Irene Ann Paszkewicz (Smoliga)

I had been in touch with Albert several times during the past few years.  A few years ago, he was diagnosed with espohageal cancer.  He went thru a lot but was very hopeful.  I know he enjoyed his  two bulldogs - "his girls as he called them" - (he lost one the day he was diagnosed with cancer) and the other shortly thereafter.  He adored his current Bulldog- Lord Chubby.   He also enjoyed traveling to Maine where he enjoyed water sports. I was really sad to see this and I had hoped to have lunch with him when I visited NJ next.  So sorry and sad...

Byron Sondergard

I have fond memories of Bert from high school, when he was part of the Mets crowd. Speaking with him a few times in recent years, he also had fond memories of those times, as well his friends from the Newman Street neoghborhood where he grew up.

For anyone currently in or near Metuchen, the visitation will take place on Friday, April 1, 2022, from 4-7 pm at Costello-Runyon Funeral Home, (Rt.27), Metuchen.

Cliff Breen

Burt and I grew up together on Newman St.  His house was just a few houses down across the street from mine.  We were constant companions through most of grade school.  I can recall us playing with his Amercian Flyer train set up in his basement for hours and hours.  His house had an enlcosed porch on the side and we and his siblings and other neighborhood kids played many board games there.  At some point when we were pretty young we used to make roads and highways in a dirt pile in his back yard and used the dirt pile for the terrain of many battles with our toy military vehicles.  And of couse.. sleigh riding.  Newman St was the perfect street for that if you lived on the top side as we did.  A lifetime of winter fun for Burt, me and the other neighbor kids.  Oddly in high school we did not spend as much time together.  I think we developed different core friend groups.  But Burt always got together with me and the group that played baseball ritually at the old lumberyard on Essex Ave and the Presbyterian Social Center on Woodbridge Ave.  He also played hockey with our crowd over at Tommy's Pond.  When Burt played goalie he was very effective.  He would just lay down across the goal mouth and easily smother shots since we seldom were able to get the puck more than a few inches off the ice.  And of course he joined us for many of our adventures to scale the fence at Shea Stadium to see the Mets.  I lost touch with him after high school seeing him only once while visiting my Mom back in 1977.  He just happened to be walking his dogs past her house,  It was nice discovering that he still lived on Newman St.  Around 6 years ago (maybe???) I was able to get in touch with him via email thanks to Irene Smoliga.  He wound up sharing some photos he had from those good old days showing George Govelitz and Rick Hannam at Shea Stadium and George and Shep and him out in Dismal Swamp faking a
disaster scene with an old wreck that was there.  I've attached 3 of the photos