Seventy-three years ago, December 24th, 1944, to be exact, Salvatore John Pellicano took his first breath. My parents, were both immigrants from Sicily, Italy. South Philadelphia was where I was born and lived for my first ten or so years. My father opened a bakery in the small town of Clayton, New Jersey; he purchased the equipment from my grandfather who decided it was time to retire. It was the mid-fifties, and back then Clayton was a great little town.
Like my father, when he was a boy, I too worked in the bakery. Due to my mother’s psychosis, she didn’t function very well, and when she did “function,” her “function” excluded me. I was pretty much on my own; I bought/stole my clothes, and wash them too in the old bathtub upstairs. Anything I needed I got, somehow, and as long as I showed up for work every morning, my parents didn’t care. I was a High School sophomore when I met Bette; that was the absolute best thing that ever happened to me. We were together from then on.
Two weeks before Bette and I were to be married, I was informed I no longer had a job. That was a terrible shock; for years, I was told there would always be a place for me at the bakery, and the bakery would eventually be mine. It took a long time, but I learned that was all in God’s plan. From hobby to becoming a business, motorcycles consumed me. That led to racing which led to the opening of my business, (“The Cycle Center).
There is so much more that could be written, but there really isn’t any need to continue, most of it is included in this little book, and remembering my early years makes me unhappy.