Dunmore resident and native Robert “Rollo” Meehan, at left, won the Lake Wallenpaupack Summer Fest cheeseburger eating competition. Rollo downed 13 cheeseburgers in 13.4 minutes. At right is former Dunmorean Bill Ciccotti.
Dunmore native Bill Ciccotti turned 72 this past April and somehow, he’s still acting like a cowboy. Traveling horseback through the high country of Wyoming, punching cattle and riding bulls?
Bill says, “When I was a little boy, all I ever wanted to be was a cowboy. I think it was when my grandfather took me to see the movie ‘The Magnificent Seven.’ After that all I wanted to do was ride.”
Bill’s son lives in Wilson, Wyoming, a town just outside of Jackson Hole. Every year when Bill visits his son, he gets to play cowboy once again. He doesn’t gallop quite as much as he used to, but he’s still pretty spry for a 72-year-old cowman.
Bill laughed, “Getting up in the saddle isn’t as easy as it once was. But what’s still easy at 72?”
Bill said that he’ll be riding horses till he can’t climb himself up into the saddle anymore. Then he declared he’ll be feeding the horses in the corral. And Bill added, “That’s good enough for me. You have to enjoy the good stuff while you can. Or it’s your own fault that you never did.”
Somebody forgot to tell him he’s not a kid anymore. Or maybe he just ignores them when they try to tell him that he’s old. That mischievous twinkle in his eyes and his Cheshire cat smile match the well-earned lines that etch his chuckling face.
You can tell Bill’s had his share of ups and downs traveling along that windy road he’s been living. And Bill agrees, “In life you fall at times. We all do. It’s too darn easy to fall. But the getting back up part, that’s the important thing.” He said, “I fell off Rusty Saddle a few years back, but that didn’t hurt me none.”
Bill added, “If you get thrown from a horse, you have to get up and get back on. That is, unless you land on a cactus. Then you roll around and scream.”
He might have lost a step or two over the years but none of his swagger. Bull rider or bull thrower? Bill shook his head, “Yeah, I climbed up on the back of a 1,900-pound brahma bull at the Jackson Hole Rodeo last year. But I wouldn’t let them open the gate.” Bill nodded, “I might be crazy. But I’m not nuts.” Well not everyone would agree with that statement. Especially the nuns who taught him in grade school.
But Bill’s sure having a lot of fun and still laughing like a silly kid after 72 years on this earth. Cowboys and Rodeo Buckle Bunnies? Bill explained what had happened at that rodeo last year.
“Well, I walked myself confidently into the backstage contestant’s area. I had the boots, the wranglers, a big sterling silver belt buckle, and wide brimmed Stetson on. It’s always good to look the part. Walk confidently and act like you are supposed to be there.” Bill shrugged, “Nobody figured I didn’t belong there, so I ambled myself right on in. Casually I watched the bronco busters and the bull riding while standing behind the chutes.”
He laughed, “I also joked around and even made a few friends with some of the riders. One of the bulldoggers asked me if I’d like to sit on one of the bulls.Wrong question to the right guy. Be careful what you wish for in life. You might just get it. After all, life is just a leap of faith full of danger galore. Spread your arms and hold your breath. But remember, everything will kill you. So, pick something you like doing. And remember, if you don’t try, you’ll never experience life.”
“Plus, if you’re lucky, you might just get to fly.” Bill added, “Of course I climbed on that brown-horned monster. But I told them, “Don’t let anyone open that chute with me on this demon. The real cowboys told me, ‘Don’t raise your right hand up, which signals the officials you’re ready.’”
Bill continued his story. “Truth be told, I almost raised my hand a bit too high in my excitement. I really did.” Shaking his head he laughed, “If they ever opened that chute, I would have been glued tightly onto those upper side bars of that swinging gate and Bushwhacker would have been churning up dust without any rider sitting on him.” Bill added, “We’ve all got some crazy tucked away inside of us. Some people just have bigger pieces of that crazy than others.”
“It’s a crazy world. But no matter what, always be aboveboard and don’t forget to be kind. Oh yeah, and when you wake up every morning, be glad your boots are on.” Bill happily added, “The days you can keep your appreciation higher than your expectation are truly beautiful days indeed.”
He admits, “I’m not the man I used to be. I have a limp in my walk now. But riding horses takes all the aches and pains, both physically and mentally, away in a flash of nature’s magnificent glory.”
“Vistas of grandeur glide below you as your horse canters you higher along winding mountain trails. Beauty unspoiled by man surrounds you as you travel along happily. Sadly, that unspoiled land will all be gone one day with condos right up to the waterfalls. But for now, I can still ride it and smile like that silly little kid I used to be.” “I’ve been lucky enough to ride high into the mountains of both the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks.” Smiling, he added. “You can’t always see heaven from the back of a horse. But when you ride that horse high up into the mountains, you can catch a glimpse of it indeed.” e the money you need in order to do the things you enjoy doing. The things that make you happy.”
“It’s all a tradeoff. You can’t ride the high country every day. You have to work first in order to get the funds to pay for that pleasure. And believe me, everything you do has a price that must be paid.” Bill laughed, “I’m not rich. No, not by a long shot. But if I was rich, I’d be riding the high country. So, you see, maybe I am rich in the things that really count.”
Well, no matter what life seems to throw at Bill, it just can’t kick that little boy, who’s still playing cowboy every chance he gets. Most people as they get older stop acting like a kid. But a choice few, well; somehow, they perfect it. Here’s to the cowboys and the little kids still inside us. Long may they ride.
By Bill Ciccotti
Veterans Day is dedicated to American service men and women who gave their all, and often more, to keep America the land of the free. Apple pie and the 4th of July. The following is dedicated to Sergeant Angelo M. Ciccotti of Dunmore, and the memory of all those silent heroes who stepped up to the plate and took one for the team.
My father was the son of William and Mabel Ciccotti. His father originally came from Anagni, Italy, a small town near Rome. My father was a teenager when he signed up for WWII. Why? Because his country needed him. In fact, the whole world needed all the help it could get at the time. He ended up a Sergeant in the 87th Infantry during World War II. That generation had guts. They didn’t want to go to war. But the country, hell the whole world, needed them. So, they never thought twice. That generation just acted.
He always wanted to be a pilot, so my dad joined the Army Air Corps. He was training and had flown a Piper Cub several times. My father was about to take his solo pilot’s test when we hit the beaches at Normandy. And in a snap of your fingers, he got shifted from the skies above to the infantry below. “Sorry son. But we need boots on the ground, and those boots are in your size young man.”
My dad nodded, saluted, and became a radio operator for the 87th Infantry. The Golden Acorns. But he quickly shifted frontline to become a forward artillery spotter. That translated to “Here’s a field radio, a M1 carbine, and binoculars. Now go find us something to blow up.” And off he went. Alone, into no man’s land. Kind of like the tip of the spear.
Sometimes he fought counter combat action in groups with the rest of his unit after he had radioed in artillery strikes. The Germans, they always pushed back. And they pushed back hard. Tanks rumbled forward creating havoc. Bullets went flying everywhere. Explosions kept making everyone trip. Chaos and bedlam often ensued. The staccato woodpecker sound of the German machine guns ripped everything apart that they hit. And still, the 87th fought on doggedly.
GIs went running down war torn streets. Side-stepping and head-bobbing around corners trying to get a look while being shot at. Then ducking back from incoming rounds. Yet, always attempting to find the courage to rush right back out into that volcanic death storm of molten lead. In war, hell opens its rusty gates, and the devil rushes out laughing, while the reaper sows his bloody cycle.
My dad battled across Europe from Le Havre, France to Luxembourg and Germany. He then became part of General Patton’s Third Army. And subsequently was part of the relief of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. He was drained from a bone-numbing 300-mile march, in the coldest December possible. His unit traveled through the snow and blizzard winds in open trucks. The Allied forces journeyed from the Saar Valley by way of Rheims, France.
And on December 29, 1944, the Third Army was hurled against massive thrusts ordered by Adolph Hitler to capture the key highway center of Bastogne.
The Nazi Watch on the Rhine Offensive was in full swing. Numerically superior, the elite Nazi SS troops supported by the new monster King Tiger tanks had caught American forces in the Ardennes by surprise. The Axis armies were making good headway for a few days before the Third Army units of Patton arrived.
The Nazis brazenly delivered an ultimatum to Bastogne, threatening annihilation if the 101st Airborne and attached troops didn’t surrender. And, of course, the rest is history. They fought till relief arrived. But war is a swirling fog of carnage and danger.
With virtually no patrolling to feel out the enemy, my father’s unit was hurled into this chaotic, raging battle. On orders of Lieutenant General George S. Patton, both the 87th and 11th Armored Divisions charged into the arms of the waiting enemy. And our boys suffered heavy casualties.
But relieve the besieged 101st they did. My dad said he saw GIs with no ammunition left throwing bricks at the Germans. One guy rushed a machine gun nest with a shovel. Heroes? Damn right they were.
Once, during a heavy bombardment, my dad dove into a crater with a friend and ducked as low as possible into a tight crevice. Terrified, he rolled as small as he could tuck himself. In a lull of the bombing, he grabbed his carbine and said, “Come on, Joe. Let’s go.”
But when he turned, Joe’s head was gone. So, my father had to run forward alone towards the enemy, screaming. Screaming at those killers and screaming from the horror of his decapitated friend. How do you survive that? No one does.
My father told me later in life, “You get through it by covering your mind with a blanket. You have to hold the cover tight every night, Billy. And if you can hold that tattered blanket tight enough, then one day, after the war is over, if you’re still alive, you can attempt to reclaim your humanity.”
Whenever we watched a WWII movie on TV, my dad would try not to think, but he often mumbled when the combat started. “That’s a Mauser, German rifle.” Or “That’s a German Machine pistol.” I always thought that was a machine gun. But my dad shook his head. “No Billy. The Mg34 and MG42 were the German machine guns.”
Then he’d listen, quietly remembering, “Luger, German pistol. That’s definitely a 1911, US 45 pistol.” Then “Thompson Tommy gun.” Before I could ask, he’d shrug, “Ok that’s a submachine gun.” And “M1 Carbine, lighter US rifle. M1 Grand big and heavy US rifle.”
You get the idea. Those sounds were ingrained in his mind, and he didn’t like thinking about their repercussions. My father saw concentration camps. And good friends die. He walked through the hellish nightmare of warfare incarnate. Through despair, terror, and insanity. What did he do? He kept moving forward. One step at a time. Not because he was a hero. He never thought of himself as a hero. Just a flawed man. Another humble man who knew what was wrong. And one who believed every step that they took was another chance to stop that evil wrong.
And believe me, they all wanted to cut the head off the snake. My father wouldn’t elaborate on any of the fighting that he went through in WWII. He just got a far off look in his eyes and eventually replied, “Son you don’t want to know.”
If I pushed him, he would only tell me, “Billy when you play army out in our back yard with your friends and you get shot, you get back up. But in real life if you get shot you stay down. And sometimes die.”
Despite these horrific experiences, Dad did what many other veterans did. He married my mother, the former Mary McGraw, after the war, and the couple had my two brothers Michael and Tom, and two sisters Angela and Michelle, and me. He tried to build his life, and in the late 1940s he and his father and brother-in-law opened a jewelry store. Eventually he became sole proprietor of the business, and in the early 1950s he moved his shop to Wyoming Avenue in Scranton and opened Ciccotti’s Jewel Case.
Mary and Angelo fulfilled the American dream when they built a house in 1953 on Quincy Avenue in Dunmore, where they lived the rest of their lives and raised their children.
This photo is the only service picture I ever saw of him. He never liked talking about the war. That’s understandable.
Those guys fought through hell every day. Then, if they were still alive, they came home, and attempted to live a normal life. They never boasted. They could have bragged, but they never did. God knows that they were heroes. But to themselves, they just figured the world needed them. And that was it. It was indeed a better time. A time of innocence. A time of confidence. A time of quiet heroes. Thank you, Dad.