It’s about sacrifice

Mr. Hohos played his Wurlitzer organ in the warm summer evenings. The chords and melodies meandered about the concrete homes that lined the streets of the Youngstown neighborhood where I lived as a young boy. I remember sitting on the open porch banister of my family’s home as the sound of his music drifted into our front yard. A rusty squeak kept rhythm as my mother gently rocked our worn metal porch glider back and forth. She sipped an iced tea as we sat and listened under starry skies.

I think my family shared our front porch with nearly every neighbor at one time or another. Someone would walk up the front porch steps with a cherry pie or a box of donuts and a friendly “hello”. My mother was a good hostess and soon her serving trays and cups of coffee would compliment a conversation that lasted into the late evening hours. Yes, I think just about every neighbor visited our front porch during those summers, every neighbor except Mr. Hohos.

A loner

I very rarely saw Mr. Hohos. He seemed to stay indoors and keep to himself. I would stand in my driveway and gaze through the backyards just to catch a glimpse of him the next street over. I suppose you could say that I best knew Mr. Hohos through his music. He played his music so often that my family learned to gauge his mood by his selection of songs. There was an upbeat bossa-nova like “Spanish Eyes” when his spirits were high. There were brooding ballads for his melancholy days. I seem to recollect those ballads most of all. There was a sadness in those songs; the sadness of a soul seeking peace or perhaps just understanding. It seemed as if those were things that escaped Mr. Hohos, although I didn’t understand why at the time.

My father once explained to me that Mr. Hohos was a veteran. He said that he had served our country in World War II and that he had seen things overseas that had changed him. My father never expounded any further on the nature of those experiences; what knowledge I lacked as a young boy about Mr. Hohos I simply filled in with my imagination. I nearly convinced myself that Mr. Hohos helped pilot the Enola Gay, skippered a PT boat in the South Pacific like John Kennedy, or commanded the submarine that torpedoed the Japanese battleship, Yamato. Regardless of the fact that I lacked the complete story, my father instructed me and my siblings to treat Mr. Hohos with the honor and respect that he deserved, and to be quiet whenever we rode our bicycles near his home so as not to disturb him. We always obeyed that directive.

Depth of sacrifice

As a young boy, I measured a veteran’s service by adventures and victories won. As I grew older, I began to understand that the measure of a veteran’s service is found in the depth of his sacrifice for others. I suspect that Mr. Hohos carried the burden of his wartime sacrifices until the day he was finally laid to rest.

Memorial Day honors the men and women who died while serving in the American military. In a way, I think a part of Mr. Hohos died in service to our country in World War Two. This weekend, as we honor our fallen soldiers, I think back to those long ago summer evenings when the sound of Mr. Hohos’ Wurlitzer filled our neighborhood. And I give to Mr. Hohos the honor and respect he so rightfully deserves.

David Bobovnyik is an attorney who works for the state and occasionally shares his memories of growing up in Youngstown, often focusing one events tied to holidays.