What a life: Charles Gulotta

Angelo DeCesare remembers the day he lost his childhood best friend like it was yesterday. 

He had just finished Grade 5 at Our Lady of Grace School in the Bronx, and he walked the six blocks to his buddy Charles Gulotta's house.

"I went to call for him and his mother said they were moving away," he said over the phone from New York. "They were only going to be there a little while longer. And he wasn't home. And I felt really bad, because I knew that I was losing a kindred spirit."

I spent an evening on the phone with the family and friends of Charles Gulotta, trying to get to know him better. He died in October of 2020 of a brain tumour. His family in P.E.I. wasn't able to hold a funeral for him because of COVID-19 restrictions.

It's because of people like Charles we're running this series. We want to make up for some lost time and give proper due to some of the great Islanders we've lost.

The first time Angelo ever saw Charles he was playing baseball in the street. This was the Bronx in the 1950s, so you are absolutely right to imagine it like you're watching a sepia-toned movie.

"And he was a very good athlete as a boy," remembered Angelo. "I was kind of envious of him. But he was so nice and so modest about his skills that it didn't take long for me to see he was not somebody to be envious of. All I could do, you know, was just enjoy his friendship."

The two had a lot in common. They loved comic books. They collected baseball cards. They played sports in the street. Baseball, sure, but stickball and handball, too. 

"Many years went by, I didn't hear from him," he said. "We had a class reunion and I went looking for him. I couldn't find him. I looked all over America. All over the directories. I had no idea he wasn't here anymore. He was in Canada."

Charles's family moved north of New York City to a safer neighbourhood. 

He grew up. He got married.

He and his wife had a daughter, Allison. During childbirth, his wife had a sudden and shocking stroke. She died a few years later.

For a while, Charles raised Allison by himself. He eventually married again to a woman named Maria. She had a daughter just a little older than Allison. Charles and Maria would eventually have a son together. 

Allison says it was a family vacation in the 90s that eventually brought them to P.E.I.