Joe Rollino never ate meat, and he never backed down from a challenge.
And he stuck to a daily routine: coffee, newspaper, lottery ticket. Maybe an afternoon swim in the ocean, even in the winter.
Turns out that pattern served him pretty well. Rollino lived to be 104. He might have even made it to 105, but the scrappy former Coney Island strongman died after being hit by a minivan crossing Bay Ridge Parkway in Brooklyn Monday morning.
The driver was not charged.
"I'm sick about it," said longtime friend and neighbor, Eileen Bille. "He was like a grandfather to my kids."
Bille says Rollino regaled her family with stories. About his exploits in World War II. His time on the boardwalk lifting unimaginable weights. And his victories in the boxing ring, when he was known as Kid Dundee.
"He'd want this- rather than disease," said Bille. "This is how he'd want to go."
