DrJohnAmbrose's Blog

This past Saturday at San Remo I had the opportunity to renew the acquaintance of Mr. Rafaele (Ralph) Golzio, just turned 100 on October 20. He is a native-born Patersonian, raised on Beech St, Ralph attended school with Lou Costello and both were baptized at St. Anthony’s Church where my brother Dave and Ann Marie were married in 1990.

Mr. Golzio—Ralph, as he prefers to be called—graduated from Stevens Institute in Hoboken in 1932, and worked all his life as an engineer. He remains active in alumni affairs, particularly the “Old Guard” group which is composed of those who graduated in the 1950s or earlier. He even claims to have a surviving classmate from the Class of 1930 with whom he meets annually at “Old Guard” events.

His family traces its roots to the Piedmont section of Italy, but his most influential relative was an uncle-through-marriage who was of Neapolitan origin, and who was an accountant to bankers. He was briefly an associate of Bank of America founder, A P. Giannini. It was this uncle who encouraged and persuaded Ralph to for higher education and to go into engineering.

After graduation he worked at Wright Aeronautics until the end of World War II. Later Ralph founded Engineering Associates in 1947, qnd retired in 1987 at the age of 78!

Ralph actively pursued outdoor sports like skiing, snow-shoe hiking and mountain-climbing.

Presently he is plagued by bad knees, but gets around just fine employing a cane.
He has recently lectured at the Passaic County Historical Society on his personal recollections of the violent labor strikes that took place in Paterson in the first quarter of the 20th Century.

During outings to San Remo he is always accompanied by his admiring son-in-law, Tony. His current interests, besides his close family relationships, are mainly Astrophysics and Cosmology of which he does a lot of reading. He admits he is astonished by modern electronic technology including miniaturization of computers and communications devices.

Congratulations on turning 100, Ralph!

That’s me (right) having the honor to wish Ralph “Cent’ Anni !

You can read more about this amazing personality at this link, but wade through the advertisement first!

Here are a few pix from the Halloween Party held at Dr John’s and Marzena’s on October 30

First, me, the host! That’s supposed to be Barnaby, the villlain from March of the Wooden Soldiers, not “a pilgrim” or “Benjamin Franklin.” Sheesh!

The hostess Marzena and other Beauties

Then there’s the ever-beautiful wind-up doll, Laura Drager!

And…the ever statuesque living doll, Laura Drager, with Marcello in background.

Then Chris, the photographer as …?…”Autumn”… and beau

Eddie and the ever gorgeous Lisa

Nice shot of Marz’s costume with Chris who provided many of these great photos

Don’t think it was all fun and games! There was some serious dancing going on.

Dan used the latest in computer technology to test the limits of old-fashioned speakers

Making a grand descent, Frank (The Magnificent) Foti

For more photos of the event, go to Allison Casale’s Facebook album by reading the comment below and clicking on the link!

St. Joe’s held their annual Charity Ball at— would you believe?— the American Museum of Natural History.

Marz and I were in the city for a medical meeting and staying at a hotel on the Lower East Side about a block from Forsythe Street, so we commuted to the ball, tuxedo, evening gown and all—via the F train to the C train which makes its stop right there at the museum itself.

Same with the return trip. This photo, taken with my G Phone, was snapped just as we were about to depart from the museum lobby to the subway station.

The Annual Pumpkin-painting party was held on October 3 at Dr John’s art studio. Johnny & Tina came from PA with little Christopher for his first such event, this up-coming Halloween his first . Alexander J. Hughes was here for the second time as was Michael Cangialosi, Dave and Ann Marie’s nephew.
Refreshments were in the form of pizza, doughnuts, apple juice and Pez dispensers.

Ciocia Marzena made sure little Christopher had his kitten hat on.

Alexander was happy to get started.

Christopher displayed an uncanny resemblance to the pumpkins!

Pop getting a liitle too “into it.”

This is the face you get when you ask Alex to smile

Here’s an industrious trio at work

A favorite position for Christopher to assume

The famous “look of concentration”

Gourd being painted orange—its natural color! Not much of an improvement, I’d say!

11 year old Michael Cangialosi took a break from painting the Yankee logo on his pumpkin in order to spend sme quality time with his long-time pal, Lucy the one-eyed cat

Alex prudently leaning away from “man-with-knife”

The process of hollowing out the pumpkin proceeds

Alex found mastery of the Pez dispenser more interesting and challenging than watching the pumpkin being carved

Artist and apprentice

At last, the finished pumpkin: carved in the configuration of a smiling face as specifically commissioned by Alexander J. Hughes

Most of the crew shown here.
Note Michael’s NY Yankees-logo painted pumpkin showing (unfortunately) the reverse side displaying Jeter’s No. 2. Next year we’ll feature the front side of the pumpkin displaying the actual Yankees logo!

Friday after work we joined up with Johnny, Tina and Christopher at their home in Abington, PA, packed our luggage into an SUV that Johnny had rented and drove during the night to Gettysburg, PA for a trip to the Civil War’s most historic site.
That’s Johnny at the wheel driving the two hours from his home in Abington to Gettysburg in the middle of Pennsylvania.
Little Christopher slept intermittently during the trip.

Marzena kept watch and fed little “Krzysztof.”

Upon arrival Pops took over looking after Christopher

Ciocia Marzena took the liitle man in hand.

In the morning, properly dressed in his dad’s hat, Chris was ready to visit the new Gettysburg Museum.

Holding the tickets for us, Chris gained us admission to the museum.

One of the wonders of both the artistic and the historic worlds is “The Battle of Gettysburg” Cyclorama by artist Paul Phillioteaux.

Read about it here
The Gettysburg Cyclorama


And in the following clip from the phenomenal painting, I want you to look closely at the figure of a fallen warrior being carried by fellow soldiers. It is none other than the figure of assassinated president Abraham Lincoln, symbolically honored by Phillipoteaux in his monumental painting. I doubt you can see him on this kind of a screen, but if you’re ever interested, come over the house and I’ll show you the picture zoomed in!

Of course there were ongoing free tours, and we were lucky to get detailed information about the defense of Little Round Top, one of the most interesting and courageous events of the battle.

Tough guy was able to brave the chill and the rain, having been outfitted by mom, Tina with foul weather gear.
Marzena had to take a break from touring to tend to the hungry little guy’s appetite

We took a car tour of the various locales, and caught this pic of the eternal flame

We stopped for lunch


At night we had dinner at the picturesque Farnsworth Inn Tavern


where we met some characters…I’ll tell you about him some other time!

It was a really beautiful, sunny day, so we started out to go for a ferry ride. Along the way, Marzena spotted a car show. Alex frequently announces that “Cars are my favorite thing!” So we stopped to check some of the souped-up and customized antiques on display at the armory show. Alex picked a few favorites. Mainly, he was looking for cars that matched the models he had in the form of toys at his home.

Checking out a red Chevy

The yellow monster

Inside a model T

Admiring what’s under the hood

Once Alex announced “Let’s go somewhere,” we got back in the car and headed to Weehawken for the ferry. Soon we were aboard. Marzena took this shot as soon as Alex and I had climbed to the upper deck.
Boarding Ferryboat

Backing out of Ferry Slip

Heading across Hudson

Aboard Ferry

The aircraft-carrier Intrepid was just a short walk uptown along the waterfront from the ferry stop, so we headed up there to view and enter the retired naval carrier. Watch out! Adults are over $22 each and kids 3 and over are $14.50! You could get into deep economic trouble if you bring a whole tribe with you!
Arrival at the Intrepid

Pop and Alex with Intrepid in background

Studying the layout of the Intrepid from diagram

Alex viewing an attack helicopter

Alex with Italian stunt jet from the “Tricolore” team

The crew of the ferryboat spotted Alex and—well—who can resist that boy? So they invited him into the captain’s bridge. After a little persuasion on Marzena’s part, he agreed to take the helm.
Ciocia Marzena getting Alex a temporary position as co-pilot of Ferryboat on return trip

“Yes, Alex, it’s okay to steer the Ferryboat!”

Alex getting us back safely to NJ

Ann Marie Ambrose held a house-warming party at her new townhouse on July 12, 2009. In attendence were members of both sides of her family. It was also an opportunity to be reminded than Ann Marie and Joe are engaged to be married in October 2010.

Jennifer Vida brought her son Anthony, seen below. Also present were Marianne Colaneri and beau Dennis Hoppen, plus Terri, who was there with husband Nicky Colaneri.

After a tremendous variety of appetizers, Ann Marie served pasta, veal parmagiana, sausage and more. Desserts were “over the top” with tiramisu, apple pie, fruits, chocolate-covered strawberries, donuts, etc. In background is Tom Ambrose.

Here Marzena is shown between the two Cangialosi kids, Maria Carmela and Michael, who are our frequent companions at New York events such as museum exhibitions, street fairs, etc.

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