Understandably many people are focused on Jerry’s work on Late Night and other projects as evidence of his accomplished career. A fewer number are familiar with his lifelong penchant for opening devices and reading manuals to figure out how something might operate or come together. He was the go-to-person for installations and repairs in our family long before he became a technical director.

But very few people, perhaps only myself, can recall the actual birth of Jerry’s career in communications technology. This goes back to a time of a single national phone company and rotary dial, landline phones. In those bygone days people discarded their old phone models in the garbage or in their basements and garages. At around ten years old Jerry began to collect these phones, taking them apart to appreciate their wiring and then eventually connecting them to our home system.

Most families in our neighborhood had an upstairs and a downstairs phone. Over time we had phones in virtually every room in the house including bathrooms, basement, attic, and the infamous Foley family garage (another Jerry story).

One day, I think a Saturday because the old man was home, a telephone repairman pulled up and began to climb the utility pole in front of our house. My father, always on the lookout for financial threats, called to Jerry and admonished him that he likely was the cause of the man on the pole and if so, there would be hell to pay.

Minutes later the man rang the doorbell and asked to see our basement phone box affirming the old man’s fears. There were, the man said, some complaints about static on the line from people in the neighborhood.

I remember sitting on the basement stairs with Jerry standing by as the repairman, wearing tools around his waist I knew my brother coveted, opened the box, fiddled about and then stepped back and whistled in what seemed surprise but also admiration. He turned to Jerry and asked “you did this?” Jerry shyly nodded his head yes, glumly anticipating the dismemberment of all his wiring work. “Well aren’t you something.” The man laughed a little as he pondered the the many twisted wires before him. And then he beckoned Jerry closer and said: “Here, let me show where you where you messed up.”

When they were finished rewiring, the man shook Jerry’s hand and told him to keep their deal a secret because “we can’t have the whole neighborhood doing this.” He again chuckled to himself as he passed me on the stairs.

And under the bare bulb of the basement light, the triumphant smile on my little brother’s face said all that needed saying.

We're so proud to know that kid from West Brighton that made it to the "big time". We never stopped bragging that we knew the Director of the David Letterman Show and that he was from our hometown of Staten Island. 

Rest in Peace Dear Friend. Jerry we will miss you and never ever forget you! 

Love

Lois and Richard Nicotra