August 25, 2003
Before the Korean War, when Cokes were a nickel and sundaes cost a quarter, a group of teenage boys became friends. They were Catholic (except for one lone Southern Baptist), they attended Hawthorne High School, and when they grew older, they’d go to New York together and drink Seven and Sevens while their dates drank Sloe Gin Fizzes.
They were known as “Joe’s Boys,” after Joe “Kernie” Kernoff, owner of a local ice cream shop.
Kernoff’s, on Diamond Bridge Avenue in Hawthorne, was a safe haven that represented more than frozen desert. It was run by Joe and Rose, a Jewish couple who had daughters but no sons.
Joe would bail the boys out of trouble. Rose would bake them apple pies. The two would listen to girlfriend problems and offer advice. The night before the boys went off to the Korean War, the Kernoffs closed shop to host a goodbye party.
By then, the boys already had their jackets with “Joe’s” embroidered on the back. And by then, the boys had come to know the Kernoffs as second parents.
“I don’t even remember why we even started hanging out there,” said Charles “Chiz” De Paolo, 70.
“We just congregated there. We’d meet there right after supper or before dates when we got a little older. We were very close to Joe and Rose,” he said, recalling “Joe would give us sage-like advice. Rose was a rose.”
Earlier this month, after years of separation, De Paolo and eight other “Joe’s Boys” reunited with Rose, now 95.
As her car pulled into the parking lot of Charlie Brown’s Steakhouse in Wayne, the “boys” lingered outside, laughing and calling each other “old man.”
“I can’t believe it,” Kernoff said, reaching, with tears in her eyes, to kiss them all.
Like 18-year-old pranksters, Joe’s Boys responded with a chorus of, “C’mon Rose, you better believe it,” and “Anything’s possible with us.”
Her husband, Joe, died after a lifetime of illness no one knew about.
“We never knew how sick he was,” Kernoff said. “He coughed all the time, but it was a bad heart.”
Inside the restaurant, the boys settled Kernoff into a seat at a long table, chatting and laughing and ribbing one another a little more. The din stopped when Rose dumped a pile of old letters onto the middle of the table, written by Joe’s Boys during their wartime service overseas.
As the men sifted through the letters and read passages aloud, Joe “Joey A” Amento, 68, who organized the luncheon and was sitting next to Rose, inhaled sharply and blinked away tears. Rose, not looking over, reached to rest her hand on his forearm.
“Did you ever see anything like this?” Kernoff asked. “I kept them for 50 years.”
“Spreen is the only one who could start a letter like this,” Amento said, referring to Robert “Spreenie” Spreen before reading a section written to Rose. “Dear Civilians, I thought you might have forgotten about me. I wish I could come home for just a couple of days.”
Far from forgetting any of Joe’s Boys, Rose would send off care packages during basic training and service. “Those memories you couldn’t buy for all the money in the world,” she said.
Spreen, who couldn’t make it to the reunion, called Kernoff on Amento’s cell phone.
“Robert? How the hell are you?” she said. “I miss you.” As she chatted, Joe’s Boys turned into 18-year-olds again, disparaging “Spreenie” with one-liners but meaning the opposite.
“She misses him? Well, she’s the only one.”
“Yeah, he’s joining the zipper club. He had heart surgery.”
“He had a heart? I had no idea!”
“The years have gone by,” Bob “Con” Confrancisco, 68, said, rousing a round of “Boy, that’s for sure!”
As dishes were cleared away, two sleekly-coifed middle-aged blondes walked over to the table. They wanted to know what was going on, and Joe’s Boys turned up the charm, answering questions with smiles and little flirtations.
At the other end of the table, De Paola and Confrancisco held council. “They noticed us,” De Paolo whispered to Confrancisco, who replied, “How could they miss us?”