Frank Supposa was born in 1850 in Stamford, CT, and was the third child in his family. His youth was quite typical of the day - minimal formal education and a lot of floating on homemade rafts on bodies of water near where he lived.
His father was a man of morals, a trait he instilled into his children. In the early 1860's Frank's father started taking in runaway slaves, fleeing north to escape slavery as part of the Underground Railroad. Frank would listen to the stories of the slaves - how they navigated by the North Star and about their lives as slaves. Driven by their stories, Frank devised a plan to fight for the Union in the US Civil War. He knew that he wouldn't be able to fight based on his age of 12, so he took his older brother's ID and replaced the name on it with his. Military officials were skeptical, but they let him fight. Some civil war historians believe that this may be the first successful use of a fake ID. It wasn't the last time that Frank would lie about his age to serve his country - he forged documents to say that he was younger so that he could fight in World Wars I and II.
World War II saw Frank, now in his 90s, in Poland. When he became separated from the rest of his group on their way back to the US, he decided to walk back to western Europe and the Atlantic. Using the knowledge gained by listening to the freed slaves of his youth, Frank navigated his way using the stars. He walked through Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria and into Italy. That portion of the trip took him roughly 6 days. While near Venice, Frank met someone who was friendly towards him, Con. Con was amazed at Frank's plan to walk to the Atlantic and gave him a tiki torch so that he could walk more easily at night. Why Con had a tiki torch in Italy was never known.
Frank set out, the torch lighting his way at night through the rest of Italy, Southern France, Spain and Portugal. 10 days after leaving Poland he was now in Portugal, and lamented the fact that he hadn't done a trip like that in his youth. On the boat on the way back to the US, Frank started writing his first and only book, a guide to touring Europe, which he promoted with the line "Let Con's Tiki light your way." The book became an international hit, and was bought by a young New Zealand traveler before touring Europe. He later set up a tour company, embodying the spirit of Frank's European trip and called it Contiki to honor Frank.
On his return to the US, Frank decided he wanted to help and protect people, especially the young, as he felt that children were the future. He took a volunteer position as a crossing guard on Turner Road, and has been doing it ever since.
He is Frank Supposa.
Frank marvels at his light-up stop sign.
Given everything he has done in life, and the fact he is 160, Frank deserves to sit down on the job.
Years of practice have made the hand gestures of a crossing guard look like the graceful motions of a swan.
Author's Note: The facts presented in this post have not been checked for accuracy. All that is known for certain is that this man is a crossing guard on Turner Road and drives a Buick with "FSUP" license plates. But based on these known facts, the name of the crossing guard and the story of his life as presented above could hardly be disputed.
