Tony was a great guy!
I only knew Tony for the latter part of his life, having met him after he got hired by Northrop Grumman back in 2005, to work on the USPS's Bio-Hazard Detection System.
Tony and I shared several interests including electronics and ham radio. We often made trips together to visit a ham radio store in Delaware, and then would always stop at the mall in Christiana DE, for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and to visit Cabella's - not to necessarily buy anything, but just to have something to do and share insights and opinions on whatever came up in discussion. Tony was frequently unimpressed with most electronic technicians he came across, because he felt that most of them didn't know their you-know-what from a hole in the wall, an opinion I shared with him. It probably stems from the fact that both he and I grew up with electronics, and made it a "mission" to learn as much as we could about "the stuff" as we could, which separated us from someone who picked up electronics as a job, and couldn't care less. Tony was also an avid fisherman, and much of his wanderings thru Cabella's was to look at the new fishing rods and the new and goofy looking fish lures :-)
Tony was also active in the Knights of Columbus, the Toastmasters, and the Coast Guard Auxiliary, and had many stories about people doing stupid stuff out on the water, in addition to not having life preservers on everyone (which is a ticket able offense).
Tony served in the Army, and served a tour in Viet Nam and Hawaii. He didn't talk about that period of his life too much, although he did credit a flack jacket for saving his life when a nearby IED went off and stuck shrapnel in most of his backside - he spent a week in a MASH having said shrapnel picked out him... ouch!
Tony was married to Rose (DiFabbio), whom he met thru one of his sisters. They got married in the mid 70's.
The house they live in, in Rosedale, was a former local post office for the neighborhood, and when they bought it, there was still a bunch of post office miscellaneous laying about in the basement. Neither he or I have been able to come up with any info on the office. It was always easy to spot Tony's house with all of the antenna's on it! :-)
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