lives who had wonderful attributes and at the same time were flawed like all of us.

From time to time I think about some of the former employees of my family owned business. One of the oil truck drivers was a hard worker named Tony Raimo. He worked in the off season as a boiler installation man and did whatever we asked him to do i.e. truck maintenance if there were no deliveries of oil to be made. He was the second driver on the seniority list for over twenty five years before Frank Mastrando retired, after a stroke. Tony became the numero uno or shop steward. We ran between six to nine drivers during the winter season. Tony always did more deliveries than any other man and never said,” No” if a call came in to deliver oil on overtime or emergency. He would work endless hours because he was, “hungry for the buck.” He had the key to the premises and would let himself in and out. All of our men got paid for every minute they worked at Teamster union contract wages and conditions.

However,Tony was an exceptional miser like one of our mechanics Jimmy Conoglione. They never went to a restaurant or bought a ready made sandwich. These two who sometimes worked together would buy a package of cream cheese and an Italian hero bread and make their own sandwich and have it along with their thermos’ of coffee they brought from home.
Tony wore blue dungarees and fashioned a belt and suspenders from clothes line. When he needed eyeglasses he told me that he got them from his friend who worked at the local funeral home who took them from “someone who wouldn’t need them anymore.” He never took Frances his wife out, EVER. He never went to a physician outside of the Veterans Administration facilities.

When we had our company celebration prior to New Years Eve, he stayed around until cleanup time and then took all the leftover sandwiches, pretzels, chips, candies and anything else home for his wife. He swept up all the aforementioned items into a paper sack together! They would have it at night while TV programs of the New Year were being ushered in at Times Square. Fran never saw the inside of a restaurant or ever had “take out” food. Her only past time was going to doctors offices and perhaps church bingo.

He owned a three family house in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and lived across the street from a small apartment house. He doubled as the janitor there washing the floors and taking out the trash barrels and doing small plumbing jobs. He also told me that he gave people who needed it “third mortgages” at high of course, interest rates. No one was stupid enough to default on him.

Physically he bore a great resemblance to the actor William Bendix, famous for the “Life of Riley” television series. He was medium height, thickly built, wide necked and as strong as a bull. I remember him breaking up the concrete slabs of our sidewalk and thick reinforced garage slabs with either a hand sledge or electric hammer like child’s play.

When he was delivering oil to a customers home if they weren’t standing nearby he would go through their trash can looking for metal or newspapers which he would accumulate and sell at the junk yards. Most of our workers would collect scrap and take them off the job when they changed pipes and valves during installations. They were supposed to turn them in at the shop and we would sell it a few times a year and split with everyone proportionately. He collected aluminum when it had very little value.

Obviously Tony was a child of the depression and must have suffered greatly. When a large part of our home delivery neighborhood became Orthodox Jewish Tony started wearing a skull cap to ingratiate him with the Jewish customers for tips. When someone complained to the office we made him stop by telling him it was disrespectful. One time when a customer was standing near the truck watching the oil meter, the customer sneezed. Tony said to him in perfect Yiddish,
“ Ver Gehargit.” The customer asked him where he learned that so well. Tony replied that his boss Joe Cohn, my uncle always told him that when he sneezed. The customer told him it would be better to say , “Gezundheit” or “God bless you.”
I don’t know if Tony ever found out that “Ver Gehargit” meant “get murdered,” which is a Yiddish curse. Uncle Joe said it to be cute.

What I will never forget Tony for follows:
It was a sub zero Sunday night, December 15th when union contract negotiations broke down and a strike was called for midnight. I called him at home and asked him to fill all the oil trucks. The union had called for ratification but the rank and file rejected the contract. No other driver would come when I called. I stayed in the office while he went and filled up our five empty trucks at the piers. He loaded over thirty thousand gallons of oil until the last truck was returned just before midnight.

We off loaded that oil for seven days and delivered it in forty, five gallon cans all week in rented U-Haul trucks. Our men worked in plain clothes without company logos so as not to be seen by other union workers or shop stewards driving around. That way our customers would not be cold. We did not lose any customers to non –union shops. We delivered forty eight thousand gallons that week and had only one truck left with oil when the contract was ratified. Normally we delivered more than that each day in such weather. In my forty four years in the business we only had two strikes and they were both horribly stressful. I hated and feared that more than any other aspect of the business.



Whenever we bought new equipment Tony was the driver who was awarded the new oil truck to break in. He would go over the specifications with the bosses and the salesman prior to ordering. All trucks are custom made. We used to have long nosed trucks but eventually went over to “cab over engine” where the engine was under the drivers’ seat. It gave more parking space and greater maneuverability.

Tony took out his new White Motors C.O.E. and on the way back from loading it the first time announced over his two way radio for the all to hear that he wanted his old truck back as this one “hurt my rectum.” A pillow solved the problem.

There came a time that Tony had a lot of pension money coming to him and he had a heart condition and decided to take it easy and retire from truck driving. He was retired for several years and one day his police detective son called to tell us that on Sunday morning Tony went out to pick up old newspapers at newsstands with his station wagon. He was shoving a pile of papers into the back of the wagon when he was struck with a fatal heart attack. The store owner saw his feet hanging out in the street from the rear of the wagon for a long time and called 911.

Fran was left with a lot of money and lived for many years but did not improve her living style to the best of my knowledge. But, I never forgot Tony and what a hard, loyal worker he was from a bygone era. They don’t come like that anymore.

Tony and Fran had two sons. One became one of New York Cities most highly decorated detectives and still lives in that house in Brooklyn. He is retired now.

His younger son is very entrepreneurial and devised the idea of a combination car wash and quick oil change facility. He had two of them when he sold out and moved to Florida. He imports quarry material, is a multi millionaire living off the intracoastal in a five million dollar house in an exclusive enclave. He invited me to a Christmas party with my wife to show me how he had “made it.” To keep up the looking like an actor tradition of his Dad, this guy is a dead ringer for Robert De Niro. Unlike his Dad, this fellow knows how to live and enjoy life.

He has a beautiful wife and two children almost of college age. I was happy to see that he was able to escape his environment and live a good life.