The Pecan Park Eagle

Smilin’ Sam Sacco, Class of 1956, at a 2010 St. Thomas High School “Good Old Boys” Luncheon at the campus in Houston.

“He was one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet.”

As broad as that bucket gets splashed at the end, in the instance of 75-year old Sam Sacco, it is indisputably true. Sam passed away about 9:00 AM Friday morning, January 25, 2013, in a hospital at the Texas Medical Center, following a long and difficult spell of bad health. I don’t have all the particulars at this time, but I am informed by his good friend Garland Debner Pohl that he went out as he would have wanted, surrounded by family and the comfort of his Catholic faith. – How sweet is that? Who among us of sound mind could ask for anything more than to make that final solitary trip from life in the company of loved ones at the way station of one’s core beliefs in what this whole journey called life is all about.

As his early life friend and fellow student  from the Class of 1956 at St. Thomas High School, Sam and I shared some good times together, even if our later years contact was mostly reduced to sporadic luncheon gatherings and reunions at our shared alma mater. Our sense of closeness always renewed upon contact, even if we could not name each other’s children in order to each other – or even name them at all. Life works out that way sometimes, but no matter what, we still shared a bond that never went away. We were St. Thomas Eagles. Not once upon a time, but forever.

Eagles Always! Pecan Park and Elsewhere!

Sam and I shared involvement in two major projects at St. Thomas and both took place in our senior year. In the fall of 1955, we both played central characters in the senior school play, “Brother Orchid.” In the spring of 1956, we each played primary roles in the mock version of a national political convention. Sam got to nominate Senator Estes Kefauver as a candidate for President; I got to deliver the keynote address.

The meaning of that jump into the school limelight for both of us was shared and clear: If St. Thomas had ever wanted to offer a course on “ham-ology,” Sam Sacco and I could have taught it.

Excerpt from the St. Thomas Eagle, November 1955.

In “Brother Orchid”, I was chosen for the lead role of “Little John Sarto”, an on-the-lam Italian mob boss who later finds God through his fake hideout identity in a monastery as “Brother Orchid”. – I didn’t ask for the part. I was handed the role by our director, Father (get this name) Walter Scott! – Edward G. Robinson played the role of John Sarto in the movie version.

Man! I figured that getting that role was half the battle won for even trying out. If Father Scott could hand an Italian gangster role to an Irish kid in the middle of our Houston high school version of Sicily, he either knew something special, or else, he was the worst casting director of all time. – As Sam Sacco and I soon enough proved, it was probably a whole lot of the latter.

Father Scott cast Sam Sacco as Fat Duchy, a smiling and happy bartender at the mob’s favorite watering hole who would always treat you right as he was selling you out under the table for a few quick bucks. We both had a lot of lines and some key scenes with each other. And, well, it didn’t take long for us to find out what happens in live theater when one person totally forgets his lines.

On opening night, we had this big early scene in Fat Duchy’s Bar, when I delivered verbatim the line from the script that Sam Sacco needs to answer correctly for the audience to make sense of what happens next. Silence. I could tell from Sam’s turning snow-white face that he has totally forgotten his lines. We both can hear Father Scott practically trying to shout his whispers from the prompter spot in the wings, but neither Sam nor I can hear him – and I can’t say them for Sam, anyway.

What to do? – What to do? – What to do?

All of a sudden, Sam starts saying “stuff” that makes no sense as a response to my lines and I am now forced to see that if I just stick with my next scripted response that it will make no connecting sense to the prattle that has just fallen from the mouth of my fellow would-be thespian friend.

Once more: What to do? – What to do? – What to do?

I have to start winging it too; and Sam and I manage to wiggle our way off-stage talking about something that may have never risen above our imagined discussion of property values on the Jersey shore. I was briefly tempted to throw in an Edward G. Robinson classic line like, “Oh, so you’re a wise guy, eh?” But I held off.

Once off stage, I literally tried to choke Sam.

“Sam,” I said, “if you want to be an actor, it has to start with you remembering your **** lines!”

“A good actor doesn’t have to remember all his lines,” Sam answered, “he just has to feel the part and act out what he’s feeling.”

By the end of the first night, it was my time to flub-the-dub, as we used to proclaim. (Spoiler Alert!) I get shot in the last scene by a special needs gangster named “Dum Dum”, played by Michael Storey. The trouble was, the blanks-loaded gun doesn’t go off. As the recipient of this alleged bullet, I view the hand action of the gun being fired at me, but I also hear the silence, so I just stand there, for about ten seconds.

Then I fall.

And after I fall, the gun goes off. The audience roars in laughter. The curtain closes. And Sam Sacco laughs his head off in a real-time version of ROFLMAO that far precedes anything we have going on today as an Internet exclamation point.

Sam, I told you that I was going to remind you of that great night we both made our acting debuts until the day that one of us died. I had to write this column to keep my promise.

I promise you this too, even if we haven’t seen much of each other in recent years. I shall miss you more than words can say, my dear old friend!

God Bless you too, Sam! Thank goodness you don’t have to know your lines to pass through The Pearly Gates. You just have to be the soul that is Sam Sacco.

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Funeral Arrangements

Arrangements are pending, but the funeral is to be held at St. Anne’s on Tuesday morning Jan. 29th. Carter- Bradshaw Funeral Home is handling arrangements. Burial will be at Forest Park Lawndale in the Sacco family plot. Check online at chron.com or watch for the paper edition of The Houston Chronicle for the exact times of services.