Childhood Memories

Third in a series of "Things you may not know about me...". The link above is a story about a childhood and thought you might like to hear about my childhood experience with Dan Rossi.

My family moved to Holbrook, Long Island when I turned 6 years old. We were late moving to the school district as it was already October, and my birthday had just passed. My parents didn't have much of a choice, as they had just purchased a brand new home in a Kaufmann & Broad development, and had to wait for the completion of the home. This meant that my sister and I were a month and a half late entering the school year in our new school district.

I walked into an established first grade class and was an obvious newcomer. I still have memories of the first day of school. My first grade teacher Mrs. Rea, was a young blonde woman, who immediately took my hand and introduced me to the class, and insisted that everyone welcome me, and then she seated me next to Danny Rossi, and told Danny that he was going to me my "first grade buddy", and make sure I got introduced to all the new things in the school.

One of the first things that I learned about Danny was that he was already blind in one eye, having lost it to cancer when he was a toddler. He still had vision in the remaining eye, and made great use of it, showing me around the elementary school.

As the year progressed, Danny and I became fast friends, and he became my best friend during elementary school. Unfortunately by third grade he lost his remaining eye to cancer as well. After that occurred, it turned out we were always paired together, and I was the one who got to lead him around the school, much as he had lead me around the school during my first days at the school.

He worked hard, and got good grades, although I know many times the blindness was frustrating for him. He was too young for a guide dog, so it was friends he relied on. He learned how to walk with a cane, but it was quicker to move around the school wih a hand on a friend's shoulder. He learned braille quickly, and became proficient very quickly, although there were times it was easier to read to him, and quicker to get through our study periods that way.

We learned quickly that we could take advantage of his blindness in certain situations, getting ourselves excused from Physical Education when the event wasn't conducive for the visually impaired. We'd go off and spend our hour at the library, in one of the private back rooms where we could close the door and talk and sometimes goof off for the hour.

During junior high school and high school we saw less and less of each other since our curriculum and classes interesected less and less. By the time high school graduation came around we saw each other less than once a month. We'd still talk every once in a while, and I know he used to always remember me as this 6 year old boy in first grade, since that was the last visual image he had of me.

I know he got accepted to Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, but I have not heard how he got on there, or anything since that time, up until I saw the skydiving article linked above. He's obviously become quite a success at it.

http://crw.boxofclue.com/skydive/rossi.html
has additional stories of Dan, including one where he recounts losing his eyes at the ages of 3 and 7 (the only reason I'm pretty sure this is the same Dan Rossi I knew in elementary school). Congratulations Dan on your success in the skydiving world!