Michael J Scricca

It was with great sadness that I read of Mike's passing in the Fall 2024 edition of "The WICK," Hartwick College's alumni magazine. I was friends with Mike throughout college--September 1969 through graduation in May 1973--where he was an outstanding runner on the cross country and track teams and I was on the lacrosse team and used to run with him to get in shape. After graduation both Mike and I stayed the summer in Oneonta, New York. I was looking for a job in the building trades, and stopped by Briggs Lumber Company to see if anyone had posted help wanted notices on their bulletin board. Talking with one of the Briggs employees, he told me they could use someone for a couple of days. The load had shifted in boxcar filled with their lumber, dumping the entire load onto the rail siding next to their warehouse, and they needed extra help to pick up and restack the lumber into their warehouse. I told Mike, as I knew he was looking for some work too, and we went back together and did the job. Briggs Lumber liked us so much they offered to employ us for the rest of the summer helping customers with their orders, loading their vehicles, etc. Around noon each day the "roach coach" would come with its offering of snacks, soft drinks, and food for lunch. It's prices are quite high, and Mike and I thought we could do better. So we purchased candy bars, sodas, snacks from the local grocery store and brought them to work in competition with the roach coach. Needless to say, the owner of the roach coach wasn't too happy, but he never lowered his prices to be competetive. One day a customer came in to purchase an aluminum storm window and frame to be installed on their elderly relative's house. They asked if Briggs had anyone who could install the window and frame. Mike and I thought, "How hard could that be for two college graduates?" So we volunteered. Well, let me tell you, several hours later, with an old house whose wooden windows/frames were out of square, we finally got it airtight, but it was a good thing that the homeowner was seeing impaired as it wasn't pretty! Some years later--it might have been in 1979 while I was stationed at Fort Devens, MA--I had the occasion to visit Mike at his family's home in Hartford, with his parents' garden of fruit trees and other plants. I remember Mike taking me to the Jai-Alai fronton, one of the few on the East Coast other than Florida. I am not a gambling man, but Mike told me I should bet on "Joey" because he was an American-born player (researching just now, it must have been Joey Cornblit). I did, and won $10! The last time I saw Mike was when I was on a work-related trip to Hartford (in 1996 or 1997?) and we had dinner together, catching up on happenings in our lives. He talked about wanting to take a trip to Italy; I told him, if he did, I'd go with him. Over the past several years, I had tried, unsuccessfully, to reestablish contact with Mike. Sadly, this will never happen now. Dave Schlegel, Hartwick College class of 1973 see photos IMG_8456 Mike's Hartwick College Senior Photo IMG_8458 News Article on Hartwick 1973 End of Year Athletic Awards "Mike Scricca, most valuable track"