Bickal for Congress

Some folks have told me that they remember when my father, Robert Bickal, ran for Congress in the 1962 elections when I was 9 years old. My father had been on the School Board in Rochester for several years when he was asked to run for an open Congressional seat as a Democrat. No Democrats had been elected in that district for many years because the part of the district in Wayne county was overwhelmingly Republican and outweighed the votes in the City of Rochester. So it was a hopeless cause but nobody told us children that. I thought he was going to win.

The picture on the on left was from when Congressional candidates met with President Kennedy. The other picture of our family: my mother Janet, my sister Ellen and my brother Jim and I was also used in campaign ads.

The other memorable feature of the campaign for us kids was the Bickal Bus. My father had an old school bus covered with campaign material and it had a loudspeaker that played, "Happy Days are Here Again" as we tooled around Wayne County. Our neighbor, Joe Yudelson, drove the bus.
Dad lost the election by about 30,000 votes to Frank Horton.