DENNIS WEINGART

DENNIS WEINGART

OH REALLY!!!

WHO IS DENNIS WEINGART 

What defines me as me: 

I am a Husband, and a Father. 

  I would like to tell you a little about myself. I was born in Manhattan, in New York City, on November 13, 1947. I have a sister named Barbara. My mother passed away in 1997. My father is still alive and living in the south of Florida and will be celebrating his 90th birthday this February. My dad was self employed his whole life. He served in WWII. When he returned he worked in the ladies hat business along with his father and his brother. This was in Manhattan. I grew up in Brooklyn, NY. I lived there until my sister was born, which was in 1952. I remember my life growing up there, to be adventurous. I had a group of friends. We used to go to Coney Island. I loved Nathans Hot Dogs. We used to jump from one garage top to the next. When I reached the age of 5, my parents moved from Brooklyn to Queens. I spent my formative years there. I lived there from the time I was 5 until I was 16. My dad continued to work in the ladies hat business, with his family. I remember him working ALL the time. He and my mom also did a lot of traveling. They went to Europe, Asia and Israel. They went on cruises. They also belonged to beach clubs on Long Island and a county club for golf. I remember going to the beach clubs with them and to the golf club. I went with a friend whom I met when I was 5 years old, and I keep to this day, Russell. I remember sitting on the front stoop of my house thinking about how our futures would turn out. Would we make a million dollars by the time we were 40? Would we meet girls that we could go out with? What would we do in our lives? I remember spending a lot of time with my mothers parents. I felt they were the ones who were bringing me up. I used to look forward to them coming over on the weekends. When my parents used to go out, they would babysit for me. I remember watching TV on Saturday night. 'Have Gun Will Travel', 'Gunsmoke', 'SeaHunt' etc. There was Renard, Patsy, Brenda and Pamela. Renard was the oldest. He would talk to us about girls. He was the cool one. Patsy was a chubby kid who lived on the corner. When we had bad rain storms, he would sit by the curb, in the street and let the water rush on him before it would go down the sewer. Pamela was the first girl I had a crush on. I passed her a note during class, asking her to go to the elementary school Prom. She accepted but was not able to go because she got sick that day. Brenda was the first girl I ever went out with. I took her to a New Years Eve party. When every one went to different corners to make out, I took her out of the house to get an Ice Cream cone. This was December 31, in New York. My next door neighbor was Jackie. She was truly a friend of mine. She and I would talk. Not like boy friend and girl friend but just like friends. I remember one day being called down to the principles office. I was told that I need to go home immediately. I left school and walked the block and a half to my house. I saw big red fire engines in front of my house. It seemed that my mother put her cigarette in the paper trash bag that always sat on the yellow step stool. That almost burned the house down. I remember that the lunch that I took to school, almost daily, was a cheese and tomato sandwich. The favorite thing that my mother cooked for supper was lamb chops. I had a lot of friends from school and the neighborhood. I met Russell when I was in 1st grade. I didn't have to do much as far as making plans. He always seemed to do that. It made my life easy. My life seemed easy. I went to public school from 1st grade up until 11th grade. When my parents wanted to take me places I usually had Russell to go with me. My school life was okay also. I did fairly well. When I finished school, I ended up with a B+ average. Russell seemed to be more advanced than me. He was accepted to the SP program. That was where you would skip a grade. He went to Brooklyn Tech, while I went to Francis Lewis HS. I remember when I was about to enter HS. there was what was called triple session. This meant that you either started school very early, regular time or started school late. Since I was just entering HS in 10th grade, I was to start school late. The reason for this was overcrowding. This was also the time when we started Integration of the schools. Since my friend Russell was no longer in my school, I had the opportunity to meet new people again. I started to grow my friends, once again. My biggest issue was when I was in the middle of 11th grade my parents bought a new house on Long Island. For them, this was a great thing. For me, this meant moving from my newly acquired friends and starting over in a new school. Okay, now I am in my new house. I remember during the first weeks of living in the new house my grandmother lived with us. One day she was going to make a pot of hot water for some tea. She put a Pyrex pot on top of the new Electric stove, not knowing that the Pyrex would burn. Once the smoke detectors stopped screaming and the flames were put out, my parents decided that my grandparents would be better off living my themselves again. I am now entering Herricks HS in the 12th grade. I have to make new friends now. I start meeting the kids that are not included with the IN kids. I meet my first girl friend, Sharon. She was a year younger than me. We went out for a little while. I also met some of the guys that I kept as friends for a little while after HS and into college. There was Barry and Jerry and Malcolm and Larry. Barry went on to work in the clothing business. Jerry became a lawyer. Malcolm became a closer friend. We used to play basketball at Christopher Morley Park. He had a friend named Stewart. He was a semi Professional Tennis player. He died. My life in Herricks HS was just surviving. I applied to college and was accepted in Hofstra University. Ever since I was a child I had a fantasy of flying. I wanted to become a pilot, however, I needed to wear glasses so that became an unrealistic dream. The next best thing in my mind was to design planes. I excelled in math and science in HS. I wanted to go into aerospace engineering. I couldn't get into the high tech colleges I applied to but, Hofstra offered programs that I thought I would be happy with. Well, once I started college, I found myself not doing as well as I did in HS. I took engineering courses, advanced courses in math and the first computer courses. I worked on a Wang Computer using key punch cards. I think this was FORTRAN. This happened in 1966. At one point I actually dropped out of college and began working on Wall Street at Eastman Dillon Union Securities. I worked in the back office. This was the time before computers. I worked there when the World Trade Center was being constructed. Because of difficulties with my parents, I moved out of their house and moved into an apartment in Queens, next to where my grandparents lived. That was in Queens Village. Realizing that working on wall street was just a part time thing, I re-entered Hofstra. I completed enough credits to graduate. However, I didn't take enough credits in any field, to actually receive a degree in anything, so my degree simply says that I graduated from Hofstra University in 1970. My first job, out of college, was as a manager in Century Movie theaters. My friend Malcolm also worked as a manager, in a different theater. He also worked on Wall Street when I was there. During this time I met and dated many girls. I used to go out with Malcolm, to bars, where I met most of the girls I went out with. By the way, Malcolm was educated as a draftsman. He worked for Grumman as a draftsman, on the LEM(Luna Excursion Module), which carried the first men to the moon. During one of the times I went to the bars, I met Karen. She was the girl I was looking for. She was kind, sweet, pretty, (already working) and just the kind of girl that I wanted and needed. We dated, even though I dated other girls at the same time. She became the only girl I wanted to be with. After working for the movie theater, which lasted about a year, I looked to go into my own business. By the way, during my stay at the movies, we showed the Thriller in Manila( the fight with Mohammad Ali and Joe Frazier). My dad had always been self employed so I naturally wanted to be so, also. One time I was looking to buy a NY Times route, from a man named Harold Hand. This led me towards looking for something in the newspaper field. I found a route with the Long Island Press. However, instead of having to buy the route, I was given the opportunity to simply run it. This was in Lefrak City, Queens. I did that route for little over 2 years until the newspaper went out of business. I remember taking Karen with me on Saturday nights to deliver the papers, to the kids. This happened very late at night, when the papers were delivered to the depot. We used to go in my white Maverick, with the back seat taken out to fit the papers in. After the paper closed, I found that I could work for Newsday, in the same capacity. I was offered the opportunity to start the first delivery in the NY area. I was asked if I could go back to my old route in Lefrak City and try to start a delivery route there. I actually did so. This was the first inroads of Newsday into NYC. From there the paper began a whole new edition for NYC. I worked for Newsday for about 6 years until my uncle asked me if I would like to join him and my father in the 'Family' business. At this 

time they had gotten out of the Ladies Hat business and started a Coffee business. Selling and delivering coffee to offices and restaurants. I continued going out with Karen during this whole time, but since I was uncertain of my future I didn't want to make any commitments. Once I began working with my Dad and Uncle, I felt much more secure and I asked Karen to marry me. She accepted and on January 25, 1976 we got married. Since she was Protestant and I wasn't we had an interfaith marriage. We got married in the interfaith chapel at CWPost College and had our reception at a nice restaurant in Huntington called Glynn's. We honeymooned in Acapulco. This was the beginning of MY life. Up until now I felt that I lived in the shadows of my parents. The first two years of marriage we lived in a one bedroom apt. in Farmingdale. It was just fine for us. I worked for my family and Karen worked in the insurance field, as a rater. Soon after we found that we were going to have a baby. We began looking for a house. After about a year of looking we found our first home in Old Bethpage. It was great, but a lot of work. It met all of our criteria. It was in a good school district. It had enough rooms for a new family. Our life couldn't be better. We had Laura while we lived in the Apt., but soon after, we moved into our NEW home. About one year later we found that we were going to have another child. This was supposed to be a boy. However, during the pregnancy, we had complications. During a routine sonogram the baby died. This was shocking for both of us. We managed to pull through it, despite no support from our families. Another year went by and we were once again blessed with another little girl. This was Carolyn. My biggest problem was how was I going to split my love for both daughters. Soon I found out that I had enough love for both, equally. During this time my work in the coffee business took a variety of turns. My younger cousin, Neil, was asked to join the business. Neil was more of the playboy type and when he joined the business his work was not like the rest of us. Then my uncle decided to retire and leave his half of the business with Neil. This meant that Neil and my father became partners and I simply continued to work there. This created a hugh problem for all of us. What ultimately happened was my father took an early retirement and the business was sold. I was given a portion of the sale price. With this portion I had to find a new source of income. I had a friend that owned a commercial stationery store in Manhattan(Larry Simon). This pointed me in the direction of owning my own retail store. I eventually bought a Hallmark Card Store in Hicksville(Laci's Hallmark Card Shop). I thought that my future was sealed. I owned that store from 1981 to 1988. The main source of traffic that the store came from the people that went to Foodtown, next door. Well, Foodtown found a new and better location and moved across the street after about 5 years of me being there. The result of this happening was that most of the

people that shopped in Laci's stopped coming in. This caused my business to virtually collapse. After another 2 years I was force to sell the store. The woman and son I sold the store to knew the situation. They bought the store anyways. She paid me the down payment however, she owned me a personal note for the next ten years. After the first year of her owning the store, she stopped paying me and she too was forced to close. I lost a lot of money there. I then had an opportunity to buy in to a route. It was with Ebingers( the Brooklyn Bakery) that had been in existence for almost a hundred years. I built a route for almost no money and I was making a living for about two years, when Laura's friends dad approached me and wanted to ask me a lot of questions about going into business. His name was Michael. He was the senior buyer for a major clothing manufacturer. He was tired to that life style and wanted to go into his own business. We spent many days together. I showed him almost everything I knew about starting up your own business. While this was happening Ebingers, after a hundred years, closed up. I decided if Michael was interested, I would go back into the Card Store business, with him as a partner. He was agreeable and after more looking we found and opened a Store on Dey Street, NY. That was CardWorld. It was next door to the World Trade Center. I figured that I didn't want to have what happened to me back in Laci's. The main anchor store, Move. So the World Trade Center would be the ideal place. We opened the store in 1990, and we did phenomenal. Again, things were back on track. Even with the problems of having a partner things were okay. On February, of 1993, the bombing of the Trade Center again, shook my world. It felt like an earthquake. During the evacuation of the Towers, I brought many

people into my store so they could recuperate. The result was they closed

both towers for a long time. This once again, dramatically hurt our business. We lost a lot of money. Part of what happened was we fell far behind in our expenses. We did survive, however and business started to pick up, once again. However, business never returned to the way it was. After another year went by, we were setting up for Christmas, when one fateful morning a fire broke out in our display window burning down most of the store. We were again devastated. This time we couldn't hold on and just before Valentines day, we put the store up for auction. Once again, I had to find a new path to follow. All during this time, our kids were growing up. They went through elementary, middle and high school. Both were doing wonderful. Laura was excelling in all of her classes. She was the head of the cheerleaders. She had a lot of after school activities. Carolyn was a little more shy but she too, had a lot of friends whom she played with at home. Both kids were accepted to college. Laura went to SUNY at Binghamton while Carolyn went to SUNY at Albany. Laura was on track to become a doctor while Carolyn was on track to work, using her math skills. All during the time I was starting and stopping my career, Karen had worked in the Insurance field. When the kids were born, I insisted that she stay home and raise the kids. This was mostly when I had Laci's. When the kids got a little older, she went back to work. At first in the Banking area but then back in the insurance field, as a rater. Now that the kids were entering college, Karen was working for Utica and Aetna Insurance companies. I was again looking for a new path. I decided that I too, would go back to college to recreate myself. This time, I would pick up where I left off when I was going to Hofstra. I found government assistance to help pay for my re-education. I went to Briarcliffe College. At that time it was an extension of Grumman Data Institute. I studying and after about a year I received my degree in Computer Programming. Well, the one thing that the people who ran the program at Briarcliff forgot to tell me was that when I would get my first job, I would be up against people my kids age. My first job after my new degree was with a company called Tadmis. They hired me as a brand new computer programmer. I made a salary that was comparable to my first salary in the movie theater. I was now 45 years old. I had two kids in college and my wife supported all three of us. I worked for Tadmis about 6 months and found another company down the block who was willing to pay me more money. I took that job and worked there until the project was completed. I Loved the new work I was doing. However, I still wasn't sure how I would make a living for our future. My third job was for an accounting firm as a programmer. This was my biggest learning experience so far. I worked there until the first tax season was over. I found that by moving from company to company my salary increased substantially. My next and last job in NY was with AAA. I worked there for about 2 years. Laura was now entering Medical School and Carolyn was in her third year at Albany. She had already met her future husband, Kevin. If I ever had a son, Kevin would be exactly what I would have wanted. I was still not close to making enough money to stay living the way we were. Karen was working for CNA at that time. She was offered an opportunity to move to Maitland Florida. I told her the kids were set and this would be the best opportunity for US. So, we packed our bags and found our way down to the beautiful sunshine state, Florida. I was able to find a job, with no problems. I worked for McKesson, in Lake Mary. Karen was working for CNA in Maitland. The job with McKesson lasted for about 1/2 year. When the job completed, everyone was let go. I was offered a job telecommuting with the same company. I didn't like that idea at the time. I found a job with Stromberg. I did programming for a time management company. I worked there until I found my last job with Fiserv. There I was a senior software engineer. Life was getting better. I did a fairly good job. I was there about 5 years when the company changed management. The new management came in with, what I would call a youth culture mentality. They didn't want people my age to go anywhere. I felt discouraged. I was asked by my new manager, if I would like to telecommute. I lived about 1 mile from the office, but since the people that I had come to like, were asked to work through lunches and go to meeting, excluding me, I gladly accepted the opportunity to work from home. 

Confidential 

UPDATE:  On June 3, 2016, my father passed away. He was 94 years old. 

Continued... 

Dec. 21 will be 7 years. Life moves on whether or not we want it to. I am now 70 years old. I have 3 granddaughters and 1 grandson ages 2 to 9. We are now living in the Villages in Florida. I think we are making the best of our situation. There are many things to be happy about. There are things that could be better. Since moving here I am now under the eye of Sumter County Sheriffs Dept. I have been more active than any other time in my life. I play golf and pickle ball. I find that the days go pretty fast(actually too fast). We have made many new friends. I do not have any friends from my past however. I am always on guard. Recently, I went to a counselor asking if there was any ideas she could give me about PTSD (even though that is not whats going on). Unfortunately she told me I am handling things the best I could. The biggest problem I find is keeping my SECRET. I was never that kind of person however, this is one thing I can NEVER talk about to Any One. I have a passport but it is flagged(meaning that if I ever went though customs I would be pulled over and questioned). This happened when I went to my daughters wedding in Mexico. I am also not permitted to enter many countries around the world. There is not one place I can find out where I am allowed to go. There are way too many uncertainties. I usually visit my children once or twice a year. I was never one who felt I had to keep up with the Jones'. I mostly do my own thing. Once people settle in here, they find they like doing things with their friends. As do I. It seems that a lot of people like to go on cruises. I went on one once. I had a nice time. I am still wrestling with the idea of going on one also. There are a lot of obstacles to climb in order for me to go. Mostly I do not want to get pulled over by a customs agent in front of my friends.  

UPDATE:  43 years ago I found and brought my dearest pet home. That was Sinbad. Last night about this exact time Sinbad Died. He was in a hospital for animals. Do not know what he dies from. When I saw him he wasn't really there. The vet said that he probably had a stroke from the hard day he had. Do not think there is anyone to blame. It was just his time. I have been crying all day because I miss him. Bad headache now. Just like last night. I hope we get over this. I miss Sinbad so much. 

UPDATE:   Sept. 2, 2023 Baxter died. He was 14 years old. He was my hero. He saved my life by giving me purpose.  Truly miss him.