One man’s life
Keith Yonick was born on Staten Island Keith Yonick’s newly-released memoir traces his path from his protected childhood on Staten Island, to his tormented years at a Mesquite high school, all the way to present day TAMMYE NASH | Managing Editornash@dallasvoice.com Keith Yonick was born on Staten Island, a fifth generation Staten Island Italian on his father’s side, he said.
His mother had been born in Pleasant Grove here in North Texas but had moved to New York when she was 15 to get away from a harsh family environment. “So she moved to New York, met this wonderful man, got married and had four children,” the youngest of whom was Keith. ………………. The Staten Island Fairy: The Forgotten Boy From the Forgotten Borough, by Keith Yonick, is available in Kindle format and in paperback at Amazon.com. ……………….
And he loved his life there. Even being the flamboyantly gay child that he was, he said, he never faced bullying and harassment. “Was I persecuted in Staten Island?
Absolutely not,” Yonick recalled in a recent interview. “I had these seven very protective ‘mothers’ who looked out for me. Sure, every once in a while one of the older kids might bother me a little, but there were these seven women who lived in a two-block radius around us who always looked after me.” Oh, and there was his uncle, too, who owned an auto parts store there in Staten Island, and a lot of the men there were mechanics.
