[My father, Frank Bellman, is now 78 years old. I love basketball; he prefers baseball even more.]
He's not very tall, just 5 feet 10 inches, with a sturdy build. Perhaps his height is one of the reasons he dislikes baseball.]
When I was 11, he divorced my mother and moved from New Jersey to Miami, saying he liked the sunshine and ocean there.]
The reason for the divorce was his gambling.]
As for why he gambled, he said he couldn't escape the shadow of depth charges.]
During WWII, he was a submarine soldier. He joined the Navy before the outbreak of the Pacific war in 1940.]
After a period of training, he passed through the selections and boarded his first submarine: the U.S. Navy S-21.]
It was an old-fashioned submarine from WWI, and he served on it in Pearl Harbor until the Japanese people launched their surprise attack.]
When the war in the Pacific broke out, he and the vintage submarine were thrust into the conflict, targeting every Japanese ship they encountered.]
