Life was anything but easy growing up on Cutler Street during the early 1940s. At the time, the bustling street in Schenectady’s Mont Pleasant neighborhood was crowded with low-income and immigrant families. Poverty was common, and there was seldom time to do anything but work.
Ten stories about great fathers, some dramatic, some funny, some poignant, appeared in the newspaper on May 13. They also were posted at the Gazette’s online site. Readers were asked to choose one favorite, and vote with either an Internet or newsprint ballot.
A total of 419 votes were counted. Sara Huzar's “Honeymoon at Midnight” was the clear top choice with 112 votes. Second place went to Lynne Petroski Fuchs of Glenville, who wrote about her father Carl Petroski’s solution to a family pet crisis. Fuchs’ story, “The Parakeet Paradox,” earned 71 votes.
Joan Babcock of Schenectady, whose narrative about a father who hid clever poems for his daughters as they grew up, took third place. “Reading and Romans” received 40 votes. Posted on June 15, 2008.
Sara Huzar, 23, of Niskayuna, right, and her father Allen Huzar of Glenville shared many a late night when she was a little girl watching shows such as “The Honeymooners.”
Lynne Fuchs of Glenville, holds the bird cage that her parakeet, Frankie, lived in. The first Frankie was secretly — or so Lynne’s father, Carl Petroski, thought — replaced after the bird’s demise.
