Joseph Michael Rocco

Joe was born in NY on 9/26/1941 to parents were Silvio and Marie. He had an older sister, Sylvia and no other siblings. Joe lived his childhood years in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, NY where he developed a liking for deep sea fishing and the ocean. The house he lived in was a four family house in a popular area of Brooklyn and was close to the ocean and piers where many tourists would visit. There were many seafood restaurants along the piers where people would stop and buy fresh fish from the incoming boats. I guess you could call it a "tourist trap". He did make some pocket money during those days with friends by diving underwater and retrieving coins that the tourists would throw down at him and his friends who were swimming at the piers. Because he lived near the ocean every summer he would go early in the morning to the local newspaper office and be one of the first in line to get free tickets to go on one of the deep sea fishing boats early the next morning. If he wasn't fishing from the boats, he would be fishing off the piers with his snapper pole. He loved the ocean and especially deep sea fishing.

Joe hung out just about every night over at a friend's house who lived a few homes down from him. Joe's mother used to call it the "UN" building because of the different nationalities of his friends that were present just about every night. The mother of his friend was surely a sweetheart to put up with 5 to 6 teenagers who often ate with them, played cards, and watching their TV.

During his teenage years he attended St Agnes H.S. in Manhattan which was staffed by the Marist Brothers Order. It was an all boy school in the middle of Manhattan and had a total enrollment of about 200 boys. His father insisted he go to a Catholic school which at the time costed $30 a month. What a deal!! He did not enjoy years 14 to graduation because he had to take a crowded and jammed train to school. In his first year he had to get off a some stations, do his finger down the throat thing and get back on the next train. There was also the fact that it took him about an hour and a half every day to get there. He did what his father said. What he did like while attending school as stated in his yearbook by his classmates was, "Looking at the girls at lunch time coming out of the Commerce Building."

He joined the Navy Reserves at 17, when he was in high school, and later after he graduated he went on active duty. He served as a ship's serviceman (Cobbler Shop), as it was called, on board the aircraft carrier, Forrestal, and saw service in Guantanamo Bay and Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. He became a third class petty officer in charge of the shop aboard the ship. He was discharged in 1963.

Before leaving for active duty in 1961, Joe took the test to try to become a NY police office. He was slightly inspired to take the test because of his father. As a young child, Joe remembered his father who was an Italian immigrant and had worked as a custodian for the NYPD. He would take Joe to the police headquarters on Saturdays. Once there he would let Joe raise the American flag on the roof, show him the commissioners office and the lineup room where suspects were lined up for identification purposes. Joe was impressed. He guess it was kind of a "brainwashing scheme" which worked well. A year before being discharged from active duty he was called for the job as a police officer and was put on a special military list until his discharge from the Navy. In 1964, after his discharge, he became a member of NY's Finest at age 22.

Joe worked in both Brooklyn and Staten Island and earned seven excellent police duty awards in his 18 years on the force. While in Brooklyn, his precinct and several members of his coworkers were instrumental in gaining information that led to the arrest and conviction for the 1970's Son of Sam serial killer (David Berkowitz) who was stalking and shooting lovers in lovers lanes throughout NYC at the time. He retired from the NYPD in 1981 because of a hearing disability and moved his family with children Peter and Diana, from Staten Island to Lake Havasu City, AZ. He obtained a real estate sales license there and later became a certified Lake Havasu City police officer. In 1985 he moved to Tucson, AZ. He once again returned to police work where he became a police officer and later a detective corporal with the University of Arizona police department. He served 16 years with them and retired a second time in 2001.

In 2000 he met and later married Maria and acquired a stepdaughter, Nekame. Before and after retirement he was involved as a bicyclist in several Tour de Tucson bicycle tours and was a participants as well as volunteered as a bike patrol member every year. He participated in many overnight bicycle tours in Arizona over several years. He enjoyed both bicycling and working out at the gym.

Joe and Maria have also enjoyed leaving the Tucson summers every year in their RV. They have workcamped in places such as Grand Teton and Yellowstone Parks, central coast of California, Colorado and Colorado Springs and planned to do a much as they could over the next several years. Joe has to thank all the people who were concerned about him since he received a kidney transplant in 2009 after going through two years of dialysis treatments. Most of all Joe has to thank Tina Smith for donating her kidney to him to make his present life possible. God sent Tina to him as a gesture of his love and believe or not, but the day Tina qualified to be a donor, after waiting two years on the national transplant list and a lot of prayers, he received a call that the transplant unit had a kidney available for him. Of course they knew he would choose Tina. Gee, he had two kidneys available!! Wow. Joe cried at the thought that God would make sure that his plan would happen and used the most incredible means to make it happen and give him that great hope. Praise God!

Joe had accepted a personal relationship with Jesus Christ with the help of a group he met with around the time he moved to Tucson from Lake Havasu City in 1985. They were local police officers, corrections officers, and others who were involved in law enforcement. They were called "Cops for Christ" named after a NY group of officers who had started the movement. These men were Evangelical who mostly by their behavior, taught Joe what life was really all about and what really matters. He became an "unordained" chaplain with the organization and visited with officers that were injured or shot in the line of duty. He remembers clearly about a Tucson Airport police officer shot around 1990 with an automatic weapon by someone who was wanted in NY and coming off a plane landing at the Tucson Airport. The officer was not expected to recover after being shot all about. He was visited and prayed over by the group and later recovered enough to get a light duty job at the airport. Praise God again!! It was truly a miracle given his condition.

Joe will forever be grateful for those hopeful time and miracles that God performs. We all should realize that we are still considered a "work in progress", not completely there yet or doing everything right, but still trying to please God when he returns. We will be rewarded!! Until then God is pleased that we might never be perfect but when he sees us he will be pleased that we are still trying.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.mariposagardens.com for the Rocco family.