Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, he moved with his family to the town of Dania, Broward County, Florida, at the age of eight. Having been born in the year that Japan invaded China, he remembers listening to radio broadcasts of the end of WWII on the family’s wet-cell battery-powered radio (with the 100-ft. long outside antenna). A product of the tail-end of the Great Depression, memories are still held of stories of deprivation; however, these were tempered by the fact that the rural North Carolina family farm supported them with life’s basic necessities.
It was a large farm managed by his father, the oldest of four boys, and consisting of the clapboard main house and out-buildings plus four smaller farms that were sharecropped. There were some hard feelings during the depression (within some of the community), as his father later told it, because they could only pay field help thirty-nine cents per day. Unfortunately, that’s all they could afford but everyone was fed an all-they-could-eat noonday meal. If not for that meal, some would have gone hungry.
Jerry brought with him a love of books and reading. Many fine adventures were had between the covers of books by such writers as Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Jack London and Zane Grey, to name but a few. Barefooted days were spent climbing large oaks, playing Tarzan of the Jungle or pirates on the lookout for treasure. Little thought was given to being stigmatized as “trailer trash” because he lived in a, gasp!, trailer park. Moving to the community of West Hollywood, he graduated from South Broward High, Hollywood, Florida. It was probably about this time that he began to realize that (to him) fraternal degrees, titles and status were not terribly important and that some people are not nearly as important as they might tend to think! Perhaps that’s why, not entirely jokingly, he now says, “The more I interact with humans, the more I prefer canines. They’re much more trustworthy.”
Being a member of the Florida National Guard (infantry) while in school, Jerry enlisted (RA, regular army) after graduation and attended technical school prior to being assigned to the Yukon Command, Ladd AFB, Fairbanks, Alaska. The last six months of active duty were spent at Ft. Lee, VA, and at Arlington National Cemetery with a graves registration unit. For a time, after a 3-year hitch in the army, he was a member of the Army Reserve (military police). Civilian employment found him working at a variety of jobs, including aircraft parts clerk, bus transportation ticket/tour agent, police officer and postal employee (before going postal became a catch-phrase). For thirty-plus years, prior to retirement in 2000, he was employed on successive photographic support contracts (logistics technician, an all-encompassing title) at KSC, Patrick AFB and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
In conjunction with, or as a requirement of employment, several technical courses were required once he entered the work force. Some were military, “in-house” or taken at local junior colleges. Others, such as Creative Writing, were for his own amusement. His military photographic training became an adjunct to his police work (unofficial “official” police photographer, Deerfield Beach Police Department) as well as to his freelance journalistic work (listed as contributing editor on mastheads) for several motorcycle-sport publications in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
Married to Coyet (aka Jakie...pronounced Jay’key), he relocated the family to Cocoa in 1967. They have two long-grown children, daughter Nancy, and son Phillip. Reflecting their strong sense of family values, both were very involved with raising their children and find it hard to believe what is happening to the family unit of today. Jerry credits “The Wife” with his longevity. Married 45-plus years, they currently reside in West (by gosh) Canaveral Groves with an assortment of animals (canine, feline and feathered).
Influenced, obviously, by his upbringing and early environment...not to mention military experience, Jerry feels that he now only needs to impress The Wife and his God...not necessarily in that order. Call it karma, or whatever, Jerry believes that: “If you [mess] with the bull, you get the horn.” and, “What goes around, comes around.” He further says, as corny as it may sound, that he believes in truth, justice and the American way. He is a longtime community activist (West Canaveral Groves) and an advocate for those who may not meet the expectations of a sometimes elitist government bureaucracy...and that’s a wrap.