I stopped drinking approximately 43 years ago and started writing about 30 years ago. I would wake up at night with an idea and write it down and have no idea where it came from. I have a very limited formal education, but was informed while in the U.S. Army that I have an IQ of 146. I believe that the writings have given me a purpose to become someone different than what I was, and made me aware of what I have suffered from someone else's drinking, and more that likely contributed to my being sober. 

That's a good question. Why isn't there more blue-collar poets is because we are not accepted by the others. After many years of applying to many magazines and agents and others, you are one of the very few that has ever even responded to me. I have been told that I should write prose instead of verse, too many caps, or many other things that do not meet their approval. I had to look into the dictionary to find out the difference between prose and verse. I once tried to enter a poetry contest and had no idea about what their requests were. They may be also afraid to write about what they have gone through, and not able to explain it; me on the other hand, has no problem in telling it like it is or was. Although it may be difficult for others to be considered a blue-collar poet, everyone one from my era, can identify with it.

My father caused me much pain and grief, and I can never forgive him. I had many great surrogate fathers through my early years who had a great influence on me. They were veterans of the second world war that pounded hard work and patriotism into my head. When I was in my early teens, we used to get three to five dollars a week from the church. Well, one week when I went there the father said that this is the last week that we can give you any more money; we feel that it is better for you and your brother and sister to be put in a foster home. I told him to shove the money up his ass, and to leave us alone, which he did. Maybe I am looking for it, or want to give it, not really sure why I write about it; it just comes out. Again, as far as my father is concerned, there is no forgiveness, but I may be able to offer others forgiveness.

I started working when I was 8 years old. At 11 years old I had a morning paper route, and I used to deliver to apartment houses on a better part of town, and when I needed new sneakers, I would go to other parts of the building that I did not deliver papers to, and try on the sneakers that were left outside the apartment doors, and when I found one, I put them on and left my old sneakers in their place. Also, while on my route I passed many grocery stores that were still closed and various items were left outside their doors and I would take only one of each and put them in my paper bag, and we would have breakfast that morning. Yeah, indeed it made me tough; I have been in the construction business for almost 60 years, and being in the construction business in Hudson and Essex county, when I was, you had to be tough. Did you ever see The Sopranos, which actually took place in Essex and Hudson county? Well, I indeed lived it — and lived.

Well, that is another good question. Well as far as my blue-collar friends, they were all left behind when I moved to Monmouth County. As far as my family, my older daughter has been very helpful, and my son has been working with me to do a screenplay for Friday Nite at The Bucket of Blood Bar. As far as my wife, she is an ex-teacher and college grad who always has a problem with most of what I write. She always wants to change it, and I tell her, "Do you let anyone touch your Italian sauce or soup?" She is a frustrated writer and attempts to impose her ideas on my writings, and I tell her no. 

That's a good question. Over 30 years ago I became a very big union general contractor, doing work for the Port of Authority, Newport Mall and Port Liberte and many, many others. Well on October 19, 1989 all the banks went bust in New Jersey, and I got hit for 2 1/2 million dollars. The local paper, The Jersey Journal, took notice of me and how I was fighting the government for my money. They are the ones that called me the Junk Yard Dog — fights the system for his money. About six months later, I had a proof of claim for 2 1/2 million dollars and was going to the third circuit court in Philadelphia. The night before my lawyer called me and says he is going down that night, because there was supposed to be a big snowstorm, and that if you don't show, you automatically default. Well, we showed, but the RTC, which was a federal entity that took over the banks, did not show, and the judge, being federal and that the RTC did not show — the case was thrown out and I was out 2 1/2 million dollars.

In 1961 I was at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, and was being interviewed by a lieutenant colonel. I had wanted to be transferred to Airborne, and he wanted to talk to me about it. He started looking  into my file and said, "It looks like you are a street guy, and when the shit hits the fan, I want to be in a foxhole with a street guy, because they never give up, and will break every rule, but most of the time they will get out of that foxhole alive, and I see that you have a very high IQ, and that a street guy with a high IQ is very dangerous, and I want you on my side, which is S3 (the intelligence branch of the military." He refused to allow me to be transferred, and instead, first sent me to school to get my GED, and then typing school, so I could become a battery clerk, and put me in for a confidential security clearance and then a top-secret clearance. Well I got both, and got promoted to an E5 in fifteen months, which was faster than anyone had done before. Because of my top-secret clearance, I was involved with top secret training at White Sans Missile Range. I always describe it as the following: "We were doing things that we were not supposed to be doing in places that we were not supposed to be doing it," and I was training others to do it. So it is without a doubt that the military had the biggest impact on my life. If not for the military I probably would have wound up like many others from the neighborhood who became bookies, loan sharks, muscle for the Shys, or members of the teamsters, who would leave their keys in the truck when they go for a coffee break to pay off an unpaid bet, or to make extra spending money.

Q: What advice would you give to poets who want to be authentic with their writing? 

The best advice that I can give is that to never give up, and be yourself, and not someone else. That is what I call being a stand-up guy.