16 Year Old - Keeps Promise to Papa Hemingway
Dallas, Texas (PRWEB) October 17, 2016 -- It was 1957, Jerry was 16. He had grown up in the shadows of WWII. As a younger lad he would ride with his dad, a bakery icon all over central New York, as he called on grocers, ball parks and military bases, stopping at fishing holes along the way. The family of ten lived on an eighty four acre estate in Cazenovia. His father had purchased a park from the county during the Depression and converted the pavilion into a home - seventy five yards in front of a seventy foot tall thundering waterfall. Life was simple– and as every young boy would hope for, to Jerry his dad was a truly bigger than life hero.
It was after a bout with Tuberculosis leading to the sale of his dad’s bakery holdings and a bad investment that it all came apart and debts piled up. As a result, Jerry- during his senior year in high school- his mother, father, and two brothers moved from their New York ‘estate’ into a one room apartment with six cots in downtown Milwaukee, where his dad had found a job at the age of fifty-six.
Young Jerry knelt down for his bedtime prayers, leaned on his cot, and asked God to help his dad get out of trouble. He loved his father and prayed each night for him. Hearing the prayers, his mother handed the lad a copy of The Old Man and the Sea. Jerry read it once. He read it a second time, and he began to see his own father as the old man and his struggles with the giant Marlin. The book so convinced Jerry that his dad could survive the struggle that he promised himself he would someday thank Ernest Hemingway for giving him hope in showing him the possibility the old man could not only survive but win the great struggle.
About the book and about Jerome Mark Antil
Hemingway, Three Angels, and Me tells the unique story of a boy who witnesses the prejudice of the Jim Crow era firsthand and then enlists his friends, family members, and neighbors to help Anna Kristina, one victim of that prejudice. The themes of the novel, including racial prejudice, cultural differences, coming of age, and the effects of war, will resonate with modern readers, both young and old. The moral of this story-that it is never too late to make a difference in other people's lives-is neatly summarized in the epilogue, yet the novel never feels \"preachy.\" There aren't any unanswered questions in the novel, and the readers will feel satisfied by the ending.
Jerome Mark Antil is the seventh child of a seventh son - of a seventh son. Born at sunrise it’s been told by Mary Holman Antil and Michael C. Antil Sr., that he was the first of eight siblings to stay awake all day and sleep through the night from the moment he was born.
“I remember the Pearl Harbor attack announced on our Zenith radio before I could walk. I heard Edward R. Murrow reporting the War from London…and the scratchy battle-weary ship-to-shore Morse code messages on radio while my diaper was being changed”.
Heartfelt fare of family and friendship - light-hearted nostalgia from the 1940s and 1950s are his favorite subjects. He revels at capturing in good detail what it was like being a kid living in a world at War and its long shadows. When the War ended, he grew up in Delphi Falls, which provided the setting for The Pompey Hollow Book Club and The Book of Charlie.
"My dad was a baker from the 1929 Great Depression through the post-War 1950s. As a young boy, I’d ride with him all throughout central and northern New York visiting grocers and U.S. Army bases; baseball parks and bread lines as he sold his bread, hot dog buns, pies and cakes. My Dad was ‘Big Mike’ and I loved listening to his timeless stories and tall tales - stopping at fishing holes along the way. All day rides with Big Mike - his Buick my Steamboat – his grand stories and an entire world at War my Mississippi.”
As an adult Jerry worked as a proof reader and printer’s liaison, he later wrote and produced industrial sales and training films. An accomplished writer for public relations and advertising agencies, he would become Chief Marketing Officer for several prominent U.S. companies.
Jerome Antil, Little York Books, +1 214-215-4378, [email protected]
Share this article