Love Story: She tried, but couldn't live without him

Jo Ann (Scavone) Galluccio of Massapequa Park talks about her life with her husband, Al.

In August 1985 I was 23, living in West Babylon and working as a service specialist at European American Bank in Amityville. One day I was asked to temporarily jump back into the teller role to help with a long line of customers. It was Thursday, a very big payroll day for a lot of local business employees. While helping customers, I heard a man in line begin to laugh while chatting with someone.

His laugh was contagious and struck a chord in me. I looked at him and said to the teller next to me, “I have to meet him. He sounds so fun to be around. In fact, I think I’m going to marry him.” When I called “next,” he stepped up to my window.

His name was Al. He was 25 and a groundskeeper at a hospital. He asked if I would go to lunch with him sometime, and I said sure.

A few days later he stopped at the bank and invited me to lunch. We went to Mike’s Pizzeria, a few doors down from the bank. I thought Al was very kind, considerate and good looking. He was from a close Italian family that had moved to Massapequa from Park Slope, Brooklyn, seven years earlier. Wanting to be honest, I told him I was engaged to someone I had dated for seven years. He said, “Then I can’t see you again.” I was crushed, but I admired his morals.

After that day, whenever he was in the bank, I made sure he came to my window. My heart skipped a beat at the sight of him. It was torture seeing him and not dating him. I felt we were destined to be together, so in early 1987 (the year I was to be married) I broke my engagement with my fiance. The next time I saw Al, I told him what I had done. He asked if I was sure about my decision, and I told him yes. He said, “OK, let’s see where this goes.” We went back to Mike’s Pizzeria to start all over again.

We dated for about 2½ years and can remember disco dancing many nights at Uncle Sam’s Nightclub in Levittown. Al had grown up in Brooklyn during the disco era and was a great dancer as well as DJ. He was widely known as Disco Al.

We married on Aug. 26, 1990, at St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church in Babylon. Our reception was at GiGi’s of Westbury, and we honeymooned in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. We moved to Massapequa Park in 1994.

After many years of traveling, we were blessed with a beautiful baby girl we named Destiny Gabrielle in 1999. Destiny, because we were destined to be together, and Gabrielle, after the archangel. Al has been researching angels for 40 years.

I retired after 25 years in banking to raise Destiny. Al retired in 2018 after more than 30 years at the Town of Oyster Bay sanitation department. We are enjoying retirement together and still travel every chance we get. A cruise was planned to celebrate our 30th anniversary but has been put on hold. Instead we celebrated with a weeklong vacation at Mohican Motel in upstate Lake George, one of our favorite spots.

After all these years, Al’s laugh still melts my heart.

— With Ann Donahue-Smukler