As students return to school, longtime Times-News columnist Kevin Cuneo bids farewell
The nights are a touch cooler, the kids are back or are headed back to school, football season is underway and it feels as if fall is just around the corner. Many of the great places of summer, such as Waldameer Park & Water World and Erie SeaWolves games at UPMC Park, are closing in on the end of their seasons, but September is almost always a great month in Erie.
The German Heritage Fest, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday at St. Nick’s Grove, will kick off September in style, followed by the Erie Irish Festival, which starts Sept. 17 on the grounds of St. Patrick Catholic Church.
● General McLane High School will soon induct some major stars into its hall of fame who excelled in sports for the school over the years. Basketball hero Jayson Mason will be joined by all-around athlete Quinn Thompson; golf great Bobby Orr; Matt Seth Sr., who starred in football, wrestling, and track and field; and former football superstar Rob Kennerknecht. Rob went on to become a skilled athletic trainer.
● An online article by Kelsie Heneghan of milb.com on “The best of the Detroit Tigers’ minor league ballparks” gives a big shout-out to Erie’s UPMC Park. The package also includes a 2022 piece written by Jason Beck who goes into extensive and flattering detail about Erie’s ballpark and the surrounding area. The stories make you proud you live here.
● That was a nice gesture by Erie native Fred Biletnikoff, who recently paid for lunch for the crew that’s been laboring on Biletnikoff Field at Erie High School. The $6 million project is rounding into shape, as is the work going on inside the school. The athletic field is certain to be a first-class facility when it’s finished.
● His old students, parishioners and friends are not surprised that the Rev. Tom Fialkowski has created an endowment to provide financial assistance to students at Cathedral Preparatory School and Mother Teresa Academy. The fund will generate annual grants in perpetuity.
Fialkowski, a Catholic priest since 1966, became one of Erie’s greatest swim coaches during the years he taught at Prep. He was also a popular and successful pastor at several Erie churches.
● Speaking of Catholic churches in the Erie diocese, Bishop Lawrence Persico recently published the last of three pastoral planning letters, which appeared in parish bulletins across Erie County. A preliminary plan for the restructuring of parishes will be announced in September.
● Meanwhile, parishioners in the Catholic Diocese of Syracuse, New York, are said to be up in arms over the decision there to assess individual parishes large sums to cover a $100 million settlement with individuals who were abused by priests. It’s said to be the biggest payout to victims by a Roman Catholic diocese in the U.S. since 2018.
● Erie native Jack Rocco, an orthopedic surgeon whose parents, Jack and Norma Rocco, still live here, has published a best-selling book, “Recycled: A Reluctant Search for True Self Through Nurture, Nature, and Free Will.”
Jack Rocco, a Strong Vincent High School graduate, was adopted by the Roccos when he was a baby. It was a closed adoption, and Jack only knew that his biological parents were a young couple ― an Italian father and a German Irish mother who couldn’t afford a child.
“Recycled” takes readers on Jack’s journey of discovering his true but hidden identity. Reviewers called the book “one of the most thrilling, shocking, yet hopeful books about hidden identity and adoption.”
● Julie Barzano Monocello, who labored alongside her family for years at the South Erie Pizzeria, said her brother, Sam Barzano Jr., who’s 83, recently moved back to Erie after spending several decades in Las Vegas.
In my dreams, I can still taste that wonderful pizza and those delicious submarine sandwiches made at South Erie.
● At the recent Erie Lions reunion, I had a nice chat with Ken Vokac, who starred for the team in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Vokac still looks young and vigorous, even though he’s a star third baseman on an over-75 baseball team in Kansas City. He and his family moved to KC 35 years ago.
Ken, who also refereed hockey games in Erie, still refs in Kansas City. But he said he only works 1-hour games.
Dick Homovec, a goaltender for the Lions, told me I must have started covering the team for the Erie Times-News when I was 12. He was wrong; I was 14. But that was 54 years ago, which reminded me again that I’ve been around a long time and have probably, by now, worn out my welcome with Erie’s newspaper’s readers.
More: What former player for Erie Lions hockey flew 28 hours for Friday's team reunion?
● So, this is my final column. My wife, Mary, recently retired and she has the itch to travel and visit our sons. Erie readers have been good to our family over the years, and a Cuneo byline or column signature has appeared in this newspaper every year since 1942.
As the actor James Cagney said in the old movie, “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” my father thanks you, my mother thanks you, my brothers and sister thank you, and I thank you.
Kevin Cuneo can be reached at kevin.cuneo1844@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Return of school, football, festivals in Erie PA herald fall's arrival
