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Leidenheimer Baking Company: A 125-Year-Old New Orleans Tradition

Robert J. Whann IV, known as Sandy, and Katherine Whann, fourth-generation members of the family, run the business today. Behind them is a framed photo of George Leidenheimer. (Photograph taken by the Southern Foodways Alliance)

New Orleans is passionate about its bread, especially when it comes to the po-boy. Some say the city’s signature sandwich, usually stuffed with fried oysters, shrimp, roast beef, sausage, or meatballs, isn’t the real deal unless it’s served on a locally baked Leidenheimer loaf.

“The most important part of the po-boy is the bread,” said Joanne Domilise, one of the family members who runs Domilise’s Po-Boy & Bar. “Leidenheimer’s bread has a crispy crust and is light and airy inside. It’s not bready or doughy like a hoagie or submarine. If you don’t have the right bread, it’s just not a po-boy.”

Like Domilise’s, and many other local institutions, the G.H. Leidenheimer (pronounced LYE-den-high-mer) Baking Company is a century-old family food business. It’s been a hub of New Orleans French bread baking for 125 years.

Po-boys made with Leidenheimer’s New Orleans French bread, famed for its thin, crisp crust and light, airy insides. (Courtesy of Leidenheimer Baking Co.)

A Family Legacy

Founder George Leidenheimer immigrated to New Orleans from Deidesheim, Germany in the late 1800s, and established his namesake bakery in 1896. Initially, he made the dark, dense brown breads popular in his homeland. But he found success perfecting lighter French-style breads to complement the local cuisine, which draws from the bounty of the Gulf waters and the city’s Creole and Acadian heritage.

As the nation’s interest in regional American cooking and artisan foods grew over the years, and New Orleans became a tourism hub known for its outstanding restaurants, recognition for Leidenheimer’s distinct breads grew.

Being a local family-run business was also important.

“Family culture is everything in New Orleans,” said Robert J. Whann IV, known as Sandy, a fourth-generation member of the Leidenheimer family. “People return home to this city to be with their families. That’s why it has many multigenerational families who run businesses.”

Whann’s grandmother was George Leidenheimer’s only daughter, Josephine. Her husband, Robert J. Whann Jr., took over the company with his brother, Richard.

Sandy Whann joined the company in 1986, after college, and today, he runs it with his sister, Katherine.

“I’ve been fortunate during my 35-year tenure to work with Katherine to manage the company. My brother-in-law, Mitch, has served as operations manager for 20 years. My son, William, and daughter, Katie, are now also involved with the company.”

Robert J. Whann IV, known as Sandy, and Katherine Whann, in front of a photo of George Leidenheimer. (Photograph taken by the Southern Foodways Alliance)

Whann takes carrying on the family baking tradition seriously. You won’t see a gluten-free loaf coming out of this bakery.

“We produce traditional New Orleans French bread, and we are blessed that we are kept busy doing it. When we are approached about doing something new we have to consider it very carefully. We are not going to jump on the bandwagon and bend to trends,” he said.

Since 1904, Leidenheimer’s baking headquarters have been in a large white brick building on Simon Bolivar Avenue in the central city. Many of the company’s 100 or so employees represent multiple generations.

“Being family-run with many long-tenured employees is a potent combination for success. We have route salesmen who have been with us over 40 years, and many bakery employees for 20 years,” said Whann.

Bakery workers. (Leidenheimer Baking Co. Photo Archives)
The building exterior. (Leidenheimer Baking Co. Photo Archives)

A Time-Honored Process

My mother used to tell me New Orleans’s bread has a unique texture because of the water. Whann acknowledged that the local water has a good pH level for making bread, but explained the time-honored process in further detail.

Leidenheimer’s bread is made with flour, yeast, water, and a little salt and sugar. Lard was removed in the 1960s and replaced by small amounts of soybean oil. The flour is milled from a high-gluten spring wheat, sourced in the Dakotas and shipped to Ardent Mills near Baton Rouge. The company has been milling flour for Leidenheimer’s for 70 years.

“We start with the best ingredients and let time and temperature do their work through natural fermentation,” Whann said. “All our po-boy loaves are hand-stretched. Our bakery workers know by touch when the dough is right, from how much water to add to how long to stretch it to achieve that light consistency.”

Historical photo of the “mixing department.” (Leidenheimer Baking Co. Photo Archives)
Historical photo of the “moulding department.” (Leidenheimer Baking Co. Photo Archives)

Once the dough is ready, the baking process involves copious amounts of steam and monitoring the temperature to achieve just the right texture.

Weather is also an important factor. “New Orleans is an inhospitable place for bakers. We have two seasons: It’s either hot and cold [in the winter] or hot and hotter [in the summer],” Whann said. “Our bakers need to be aware of the weather conditions since the dough is sensitive to atmospheric conditions such as humidity and temperature.

“For French bread, which is inherently light, on a day with 100 percent humidity, it acts like a sponge. We have to bake the bread more to keep its texture. On colder days, we need to bake the bread less.”

Historical photo of the “baking department.” (Leidenheimer Baking Co. Photo Archives)

Legendary Loaves

Leidenheimer produces a small variety of artisan breads, sold locally and distributed nationally. There are three main types:

Its signature pistolet is an oblong loaf with a very crisp crust and a fluffy interior—a texture many compare to cotton candy. Available in different sizes, up to 12 inches long, the pistolet is usually served warm, wrapped in white napkins, at fine dining restaurants like Commander’s Palace and Galatoire’s.

“I can always tell locals from the visitors when our pistolet is brought to the table,” Whann said. While visitors reach for a fork and knife, “locals just grab the bread and tear it apart with their hands to share with their table companions.” Either way, the light-as-air loaf is heavenly slathered with butter.

The po-boy loaf is a 32-inch-long French bread loaf used for the namesake sandwich. Unlike a traditional French baguette, which has tapered ends, a po-boy loaf, like the pistolet, is uniform from end to end.

The muffaletta is a large, round, seeded bread used to make a sandwich by the same name. Another New Orleans icon, the muffaletta sandwich is a savory combination of salami, ham, provolone cheese, marinated olives, and giardiniera, said to have been created in 1906 by Central Grocery in the French Quarter, to feed the Italian immigrants who worked at the nearby dockyards.

Locals Loyal to the Last Crumb

New Orleans has many family-run bakeries known for their signature products, whether cakes, pastries, or breads. But when it comes to New Orleans French bread, loyalists always look to Leidenheimer’s.

“Leidenheimer’s is the only bread in town with that crackly crust. It’s both an art and a science to make it with such consistency,” said Justin Kennedy, general manager and head chef at Parkway Bakery and Tavern. They sell about 2000 sandwiches a day. “We lightly toast our bread to bring out that crunch even more.”

That loyalty transcends distance. At Local Catch Bar and Grill in Santa Rosa, Florida, chef Adam Yellin, a transplant from New Orleans, only uses Leidenheimer bread for the restaurant’s po-boys. “When I was living in New Orleans, we’d squeeze the bread a little and listen for the outside crunch to know it was fresh,” he recalled.

“Good to the last crumb,” is Leidenheimer’s slogan—and it’s true. New Orleanians know to ask for extra napkins and a crumb catcher when they tear apart a pistolet or devour a po-boy. All that crust leaves a beautiful mess of crumbs!

The Po-Boy: Perfect End-To-End

The history of the po’boy explains how the unique loaf for the sandwich was created.

Louisiana-born brothers Bennie and Clovis Martin worked as streetcar conductors before opening Martin Brothers Restaurant in the French Quarter in 1922. In 1929, when the streetcar workers went on strike, the Martin Brothers, sympathetic to the workers’ plight, gave them free sandwiches filled with fried potatoes, gravy, and bits of roast beef on French bread loaves. When a striking worker would come into the restaurant, one of the brothers would call out, “Here comes another poor boy.”

As Whann tells the story: “Back then, the bread was a traditional French baguette with tapered ends. The person who received the middle portion of the sandwich made out like a bandit, but those with the ends were not as fortunate. The Martin Brothers asked a local baker, John Gendusa, to make a 32-inch loaf that could be cut into equal-size sandwiches. No one would be stuck with the ends.” The sizable, shareable sandwich was a hit and became part of the Martin Brothers regular menu.

Now, the ubiquitous sandwich can be found on many menus, from small po-boy shops to fine restaurants throughout New Orleans and beyond.

Melanie Young writes about wine, food, travel, and health. She is the food editor for Santé Magazine, co-host of the weekly national radio show “The Connected Table LIVE!” and host of “Fearless Fabulous You!” both on iHeart.com (and other podcast platforms). Instagram@theconnectedtable Twitter@connectedtable

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Features

Chuck Masek on How to Fight a Battle ‘Against All Odds’

Chuck Masek, author of "At War With the Big Dogs." (Courtesy of Chuck Masek)

Chuck Masek is known as the man who spearheaded the billion-dollar industry of reprocessing single-use medical devices, but when he started out in the medical tech field, in a tiny lab where he spent day in and day out doing things like looking at stool samples under a microscope, he had no inkling life would go in that direction. Being called a “visionary” never sat well with him.

Reprocessing is little known to industry outsiders—essentially it means cleaning and sterilizing a medical device, like an electric scalpel, making it safe for medical use again instead of sending it to the landfill.

“The company was started because I needed a job, and I needed to save the house, that’s all it was,” said Masek.

The story of David is the story of the little boy who defeated a giant with only his stones, his slingshot, and God on his side. That “protection by Providence” made David the symbol of Florence, a little republic that faced countless battles, giants compared to its own history and size.

Masek’s story is definitely a David and Goliath story. Throughout it all, he saw the hand of providence, he said. He also had science on his side.

“I mean, we should have never survived, we should have been trampled by the big companies, we’re talking multibillion-dollar corporations. We were playing in their sandbox and they did not like it, and they did everything they could” to drive newcomers like Masek out of the field. He recounts the endless battles in his memoir “At War With the Big Dogs.” But they made it through.

“I look back in amazement,” he said. “In the process of building Vanguard, certain things had to happen that I didn’t know had to happen, and if it didn’t happen, we’d be out of business. So I know I didn’t do it, I was privileged to lead … the men and women who fought this battle, and it was a bloody battle,” Masek said.

“At War With the Big Dogs” by Chuck Masek. ( (Courtesy of Chuck Masek)

Timing

The first part of Masek’s career is filled with betrayal; as a medical device salesman, he was moving all over the country—19 moves in the first 13 years of his marriage with his wife Marge, with each of his four children born in a different state. He had money, ideas, and business stolen from him.

“I lost everything in a bad business deal in Haiti,” he said. “I was 40 years old, I was a quarter of a million dollars in debt, I had four children age 7 to 13, and we were about to lose the house. It was a hard time. And a lot of times, these things will destroy a marriage, but my Marge, we circled the wagons, and she said, ‘Chuck, this wasn’t your fault.'”

“My wife is from North Dakota, she’s a farmer’s daughter, and she is made of strong stuff. She’s actually the most amazing person in my life, there is not a person in the world that I trust more than her,” he said.

He and Marge are often asked what the secret to their strong marriage is, and they tell people, “Love God first.” They decided that early on, when they both became believers in college.

“If we love God first, then we can love each other. Because if we love each other and we don’t love God, there’s no way the marriage will survive,” he said. Everything God tells you to do is for a benefit, he said, and he may have a lot of rules, but if you actually look at the rules, they’re all good things.

So at his lowest point, but with Marge on his side, Masek only knew that he wasn’t going to let betrayal define his story, and he jumped back into the fray.

The company Masek had lost had done reprocessing of towels, so he already knew about reprocessing, but it was a chance encounter with a nurse and a package on her desk that launched Masek’s next business idea.

It was a suture pack that a small independent company had reprocessed, and Masek was confused because when he sold medical devices, the big manufacturers would reprocess them for free if only the outer layer was opened. Suture packages have an outer portion that is often opened in anticipation of surgery, and an inner, sterile seal that is left intact if not used, Masek said. Then the nurse told him the big manufacturers weren’t doing it anymore, and it likely had something to do with the big scare around the AIDS epidemic. It could have been a liability issue.

Unbeknownst to Masek at the time, two big events had led to where he was now. The Medicare Act of 1965 had made it so that Medicare would reimburse based on the cost of surgery, and nearly overnight, manufacturers started labeling devices “single use” even if they were the same exact glass or carbon fiber device previously considered a reusable device, and it was all up for reimbursement. But then in the 1980s, reimbursement costs were fixed depending on the type of diagnosis, which had hospitals scrambling to cut down costs. And medical devices were now the second-highest cost of surgery.

He started reprocessing devices for hospitals at half the cost of whatever they originally paid for the device.

Masek had two main obstacles now, the “yuck” factor, and the big manufacturers, and he used science to refute each one. The former would be far easier than the latter. First he showed clients that many of these devices were originally meant to be reprocessed and reused, not thrown into landfills after a single use. And the longer he was in business the more data he had, so Masek was able to show that reprocessed devices were far less likely to cause infection than even new devices, because every reprocessed device is tested, and new devices aren’t.

A ‘Win-Win-Win’

Early on, a nurse asked Masek a very prescient question: Aren’t you worried about the Big Dogs getting into the business and squashing you? But that question raised a second one: Why would these big companies reprocess devices for free or for half cost, when they could insist on selling you a new one at full price?

The operation began as a tiny one. Vanguard Medical Concepts was just Masek, Doug Stante rigging up new machines to clean and sterilize devices, and 19-year-old Steve Bernardo writing software to track their data.

But they believed in it and it grew, because they saw it as a win-win-win. Hospitals could cut costs as well as divert thousands of pounds of biomedical waste from the landfills, patients benefited from the cost savings and safe devices, and Vanguard had created hundreds of jobs.

It was when they started getting big that the original device manufacturers began to take notice. First they tried to frame reprocessing as distasteful—but that only gave Vanguard the opportunity to educate clients on how they reprocessed devices and why it was sterile. Then they accused Vanguard of not being FDA-approved, and the FDA said it was because they wouldn’t know where to start in regulating this new industry. Vanguard all but volunteered to become the guinea pigs for regulation, letting FDA regulators poke and prod and ask endless questions in the process of not only proving that reprocessing was safe and beneficial, but could be regulated.

“The manufacturers did many things over the years that were designed to hurt us, but it actually helped us,” he said. But only because they stuck to the science and showed people relentlessly that the science was true.

Masek had successes, but the problem was that the battles seemed endless, and it was shocking the lengths his opponents would go to.

“I was always going for the prize, but when I got there, it wasn’t what I thought it was,” Masek said.

Perspective

You don’t endure countless battles with everything stacked against you—money, power, influence—unless you know you’re doing something right. Masek said his guiding philosophy that God was in charge, not him, led his story.

“I tell people all the time, we don’t own anything, to own something you have to create it and there is only one Creator. We actually manage stuff. Someday I’ll die, and God’ll give it to somebody else to manage, and I’ll be happy about that,” Masek said.

Masek tells his children the most important word is “perspective.”

“All through life, I tell my children, the world never gets it right, it goes the wrong way,” Masek said. “Raising my children, I tell them things are never as good as they seem and they’re never as bad as they seem. Keep your perspective. They’re just things.”

“God is always in control. No matter how bad you think things are, He is still God and he still has control,” Masek said.

Masek said the first reason he went back to revisit all the battles Vanguard weathered in order to write the book was to honor all the good men and women who were a part of it.

“It’s for their children or grandchildren, to tell them what grandma or grandpa did,” he said. “The second reason is for any men and women who find themselves in a battle against all odds, that the fight does not always go to the big dogs.”

Chuck and Marge Masek. (Courtesy of Chuck Masek)
Chuck and Marge Masek. (Courtesy of Chuck Masek)

 

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Features

Freedom to Farm

Martha Boneta, policy advisor, political strategist, and commentator, at her farm Liberty Farm in Paris, Va., on Aug. 8, 2019.

Martha Boneta grew up with a dream of becoming a farmer. When she was a young girl, she would follow along as her grandmother tended to the family’s backyard-turned-garden. The kitchen garden was bountiful enough to feed not just her own family, but the community too. She also learned that their Mount Vernon home stood on land that used to be part of George Washington’s farm.

“I really fell in love with farming and the idea of growing food and feeding your family and others—and I couldn’t wait to have my own family farm,” Boneta said. Her parents probably hoped she would grow out of the dream, she said with a laugh—they wanted Boneta and her two older sisters to pursue higher education for themselves and be able to give back to their communities. So Boneta went to law school, and then she headed for the nation’s capital. But her heart was always with her dream of owning a farm, Boneta said, so she started doing research.

Liberty Farm in Paris, Virginia.

She found a little run-down farmhouse from the 1800s and, despite the tremendous amount of work it would take to return it to a working condition, a snippet of history associated with the property captured her imagination—and would not let go. This Liberty Farm was on land advertised as the site of “Stonewall” Jackson’s bivouac, wherefrom he and his troops marched onward into the First Battle of Bull Run (Battle of First Manassas, as the Confederates would say) and made history. Boneta purchased the property with love, optimism, and enough heart and determination to see the project through. But she would have to fight her own battles there too. “I never dreamed in my whole life I would work so hard; I sacrificed so much just to farm—and to just hit roadblock after roadblock after roadblock,” she said.

Martha Boneta grew up with a dream of becoming a farmer; her grandmother’s kitchen garden overflowed with produce and wonderful flavors, which her family shared with the community.

Property Rights

Boneta is a little famous for having two Virginia state bills named after her, the Boneta Bills I and II, protecting small farms and property rights respectively. When she purchased her old farm in 2006, Boneta had no idea that she would face a decade-long battle against corruption and overregulation, which would have her named one of “America’s Most Amazing Women” by Country Woman Magazine and eventually honored by the Virginia General Assembly for her efforts.

Almost immediately, Boneta was hit with inspection after inspection. Then the inspectors started telling her that she couldn’t use her property for a whole slew of things that were not mentioned in the agreement she had signed when she purchased the property. For example, Boneta earned a violation for selling vegetables to neighbors and had to pause—simply because the signs she put up were handmade. The inspections became hostile, with county inspectors showing up at random times and demanding to look through her property to see if she had made any changes. Boneta knew that the easement she had signed stated that an inspection would only occur if she was suspected of a specific violation.

At that point, it was still a local battle, one that became the subject of the short documentary “Farming in Fear.” Neighbors and other local farmers disapproved of the way that regulators were treating Boneta too—it could well signal overreach into their own affairs next. Boneta herself was shocked that the government seemed to want to shut down her farm; it went against everything she thought she knew—that the small farm is part of the fabric of America, a place where property rights are near sacred—and in Virginia, agriculture is the top industry.

She started digging, and things came to light when she received a letter from her bank in which she learned that someone on the county Board of Supervisors had worked with a third party to attempt to buy her mortgage. A handful of names kept appearing in county documents, and it turned out that individuals in real estate, environmental groups, and the local government all wanted to push her off her land; after all, Boneta had turned a run-down, unused plot of land into a lovely farm and an attractive piece of real estate.

That information alone wasn’t enough to stop the regular harassment of being hit with inspections and violations, including being ordered to stop selling produce during peak farming season—something all local farms did. But things came to a head when Boneta hosted a small birthday party for a little girl—in return she was hit with a $15,000 fine. Her story became nationally known overnight.

As the bullying escalated, Boneta realized that the stakes had risen too. Others experiencing similar underhanded tactics might have given up years earlier; Boneta however, began to understand that she wasn’t just fighting for her own farm, but for a basic American right. “American values are what makes us a beacon of hope—all over the world—and freedom and property rights are inseparable,” Boneta said.

When Martha Boneta discovered Liberty Farm, it was a run-down farmhouse from the 1800s, advertised as a one-time bivouac site for “Stonewall” Jackson and his troops.

“I grew up in a hard-working family where, you know, my mom and my dad told us that if you work really hard, you can be anything you want here in the United States of America,” Boneta said. “Doesn’t matter where you come from, doesn’t matter what your socioeconomic background is, doesn’t matter the color of your skin or what you believe in—if you work really hard, no matter what, you can achieve your dream.”

“My faith in God, my family, my friends, and my love for this country [kept me going],” Boneta said. “Literally 10 years—most people would probably give up because of the sacrifice … if it wasn’t for those things, it would be very, very difficult.”

In the end, she prevailed. With a spotlight on the unfair treatment of Boneta and her farm, she spurred legislative change that resulted in the two Boneta Bills. She was asked to share her story all over the country and, although she was terrified at first, the hundreds of people who came to thank her for standing up for freedom have spurred her on. When Boneta is not on her farm, she speaks and lends her policy expertise on property rights, trade, small business, and other topics all over the country; she also serves on the boards of various small farm associations and foundations. “It’s kind of serendipity that it would be called Liberty Farm, and then it would ultimately become a place that people all over the country, really all over the world, view as a place of liberty because of the battle we had there,” Boneta said.

“I muck stalls, I fix fences, I collect eggs —it’s not glamourous work but it is so fulfilling,” Boneta said.

Agritourism

An hour out from Washington, in Paris, Virginia, Boneta keeps bees, raises a variety of animals, and grows vegetables sustainably, trying to replicate the robust flavors and textures from her grandmother’s garden. “I muck stalls, I fix fences, I collect eggs—it’s not glamorous work but it is so fulfilling,” Boneta said. “But I’ll tell you, at the end of the day, everything I want to know about politics—you can learn on a farm.”

In recent years, there has been a growing awareness and interest in where our food comes from, and even more so, at least in terms of awareness, after pandemic-related supply chain shutdowns have resulted in some grocery store shelves remaining unusually bare. Recent circumstances have perhaps even given the general public a glimpse of how broad regulations can prevent nimble solutions. While regulations tend to hurt small farms more than the big ones (which can absorb the extra costs), during these socially distant times, small family farmers have gone on with business as usual, Boneta said.

“In many ways, the small farmer, the small producer, was picking up where Big Ag—big commercial enterprises—couldn’t … [because] they’re shipping their food across the nation and to different parts of the world,” she said, while “the small family farmer largely sells to the local community,” she said. “I support big agriculture and small agriculture 100 percent—that’s the American Dream, right? to be able to be as big as you can. At the same time, there is something really special about being able to drive up to a family farm and actually see the chickens that lay your eggs.”

It took ten years, but with faith and support, Boneta won her battles against overregulation and government corruption on the 65-acre Liberty Farm.

Families with children often visit Liberty Farm; holding warm eggs is a highlight for youngsters, especially when they’re sparkly and green emu eggs.

Small farms have notoriously slim profit margins, so every farmer knows they have to be creative to keep the farm running. One of the most popular ways to do this, Boneta said, is through agritourism. It creates a positive cycle where people come to understand and appreciate small farms, and farmers grow their customer bases—often through classic American activities like exploring corn mazes, visiting pumpkin patches, or picking apples. Families visit and bring their children, who get all excited seeing that new eggs are warm, funny-colored (green and sparkly if they come from an emu), and have natural, protective membranes on the outsides.

Corporations send people to Liberty Farm too; sometimes there are team-building exercises that take place on Boneta’s farm. She’s also extended the offer to sweat and muck stalls for politicians in Washington—and some have taken her up on it. “People want to experience a working farm!” Boneta said.

“Ninety-nine percent of the activity that happens on these small family farms is through word of mouth, because small producers are not spending a lot of money on advertising, they’re putting it back into the land,” she said. “Family comes, friends come, they experience it, they have a good time, and they tell their friends—it’s still the old-school way of doing things.”

Boneta has seen it hold especially true for people who live and work in urban environments, particularly over the past year, when people who felt a bit too cooped up have come out to small farms like hers and breathed sighs of relief.

“People wanted to be close to the land, and be around animals—and it was just a really wholesome, healthy thing to do,” she said. Children who miss being in school and playing team sports have taken the opportunity to run around in the countryside. Friends and strangers alike have shared their funny, heartwarming, or heartbreaking stories about what they experienced as a result of the pandemic.

“And I think there is just a basic human need to want to be around other people,” said Boneta. “A couple came, and one of their parents was dying from cancer, and they weren’t allowed to see her … because of COVID—they weren’t able to be with one of the elderly parents, and so your hearing stories like that was heartbreaking. But it also creates a sense of community where we’re able to console each other and help each other.

Martha Boneta keeps bees, grows vegetables, and raises a variety of animals at Liberty Farm in Paris, Virginia.

“Something that all Americans share, no matter what their politics are, what they believe in, the color of your skin—at the end of the day we all have to eat,” she said. Small farmers support each other as well; Boneta knows her neighbors, which include a family farm that goes back six generations, several apple orchards, many cattle farms, and more.

“The small family farmer is really still the backbone of our nation, it really helped build our country, and we want to keep them around and have food variety; … by having small producers you get the beauty and symphony of foods,” she said. “I just want to keep it alive and going for a long time.”

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Features Kindness in Action

Volunteers to the Rescue

Firefighters-in-training, or "probies," Kelli Maher (L) and Kiara Santos, of the South Hempstead Fire Department in Long Island, N.Y. (Dave Paone)

Ray Preziosi is a cinematographer in the motion picture industry. But when a house is on fire in his town of Rosendale, New York, he exchanges his light meter for a firehose. Preziosi is a volunteer firefighter.

Bill Malone is an administrator and adjunct science and math professor at St. John’s University in Queens, New York. But when one of his neighbors in the Long Island village of Malverne, New York, is having a heart attack, he swaps his calculator for a defibrillator. Malone is a volunteer emergency medical technician (EMT).

In both cases, the operative word is “volunteer.”

While big cities have full-time, career first responders who are paid with tax dollars, most suburban and rural communities rely completely on unpaid personnel for both fire and ambulance services. According to the National Fire Protection Association, 67 percent of first responders in the United States are volunteers.

Preziosi has been one for 46 years. Even as a child, he gravitated toward fire service. He tricked out his bicycle by attaching a shampoo bottle to act as a fire extinguisher and a garden hose to act as a fire hose. When his father dropped a cigarette butt on the ground, Preziosi would “respond” to the “fire” by hopping on his bike in the garage, rushing to the spigot, connecting the hose, and putting out the cigarette butt.

Preziosi joined the North Massapequa Fire Department on Long Island at age 22 and served for 22 years, until he relocated to Southern California in 1997. During his four years there, there was no volunteer department for him to join. Preziosi recalled watching the fire department in Arcadia, California, screeching through an intersection, doing what he’s done countless times. “I practically burst into tears,” he said.

Malone is in his 45th year of volunteer service. While most departments combine fire and ambulance, Malverne has two separate units. He decided to join the ambulance corps at age 18, in 1976. He was inspired to join (in part) because “Emergency!,” a popular television series at the time, glorified first responders.

45-year-veteran-volunteer Bill Malone. (Dave Paone)

Volunteer fire departments on Long Island have been around for 100 years. Almost the entire time, they’ve been one big boys’ club. That’s changing. Kelli Maher and Kiara Santos, both college students, recently joined the one in South Hempstead, New York. Maher is a full-fledged EMT and a firefighter-in-training, called a “probie.” A short time ago, female volunteer firefighters on Long Island didn’t exist.

Santos and Maher have known each other since they were toddlers. Both their fathers are firefighters, and they played with the other children of volunteers at department picnics and Christmas parties when they were little.

For Santos, who’s also an EMT and a firefighter probie, volunteering is a true family affair. She’s the third generation to do so, as her grandfather was a member of the Valley Stream, New York, Fire Department, and her brother is a member of the South Hempstead one as well. It’s pretty much the same thing for Maher. Her younger brother joined South Hempstead this summer, her father is a life member and fire commissioner of the district, and she’s dating the department’s lieutenant.

The recurring theme among young volunteers is that their fathers set an example. “Ever since I was little, my dad’s always instilled in me and my brothers—and even friends that we brought around—always do the right thing, to help people, see-something-do-something type stuff, and I just thought the fire department was a great example of that,” said Maher.

Every volunteer understands that service is a solid commitment. That means if they sit down for Thanksgiving dinner, and a call comes in, they have to drop what they’re doing and go. They understand this, as do their spouses. Only once in Malone’s 40 years of marriage did he receive a call while being intimate with his wife.

As a first responder, there’s the emotional toll of the job. Malone uses a defense mechanism to distance himself from the pain and suffering that’s literally in his hands.

“I kind of look at them as they’re patients, they’re a task at hand, that I have to take care of, and then I move on from there,” he said. “As cold and heartless as that sounds, that’s the way you have to do it.” Malone said there were times “I came home and I cried myself to sleep,” but that number is very small. (As of July 11, Malone has been on 7,479 calls since his first day.)

Then there’s the physical toll. Malone has had seven herniated discs over the years from lifting (often overweight) patients onto stretchers.

Sometimes, volunteer service leads to a paid career. Chad Ayotte volunteered as a firefighter in Palm Desert, California, at age 18. He was about to graduate high school and knew college wasn’t for him. He was raised by his single mom, and not having a father led him to be a wild child.

Ayotte describes his captain at the time as “militaristic, […] demand[ing] a lot out of his volunteers”—which was precisely the discipline Ayotte needed in order to return to the straight and narrow. He volunteered for four years. He knew this was the job for him and is currently in his ninth year of service as a paid employee. At the time, the Palm Desert fire department had the rare combination of both volunteer and paid members, so he made the transition within the same department.

The number of volunteers in the country is dwindling. For decades, Malverne had EMTs on call 24-seven. Malone said that when he started in 1976, there were 60 or 70 active volunteers. He said now, that number is eight or nine, so when there’s no one available to respond, the village relies on a nearby medical center. At this rate, the number will fall to zero, at least in Malverne.

“That time, I think, is kind of fast approaching,” said Malone with a sigh. Americans can take comfort in knowing that there are hundreds of thousands of volunteers who will respond in their time of need.

At least for now.

Dave Paone is a Long Island-based reporter and photographer who has won journalism awards for articles, photographs, and headlines. When he’s not writing and photographing, he’s catering to every demand of his cat, Gigi.

Categories
Features Small Farms

Creating ‘Shangri-La’

Liz Pike standing next to her art studio. (Photo courtesy of Rachel Deschand)

Twenty years ago, during a difficult time in her life, artist and former legislator, Liz Pike, moved into a friend’s rental home in Camas, Washington. She was told that this place would be her “Shangri-La,” a peaceful place of her own that she could call home. Not long afterwards, Pike met her current husband, an ex-Delta airline pilot, whose best friend had an airport in Washington with the same name as her home: Shangri-La Airport. Considering their connection to be predestined, Pike was determined to call her farm, Shangri-La.

Greatly influenced by James Hilton’s version of Shangri-La in “Lost Horizon,” Pike aimed to materialize Hilton’s fictional paradise through the gardens she created. “We wanted to create a welcoming, peaceful, tranquil setting,” she said. But at the time, Pike was living on a double city lot in Camas. “I had chickens and raised beds everywhere.” Her husband looked around and decided she needed a proper farm. In 2010, they bought one.

Growing up on a dairy farm, Pike was well-accustomed to hard work. Eventually, she left her family farm in pursuit of her future, but she always dreamed of returning to the simple, tranquil life she once knew and loved. “At this point in my life I just want to stay here and paint, and take care of my farm,” she said.

For Pike, living on a farm is one of the most satisfying things in her life, as it allows her to experience the immediate gratification of farming. “In a corporate environment, you might be working on a project lasting three or four years, and it just takes a really long time to see something to fruition,” she explained. “On a farm, you spend an hour on a part of your garden, and all of a sudden, it looks really good.”

Putting Politics Behind

Liz Pike smiles as she stands beside some of her sunflower paintings. (Photo courtesy of Rachel Deschand)

Pike was a member of the Camas City Council from 2003 to 2007, and a state representative for Washington Clark County from 2013 to 2018. In January 2016, she published an open letter, declaring her resignation from the political sphere to embark on a new chapter of her life. She wished to dedicate all her efforts to her farm, and to raising animals.

Her resignation also allowed her to focus more on her other passion—art. From a young age, Pike painted as a way to relax. “I painted a lot while I was in the legislature, just to escape Olympia. I would come home on the weekend, and just immerse myself in the farm, and my art, just to get away from all the negativity of politics,” she said. Her paintings have been on regular display at the Camas Gallery for the past five years.

Pike regularly features her love of nature in her oil paintings. She enjoys painting sunflowers, mountains, and sometimes, still life. Today, she offers affordable, short oil painting classes, referred to as “Sip and Paint” workshops, in her converted garage art studio. She accepts no more than nine people for any given class, and spots are allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis. Guests have a choice between morning or evening classes, and Pike provides fresh-baked treats, including her homemade truffles, as well as either wine or coffee. The workshop cost covers all art materials, complete with easels and aprons.

Ten years in, Pike is now a certified Master Gardener, providing regular contributions and demonstrations in the Clark County Master Gardener program. She has also been beekeeping for the last five years and owns several different colonies. “I plant a lot of oregano around the farm because the flowers from those herbs boost the bees’ immune systems, and they’re healthier,” she explained.

Painting on a Real-Life Canvas

The Shangri-La tea room is nestled amongst the trees. (Photo courtesy of Rachel Deschand)

The farm itself serves as a secondary canvas for her to unleash her creativity. Initially, the farm wasn’t in great shape, with an abundance of thick, 40-foot-high blackberry bushes, and weeds. There were molehills, unkempt pastures, abandoned possessions from previous owners, and plants starved of water. Due to her strict organic gardening practices, Pike had to dig out the bushes or pull them out by hand. In doing so, she discovered many sickly rhododendrons that had been buried away for years, which she then carefully nursed back to life.

Pike takes great pride in her organic gardening practices. She adheres to an all-natural, organic approach to gardening, using her chicken manure rather than commercial chemical fertilizers. She pulls or digs out any weeds on her property and makes a continuous, conscious effort to use many native species of plants to encourage wildlife, and create a healthy, balanced ecosystem. “We don’t use any sprays or pesticides for the simple reason that I don’t want to eat poison,” she said.

Today, the farm is a beautifully-crafted work of art, with paved pathways leading to different areas of the garden. A Japanese tea house sits in the front of the property, complete with a little bridge, right across from the farm stand where Pike regularly restocks her fresh produce and baked goods for sale: from blueberries, green beans, plums, squashes, and tomatoes, to scones, jam, chocolate truffles, eggs, and even kombucha.

Transforming a nearly two-acre property was no easy feat. “My advice to somebody starting out would be to just do one little project at a time,” she said. Working on small areas, particularly those areas one frequents the most, is a good starting point. For Pike, those areas were around her work shed, where she keeps her garden and woodworking tools. So, she beautified that area with rose gardens.

Peace and Happiness

Liz sells many of her fresh produce at her farm stand at Shangri-La Farm, WA. (Photo courtesy of Rachel Deschand)

Neighbors and local visitors are often impressed with the beauty that encapsulates Shangri-La Farm. “There’s a lady that lives about a mile from here, around the corner, and she’s been living over there for the past 15 years. She drove by this place when it looked bad,” said Pike. She started crying when she drove by and saw the new gardens.

Much of the charm comes from Pike’s creativity, where she often uses old items and reworks them into new ones. One instance was when she took some limbs off an old cedar tree and turned them into posts to hold up the four corners of her Japanese tearoom, and even her grape arbor. She has also recycled her old campaign signs to use as posts.

“The theme of our farm is peace and happiness,” said Pike. Walking around the beautiful paths, visitors can experience the soothing power of nature surrounding them. Visitors come to Shangri-La Farm for the farm stand but stay for the garden’s tranquility. Benches and chairs are scattered all around the perimeter of the garden, providing ample seating for visitors. Oftentimes, Pike said, they will come over with a cup of coffee, and just sit outside.

Pike has even started to label all her plants in the garden, in the hopes of someday transforming it into a true botanical garden. “That way people can wander around, and there’ll be a listing of all the plants in that color,” she said. Paths are carefully designed cyclically, allowing visitors to wander around and end up back where they started.

Pike even has her own method of marketing her farm stand. Painted wooden signs hang on hooks and eyes along the entrance to the farm, visible to roadside drivers. The signs are all interchangeable, and serve as her roadside marketing system, alerting visitors about what produce and goods are currently available.

An Everblooming Garden

A curved road leading into Shangri-La Farm, WA. (Photo courtesy of Rachel Deschand)

Books serve as an important source of inspiration for Pike. A treasured favorite is “The Layered Garden” by David L. Culp. The book discusses garden design ideas for year-round beauty, and is inspired by Brandywine Cottage, Culp’s beloved two-acre Pennsylvania garden. Her favorite part of the book is when Culp discusses coming up with garden plans.

The secret to a great garden is to always try to incorporate the various features that already exist in the space for the garden, so when drawing out a plan, it’s important to draw it out once, and then put it away in a drawer. Then, go out into the garden space and look at the features already there, like a tree, or an old fence.

“If you strictly go by the piece of paper and the plan, you’re going to miss all those things that you can take advantage of that are already out there,” Pike explained. She said that for her farm, that element was the old mother maple tree, positioned almost in the center of the garden. It wasn’t originally part of her garden plan, but once she stood out there, she realized the importance of the old tree, and knew she had to keep her there.

The book also encourages planting perennials and discusses the design technique of layering: interplanting different plant species in the same area, so that when one finishes blooming, another one will begin. This results in an everblooming garden, full of colors that continually change throughout the seasons. This is precisely what Pike incorporated in her garden, choosing to plant mostly perennials, allowing her to always have something blooming, and providing important forage for her bees. Another bonus for her is that she can create bouquets for her table all year long, even during winter.

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Entrepreneurs Features

Bulletproof

BenShot's glassware is melded with imaginative hardware like bullets, arrow tips, and mini fire axes. (Courtesy of BenShot)

A few years ago, Bruce and Ben Wolfgram started debating about how to design the ultimate shot glass. Pierced with a bullet, a combination of the father and son’s two favorite things—guns and drinking—the pun-fueled drinking vessel would basically defy gravity and challenge logic with its curved exterior and heat-embedded bits of artillery. Bruce Wolfgram, a retired artist who had years of experience in creative design, was up for the task. After a lot of research, and more than a few piles of shattered glass, BenShot was born.

“This was more or less a project to break my dad out of a retirement funk,” noted Ben Wolfgram, an engineer by trade who was working at a robotics company in Philadelphia when the concept was launched. “He toyed around with it in his garage; torching and molding the glass until he got it just right. He made a bunch and brought them to a local gun show. They immediately sold out.”

News of Wolfgram’s glassware spread rapidly via word of mouth, and Bruce spent much of his time traveling to gun shows throughout the country. As sales increased, the father-son duo decided to create a website and bring their products to a wider audience. Ben quit his job, moved back to his Appleton, Wisconsin, hometown, and, together with his father, opened a glass workshop on the grounds of a repurposed furniture factory formerly owned by Thomas Edison. The vintage workspace and rural Northwoods surroundings provided a unique glass-working environment.

(Courtesy of BenShot)

“It was our goal from the start to make everything here in the United States,” Ben Wolfgram said. “We wanted to create jobs in our hometown and source all of our raw materials from right here in this country. In five years, this business has grown from a one-man operation in a garage to a full-time staff of 40 employees working in a 50,000-square-foot production facility. Nothing is outsourced, and everything we use—even our cardboard packaging—is made right here in the U.S.A.”

Embedded with a real, lead-free, .308-caliber bullet, and handcrafted with glass furnaces and lots of heat, each two-ounce shot glass takes about seven hours to complete. Etched and personalized upon request, some of their best-selling varieties include tumblers emblazoned with the American flag or printed with the Second Amendment. The BenShot inventory also encompasses pints, rocks, and wine glasses, and there are decanters and beer mugs, too. Just this past year, the Wolfgrams extended their offerings, embedding their glasses with miniature fire axes, fishing lures, broadhead arrow tips, golf balls, and hockey pucks. Custom orders have included glass sets embedded with pinballs, guitar picks, and a variety of nuts and bolts.

(Courtesy of BenShot)

“We wanted to make other designs that would represent other people’s passions and professions,” Ben Wolfgram said. “Guys are hard to buy for, so we started brainstorming about different likes and pastimes. Golf was an easy one and made a good corporate gift. We started thinking about our first responders because one of our employees was enrolled in the fire academy.”

Sketching out a small fire ax in-house and modeling it in Computer-Aided Design software, the younger Wolfgram printed it in 3D and then made a mold to cast the ax out of molten pewter. “It’s become one of our bestsellers,” he said. “And the fact that it’s made here from start to finish—like all of our products are—is probably one of its most attractive features.”

BenShot’s sales have since skyrocketed. Their craftsmanship and customer service have propelled the brand into a multi-million-dollar sales range and forced a relocation to a more spacious factory. Still located in Appleton and selling the majority of their products on BenShot.com, the company also markets its wares on Amazon.

“We have a lot of engagement from small communities across the country,” Ben Wolfgram said. “Firefighters, police, and military make up the bulk of our buyers, but all of our customers appreciate the fact that the product is handmade right here in the U.S.”

And the company places great importance on giving back to the community that supports it. “We are honored to team up with like-minded nonprofit organizations,” he added. “To date, BenShot has donated to more than 300 nonprofit organizations throughout the United States. We care deeply about the military, law enforcement officers, first responders, and mental health causes.”

For Wolfgram, it’s an extension of his product’s top-tier standards. “Our success hinges on the quality of our products and whether our customers get everything they were promised,” he concluded. “Our philosophy is to make an innovative product while still keeping jobs here in the U.S. We enjoy what we do, and it’s our goal to share our enthusiasm and excellence with as many people as possible.”

Jessica Jones-Gorman launched her career in journalism at a New York City daily newspaper more than 20 years ago. She has worked a general news beat, covered fashion, and written countless features about people who inspire and lead.

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Features

Saratoga Springs, New York: Three Attractions To Visit

Saratoga Springs, New York. (Veronica Yankowski)

Saratoga Springs, New York, is a small east coast town famed for its horse racing history and replenishing natural spas. Situated right between Albany (New York’s capital city) and picturesque Lake George, Saratoga Springs has bountiful offerings for travelers of every age and background.

Below we’ll explore a very brief history of the small New York town before taking you on a journey to three of the most popular attractions the region has to offer. Get ready because this travel guide is full of exciting things to do in Saratoga Springs. We’re talking ancient mineral springs, spa resorts, and America’s oldest race track. Let’s dive right in!

Saratoga Springs, New York. (Veronica Yankowski)
Saratoga Springs, New York. (Veronica Yankowski)

A brief history of Saratoga Springs, New York

The mineral-rich springs of Saratoga first attracted the interest of travelers in the early 1800s, although the health benefits of the springs were no secret to those before them. By 1831 a railroad was constructed, and a small hub of tourism quickly followed.

Fast forward to 1863, and America’s oldest race track emerged—the Saratoga Race Course. Shortly after came a slew of thoroughbred horse racing events, casinos, hotels, and eventually an entire town. The rest is living history.

Things to-do at Saratoga Springs

This exciting historical and cultural center is minutes from Albany and a short drive from iconic Northeast locations. Most notably, Lake George. Although health resorts and horse racing have long attracted visitors, there is no shortage of other activities to engage with today. From historical museums to boutique shopping and a lively bar and restaurant scene, fun activities in Saratoga abound.

1. Visit the natural mineral springs

As far back as the early 19th century, the natural carbonation contained in Saratoga Springs has attracted travelers. Today, the same natural springs draw an impressive crowd. If you visit Saratoga Springs, be sure to experience one or more of its 21 public natural spring locations. As expected, there is a wide range of spa activities and resorts situated around the springs, so prepare to rejuvenate!

Saratoga Springs, New York. (Veronica Yankowski)
Saratoga Springs, New York. (Veronica Yankowski)

2. Indulge in horseracing

Aside from the mineral springs, horse racing and gambling have always been Saratoga’s vice, and there’s no shortage of historical evidence to prove it. Even today, guests can stop in at the horse tracks for some fun, and many do so. Most remarkable is the Saratoga Race Course dating back to 1863.

Saratoga Springs, New York. (Veronica Yankowski)
Saratoga Springs, New York. (Veronica Yankowski)
Saratoga Springs, New York. (Veronica Yankowski)

3. Visit downtown

Just like any modern-day city, downtown Saratoga Springs, New York, has no shortage of mouthwatering local restaurants and comfortable places to imbibe. That’s another reason why travelers have been stopping off here for over 150 years. Throw in a hefty dose of Victorian architecture, museums, boutique shopping, and a healthy sprinkling of hotels, and we have ourselves a perfect holiday destination.

Saratoga Springs, New York. (Veronica Yankowski)
Saratoga Springs, New York. (Veronica Yankowski)
Saratoga Springs, New York. (Veronica Yankowski )
Categories
Features History

In Their Words: Veterans Who Served in War Tell Their Stories

Korean War veteran Sal Scarlato at the "mini-museum" he set up in his basement. (Courtesy of Sal Scarlato)

 

World War II Veteran

Editor’s note: Stanley Feltman passed away on September 23, shortly before this issue went to press.

(Dave Paone)

In 1945, at age 19, Stanley Feltman was a tail gunner in a B-29 for the U.S. Army Air Corps. He had flown about 15 successful bombing missions in the South Pacific, but come mission number 16, he wasn’t so lucky.

His plane, containing 11 crew members, was shot down by a Zero fighter aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy. All 11 men were able to escape the wreckage by inflating a dinghy and paddling away from the aircraft before it sank minutes later.

The dinghy was designed for six. That meant six were able to sit inside; but five, including Feltman, had to hang onto a rope that ran around the perimeter, with their bodies waist-deep in the water.

And then there were the sharks. They had some repellent on hand, but it dissipated after time. At one point, another airman who was hanging on lost his grip and slipped into the shark-infested water. Feltman dived after him and brought him back to the surface. This act of bravery would earn Feltman the Bronze Star.

Several hours later, a submarine spotted them. However, its crew was on a mission elsewhere, and could not take them aboard. The submarine’s crew wired their coordinates to an aircraft carrier, which sent a PBY seaplane to pick up the stranded airmen after a total of about eight hours in the water.

When the United States entered the war on December 7, 1941, Feltman was only 15 and couldn’t enlist, although he wanted to. However, Americans could enlist at 17 with parental consent, which was his plan. Upon his 17th birthday, he told his parents of his intention to volunteer.

Eventually, Feltman found himself in the tail of a B-29 in the South Pacific. His job was to fire at oncoming enemy planes. Often, these were flown by Kamikaze pilots, who would purposely crash their explosive-laden planes into American aircraft carriers.

Feltman recalled his first encounter with the enemy. “I remember somebody saying, ‘There’s planes coming in at six o’clock,’” he said. “I sighted on a plane that I saw coming in. I didn’t know if it was the same plane that they saw because usually they had five, six planes at one time come at you. I fired; I saw the plane blow up, so I figured it has to be a Kamikaze plane. It just exploded.”

Feltman was only 18 at the time, and the youngest member of the crew. After he hit his target, he shouted, “I got him! I got him! I got him!”

Today, at 95, when Feltman thinks about those battles, he’s not so enthusiastic. He’s certain he shot down eight Japanese pilots and thinks there may have been two more.

“I never felt right by taking a life,” he said. “When you’re shooting planes down, you’re taking a life. That’s all. There’s nothing big about that.”

Korean War Veteran

Sal Scarlato (left) with a South Korean counterpart. (Courtesy of Sal Scarlato)

On June 25, 1950, North Korean soldiers crossed the 38th parallel, and the Korean War began.

Sal Scarlato was 17 at the time. He had known of a few boys from his Brooklyn neighborhood who were killed in combat early on, but this didn’t stop him and his pals from enlisting in the Marines after they turned 18.

Private First Class Scarlato landed at Incheon on April 10, 1952. He was 19 and in the infantry.

“All of a sudden, we got hit with small-arms fire and mortar fire,” said Scarlato. “We were firing like crazy. I had the runs. I urinated. I was crying. A couple of guys got hit.”

One night, Scarlato had outpost duty along the 38th parallel. “That night, the CCF (Chinese Communist Forces) really gave us a welcome,” he said. “When they came, I didn’t fire my weapon right away. I froze. So, the guy next to me—actually, he was my squad leader—hit me in the helmet. He said, ‘You better start firing that weapon.’ A couple of minutes later, he got hit in the belly. He fell right on top of me. And when the corpsman came, he said, ‘Give me your hand.’”

Scarlato applied pressure to the squad leader’s liver, which was protruding from his body. Right then and there, he died. “I cried like a baby,” he said. “After this, I was very bitter. I kept saying to myself, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ And my officers always said, ‘You’ll find out. You’ll find out eventually what you’re doing here.’”

Scarlato witnessed countless casualties, and then, in July 1952, became one. Once again, Scarlato’s unit came under attack by the CCF. An enemy combatant tossed a grenade at him and two other Marines. It exploded, killing one of them and wounding the other two. Scarlato suffered leg, neck, and hand wounds, and a concussion.

A corpsman gave him a shot of morphine and sent him via jeep to an aid station. From there, he was flown via chopper to a hospital ship. He thought this was his ticket home, but the Marines still needed him. Being sent back to his unit made Scarlato bitter. “I hated everybody,” he said, even his South Korean allies. Scarlato once even spat on a soldier when he came close.

Scarlato soon discovered that the officers were correct, and he did indeed find out why he was there. On patrol one day, Scarlato’s unit came upon a small village where several civilians had been killed.

“There was a little boy, maybe 5, 6 years old—he had his hand blown off.” Scarlato immediately picked the boy up and put his severed hand in his own pocket. He bandaged the end of the boy’s arm and a corpsman arrived. The child screamed in pain the entire time. They flagged down a medical jeep and drove to a nearby orphanage that had medical staff.

The nurses placed the boy on a table. Scarlato and the corpsman turned and walked out, having done all they could. Then, Scarlato remembered he still had the child’s hand in his pocket. He stepped back inside, only to find out the boy had died.

This was the defining moment. Out of all the death and carnage Scarlato saw, this was the worst. Now, he knew that the reason he was there was “to save these people’s lives. Before that, I didn’t understand.”

At 88, Scarlato is still sharp as a tack and keeps up with the news, including about current U.S.–North Korea relations. He’s a member of the Korean War Veterans Association, and regularly raises money for Korean War monuments.

Vietnam War Veteran

Col. Robert Certain with his wife, Robbie. (Courtesy of Robert Certain)

It was late 1972, and as the holiday season approached, Colonel Robert Certain, an Air Force B-52 navigator, was preparing to return stateside from war-torn Vietnam. But just days before his departure date, this much-anticipated plan was abruptly changed. Instead of returning home, Certain was now assigned to a large-scale flying mission—one that would radically change his life.

As a navigator, Certain explained that his job was not only to get to the target on time, but also to ensure the task was accomplished in an equally prompt and precise manner. The logistics were critically important for this mission, he said, because he and his crew would be flying toward Hanoi, deep into what was then known as enemy territory. Even so, the newly assigned mission initially got off to a good start and seemed to go according to plan. And then, it didn’t.

When Certain and his crew had almost reached their target, the plane suddenly sputtered into a free fall. They’d been hit. With no time to waste, Certain knew there was only one way to survive the doomed flight—eject into enemy territory. And so, Certain explained, he wasn’t surprised when he was captured, along with another member of the crew. “We were just a few miles north of Hanoi,” Certain said of their precarious landing site, estimating it was within 10 or 20 kilometers of their original target.

Certain would eventually end up in the infamous prison sarcastically dubbed by Americans at that time as the “Hanoi Hilton.” But first, he was forced to endure hours of relentless interrogation. Then, he and his fellow captive crew mate were paraded in front of cameras at an international presser.

Though the North Vietnamese may have been “showing off” their catch of the day, Certain believes this exposure protected him and the other new captures from the type of well-reported, horrendous conditions earlier prisoners were subjected to. After about 10 days, his tiny, shared cell was upgraded to a much larger one, and the prisoners were eventually allowed to gather together on Sundays for a service of sorts.

If the watchful eye of the media played a part in the type of treatment Certain and other newer captives received as prisoners, undoubtedly, so did the actions of the American government. At that time, the United States was in dedicated negotiations to end its involvement in the war. After the signing of the Paris Peace Accords made it official, Certain once again began planning for his return home. This time, his plans were undeterred, and Certain was set free on March 29, 1973.

But this isn’t where the story ends. Certain, who was 25 when he was captured, returned to the United States and hit the ground running, but on a much different path. In 1976, Colonel Certain became Father Certain, an ordained Episcopalian priest. He went on to earn his Doctor of Ministry degree in 1999, and as a member of the U.S. Air Force Reserves, he served as chaplain for a number of U.S. bases, including what is now Andrews Joint Base. When former President Gerald Ford passed away in 2006, it was Father Certain who presided over his graveside services.

Certain retired from active-duty service in 1977 but went on to serve in the Reserves until 1999. His exemplary service earned him a number of prestigious honors, including the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and Distinguished Flying Cross medals, to name just a few. He has also served as a CEO, director, or board member for numerous organizations and governmental committees, such as the Defense Health Board and the Pentagon Task Force on the Prevention of Suicide by Members of the Armed Services. Notably, he remains active as a board member of the Distinguished Flying Cross Society, comprised of medal recipients. Over the years, his 2003 autobiography, “Unchained Eagle,” has accumulated a prestigious—and rare—five-star average rating on Amazon.

Yet despite his many successes, Certain admits to one failure. “I’ve tried to retire,” he said with humor in his voice, “but I’ve been a failure at it.” Officially though, Certain is indeed now classified by the military as retired, and lives with his wife of many years, Robbie, in Texas.

Gulf War Veteran

Air Force Lt. Col. Rob Sweet (center right) with his family after he took his final flight on June 5 this year, at the Moody Air Force Base in Georgia. (Andrea Jenkins)

It was February 1991, and U.S. Air Force pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Sweet, was on his 30th mission in Desert Storm. The goal, simply put, was to eliminate enemy targets. However, his arrival at the targeted area was met with such heavy fire, he was ordered to leave because, as he explained in a press statement later, “if the target area is too hot, you have to leave. It’s not time to be a hero.”

As he and his lead flight captain, Stephen Phillis, made their way out of the area, he caught sight of what he described as a “pristine array of (enemy) tanks that had not been hit.” He found this downright shocking, he said, “because by that point, everything had been bombed for the past 30 days.” After Sweet began to attack the tanks, an exchange of fire erupted, and the A-10 Thunderbolt he was piloting was hit from behind.

He attempted to keep the damaged plane in the air, but he quickly realized it was not salvageable, and in order to survive, he would have to eject into enemy territory. “I tried a couple of things, and basically, it wasn’t going to work, so I punched out,” Sweet said, explaining how he landed face-to-face with more than a dozen irate Iraqi soldiers, southwest of Basra, Iraq. He was captured and held prisoner for 19 days under brutal conditions, including beatings, starvation, and exposure to disease.

It was clear, he said, that he now had to fight to keep himself both physically and emotionally strong. But it was also clear that the military had prepared him well beforehand for this type of situation. “There were very few surprises,” Sweet said of his time as a prisoner. “The SERE (Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape) we have is outstanding,” he said of the U.S. military’s training. “There were very few surprises in the jailhouse. I knew what to expect.”

And although his expectation included casualties, Sweet still found himself reeling after learning that Phillis had been killed in action. “I had survivor’s guilt, and it took me a long time to get over that,” he said.

Sweet spent 19 days in captivity before being released as part of a prisoner exchange. But it wasn’t without some long-term aftereffects. Most notably, he realized the importance of making good decisions under pressure and taking life as it comes. “Bloom where you’re planted,” he advised. In the military, that often includes assignments to undesirable locales. “Make the most of them and move on,” he said.

And that’s exactly what Sweet himself has done. After spending 20 years on active duty and 13 more as a reservist, Sweet retired in June 2021, making him America’s last POW to be actively serving in the Air Force. After this acknowledgement and congratulations at his retirement ceremony, General Charles Q. Brown captured the sentiment of the nation when he said simply, “We thank you for all you’ve done.”

Dave Paone is a Long Island-based reporter and photographer who has won journalism awards for articles, photographs, and headlines. When he’s not writing and photographing, he’s catering to every demand of his cat, Gigi.

Joni Williams started her career as a real estate reporter. Magazine writing soon followed, and with it, regular gigs as a restaurant and libations reviewer. Since then, her work has appeared in a number of publications throughout the Gulf Coast and beyond.

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Features Giving Back

From Torpedo Builder to Education Entrepreneur

Yolanda Kennedy in her Navy uniform. (Courtesy of Yolanda Kennedy)

Yolanda Kennedy once built torpedoes for the United States Navy. Now, she’s building a better future for more than 100 young people each year.

The youngest of nine children raised by a single parent in Cherokee County, South Carolina, Kennedy always displayed a passion for learning. “I was a pretty good student” with a strong aptitude for mathematics, she said, earning business and middle school education degrees and teaching math in her hometown of Gaffney. 

Growing up in a region rife with poverty, Kennedy was mindful of how her mom had to stretch a dollar. Although Kennedy yearned to go to college immediately, “I didn’t want to put the struggle on her,” she said, and instead signed up with Uncle Sam. Her first Navy assignment took her to Hawaii, where training in electricity and electronics prepared her to help build the Mark 46 antisubmarine torpedo. She later served as a military paralegal before retiring to her hometown after 20 years of service. 

Disturbed by the memory of a sister who was kidnapped and murdered, “I knew I wanted to do something for the community,” Kennedy said, so she dug into her pocket to start a community center. Its mission is fundamental: help young people—from preschool through college—become more educated and responsible so their aspirations can become reality.

Launched in 2008, the Academic Technology and Wellness Academy (ATWA) provides about 135 students a year with free or low-cost programs that expand upon the curricula of Cherokee County’s public and private schools. ATWA offers after-school care and tutoring for kids aged 4 to 13; “life lessons” on topics such as behavior, money, and etiquette; Teen Talk Tuesdays via Facebook Live; pregnancy prevention classes; and a summer camp providing instruction in reading, writing, and mathematics along with field trips. Transportation from area schools to ATWA is free, as are hot, balanced meals.

Kennedy mentoring a teen at the ATWA. (Courtesy of Yolanda Kennedy)

While her focus is on young people, Kennedy also stages a Feed The Veterans event each November to demonstrate the community’s appreciation for their sacrifices.

At ATWA, Kennedy makes it a point to withhold program fees if it appears a family is incapable of paying. That’s especially true of tutoring. “We just help them as they need help,” she said. “Mostly, it’s math, and since I’m a math professor, I don’t mind helping.” Over the years, the academy’s growing popularity has prompted local philanthropists and businesses to support it. “We never turn a child away, whether they can pay or not,” Kennedy emphasized. 

Kennedy takes a selfie with children at the ATWA. (Courtesy of Yolanda Kennedy)

“Her program has just been very successful with both of my grandsons,” said Vickie Littlejohn, grandmother to a 6-year-old who sang in the academy’s choir and a 14-year-old with Asperger syndrome who blossomed when the robotics team he joined won an inter-school competition. “It just made such a big difference in his life and it prepared him for school as well, interacting, because he goes to a regular school,” she added. The robotics program helps students enhance their teamwork and creativity and deepens their problem-solving skills. It is headed by Tony Adams-Wray, Kennedy’s husband.  

While last year’s COVID-19 lockdown prompted a scaling-back of in-person programs, it also gave Kennedy the opportunity to introduce the Teen Talk series, which proved to be a big hit. During the one-hour interactive sessions where teens are mentored by their peers and adults, discussion topics are chosen based on “what’s troubling teens today,” said Shanese Dawkins, the series’ director. Over the past year, talks were given 48 out of 52 weeks.

“We had a young lady on. She was pregnant as a teenager [. . .] dropped out of school for a little while, went back, got her GED [. . .] went on to get her master’s and then she got her doctorate,” Dawkins noted. Another speaker, a graduate of Gaffney High School who received a four-year college scholarship, explained to young men how athletics is not the only pathway to success.

Jonna Turner, ex-CEO of the Cherokee County Chamber of Commerce, believes the innovative curriculum at ATWA not only helps kids overcome childhood challenges, but also prepares them to enter the job marketplace. “What she’s doing is preparing these students to be productive citizens,” Turner said. “So I feel that with Yolanda’s mission and her passion and her vision to educate students of all ages, and the partnerships that she is growing in the community with manufacturing companies, with community colleges, [and] four-year institutions, I mean, that is a definite investment into the future.”

“We’re just trying to reach as many youth as we can,” said Kennedy.

Neil Cotiaux is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, and business journals, mostly in the Southeast and Midwest. His work has largely focused on community and economic development, immigration, and health care. He works out of Spartanburg, South Carolina.

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Features History

A Secret Language That Helped End World War II

Navajo Code Talker Peter MacDonald Sr. at his ranch, located outside Tuba City, Arizona. (Tom Brownold for American Essence)

In war, information can be more valuable than tanks, planes, ships, or soldiers. Information sent and received without detection can mean the difference between victory and defeat, even between life and death.

Protecting information means developing elaborate codes. One code, which Native Americans developed and used, played a pivotal role in helping the United States win the Pacific front during World War II and bring the conflict to an end.

In the process, it became the only spoken code in military history never to have been deciphered.

Members of the Navajo tribe combined with the Marine Corps to create a code using the Navajo language. The Navajo Marines who employed that code became known as “Navajo Code Talkers” and participated in every Marine assault in the Pacific, including Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.

The code “saved hundreds of thousands of lives and helped win the war in the Pacific,” said Peter MacDonald Sr., a 93-year-old Marine veteran and one of only four Code Talkers still living.

At Iwo Jima, six Code Talkers sent and received more than 800 messages without making a mistake.

“Were it not for the Navajos,” 5th Marine Division signals officer Major Howard Connor once said, “the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.”

A Spark of Genius

The idea to use Navajo came to a civil engineer in Los Angeles. Philip Johnston, the son of a missionary, grew up on a Navajo reservation in Arizona and maintained contacts with Navajo friends. Johnston, who fought in World War I, had learned that the U.S. Army used the language spoken by the Comanche tribe for military communications during field maneuvers.

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, Johnston contacted the Marines and presented his idea in 1942. The Marines asked him to organize a demonstration, so Johnston chose four Navajos who were working in Los Angeles’ shipyards at the time.

The demonstration succeeded. The Navajos decoded and transmitted three lines within 20 seconds.

MacDonald Sr. with his veteran insignia. (Tom Brownold for American Essence)

So the Marines approved Johnston’s plan and recruited 29 Navajos to write a code book. But since Navajo was only spoken, not written, the authors devised an alphabet for written communication and colorful descriptions for military terms.

For example, the Code Talkers used the Navajo word for chickenhawk to describe a dive bomber.

“We had a lot of chickenhawks on the reservation,” MacDonald said. “They fly high, but when they see a raven down below, they dive real fast, and they have a nice lunch. So by using the action of the bird and the action of the airplane, we can help us memorize what those code words are.

“Code words were not very difficult to remember because they were all based on something that we’re all familiar with. All the names of different airplanes took the names of different birds that we are very familiar with on the reservation.”

Breaking New Ground

The armed forces used other Native American languages as codes during World War II, but Navajo provided several advantages. First, it remained an unwritten language. Second, only about 30 non-Navajo Americans understood the language when the program began. Third, Navajo’s grammar and syntax differ dramatically from other languages.

Though the program began in 1942, MacDonald had no idea it existed when he joined the Marines in 1944.

“It was top secret to begin with,” he said. “None of us knew that there was such a program until after we passed boot camp, combat training, and communication school. Only after that were we then introduced to a very private, top secret, confidential, Navajo code school.”

At that school, instructors who served overseas taught the students how to use and pronounce code words, how to use the new alphabet, how to write legibly on a special tablet for the code, and how to practice their new skills.

Working Under Fire

The Code Talkers who graduated became as indispensable as rifles or mess kits.

“Every ship used in the landing—battleships, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, aircraft carriers—all had Navajo Code Talkers along with the English [language] network guys,” MacDonald said. “Every Marine air wing, Marine tank unit, and Marine artillery unit also had Navajo Code Talkers assigned to them.”

So how did the whole system work under fire?

“There are two tables [where Marines worked], one for the Navajo communication network, a second table for the English communication network,” MacDonald said. “As soon as the first shot is fired, messages are coming in Navajo as well as in English. All Navajo messages are received by Navajo Code Talkers.

“The message comes in, you write it down in English, and hand it over your shoulder to the runner standing behind us. He takes it up to the bridge and gives it to the general or the admiral. He reads it, he answers, and the runner brings it back down to us.”

The runner had his own special way to determine a communication’s importance.

“If he says ‘Nevada,’ ‘New Mexico,’ or ‘Arizona,’ we send a message back out in Navajo code,” indicating the message was important, MacDonald said. “If there is a top secret or confidential message that needs to be sent to another unit or another location, it’s given to a Navajo Code Talker.”

By the time World War II ended, more than 400 Marines served as Navajo Code Talkers. Their secret vocabulary grew from 260 code words used during Guadalcanal, the Code Talkers’ first battle, to more than 600, MacDonald said.

Preserving a Legacy

Yet not until 1968, when the government declassified the program, did Americans know about the Navajo Code Talkers. Now, 80 years after serving, the surviving Code Talkers are trying to preserve their legacy for future generations.

“We have been going across the country, via invitations, to tell our story,” MacDonald said, “and we are making headway to get American people to know this legacy.”

MacDonald Sr. with his grandchildren. (Tom Brownold for American Essence)

Part of that campaign involves plans for building a museum dedicated to that legacy.

“We found that many Americans and foreign nations didn’t know anything about this unique World War II legacy,” said MacDonald, who is spearheading the project. “The museum will tell the story of who we are, our heritage, our culture, our language, and the sacrifices we’ve made like so many other peoples.”

Those sacrifices enabled the United States to help protect the world from tyrants, he added.

Joseph D’Hippolito is a freelance writer based in Fullerton, California. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Federalist, The Guardian, The New York Times, and the Jerusalem Post, among other outlets.

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Features History

Service in the Time of JFK’s Camelot

Cadet Tom Fryer shakes hands with President John F. Kennedy at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation in 1963. (Courtesy of Wes Fryer)

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the start of President John F. Kennedy’s administration. When he took office in January 1961, he ushered in a new sentiment for the country. That sentiment was all about youth.

At 43, JFK was the nation’s second-youngest president, and he was good-looking to boot. The First Lady was also young and good-looking, and their two young children were adorable. It was all about youth.

JFK succeeded President Dwight D. Eisenhower. While both had served in the military during World War II, they were from opposite ends of the age spectrum. Eisenhower, known as Ike, was a career soldier, and had reached the rank of five-star general in the U.S. Army by the end of his military career. JFK, while an officer in the Navy, was far younger, and only rose to lieutenant during the war.

“What had happened in 1960 was that the junior ranks of the military in World War II replaced the generals,” said James Piereson, a historian and fellow at the Manhattan Institute. “That was part of the generational change that happened. Kennedy was, of course, quite pro-military,” he said. “JFK gave luster to military service,” he added, having “very much campaigned on his war record” in 1960.

So, what was it like being young and in the service during the Kennedy administration?

Bob Hogan was a gunnery officer and lieutenant junior grade on active duty in the Navy from 1960 to 1963, essentially the entire duration of JFK’s time in office. He was commissioned at age 22. “I was blown away by JFK’s Navy war record, his charisma, style, and wit,” he said. “I was immensely energized by his call to service, and really believed in it. His seeming idealism, his patriotic values—I was completely taken in.”

Tom Fryer had the thrill of a lifetime when JFK handed him his diploma and commission. They shook hands at Fryer’s graduation ceremony from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1963. “I felt so honored, so humbled,” said Fryer, who was also 22 at the time.

The American president is also commander-in-chief of the nation’s military. In October 1962, JFK had to make some difficult decisions in that role. The United States and the USSR were fighting the Cold War. Nikita Khrushchev was JFK’s counterpart in communist Russia. A U-2 reconnaissance photo of Cuba confirmed that Khrushchev had placed nuclear missiles on the island, just 90 miles off the coast of Florida.

JFK responded by ordering a naval blockade around Cuba, and essentially told Khrushchev that the missiles had to go. If they didn’t, there would be war. A nuclear war.

This period, known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, was essentially a naval operation. But the entire military, worldwide, was ready for deployment, including a possible invasion of Cuba.

Harry Moritz was at Morse Intercept School at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, at the time. “One day, we marched back to our barracks and were held for an announcement. We were asked if anyone spoke Spanish. Several guys raised their hands. They were pulled to one side, told to pack their gear, and they were sent on a ‘special assignment’ TDY (temporary duty station). They disappeared and were never seen again,” he said. “We non-Spanish folks stayed in Morse school, and in the dark, like the rest of the USA, crapping our pants.”

Gary Mahone was a Morse interceptor, stationed in Hakata, Japan. “During that time, we were on red alert and worked 12-hour shifts, 24/7,” he said. “All leaves and terminations were canceled. Very tense times.”

The Air Force Academy that Fryer attended was in Colorado, not far from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (called NORAD), which conducts aerospace warning and control for the United States. “If the Russians would have come after us, that was a prime target,” said Fryer.

However, according to Fryer, Soviet missiles weren’t all that accurate at the time, so if they fell 15 miles short of their target, the academy could easily be hit. “In preparation for that, we held some drills,” he said. The academy was built with underground tunnels that distributed its utilities. Top brass decided the safest place for the cadets was in these tunnels, which no one really knew about.

Hogan was on a destroyer, which was part of the task force that was going to invade Cuba. His ship was the submarine screen and would provide shore bombardment should the invasion happen.

Hogan spotted a Russian submarine tailing them. “I heard his torpedo doors open,” he said. That meant the Soviets were preparing to attack. Hogan had his hand on the trigger, let his captain know he had positive identification, and requested permission to fire.

Had permission been granted, this very action would have kicked off a nuclear war. However, he was “in a system” and “the system has its rules; you follow the rules.” He would have obeyed the order to fire if it had been given.

“I was (expletive) my pants,” Hogan recalled. “There was a long pause, and the captain said, ‘Classify your contact as a whale,’” instead of an enemy submarine. “I was really glad when the captain chickened out.”

With a nuclear war between the two superpowers looming, Khrushchev eventually gave in and agreed to remove the missiles.

Veteran Joe Schmidt of N.Y. (Dave Paone)

Joe Schmidt was a 21-year-old signalman on a destroyer in the blockade. His job was to directly communicate with the Russian merchant ships as they removed the missiles from Cuba. “With a flashing light, we would send a message to them, and we had to ask them, ‘What is your cargo?’” he said. The expected reply was, “Missiles.” Schmidt would relay that message to the captain, who would relay it to the naval air station in Key West, Florida.

It was understood by everyone involved that the Soviet merchant ships were carrying the missiles and nothing else. “Anything coming out of Cuba at that point was only coming out with missiles on it. They weren’t bringing cigars,” said Schmidt with a laugh.

Key West would then dispatch a P2V Neptune anti-submarine aircraft to fly over the Russian ship to photograph its cargo. The only time Schmidt was in contact with a Soviet ship, it was after midnight and completely dark.

“They had these huge searchlights on the wingtips,” he said. “And they lit that ship up—that plane lit it up—it looked like it was 12 o’clock in the afternoon with those lights.” Even though the two sides spoke entirely different languages—ones that don’t even share the same alphabet—there was a code that both understood, which made communication possible.

JFK’s presidency is fondly referred to as “Camelot,” and the consensus among those who served in the military during his administration is that, for different reasons, it was an exciting time. As Hogan put it, “Best and worst experience of my life.”

Dave Paone is a Long Island-based reporter and photographer who has won journalism awards for articles, photographs, and headlines. When he’s not writing and photographing, he’s catering to every demand of his cat, Gigi.

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Features History

Photographing President Eisenhower

Al Freni, with his iconic photo of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and grandson David, and the Speed Graphic camera he used to shoot the picture. (Dave Paone)

On a summer’s day in 1955, the stars aligned for an airman second class at the Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado. This was just before the days when Camp David became the official presidential retreat, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower used a property near the base known as the “Summer White House.”

Twenty-one-year-old Al Freni was assigned to the president as his official photographer. On August 16, he and several other photographers were shooting Eisenhower (known as Ike) and his grandson, David, as they were recreating on a nearby ranch, owned by one of Ike’s friends, Aksel Neilsen.

Freni took the picture that would kick-start his career. It’s of the pair fishing at a pier, bonding as grandfathers and grandsons do. This picture would be republished in books and magazines and exhibited for decades thereafter.

Freni’s story begins in 1933, when he was the second son born to Italian immigrant parents in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, New York. His birth name was Alfredo Giuseppe Freni, but several years later, an editor felt it would take up too much space in his publication and, in an Ellis Island-style move, insisted he simply go by Al Freni.

At 10 years old, Freni purchased his first camera, a Clix Deluxe, for $1.79. Soon after, his older cousin purchased a basic darkroom kit for Freni, and he started developing and printing his own pictures in the bathroom and what was the coal bin in his family’s house.

Completely by chance, famed Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt lived in an apartment building two blocks from the Freni household. Upon learning this, Freni scraped up a dime to purchase the latest issue, never having heard of Eisenstaedt before.

Freni attended the School of Industrial Art (now the High School of Art and Design) in Manhattan for high school, where he took four photography classes per day and was named “most probable to succeed” upon graduation in 1951.

At this point, the Korean War was on, and Freni was of draftable age. For the next two years, he worked two different jobs but decided to enlist before he was to be drafted. He joined the Air Force in 1953 with the plan of working as a photographer.

The Air Force had a different plan. They trained him as a turret mechanic for B-47 bombers. After nine months of it, Freni had had enough and was seriously considering going AWOL. “I couldn’t stand what I was doing,” Freni said. A fellow airman suggested he speak with the base chaplain. Freni took that advice, and the chaplain, a colonel, pulled some strings. He offered Freni a position working for the weekly Air Force newspaper, called Airmen. Freni jumped at the offer.

As airman first class, Al Freni is pictured after his promotion in 1955. (Courtesy of Al Freni)

The good news was Freni was the No. 2 photographer of a two-man photo department. The bad news was that meant he had to shoot the less-glamorous and more difficult assignments, including climbing up a ladder to the roof of a hangar to photograph the president’s plane upon arrival.

“Then the magical thing happened,” said Freni. “The photographer that was assigned to cover the president in 1954 got his orders. They shipped him out. I graduated to base photographer.”

That meant whenever Eisenhower vacationed at the Summer White House, Freni was the official photographer. “Here I am, not even 22 years old,” said Freni, “and I was assigned to be the presidential photographer.”

The day of golfing, horseback riding, and fishing was a photo-op manufactured by the presidential press secretary at the time, James Hagerty. It was so manufactured that, according to Freni, the White House had live trout trucked in and released into the water to ensure the younger Eisenhower would catch a fish.

While the entire day was manufactured, the moment Freni captured was real. David had walked away from his grandfather, and the other half-dozen photographers there, and stood on the pier alone. Ike walked over and joined him. Freni saw this unfolding but was the only photographer to act. “I saw a picture,” Freni said. He then shot the photo that would bring him his most recognition.

All of Freni’s photographs taken while in the Air Force were shot on a Speed Graphic camera, which he purchased in 1949. It was the camera photojournalists had used for decades. It was big, heavy, cumbersome, and took one sheet of film at a time, so photographers spent a lot of time inserting and removing the frames that held the film. If a flash was needed, individual flashbulbs were inserted before and ejected after each use.

The fishing photo ran on the front page of Airmen, as well as the Rocky Mountain News, a Denver daily newspaper. Eisenhower loved it so much that he requested 40 prints. It took Freni three days, but he made 43 11-by-14-inch prints in the darkroom by hand.

An appointment was set up for Freni and the public information officer, a major, to meet in the president’s office, where Eisenhower would sign one of the prints for Freni to keep. Freni got a haircut, shined his shoes, and put on clean fatigues. When they walked into the room, Eisenhower said, “Come in, Sergeant,” and the major’s face turned white.

Freni believes this was the commander-in-chief’s subtle way of saying to the major, “Promote this guy.” Whether it was intentional or not, the major did, indeed, promote Freni soon afterward.

Ike wrote, “For Alfred Freni, with best wishes, Dwight Eisenhower.”

Thirty-nine years later, the grandson, David, signed the photo, writing, “For Al Freni, who took my favorite picture.”

Freni’s photograph is at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum, and Boyhood Home in Abilene, Kansas, and at the Eisenhower Historical Site in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It’s been published in one of the titles in the Time-Life series, “The Fabulous Century,” as well as many other books and magazines.

Freni has had a long career as a professional photographer in New York. For many years, he had a combination studio-office-darkroom in the Time-Life Building, seeing Eisenstaedt regularly. As a true New Yorker, he never left his Queens neighborhood and now lives in the building where Eisenstaedt lived. But it’s the fishing picture that Freni remembers most fondly.

He often states how “one two-hundredth of a second” can change a person’s life. That one two-hundredth of a second certainly changed his.

Dave Paone is a Long Island-based reporter and photographer who has won journalism awards for articles, photographs, and headlines. When he’s not writing and photographing, he’s catering to every demand of his cat, Gigi.