Jan 04 2011 08:16 AM
Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Jan 18 2011 07:00 PM
I should say I don't think Filip Bondy is actually a douchebag (I kinda like that he's offbeat and has an actual point of view) even though he often exhibits douchey tendencies and is definitely a MFY lover.
However, he wrote a great article about his dad today in the Snooze.
 Ota Bondy lived an iconoclast's life from Prague to New York, touched by sports and loved by family My father, Ota Bondy, died of an apparent heart attack in Roosevelt, N.J., on New Year's Day, spotted on the ground alongside the road still clutching the handlebars of his beloved bicycle. He was two weeks shy of 85, but every morning he would ride his bike to purchase the Daily News for the sports reports by his son and grandson. I write about this here because he really led an astounding iconoclast's life, and because that existence was forever intertwined with sports. To read his extensive memoirs now is to travel over decades and two continents, and to understand how soccer, hockey, tennis and, later, how several American sports helped to define him. And how a single, stupid bet on a racehorse named Coaltown changed the course of his life. His times would be difficult for most. My father, however, somehow floated above the insanity. War and peace were great, equivocal adventures. He was a Jew in Prague, just 13 years old in 1939, when the Anti-Jewish Laws were established there by Hitler. Inspired by Czechoslovakia's World Cup success in 1934, he simply strolled past the "Jews not welcome" signs in order to play soccer on the local playgrounds, assimilated and unintimidated. He came from a relatively wealthy family, and those resources saved his life. The family sold its jewelry case factory to a gentile in-law, and his mother procured false Yugoslav passports for harrowing train rides through Germany, Italy (where they were stuck for seven weeks) and France - leading to a boat ride and relative safety in England. For much of this trip, my father would become an 11-year-old boy named Mirko Radulovic, while his true identity papers were stuffed into a false double-bottom case created at the family's factory. This journey would surely have frightened any sane person, but my dad was never a reasonable man. "While the repression around me grew, I found myself free as never before," he wrote. He was a terribly mischievous kid, expelled twice from schools for various drunken stunts, once for drinking the sacrosanct wine at a nearby Catholic church. When he was told in December 1939 by his mother they would be leaving for England, he wrote, "I was thrilled to hear the news mostly because I could now avoid showing my mother the worst report card I ever had." There were narrow escapes in France, but eventually Ota and his mother, Anna, made it to London. His own father was already there through business connections and his sister Helen had arrived earlier from Prague on the Kindertransport. Helen lived at a sponsor's home in London, but nobody wanted a naughty teenaged boy. Most members of the family who remained in Prague were murdered by the Germans. My father's years in London were eventful. The future vegetarian delivered meat on his bike, ignoring air raid sirens. He watched his favorite club team, Queens Park Rangers, face far more powerful London sides Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur. The boarding house where the family stayed was bombed and the Bondys were forced to move again. At school, he organized the soccer team and wrote about it for the paper. He was rejected from service by the Czech Army in exile, because he was too young. Eventually, however, his father gave permission. He enlisted at 17 and he drove a tank into France to fight a few remaining, stubborn German forces in 1944. He was wounded only once - when he lifted his head from a turret and the branches of a tree smashed his face. Soon he was able to ride the Cromwell tank as part of the liberating Czech army through Wenceslas Square in Prague, receiving a hero's welcome. "I was so drunk my only recollection is an endless flow of wine," he wrote. He received a law degree at Charles University there, but the bad war memories in Prague took its toll on other family members, who decided to move to New York in 1949. My father joined them only reluctantly. He viewed himself as a future Czech poet and journalist. He spoke poor English and knew in America, "my voice would be muted." So it was, too. He nearly returned to Prague once, but bet all his travel money in a local race on the heavy favorite, Coaltown, a long-necked horse nicknamed "Goose." Coaltown won 12 of 15 races in 1949, but he finished second in this one. "A stroke of amnesia or a subconscious desire to lose made me bet all the money on Coaltown to win," he wrote. Coaltown would have paid the same, $2.10, to win or place. My father met and married my mother, Charlotte. They settled in New York City and I was born in 1952. He changed the spelling of my name on the birth certificate to Filip with an "F," to honor a famous Czech relative. "I figured you could always change it later," he said. Then out of financial necessity, Ota became an accountant, graduating from Columbia night school. He audited the books of Carroll Rosenbloom, owner of the Baltimore Colts, and he worked as a budget analyst at the University of Pennsylvania. Mostly, though, he played and followed sports - hockey being his favorite. "I had trouble with the sports section," he wrote about coming to New York. "It covered a distorted version of rugby called football. Then in springtime I had trouble understanding baseball. The standings were very confusing. I saw that New York was in first place in the American league, yet in third place in the National League. But it did not take too long to solve these mysteries and once again began avidly reading the sports section." Every day he brought home the New York Post, the Daily Worker and the New York Times. The Daily News then was far too conservative for him. He played soccer in Van Cortlandt Park for a local Maccabi team, and dragged me to Randalls Island whenever Dukla of Prague played in the International Soccer League. We stood on the back seats of the chairs in the last row at the old Garden, holding onto the ceiling for balance, to watch Andy Bathgate and Dean Prentice play for the Rangers. At Forest Hills, we'd follow around Czech players, like Jan Kodes, at the U.S. Championships. For some reason, we walked past the Giant games at the Polo Grounds in Manhattan to cheer the Yankees instead. Good choice, that one, for it avoided great heartbreak. After he moved to New Jersey, my father wondered why I wasted my time so much with studies. He called me "an overambitious schoolboy." He was more concerned always about clearing the pond of snow, declaring its safety prematurely, and organizing hockey games. He continued playing hockey past 70, despite a quadruple bypass. He would be black and blue all over from those games, because he was on blood thinners. He kept playing soccer, too, even after a terrible car accident that ripped part of the leg off a motorcyclist and smashed my father's pelvis. His eccentric appearance and accent confused people. He was an odd combination of Mark Twain, Albert Einstein and a homeless person. He'd drive his VW convertible bug through town, Czech polka music blaring, or he'd be riding his bike, underdressed in frigid temperatures. He could get his back up, when it came to authority. Maybe it was the Nazi thing. He once spent a night in East Brunswick municipal jail rather than pay a fine for parking in the wrong direction in front of his house. Police dragged him from our house in handcuffs. When he appeared in court the next day, my father refused again to pay. "Your wife already has paid it," the judge said. My dad was furious. He became a U.S. citizen in 1958, then regained Czech and dual citizenship in 2000. He adored the fact that his son and then his grandson were sportswriters, lately for the same paper. On New Year's Day, just before his fateful bike ride, he called to complain I hadn't written anything in The News for several days. "Stefan is in there all the time," he chastised. Then he ordered me to go skiing, because it was a beautiful day. He's survived by his wife of 60 years, Charlotte; his sister, Helen, from Vineland, N.J.; his son, Filip; his daughter, Larisa, a schoolteacher in Roosevelt, N.J.; five grandchildren; one great-grandchild, and another on the way. They will all skate and kick a soccer ball around, whether or not they want to. Read more: [url]http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more_sports/2011/01/04/2011-01-04_ota_bondy_lived_an_iconoclasts_life_from_prague_to_new_york_touched_by_sports_an.html#ixzz1A50d7JqH |
