It’s Mickey’s fault, you know.
The reason, that is, it takes me so daggone long to cobble a column.
It’s because I still wake up in a cold sweat from nightmares of Mickey Furfari, who recently passed away at 92, calling me — at an ungodly, early hour — to complain about a typo.
“I almost choked on my coffee,” he was famous for saying, “when I saw [insert error here].”
So, yes, I take my time now. I fuss over each word. Because of Mickey.
You see, Furfari was accurate. He was passionate. He was insistent.
I should know. I worked with the man. He was old-school. And that was a very good thing indeed.
Understand I knew Mickey for 30 years — and we met when he was 62. I was in Pittsburgh working a myriad of part-time jobs, but needed the stability of a full-time job. Furfari gave me that via the Morgantown Dominion Post.
Understand that those days were different than today. Pre-social media? It was pre-cell phones. Mickey used to smoke a pipe in the office. (Can you even imagine that now?)
Tink, tink, tink. I still remember him banging the pipe against the ashtray. Shoot, there were even a few throwback journalists in the newsroom then with flasks in their desks.
Mickey wasn’t one of them, yet that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t take a nip now and then. Once, I was on a trip with him and had to share a room. Remember, he was in his sixties and I was not. It was more than a little awkward. And then Mick pulled out a small flask from his overnight bag and offered a shot of whiskey to erase the awkwardness. (I’ll end the suspense right here and now: I accepted.)
“Come on,” I told him. “There’s a little bar downstairs. Let’s go get a beer.”
“Nah, you go ahead,” he said. “I don’t want to cramp your style.”
“Mick,” I laughed, “first off, I have no style. And, second, what am I going to do if I pick a girl up? Bring her back with you here?”
We had a chuckle that night. But today it’s tough to chuckle. See, Domenick “Mickey” Furfari was a special man. (I can still hear him leaving a phone message. “That’s F as in Frank, u, r, F as in Frank, a, r, i.”) Yet he’s difficult to describe.
Mickey was argumentative to the point of frustrating, yet he was kind. His love for WVU was sometimes too evident in his writing, yet he could bring the hammer down. He’d cut loose on press row. (Once, in Miami, a window washer picked the exact wrong time to wash the press box window — right in front of Mickey. Furfari banged and banged on the window until the guy went away — to the stares of the other writers.) Yet he used to star in post-game interviews.
I remember feeling empathy for Mickey back on Jan. 2, 1989. WVU, his beloved team, made it to the national championship. I was among four Dominion Post staffers sent to cover the event and I remember the way we worked right up until kickoff — when something happened to Furfari’s laptop computer.
I can’t recall if it was a soft drink that spilled onto it or what. But Mickey had to get up from the game and run back to the hotel where, shockingly, he had a spare laptop.
By the time he got back, however, the game was all but decided. Notre Dame was up on West Virginia 23-3, if memory serves. After all those years of waiting ...
There are just so many memories. I tried to manage the flood of them when I heard the news, but to little avail.
There were the days when Mickey and I and Chuck Landon used to appear as guests on Tony Caridi’s radio show. It was great radio because of the contrast in characters. Not everyone agreed with Tony all the time then. There were arguments. In fact, a screaming match between Furfari and Landon put an end to those days. It was a great screaming match though. It was great radio. The plug, though, was pulled.
Perhaps, however, my favorite memory of Mickey was of a car trip to a WVU-Penn State football game — maybe because it included his wife Betty, also now deceased.
Betty was an absolute treat. She had Mickey put a satellite dish on top of their house so she could watch every Detroit Tigers baseball game. She’d smoke her cigarettes, watch the games and fill in a scorebook. She knew more about baseball than Mickey and I put together.
Anyway, we were driving to State College, Pennsylvania, on a road that bore no resemblance to a highway when a deer almost hit the car. Mickey slowed down. And slowed down again. And we putt, putt, puttered our way to the destination.
We talked and laughed, me in the backseat and Mickey and Betty in the front. But it was a long, long, long, long journey.
Which, perhaps, is an appropriate story to tell on this day. See, Domenick Furfari just completed his long, long, long, long journey.
Yes, in a way, it’s sad. As he always told me, he never “had two nickels to rub together.” Pay in this profession isn’t great. He wasn’t adequately financially rewarded for the joy he brought.
But Mickey’s long journey was at its end. His health had declined. His sight and hearing were failing.
Thankfully, though, he stayed around long enough to feel the love of West Virginia.
Which is heartwarming. In his later years, Mountain State sports fans regularly showered him with praise. They thanked him for his service. Hopefully, that meant more to him than nickels.
So rest in peace, Domenick “Mickey” Furfari, you of the “f as in Frank.”
Thank you sir, for the memories. Thank you for the lessons.
And thank you for giving me a shot.
Contact Mitch Vingle at 304-348-4827 or mitchvingle@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @MitchVingle.