Stan Bednarczyk
Stan Bednarczyk, November 2009
For many years Camden mailman Stan Bednarczyk reported on the everyday goings-on and community events in Whitman Park for a weekly newspaper, the Camden County Record, which was based in Gloucester City. Stan had a regular column “Stas By Gosh.”
Stan has also had articles published in the Courier-Post and the Polish American Journal. He lived in Haddon Heights, New Jersey.
Born in Philadelphia and raised in Camden, Paul Zachary, church historian of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, also wrote for the Camden County Record. His column was called “Heard on the Avenue” — the Avenue in question being Mount Ephraim Avenue — and reported in great detail many of the social events of the neighborhood. Mr. Zachary, whose career in local journalism dated back to the 1930s, also wrote and produced a history for St. Joseph’s Church commemorating its 75th anniversary in 1967. Paul Zachary passed away in 1992 in his 85th year.
Heard on the Avenue
Camden County Record —
If anything, smile at Becky Dombrowski the next time for originality. Before the Easter holidays inquisitive friends were jestingly informed the “pinkie” was a result from a fall off a bar stool. Recipients of birthday cards from the Dombrowskis are now reminded with a card picturing a mouse on a bar stool while holding up a wine glass, “You know what happens!”
Firecracker time is birthday time for Mrs. Frances Prosinski, Mrs. Genevieve Lang and Chase Street’s Bill Tanski. There are probably others, but theirs was the loudest.
A change in meeting dates for the St. Joseph’s High School Fathers’ Club was announced by Edwin Raiczyk, president, after a telephone conversation with Father Leo V. Rea, newly appointed principal at the school. Fathers with students attending the school, including the new freshmen class, are invited to attend the next meeting Monday, July 21, at 8 p.m. in the cafeteria at Mt. Ephraim Avenue and Dayton Street.
Joe Olejniczak found the gimmick that got him a quick medical discharge from West Jersey Hospital where he was confined for a few days for observation. According to a friend his doctor agreed with the nurse there’s nothing wrong with a guy who’ll hide a Playboy magazine under his pillow.
An appeal for manpower has been sounded by the Whitman Park Youth Organization for the expected crowds that will witness the final selection of the area team that will represent District 14 in the Little League World’s Series games at Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
Walt Piatek, PACC’s activity publicist, arrived home from a Tennessee vacation over the weekend. He didn’t catch any Mississippi catfish during the hiatus from work but managed to enjoy an announcement in the Nashville Times that Gert’s House features “Kielbasa with sauerkraut.”
The Rosary Society of St. Joseph’s Church is sponsoring a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown, Pa., on Sunday, July 27.
Heard on the Avenue
Camden County Record —
Looking ahead to the new year activities listed for St. Joseph’s Church parishioners and friends, a half dozen are already scheduled with four coming in January. The Holy Name Society’s annual family communion breakfast will be held on the 10th with corporate communion at the 9 o’clock mass and the morning repast in the lower hall.
The High School Fathers’ Club will stage their annual “Booster Social” on the 16th in the cafeteria up the hill, where on the 24th the school’s PTA will hold an old-fashioned card party. The BVM Sodality will serve a spaghetti supper on the 31st at 10th and Liberty Streets.
Fun, food, dancing and singing will be the New Year’s Eve fare at the Polish Army Veterans’ Post 121 and Ladies’ Auxiliary celebration in the home at 1306 Mt. Ephraim Avenue. Members are invited to bring along guests for the last day of the year formalities that will begin at 8 p.m.
Uncertainty Now Stalks in Society That’s Lost Its Innocence
Courier-Post —
STAN BEDNARCZYK
Photo courtesy of Stan Bednarczyk
As a mail carrier during the 1960s, daily appearances by Stan Bednarczyk of Audubon were happily anticipated by children in Camden’s Fairview section, such as these youngsters, who would push the mail cart’s ‘magic starting button’ and follow this ‘Pied Piper’ on his route.
The tree branch lodged beneath the undercarriage of my car on the deserted park road. I stopped to release it. A young, teen-age girl walked toward my predicament. Crouching down, I pulled the obstacle loose and was about to exchange a pleasantry with the youngster when I was startled to see her running, in full stride, across the adjacent field. Only her frightened face looked back.
This, my first encounter at being categorized as a dirty old man, left me numb with disbelief.
How could I — husband, father, grandfather — be mistaken for some lowly pervert?
Before my retirement, had not so many young children accompanied me daily as I delivered the mail those many years in the Fairview section of Camden? Were not the mothers delighted to have their toddlers help push my mail cart once we discovered the magic starting button? The one that would mysteriously start the cart with my imitation of a loud motor when I pushed a gleeful child’s nose or toe or even (I now shudder at the thought) belly button?
And what about some of the more difficult little girls whom I would bribe with nickel candy-store rings? We would become engaged and, for a few days, they would turn into perfectly behaved little angels. We would walk together, making small talk of “sugar and spice and all that’s nice — that’s what little girls are made of” and, hand in hand, deliver the mail to their homes and heaven to my heart.
Or the ornery little guys whom I would commandeer to help guard my unattended mail cart while I climbed the high steps of those long blocks of row homes. I would call each helper by name and praise him for doing such a good job.
Their rewards would be postal twine and rubber bands. Mine would be much more: the trust and laughter of not only the children, but also their parents, who would sometimes call me “the pied piper of the post office.”
Didn’t any of this count? How could I, my wounded pride wanted to know, be mistaken for some deviant old kook?
I wanted to shout all this out to the sprinting young girl, but she was long gone. So much for the distant memories.
Those were special times in my life — not to be just remembered, but dearly treasured. That magic make-believe button permitted me to enter children’s magic make-believe land, where I was allowed to think their thoughts, dream their dreams and play their games. Is there a more wonderful connection than with a trusting child?
Now, when I pass little ones on the street — even those I know — uncertainty is a predator. I long to resume my children’s shtick; delve once more into their magic kingdom; try to extract, one more time, that magnificent burst of children’s spontaneous laughter that sweetens the air and warms the heart.
However, uneasiness always wins out. I falter, for I am no longer sure of what is acceptable. What reaction would I get from my “See you later, alligator — in a while, crocodile” routine?
Can I perform for them some of my giggle-maker hand tricks? Would it be improper to shake the hand of a newly acquainted sidewalk soldier or bow to a majestic young pavement princess?
Question marks not only dominate this writing but, like inverted fish hooks, bait my psyche. From somewhere deep within, I hear the pensive voice of a Frank Sinatra “This Is All I Ask” ballad instructing, “Little children everywhere, when you shoot at bad men, shoot at me,” and the reality of the message somehow deems appropriately targeted.
Where did it all go wrong? I have no answers, only regrets. Innocence dies a mournful death; mistrust powers the onslaught. Without pause, it indicts us all and society is the ultimate loser.
In retrospect, I commend the teen-ager in the park. She did the right thing. I would expect my granddaughter to do the same. A real danger could be lurking behind any suspicious antics, no matter who or how reputable are those who are involved.
Evil-doers are not easily identified. They may be present anywhere.
Such are the times. Still, the lament of my generation is laid bare.
Precious are the gifts of young ones everywhere that now go unclaimed for fear of the playfulness of grown-ups of all ages being misjudged and profiled unjustly.
Our playing field has been altered; liberties, dramatically downsized. Pure, unadulterated love of children is now questioned. Sad are the times.
Close to my home, there are several school yards where children with faces of sunshine frolic during sessions. I would love to park my car nearby and visually immerse myself in their noise, laughter, and energy. I dare not for dread of being once more categorized a stalking, dirty old man — perhaps this time by someone in uniform, wearing a silver badge.
Pedophiles stigmatize many victims. Not all are children.
The writer, an Audubon resident, is a retired mail carrier.
Veteran of one war remembers casualty of yet another
Camden Courier-Post —
By STAN BEDNARCZYK
For the Courier-Post
Courtesy Stan Bednarczyk
Chester Gdowik (left) was killed in action during the Battle of Monte Cassino, Italy, in 1944. Stan Bednarczyk (above) cherishes childhood memories of his former neighbor.
I must have been 4 years old. Chester, my next-door neighbor, was 10 years older. He was one of the big guys and I always looked up to him and not just because of his height.
It was he who first addressed me as “mister.” From no one else did that title hold more meaning. Then it became even more meaningful.
Chester asked me to make a muscle. When I flexed my skinny arm in response, he felt the phantom muscle and whistled in shocked amazement. Thus with the bending of an elbow and the strutting of a make-believe muscle man, Mr. Muscles was conceived.
Sometimes he would dare me to punch him in the arm and when I did he would fall to the sidewalk, act frightened and beg for mercy. During those times, I was much taken with myself.
Other times he would just grab me by my scrawny arms, raise me and, imitating a dog’s growl, bury his face in my ticklish stomach. When I was rendered helpless, giggling silly with laughter, he would toss me into the air and catch my limp, delighted body. I continually protested, but because I had complete faith in him, I always came back for more. The trust of a child is pure gold.
These are some of the thoughts that enter my mind when I occasionally visit him among the rows of veterans’ aged, white tombstones at Saint Joseph’s Cemetery in Chews Landing. I think of what a special person he must have been to make time for skinny me when others seemed to brush me aside. I think of what a difference he might have made, what positive deeds he might have accomplished, what beautiful memories he might have breathed into future generations had not his life been so abruptly snuffed out in Italy during World War II. I think of what a fine father he might have become.
Memory is often indistinct, but I do know he was an altar boy and an athlete, a third baseman on the Falcons, a neighborhood sandlot baseball team. No organized, uniformed, fully equipped teams then. Just a group of baseball-loving kids with old bats and taped balls. They would each try to muster up 5-cent team dues to buy a 35-cent baseball cap, one at a time, for every member. Even if it took most of the summer, eventually everyone was sporting a hat with the initial F and they became a team — a proud one.
As the years went by, Chester, like so many others, had to trade in his team hat for an Army helmet.
A World War will do that.
I don’t recall too much after that except he came home on leave before they shipped him overseas. I do recall he made a fine-looking soldier, but probably a better-looking third baseman.
It was many months later, a warm morning in May, that found me in the coal bin, the front cellar of my parents’ home in Camden. I heard a car stop outside. Then a knock on my next-door neighbor’s front door. It was a Western Union messenger delivering a telegram to the mother. No one else was present in either of our homes. Seconds later, I heard the door slam and the sound of a distraught, Polish-American mother’s rapid footsteps hurrying along the sidewalk to seek a translation of a dreaded telegram.
A World War will do that, too.
When they shipped him home it was with medals and honors, but not life. The funeral was a heavy-hearted memory. A color guard led the fallen hero’s flag-draped casket down the center of Whitman Park’s South 10th Street to Joseph’s Church.
Again he was at the altar where he once so reverently served at the celebration of Mass. Now there was much reverence, but no celebrating — only sorrow and tears.
Chester began his early years serving at God’s altar. He ended his early years of manhood at the same altar, serving his country with the ultimate sacrifice at the bloody Battle of Monte Cassino.
That, too, a war will do.
Those who gave their lives in the service of their country should always be honored and cherished. Not only on each Memorial Day but throughout the year.
But we should also convey to the world leaders the folly of it all.
The only thing that makes any sense is to have a war against war. We owe this to Chester, to all those whose lives have been taken from them, to future generations and to the millions who perished because of wars. No longer should we allow wars to do that. A more sensible way must be found.
Stan Bednarczyk, who lives in Audubon, is an Army veteran of the Korean War.
Obituary
Camden Courier-Post — August 13 & 14, 2018
Stanley J. Bednarczyk — Haddon Heights. On August 11, 2018, Stanley, age 85, passed away at home surrounded by his loving family. Born and raised in Camden and a Korean War Veteran, Stanley was a US Postal Carrier serving the Fairview area of Camden for over 32 years. He was a gold member of the National Association of Letter Carriers. Stanley was proud of his Polish heritage and was a longtime member of the Polish American Citizens Club (P.A.C.C.). Stanley was also a member of VFW Post 3324 as well as the Young-At-Heart Club, both of Runnemede. A devout Catholic, Stanley was a parishioner of St. Rose of Lima where he was a member of the Legion of Mary. Stanley was also a columnist for the Camden County Record and the Polish American Journal of Bowmansville, NY. Finally, he wrote and published his own book, “My Wagging Tail” detailing much of his life.
Stanley is survived by his beloved wife of 60 years, Constance “Connie” (nee Kasprzak); his loving daughters, Lisa (Michael M.) Mignogna and Julie (Wayne S.) Schneider; his cherished grandchildren, Madison Mignogna, Jacob Schneider and Noah Schneider along with many nieces and nephews.