Ken's Stories

Steve and I were fishing at the SHAD FACTORY in Rehoboth, Ma. Well while we were fishing his old Ford rolled forward over the bank, into the Palmer River, completely submerged except for the rear tires and trunk..... Steve walks over and assesses the situation, while I pissed my pants laughing. He just climbs onto the back window and roof and starts fishing again.....About 10 minutes later some guy walks by and asks Steve how the Fords are biting....That was when Steve told the guy to go do something that was physically impossible to himself.

One time while working at Mossberg, we worked with a guy named Everett who had somehow lost his arm and had a prosthesis hand, but at work he had a hook. OK ? Well, I had just met this little redheaded bastard (Steve) about a week earlier, and he said, "Watch this." .... He walks over to Everett who was welding (with the protective shield down of course) and tack welds his hook to the workbench. When Everett got done welding and went to raise his shield, he couldn't move and had to disconnect his arm at the elbow and get a grinder to get his hook free.... The laughs never end.

I remember one time our boss, Jerry, at Mossberg saying to us If we didn't start putting in a full shift instead of taking off at lunch time to go fishing for 2 hours we were going to "Find ourselves walking down the road." I said, "Why, are they hiring down there?" and Steve said "Why the hell would I be walking down the road? My car is parked right outside." We actually used to change shifts at Mossberg. In the summer we worked 3rd shift so we could go to the beach (where the memorial service was) every day and fish for stripers till it was time to go to work. And in the winter we went back to days so we could play hockey at night.

Today I start this blog for Steve

Today I start this page for Steve. He was my friend and now he's gone. I miss him and I hope his friends will post on this blog with me.

I was fourteen when I met him. He was working at Mossberg Pressed Steel in Attleboro, Massachusetts, as a welder with his best friend Kenny. That was where he met my sister, Faye. Not too long after that, they were married. He was cute and funny and he became my brother-in-law and friend. He drove an orange Chevy 409 and liked to work on it to give it “more power!” Then I remember a dark green Pontiac, maybe GTO – pretty slick!

Faye and Steve had an apartment in East Providence, RI. Then they had Lori. I remember meeting Stevie and Chrissy, Steve's other kids there. They were such cute kids. Stevie looked like a little version of his dad. Lori was such a beautiful baby. I used to baby-sit for her and I liked spending time with all of them. A few months later they got an apartment in an old Victorian house in Cranston, RI. It was a really big apartment. I loved it. There was an unfinished third floor where I got to set up a little place where I could sleep when I visited. It was my hideaway.

Steve decided (with some help and prodding from his friend Kenny and Faye) that he wanted to become a firefighter. First, he wasn’t the biggest guy in the world. At that time, they had height and weight requirements for the department. He ate bananas and bread and anything else he could get his hands on to make the weight requirement and wore his heaviest shoes for the weigh-in. (I believe it helped with the height requirement too!) He was so happy when he made it.

I have learned from Kenny that it was a good thing that they both were accepted to their fire departments, "because we were both about to get fired from Mossburg (kinda/sorta) for taking too much time off to fish. . . Steve took the test for East Providence and failed the psychiatric exam....Funny thing ---back then they gave you a test to 'make sure you were nuts enough' to do that job...now they test to make sure your not....(just a joke) Then he took the Cranston test and was on his way."

Not long after Faye and Steve were married, Steve lost his mother to liver disease. She had abused alcohol for much of her life and finally her life ended. I don't know too much about Steve's homelife when he was growing up except that his parents weren't very focused on parenting and that Steve was an only child.

It wasn't too long after Steve joined the Fire Department that Faye went back to college. The two started growing in different directions and soon they divorced. It was a sad time for our family. We loved them both and Lori became the string that bound us all together. I think Steve felt awkward at first because it seemed strange to him that we would continue to love and care about him. We told him that just because he and Faye were divorced, didn't mean that we divorced him.

Steve continued with the Fire Department. It seemed to agree with him. He continued his education and became a paramedic. He learned underwater rescue and respiratory therapy. He found his place and made many friends and colleagues. He made friends of those he helped rescue as well.

We didn't see him a lot for a long time. I got older and got married had kids (Randy and Jared), divorced and went on with my life. I got married for the second time to Marwan, had more kids (Zaki and Adnan). Then in the late 80's I went back to school to finish my degree. When I finished in 1990, Marwan surprised me (with some help from my mother). They had contacted Steve and planned a trip to Kauai as a graduation present. Steve had recently moved to Kauai with his new wife Susan. He and Susan had gotten married in Kauai and had decided to move there from Narragansett, RI. He had retired from the department.

Marwan and I went to Kauai and had a wonderful time. We traveled around the island with Steve and Sue. It was a fantastic vacation. The beautiful tropical island, the welcoming friends who made us feel not just welcome but almost at home. When we went home, I felt reconnected with a part of my past. From that time on we kept in touch and visited as often as time and money allowed.

Then Came Briar!

A beautiful new baby girl named Briar came into Steve's life in February of 1993. She changed his life forever. He had not expected to be a father again at this stage of his life, but he fell right into it. He loved that girl with his whole heart and soul!