Junius W. Peake - Oh I remember the days
He told me about his days as a kid roller skating in NYC around the Armory on the upper East Side of Manhattan.
Jay (Junius W. Peake) went to Woodbury Forest Prep School in Woodbury Forest, VA. Needless to say He attended Syracuse at 16 years old. He left Syracuse after his freshman year because his father had a stroke and he had to earn the bacon for the family.
He said he wanted to leave the world a better place….I do believe that he did that. He took a genuine interest in young people and gave them the time of day. He led by example. He was an honest man.
We had a serious fire in our house in 1966 we were lucky to get out alive, I believe it was he that woke us from our slumber.
He was about to punish me (this was when corporal punishment was the norm) I put a paperback book in my pants when I was spanked in Tenafly, NJ. I felt no pain, his hand was beat red after he got done with me and I was fine! This was the beginning of my critical thinking lessons.
Just Dad and I drove to Canada and met NHL Hall of Fame Coach Scotty Bowman and saw the Bay of Fundy and watched the tides ebb and flow 12 feet, I begged him to let me drive on that trip and he never let me. But I did let my 12 year old son drive on private property this summer, I know he enjoyed it, there are so many similarities.
We went to a hockey tournament in Washington DC and he got the phony phone call @ 4:00 AM (a wake up call) and could not fall back asleep. He did not take jokes as well as we did! ;-)
Same tournament we stole his top coat and put one kid on the shoulders of the other and bought a Playboy Magazine….the concessions clerk was so impressed he sold it to us! We were no older than 12 years old at the time!
He lied to me and that allowed me to finish SKS, the prep school I went to, it was probably the smartest parenting move he made in my favor, I thank him every day for that!
In Tenafly, NJ we played catch in front of our house and I caught the hard baseball with my nose, it was a bloody mess, I then learned how to catch a baseball properly. Mom was on clean up. I felt bad for him when it happened. I know it was an accident.
Ask me about the firecracker fight at the Deeb’s house. It was a doozy!
I remember all the driving Dad did to our hockey games and practices. He was always generous and we seemed to pick up and car pool a lot of other kids.
Then there was the time in West Hampton, NY when Dad and Fred Alling got the sailboat stuck under the drawbridge, they came back to the house with axel grease all over their hands, I don’t think we ever got the whole story on that one.
We had several summers in Green Pond in New Jersey that were very pleasant and I learned how to water ski.
We also had a few trips to SkyTop, I’ll never forget those square dances. I’ll also never forget how badly I wanted a pair of bell bottom pants and my parents wouldn’t let me buy a pair.
We also had several summers in Stone Harbor, NJ but I don’t remember Dad being there because he was always working on Wall St.
Then there was Dad coaching Little League Baseball, he named his team the Bulls because he was Bullish on Wall St. But the best of times were going to the Dairy Queen for the Banana Splits afterwards, he always bought for the whole team, he was always very generous.
The best gift he gave me other than life itself was South Kent. Thank you Dad!
Here is an article that was published by Bloomberg February 13, 2012 about Dad's (Junius W. Peake's)career.
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