Good in Every Bad - THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE

I have always believed that no matter how bad a situation is you can always look and find a bright spot in it. Read the following account of an event that happened to me and I think you will agree “There is Good in Every Bad.”

During 1969 and 1970, I was working for Brockway Glass Company as the Director of Training. My job was to travel to each of the 13 factories throughout the United States each month and teach Management Principles to Front-line Supervisors. It was a hectic schedule that required me to spend a couple days a month in each of the 13 factories. I was only home about three days per month, including weekends, which was about enough time to pick up clean laundry.

My schedule took me across the country … from Freehold, New Jersey to Oakland, California, with many stops along the way. Then I would start the cycle all over again. This program went on for about 15 or 16 months.

I didn’t mind the schedule since I was a 31-year-old bachelor with a 1967 Corvette Stingray, living in my parent’s home in a basement apartment in DuBois, Pennsylvania. I was on a full expense account and I pretty much banked my entire paycheck. I was like the drunken sailor who had a girl in every port. Life was good and I was enjoying it.

On my scheduled travels to Oakland, CA., I would stay with friends who I had known since 1960. I found out that on one of their relocations through Brockway, they had purchased a house owned by a dentist and his wife. I didn’t know them but remember them telling the tragic story that the dentist had leukemia and was not expected to live.

Prior to my starting the Management Training Program, the dentist passed away. I remember riding to work and looking at the house they were building on top of Mt. Vista. My friends told me the sad story. She was widowed in an unfinished home with four small
children under the age of nine. Everyone told me the house was pretty well finished except for hanging a few light fixtures and mounting some switch plates. As I was to find out later, this was far from the truth.

Since I was considered to be an eligible bachelor around Brockway, people were always trying “to fix me up.” My California friends were no different. When I would visit them in Oakland they would tell me about the “Widow on the Hill” and suggested I take her out on a date. They thought that she was a very nice girl and we would hit it off. I told them I would take her out but was privately thinking, “Why do I want to take out a widow with four children in an unfinished house?” Unbeknownst to me, my friends had been writing to the widow and telling her all about me.

In fact, I had no intention of taking her out.

In March of 1970, I was making my last swing through California and told my mother, father and sister, Kris, that I would take them along and we would have a family vacation in California. None of my family had ever been to California. While we were in Oakland, my mother, father, Kris and I stayed with my friends and they would bend my mother’s ear and tell her about the sad situation of the dentist and his wife, Carole.

It was in California that we first noticed my father was having health problems. As we were walking up to Coit Tower in San Francisco, he experienced shortness of breath and we had to stop several times for him to rest. Later, I was so thankful we had taken the California vacation since we had such a good time and it was to be the last time we were together as a family.

A short time after we returned home to DuBois, PA. my father experienced chest pains and shortness of breath. He went into the hospital and while there suffered a massive heart attack that destroyed a major portion of his heart. They moved him into Intensive Care so they could keep a better eye on him. He was very critical for several days.

I HAVE ALWAYS BELIEVED THERE IS GOOD IN EVERY BAD. JAC BEIGHEY’S ILLINESS WAS TO DRAMATICALLY AND SIGNIFICENTLY CHANGE MY LIFE FOREVER.

I would sit in the Intensive Care Waiting Room for hours every day watching my father. My mother was always there too. We were only allowed into ICU for five minutes every hour, so it was very difficult to get information on how my father was doing.

THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE came while I was sitting in the waiting room. I noticed a cute nurse who was working in ICU. My testosterone started to kick in. She looked so adorable in her nursing uniform … A cute smile with her tongue rolled up in the corner. I thought, “I have got to find out who that is.” I got close enough to see her name tag … Carole Lanzoni. I thought, “Oh my God, that’s the girl I was supposed to be taking out all this time.” I was pretty embarrassed and went into hiding.

Whenever the ICU nurses would go on a break, my mother would follow them into the coffee shop and pump them for information about my father’s condition. I found out later that on one occasion, my mother followed Carole into the coffee shop and started a conversation with her. During the conversation, Carole mentioned about her husband, a dentist, dying of leukemia in Brockway. My mother remembered the story from the visit to Oakland, California and said, “Do you have friends in Oakland, California?”

I was sitting in the waiting room reading a book when suddenly my mother appeared with Carole Lanzoni and said, “You have mutual friends in Oakland, California.” I was very embarrassed. I hid it the best that I could.

From that moment on, I saw or talked to Carole Lanzoni almost every single day. We were married eight months later.

Fortunately, my father lived long enough to see us get married and to meet Carole, Skip, Susie, Tom and Tim. I always felt sad that he never got to see or know our two youngest children, Elizabeth and Anne.

WHAT STARTED OUT AS A SAD TIME IN MY LIFE HAD A HAPPY ENDING! I MARRIED THE GIRL OF MY DREAMS WHO HAS BEEN A GREAT AND SUPPORTIVE WIFE AND MOTHER FOR OVER 35 YEARS.

YES, THERE IS GOOD IN EVERY BAD.