My Life Story

I was born on April 16, 1942, to Phillip J. Valenti and Josephine Conte in Whitestone New York. My parents were married in 1940. I had 2 sisters, Louise and Joyce, who were also born in New York. All of us were born during WWII. My father was in the military, and my mother, 32 years old at the time found it difficult to raise 3 young children on her own.  As a result, I was placed in foster care. I don’t recall how long I spent in foster care, but it took almost two years for me to return home. We moved several times to avoid being adopted out to another family.

On the last occasion, my Uncle John came and took me without letting the authorities know. It is not clear to me to remember anything of that experience, good or bad, I was very young. My earliest memories are from 1^st grade.  I completed elementary and junior high school, and after one year of high school, I dropped out. At the time we were living in Port Chester New York which is in the southern part of the state. We were considered a very low-income family, living in an apartment building consisting of 4 apartments with only 2 bedrooms. They had a name for these: “cold-water flats”, heated by a radiator, fueled by coal from a furnace in the basement. Often, we only had heat when it was working properly. The bathroom had only one toilet. We took our baths in a laundry basin because the kitchen was infested with bugs and rats.

I was raised a Roman Catholic, baptized, and made my First Holy Communion and Confirmation. I also served at the Holy Mass as an Altar boy; today they are called “Altar servers.” I left the church when I discovered that our local priest had molested one of the boys, and I walked away from the Christian Faith. That is when my life took a turn onto the wrong path. I became a very street-wise kid who could hustle with the best to make money. I would sell scrap metal, cash in soda bottles, and shine shoes at the local taverns in town. Then I met a man named Joe Pasano who told me he would pay me ten dollars a week to pick up envelopes from the taverns if I didn’t open them. It didn’t take long before I found out from the police, that I was picking up numbered receipts each week which was illegal. I immediately stopped to avoid embarrassment to my parents, never did anything to get into trouble, and was lucky enough to have never gotten caught by the police.

We moved to California in 1958, when the company my father was working for relocated to Georgia. I then decided to go back to school and graduate, never leaving the inclination of carnal pleasures. I got married in 1964, and my wife and I had 2 sons. We divorced in 1970, still enjoying my lustful life.  My second marriage was in 1974, a girl I had met in 1971, and she had a son who was 9 years old at the time.  However, in 1980 she decided she wasn’t in love with me, and we divorced.  I met my current wife, Diane, in June of 1981.  It wasn’t love at first sight because all she knew about me was that I was married and had two children, which was incorrect. After she learned the truth, we dated for 7 years and married in 1988. Diane had a son Patrick who was 9 months old at the time, and I became the only dad he has known. I raised him as my own.

I worked in various industries making minimal wages until I landed a union job. I became involved with the union, representing employees’ contracts, and arbitration for nearly 12 years. In 1979 I went to work for the state of California in the field of Occupational Safety and Health. After 3 months of training and a written exam, I passed. In 2003 I retired after 21 ½ years with a lifetime medical/ pension. Along the way, I did some wise money management. I went back to school in 1993 at the age of 51, earning a BBA in general business and another master’s in finance.

We left California and moved to Lincoln Arkansas in 2004. I still had not returned to my Catholic faith, and it had been over 50 years since I had attended any kind of church worship.  When Katrina hit in 2005, I was offered a job with FEMA. My first deployment was to Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.  I met a single mother who was working the night shift at the hotel that I was staying at, and she had a fire for the Lord. We would talk about the Bible and one Saturday night, she asked me if I could come and pick her up for Sunday church. That was when I gave my life to the Lord, body and soul. When I came home, I told my wife Diane about it and asked if she could find a church called Abundant Life. Since then, life has been good.

I started attending Free Ministries in 2006 and I have been attending ever since.  When I couldn’t attend regularly, due to my work with FEMA, my pastor encouraged my wife to attend every Sunday and as soon as I retired from FEMA, we began attending together on a regular basis.

In closing, God Bless and Love to each and every one. I am willing to do anything I can for anyone, thank you for letting me be a part of your life.