Author

John Fedorka was born on October 14, 1951, in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, the eldest of four children of John and Giselle Fedorka. With frequent trips to the family summer cottage in Erie, Pennsylvania, he spent his entire childhood in the Rocks and attended the Roman Catholic parish school at Saint Mary’s Help of Christians for 12 years.

Though drawn to literature, language, and history, John acquiesced to his mother’s desire to follow what she called “the old German family plan” whereby the eldest child became an engineer, the second a doctor, and the third a priest. Rather than pursue his interests, John entered the engineering program at the University of Pittsburgh in 1969. Unhappy with his parent-chosen path and fearing his low number in the military draft lottery, he left the university and enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. His father had served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and urged his son to follow. However, John had almost drowned in a pool-diving accident four years earlier and had developed a fear of water.

Fate in the guise of the USAF chose John’s next path in life when his language aptitude scores were quite high. The Air Force sent him to study Vietnamese at Biggs Field, Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas. For the last two years of his extended enlistment, John was assigned to the Internal Information Office at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas, where he served as a writer and an editor on the base’s newspaper, The Lackland Talespinner. While there, John fell in love with journalism, the city, and his first wife, and met the first people who had ever directly expressed an intense personal dislike for him.

Honorably discharged from service, John left for Heraklion, Crete, to be with his wife and to explore an opportunity to serve as a correspondent in Beirut, Lebanon. Both the marriage and the opportunity failed and John returned to the University of Pittsburgh, this time to study economics and political science.

A short while later, John again left school when he surprisingly landed a job as promotions assistant with a professional environmental association housed at Carnegie-Mellon University. While entering references on his application, John recalled a quote from Wicasta Lovelace, “Who it is that dislikes a man reveals much about the man himself.” This inspired John (some would say foolishly) to list the Lackland External Communications Office Chief who had often and loudly expressed his dislike of John. When the interviewer called the reference, he indeed received an earful of profanity-laced negatives on the prospects of hiring John. The interviewer asked John why he would knowingly list such a reference. To which John replied, “I could give you a hundred references who would sing my praises. I thought you would like to have one tell you about my shortcomings.” The interviewer grinned and said, “Can you start today?”

For 15 years, John helped to grow the association from 2,000 to more than 10,000 members. He also grew to become its manager of promotions and public relations, while completing his undergraduate degree and meeting his second wife, Terri Moore, who says that John asked her for the first date. To this day, more than 37 years later, John maintains that Terri did the asking. The brief story follows. You can make the call.

John first met Terri when the queue forced him to Terri’s window at the Mellon Bank on Pittsburgh’s Fifth Avenue in Oakland because his favorite teller had called off sick that day. On foot a few days later while taking a short cut through the bank’s parking lot, John spied Terri at the drive-thru window. He asked if he would need to buy a car to see her again. Her reply verbatim was, “If you don’t own a car, how are you going to take me out?”

John and Terri were married in March 1981. The Fedorkas have two daughters, Michelle and Kristi, neither of whom were forced into engineering, medicine, or the priesthood.

Receiving assurances from his supervisor that his job was secure, John and Terri bought their dream home in Kennedy Township, a suburb of Pittsburgh. Before making their first mortgage payment, John’s position at the association was eliminated.

Struggling to meet mortgage payments and the costs of medication for a disabled wife, John accepted a promising position as a junior consultant with an international firm. At first, the career change agreed with the family, providing increasing salaries and the means to visit exotic locations. However, the family suffered from John’s constant absences during the week, especially so when he was assigned overseas. During those flights, John read countless epic fantasies while squandering too many frequent flyer miles on upgrades.

In 2008, John received an opportunity to relocate to San Antonio. Ever the stalwart one, Terri packed up the house they had lived in for 16 years, arranged for the movers, and organized four people and three dogs into two cars for the 1,496-mile trip from Pittsburgh to San Antonio.

In July 2015, John was diagnosed with Stage II (T2) invasive bladder cancer. Following three months of chemo-therapy, John underwent a radical cystectomy in January 2016. A few days later, John awoke to Terri leaning over him with a disposable plastic bowlful of his favorite treat, red raspberries. He cried.

Cancer-free since then, John accepted his retirement. At Terri’s insistence, he took up writing, more than half century after he had first dreamed of becoming an author. Also, at Terri’s persistence, they adopted Pepper, a red, long-hair Dachshund mix, who delights in interrupting John as he works.

John is of Slovak-German ancestry, stands 6’1”, and weighs 220 pounds. He is green-eyed and had thick curly dark brown hair which grew back gray and straighter after the chemo. During the Stanley Cup playoffs, he sports an uneven multi-colored stubble and eats pounds of red licorice.