Friday, September 2, 2022
Tony Vespa Tribute Stories
Bill Jacobs
Tony is someone I’ve always admired and appreciated his ability to ski, sense of humor, and how he lived his life “all out there”. His ethics and integrity was insurmountable and he always stood on the side of what was right. After getting me on Curtesy Patrol, Rangers, Guest Guides, and now Ski Patrol he always said, “I’ll help you get on patrol, but don’t let me down”.
After many years of learning how to ski, we moved to Utah. While there we invited Tony and Donna to come out for a ski vacation. I asked Tony while riding on the chairlift at Alta “Where do you want to ski, do you want to take it easy and get acclimated to the altitude and snow?”. Of course as only Tony could say, he said “Are you kidding me, I want to go STEEP AND DEEP”. I again asked, “are you sure, it’s been some time since you skied powder?” again he assured me, take me somewhere steep and deep. So off we went to some chutes where I knew we would find bottomless Utah powder. Tony followed me in, so I made 10 turns, through some trees and stopped to check on his run. I watched him make 3 great turns, then proceeded to load the front of his skis with weight, and was buried in powder on the 4th turn. All I could see was his red hat, he was buried up to his neck. His skis released and it took him 45 minutes to walk up hill just to get his skis. This happened about 3 or 4 more times until finally he said “OK, lets’ go ski some groomed trails”. As only Tony can say “OK Homo, you saw me at my worst, you saw my skirt go down to my ankles…. FRUMP”.
As funny as that was, I would give all the powder in the world right now to have him screaming at me, kid around with me, and calling me his “Little Fairy haired, little homo”… Miss you Tony
Diane Melia
A smile comes to mind from Bill and Lynette's rehearsal dinner in St. Pete Beach. Bill and Lynette had taken Donna, Tony, Art and me for a boat ride and nice waterfront lunch. We took group and boat pictures earlier. Mickey and Kathy weren't on the boat ride. Tony and the guys always tried to one up each other. Bill's boat is 2' shorter than Tony's boat, Tony had quite the discussion trying to explain his boat. Next thing the cell phone comes out and Tony uses his fingers to blow up Bill's boat to the size of his boat. Then proudly said here's my boat.
The next day at the wedding there was a "Hunter" friends table conveniently located next to the bar and the beautifully arranged raw bar. Tony, Art and Mickey looked at each other and went up to the raw bar before the wedding started...then were nicely told they shouldn't have indulged yet.
John Flynn
TV's description of my skiing "Flynnstone, you have that swishy ass style of skiing like Belsky" . He was my friend and I'm going to miss him. RIP TV.
Mickey Memoly
I first met Tony back in the late seventies. He was on ski patrol. TV and his ski buddy bingo (Ken Wright) would bring more sleds with injured skiers off the mountain than any other patrollers. About 8 years ago in the spring, I was skiing with my 5 year old grandson, when we bumped into the Vespa family, even Donna was out. TV wanted to ski Minya Konka on the east side. I was worried it would be to tough for the kid, TV said he would teach him the Fakey Breaky. Graham learned it and got down with no problem. Tony used to brag with the fakey breaky anybody could get down a steep trail. He taught it to many skiers at Hunter.
Tony loved his family first, then skiing .
Tony had nicknames for everyone, mine was mouse.
Ken Duym
Tony was driving, Donna, Robin and I on an overcast day and were just looking to take a ride. We went down to Island Beach state park etc… we drove around for a few hours just goofing off and Tony decided to go to his friends house in Seaside. His friend has a house right on the ocean. Tony parked and we all got out, His friend came out and told him not to park there because parking enforcement would give him a ticket. So Tony moved the car (Alone) and went around the block, he made an illegal left turn onto the side street and got pulled over and got a ticket. I was in the car with him minutes before this I could have probably gotten him out of it. We laughed later but he was not too happy at the time.
Nelson Afonso
July of 1996, we all were watching the Florham Park Parade at Jimmy Janicelli’s house, but we parked at a church (behind his house) as we were going to sneak out and play golf with Tony. As the parade was winding down, Tony, Billy and I ran through Jimmy’s back yard, but didn’t realize there was an 8 foot chain link fence. Billy and I said, let’s go, so climbed over it like we were being chased by the cops. Tony got to the top and got caught and started yelling “get over her you hampsters and get me off this fence”. Maybe not so funny unless you have the image of Tony stuck on top of an 8 foot fence by his pants and the 2 of us laughing so hard as we were trying to get him unstuck. Of course Tony had some great words for us once he was freed from the fence like “you two homo’s” and “you were going to leave me up there weren’t you, you little fags” as only Tony could say it.
