Remembering the man who made me who I am today
My dad was born with personality. Pure, unfiltered personality. The kind that made strangers feel like old friends and old friends feel like family. If he walked into a room, he quickly owned it.
We were close, he and I. The kind of close where you don’t have to explain things because the other person already knows. So when the year came that his mother died at 84 and he was diagnosed with lung cancer, it felt like life had decided to hit both of us at once.
After they removed his right lung, the surgeon explained what he had done to save his life. Dad didn’t ask about survival rates or prognosis. He looked at the doctor very seriously and asked, “Can I play the saxophone?”
The surgeon blinked and said, “Yes, you still have another lung. You should be able to play without any problem.”
Dad grinned.
“Good. I’ve always wanted to learn to play the sax.”
He also found a great deal of humor in the fact that, as a public school teacher, I had to ask his surgeon for a written excuse to prove I’d missed school for my father’s cancer surgery.
As the son of immigrants, Dad had already lived half a dozen lives before that moment. Born Antonio Iacoboni, he learned early that, except as laborers, rural Southwestern Pennsylvania wasn’t exactly rolling out the red carpet for Italian kids. In 1942, he officially changed his name from Tony Iacoboni to Charlie Jacobs, a change that helped him get a job as a fireman on coal-fired locomotives for the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad. He never talked much about giving up the name his parents had given him. Back then, you did what you had to do. Even though he changed his name, he never changed who he was.
He was hardworking, endlessly curious, stubborn in all the right ways, and serious when he needed to be. There were many evenings when he quizzed me on Advanced Placement English vocabulary because no matter what, my brother and I were going to college. That was not debatable.
Eventually he became a Blue Cross representative back when everyone had Blue Cross. His real job was making people feel better.
On Saturday mornings he’d sit in his office working on reports. I’d hear him making long distance calls, and when the operator answered he’d say, “It’s a beautiful day in the Laurel Highlands,” as if he were hosting his own radio program. Then he’d spend the next couple of minutes chatting with her about absolutely nothing. That was my dad. Mr. Personality. Ambassador of friendliness. The unofficial spokesman for the Laurel Highlands.
He worked until the week before he died. That week he visited his best clients one by one, thanking them for their friendship and telling them he was about to begin his next adventure. Who does that? Who has that kind of grace at the end? My dad did.
Then came July 5, 1975. When my 58-year-old father was taking his last breaths. He called me over to his bedside. Tears filled my eyes. He lifted his right arm, tapped me on the stomach, and said, “You’ve gotta toughen up, kid.” Advice I have spent a lifetime not implementing.
A little later, closer to the very end, he motioned for the nurse to lean down so he could whisper something to her. Instead, he smiled and asked, “What did Dick Tracy do today?” Those were his last words. He died right after that. Quietly. Simply. As if he didn’t want to inconvenience anyone.
I was devastated. He was my hero, my cheerleader, my rock, and my inspiration. The man who could charm a telephone operator, reinvent himself without losing himself, work until the very end, and still wonder what Dick Tracy did that day.
I still do.
Nick Jacobs lives in Windber.