One of Fulton's Most Beloved Volunteers

In the five years that the Fulton Library has been sponsoring its Memoir Project, I’ve had the opportunity to learn about many former and current Fulton residents who’ve gone the extra mile to support our community. As people share memories, some names keep coming up, and based on the number of times Nunzi Fichera has been mentioned, I would say he is one of our city’s most fondly-remembered Fultonians.

Nunzi was the son of Joseph and Angelina Fichera, who had a muck farm just outside the city of Fulton, and he worked on that farm from his youngest days. Among Nunzi’s duties were regular trips to the Syracuse Farmers Market. His sister, Mary Stancampiano, told me that when her brother was in high school, he’d work the Market most weekdays. “Nunzi would get up about three a.m., get ready and head out,” Mary explained. “As soon as he sold everything, he would head directly to school. To make it in time for his first class, I would bring his books to school and meet him in his homeroom.”

Nunzi took the strong work ethic he learned as a youngster and turned it into a successful career as a real estate broker. First working for Quinn’s Real Estate, a Fulton agency, he eventually ended up with his own office on East Broadway. It was while working for Quinn’s that Nunzi began his other “career,” one that never earned him money, but endeared him to so many Fultonians. When Quinn’s Real Estate agreed to sponsor one of our city’s youth basketball teams, Nunzi stepped up to become the team’s coach.

Hundreds of Fultonians have great memories of Nunzi’s supportive style of coaching. Back when longtime Fulton sports supporter Don Smith was a youngster, in the 1940s and ‘50s, the only way to play organized basketball was to be selected for the high school team. But thanks to the dedicated volunteer work of adults like Nunzi, Don was able to participate in an alternative intramural program. Here’s how Don remembered that experience:

“Of all the things I ever accomplished, playing on a successful basketball team was probably my happiest. Ricky Castorina coached us our freshman year and Nunzi was our coach after that. In our junior year, Nunzi’s coaching took our team to a JV tournament. There were seven teams, including the top high school teams and the top intramural team – and we had the top intramural team.”

The pride of being on a successful basketball team was something many of the youth Nunzi coached got to experience, including those involved with the Catholic Basketball League. On Sunday afternoons, parish teams from around Oswego County would compete against each other at Oswego Catholic High’s St. Francis Hall. Those who participated in those games say they can still hear the roar of the crowds that filled the Hall.

Jerry Schremp, who ended up coaching thousands of children through Fulton’s Knee-Hi basketball program, got his start with the sport through Nunzi’s Catholic League coaching. Jerry played for Holy Family as a guard and when he was a sixth grader, he was lucky enough to make Nunzi’s 7th and 8th grade team. “Nunzi would pile 10 or 12 kids in his car to take us to our games,” Jerry remembered. “Afterwards, he would take the whole team down to Foster’s for ice cream. There were a lot of good memories from Nunzi.”

Marty Gillard, another Holy Family basketball player, would agree. “Nunzi got the most out of everybody,” Marty said. “We beat teams all the time that we shouldn’t have, but we did. After I became an adult and started coaching, I used to visit him at his office. He had pictures of his teams up – I can’t tell you how many there were – but Nunzi could name every kid in order.”

Mike Pollock was one of those kids who benefited from Nunzi’s guidance. Mike met him early in life when Nunzi sold the Pollock family a house. The Pollocks were communicants at Holy Family Church and Mike remembers Nunzi helping to run the church’s very popular bazaar: “Everything about Nunzi was community and family. He loved his church and he loved the sports programs for the kids. The time he donated was just unbelievable.”

Mike first got to experience Nunzi’s coaching through our city’s CYO, which had a popular basketball program. Over the many years that Nunzi coached, as Mike noted, “he was like a father to a lot of us. My father died when I was pretty young and Nunzi took me under his wing.  I started playing when I was in 6th grade. It was really a 7th and 8th grade league, but Nunzi let me play. There were the Sunday games and then two days a week we practiced at the War Memorial.”

Nunzi devoted his life to our community and youth sports. Even when he was caring for his aging mother on a small farm near Curtis Street, he stayed as involved with sports as he could. After his death, in 1993, people may have thought his passion for helping youth would have ended, but that’s not what happened. Angelo Caltabiano, of the Fulton Kiwanis Club, explains:

“After Nunzi passed, he left money to be used for Fulton youth basketball programs. Each March, in cooperation with The Fulton Savings Bank, who issues the money prizes, a free throw shooting contest is conducted. Any child can participate and Fulton Knee-Hi Basketball coordinates and conducts the preliminary rounds. Because Nunzi was a member of Kiwanis, current Kiwanis members volunteer to help with the final round of this contest.”

How fortunate we are to have had Nunzi Fichera in Fulton. Of all his contributions to our community, this one, told by Mike Pollock, really struck a chord in me: “Nunzi was always good about giving common sense to people. ‘Try to do the right thing’ was his motto. It wasn’t really about basketball; it was about teaching you to do what’s right. That’s what Nunzi always did.”

Photo: Nunzi Fichera, back row, left, who taught basketball and other valuable life lessons to many Fulton youth.

Nunzi Fichera, back row, left, a longtime Fulton volunteer with his 1968-69 Holy Family Church basketball team.

Nunzi Fichera, back row, left, a longtime Fulton volunteer with his 1968-69 Holy Family Church basketball team.

Inch By Inch

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a  blog about Fulton’s Department of Public Works, whose employees plow our city streets.  I wanted to mention in the column the amount of snow we’ve had so far this season and I knew just who to call to get that information: John Florek. John is the Superintendent of our city’s Waterworks Department, located on Old Route 57, at the southern edge of Fulton. That’s where John keeps our daily precipitation measurements, and as he supplied me with the numbers I needed, I realized that, as the person who maintains records of our city’s snowfall, John Florek is one of Fulton’s historians.

John has put in 42 years at the Waterworks Department, which makes him Fulton’s longest-serving employee. When he was hired to be that department’s assistant supervisor, back in 1976, Sam Vescio was the department head, and just a year before John joined his staff, Sam had started recording precipitation information. One of the first things John learned on the job was how to take those measurements.

“You might wonder why a Waterworks Department would be responsible for measuring precipitation,” John mentioned as he explained his career to me. “There’s a direct correlation between the amount of rainfall and snowfall a city gets and their source of drinking water. In Fulton, we have ten wells, a few on our city property and most of the others at Great Bear Recreation Area. We keep track of the amount of water that seeps into the ground after rain and snowfalls so we have an idea how full our wells are.”

John assured me that our city seldom, if ever, has to worry about sufficient water to serve the entire city of Fulton, as well as parts of Volney and Granby townships. I didn’t think having enough water would ever be a problem for Fulton, based on the amount of snowfall we get. Which got me to my first question for John: Exactly how do he and his staff come up with those numbers?

“Each day’s measurement is taken at 7:00 am,” John explained. That sounded reasonable to me, thinking that performing a task five mornings a week shouldn’t be a problem. Then John clarified what he meant by each day: “Not Monday through Friday; I mean 365 days a year.” John plans his staff’s schedule so that, on weekends or holidays, someone comes in to take care of Waterworks business and record precipitation numbers. So on Christmas morning, when most of the city is opening presents, someone is at the Waterworks Department taking measurements.

Those numbers are sent to the National Weather Service (NWS), which provided the Waterworks Department with a sophisticated machine to help keep track of the daily rain and snowfall. John explained the two ways snow is measured: “First, the machine has a stainless steel precipitation pipe that collects rain or snow for each 7 am to 7am 24-hour period. To get our measurement, we take the pipe off the machine, bring it inside and let it come to room temperature so the snow melts. We also measure the amount of snow that accumulates on the ground. To do that, we use a snow board, a painted piece of wood that sits on flat ground. If it’s snowing pretty heavy, we’ll check that board several times a day, taking a measurement, and then wiping the board off to start again. That’s how we get our snowfall numbers.”

John also shared the challenges of accurately measuring in an area known for lake-effect snow: “More often than not, when snow falls in Fulton, there’s some wind carrying it in. It’s hard to take a measurement if snow gets blown off the board.” To compensate for that, John and his staff have devised a method to get a close estimate of actual snowfall. “We do this by going to several spots around our property – near buildings or trees where wind has driven the snow – and take measurements. We look at those numbers and figure out an average.”  Another problem John contends with is the different types of snow we get in Fulton.  “Sometimes snow is so light people will clear their driveways with a broom or leave blower. Other times, it’s heavier, Nor’easter storm-type snow.”

Light as a feather or densely-packed, John uses a special ruler to get his numbers. Not the typical measuring sticks we learned to use in school, with inches marked off in quarters, eights and sixteenths. If we take a close look at how snowfall amounts are listed during weather reports, John pointed out, we’ll see that they are recorded in tenths of an inch, just like his ruler.

I asked John is he could share a few numbers from this season, but before he started quoting figures, he wanted to make sure I understood that a snowfall season total is not the same as an annual total, which runs from January to December. “We keep records for the season,” John explained, “which typically covers November through May.” John was quick to point out, though, that Fulton has had measurable snowfall during October for nine of the 42 seasons he’s been keeping records. That means that here in Fulton we can have eight months of potential snowfall. I guess people aren’t kidding when they say our city has two seasons: winter and everything else.

John wanted me to know that the date of my call, February 8, was a pretty special day in terms of snowfall totals. So far this season, John has measured 122.6 inches of snow. When he checked on the average snowfall up to February 8 for the previous 42 seasons, that number was also 122.6 inches! So, if you’re like me and think we’ve had a pretty snowy winter, I turns out that it’s just been…average. But John had one other number that might make you feel better about our 2017-18 snow season: The most amount of snow ever accumulated in Fulton by February 8 took place back in 2004, when we’d endured 232.0 inches. That’s got to make your sore back feel a little better about this winter. 

Lots of people measure snow, like this unidentified SUNY Oswego meteorology student, but few have been doing so as long as John Florek, Fulton's Waterworks Department Supervisor.

Lots of people measure snow, like this unidentified SUNY Oswego meteorology student, but few have been doing so as long as John Florek, Fulton's Waterworks Department Supervisor.

Have You Ever Wanted to Drive a Snowplow?

Have You Ever Wanted to Drive a Snowplow?

We’re having ourselves a snowy winter in Fulton. The season is barely half over and we’ve already measured more than 110 inches of the white stuff. That’s a lot of shoveling and snow blowing, and our sore backs are proof of it. It’s also a lot of snow to clear from the over fifty miles of streets in our city.

Plowing Fulton’s streets is the job of the men and women who work for Fulton’s Department of Public Works. I’ve always been curious what it’s like to sit atop one of those mammoth plows, which seem to effortlessly push aside several feet of snow during our area’s infamous lake-effect storms. Thanks to the Fulton Library’s Memoir Project, I got to learn what snowplowing is really like.

No, I didn’t actually climb into a city snowplow, but one of our Memoir Project contributors did: Jo Ann Butler. Jo Ann, an accomplished writer and author of several books, not only has a way with words, but she’s also willing to go the extra mile to get her story, and in 2015, she proved just how willing she was.

That year’s Memoir Project’s theme focused on the community services that help protect and care for our city. We were looking for firefighters, police officers, elected officials and other community servants to tell their stories of supporting Fulton. While we were brainstorming ideas for the theme, I was in the middle of writing a book about The Blizzard of ’66 and snow was on my mind. During the process of researching the blizzard, I’d talked with several Oswego County snowplow drivers who shared stories of what it was like to be at the wheel during that record-breaking storm. I thought it would be great to get a Fulton snowplow driver to tell us their story of what it’s like to plow for a city that averages 175 inches of snow a year. (That’s over fourteen feet!) I mentioned my idea to Jo Ann, who, without hesitation, agreed to pursue it.

Shortly after that, Jo Ann and Betty Mauté, who was then the Library’s director, approached the city of Fulton with our request. Jo Ann was put in contact with C. J. Smith, of the city’s DPW, to ask if she could learn about snowplowing. Soon she found herself in the wingman’s seat of a plow, riding along with city employee Chris Manford. Here’s how Jo Ann described that experience:

“The plow handlers I met are tough, hardy guys, who test their bodies, steel blades, and massive force against snow and ice on a daily basis. The driver uses his leviathan [the dictionary defines leviathan as “a thing that is very large or powerful”] like a Bumper Car From Hell to clear intersections or widen streets. It’s a rough ride under the best of conditions. If the blade catches a curb, manhole, or break in the pavement, 46,000 pounds of plow stops cold. Absorbing each shock takes a terrific toll on both trucks and crewmen, including sheared blade mounts, concussions and broken bones.”

Jo Ann got her snowplowing lesson just like any new DPW worker, by serving as a wingman. Lesson number one was figuring how to get up into the plow’s cab. “The wing blade tucks up against the passenger door, so the driver drops the wing to let you climb aboard,” Jo Ann explained. “It comes down in front of you like King Kong’s straight razor. You can duck under the blade or step on top, and up into the cab. Either way, the seat is more than head-high to me.”

As wingman, Jo Ann got a good taste of what plow drivers experienced: “Dials, toggles, and buttons sprawl the width of the dashboard, and Chris Manford shows me the tricks of operating the biggest vehicle I’ve ever been in. In front, the one-way blade scrapes a swath of snow 15’ wide from the pavement. The wing blade is deployed to shove as much snow as possible over the curb line, leaving room for more blizzards to come. Because the driver can’t see the passenger side, the wingman’s vital job is to maneuver his blade around parked cars and other obstacles.”

Though most of us have never sat on the top of a snowplow, we’ve all watched one go down our street or road, and Jo Ann also wrote about the frustration we sometimes feel as it sweeps by our house: “Believe it or not, plow drivers really aren’t out to crush mail boxes, but many suffer that fate anyway, thrust askew as the snow compacts. Both driver and wingman keep their eyes on pedestrians and people clearing their driveways. A few cranks throw their shovels at plows. Some refuse to move their blowers, hoping the driver will circumvent them. The plow driver is careful as can be, but a few snowblowers have been completely buried. Regretful, but the show must go on because the snow will go on. The streets must be cleared, and nobody does it better than Fulton’s DPW.”

And nobody steps up to the challenge of writing a memoir better than Jo Ann Butler. Over the five years the library has been collecting stories for the Memoir Project, Jo Ann has contributed four times, and in each of her stories you will find expressive writing and passion for her topic. Her dedication to getting the memories just right is as impressive as the cleared Fulton streets after a big storm – only made possible by our city’s plow drivers.

Jo Ann Butler, author and Fulton Library's Memoir Project team member, getting ready to take her ride on a snowplow.

Jo Ann Butler, author and Fulton Library's Memoir Project team member, getting ready to take her ride on a snowplow.