“Frank Del Vecchio is a retired Massachusetts attorney who, with his wife, Marian, moved to Miami Beach in 1996. Marian became the political cartoonist for the [Miami] Herald Neighbors, and Frank took up the role of community ombudsman, earning him an entire chapter, ‘The Incorruptible Crusader,’ in Beach resident Gerald Posner’s book "Miami Babylon." Most recently, Frank led an ad hoc committee of residents in shining the spotlight on a questionable County plan to spend $190 million on a sewage utility tunnel. Frank’s service as a community advocate is relentless and his reputation is well-deserved.”
Now Frank Del Vecchio has written a memoir, "City Streets" (Leap Year Press, 2016), available on Amazon.com, $9.99), which tells the amazing life story of a committed urbanist.
Now, it must be observed that not all memoirs are created equal.
As my ninth-grade English teacher Myrtle Crimmins once told our class, “All of you will have something to write about your lives when you hit 50… but it may not be anything anyone would want to read.” Yeah, she could be a real Debbie Downer, Miss Crimmins, but how true, how true, how prophetic her words! I have read my share of dull, uninteresting memoirs but "City Streets" is not one of them.
Reading this book is exactly like being in the strong presence of Frank Del Vecchio, on every page. His voice rings clearly. Here is Frank, the community activist and pro bono lawyer we in Miami Beach all know, perhaps the most ethical individual any of us has ever met (or will ever meet), a force for good in municipal politics. We may not always agree with his take on what is happening, but he is more often on the right side of things than not. His scorecard is excellent!
Frank chronicles his humble beginnings as a Depression-era child of Italian immigrants in a Boston ghetto, the West End (made up of mostly Jewish and Italian families), the son of a man who sold balloons and novelties on the streets and at carnivals. He wwas a talented kid who showed his smarts at an early age, getting into the famed Boston Latin School, entering Tufts University on a scholarship, joining the U.S. Navy for pilot training – and becoming a “hot cat”pilot(more about that later) – and then suddenly resigning his commission, leaving a career he enjoyed, to go to Harvard Law School (arguably the best law school in the country), because, suddenly, other things became more important.
By the way, not everyone can qualify for pilot training – for one thing, you have to be at least 5-feet, 6-inches tall to reach the foot controls – which would have left me out – and you have to be possessed of good character, excellent reflexes and alertness as well as the intelligence needed to deal with each unscripted circumstance whilst in the air. Many young men and women wash out, fast, and/or, sadly, go down in flames, but not Frank Del Vecchio. And anyone who has seen him in action at Miami Beach Commission and other meetings can attest to his alertness, good character, and intelligence.He does not go down in flames.
Along the way he met and worked with many people who were movers and shakers, including Martin Luther King, Mike Dukakis, Donald Rumsfield, and others. He earned an excellent reputation in Boston and Washington, D.C., as someone who could be counted on. From piloting to law school to work in city redevelopment projects – and he recounts all of these experiences in great – and honest -- detail, thus relieving me of the responsibility – all part of his busy life story. He gives it his all, whatever task he undertakes, and it started with the terrible destruction of Boston’s West End neighborhood and the displacement of its immigrant long-time residents. That gave him the determination to get involved in urban renewal and prevent such horrors from ever happening again.
In Miami Beach he has been a voice for the residents, the neighborhoods, the neglected and oppressed, all gratis, pro bono, with no monetary recompense whatever. Yes, there are people who get involved in politics who are not part of the usual bad or the ugly, but the good, a rare commodity. Frank Del Vecchio epitomizes the latter, and Miami Beach is the better for it. What brought him to this barrier island and got him involved in its often-maddening politics is a fascinating story and I urge you all to read it.
Oh, “hot cat”– from the book:
“The hot cat pilot was the first line of defense for our Fast Carrier TaskForce - Carrier Division Two, Sixth Fleet. At night, when most of the crew,exhausted by daytime flight operations, were sacked out below decks, thehot cat pilot was entrusted to protect the carrier and all the ships in thetask force. He sat in a fully armed interceptor that was positioned on thesteam catapult, plugged in to the auxiliary power unit (APU), all systems activated, ready for the launch order. The instruments were illuminated in a soft red glow that preserved his night vision. The carrier deck was dark and quiet except for the starboard green running light and red to port… I was in my element [and] wore a red bandana around my neck, ready to perform…”
Similar to, but not, “hot-cocked” I asked! And here’s that definition, from an online website (www.aviation.stackexchange.com/):
“For military aircraft on ‘alert’, there is a position called cocked on (or as some news sites call it, ‘hot-cocked’). This procedure is run before the aircraft is placed on alert, and does a pre-flight check of all the instruments and then places them in a state that allows power application in a rapid manner. This way, only minimal steps are required for the aircraft to be ready… With an aircraft in cocked on position, with a pilot on alert (cockpit or facility), an aircraft can take off in a very, very short time (from seconds to minutes).”
You will learn a lot from this book.
