Orange juice. That was what Vince Zangaro asked his dad to get from the corner store. Thirty minutes later, Albert called on the verge of tears. He couldn’t remember how to get home.

Vince’s car was too low on gas to go get his dad. All he could do was keep his dad on the cellphone and help him navigate his way home.

When “Pops” finally walked through the door, the two men hugged and tears streamed down their faces. Vince promised to do a better job of taking care of his father.

The reality of the Alzheimer’s diagnosis his dad had received three years earlier finally hit Vince like a slap to the face.

“That was the day I took his keys away,” Vince said.

Father and son have grown closer since that day a decade ago. Becoming his father’s primary caretaker meant Vince, now 41, had to grow up and accept the fact that a disease was stealing his dad from him, one memory at a time.

It also forced him to recognize that he may be next in the line of Zangaro men affected by Alzheimer’s. His uncle, father and grandfather all shared symptoms of the disease.

But unlike his dad, who has health insurance and a son to take care of him, Vince has neither. As he helps his 75-year-old father shower, shave and dress each morning, he wonders, who will take care of him? He tries not to think about the answer.

A union guy

Albert Anthony Zangaro was born near Camden, N.J., in 1942, the fourth of five children.

An athlete, he ran cross-country in high school. After graduation he enlisted in the Air Force and learned to work on airplanes. He did a four-year tour then joined the Navy Reserves and entered the civilian workforce. Meanwhile, mutual friends set him up on a blind date with Rose, a college student studying to become a teacher. They married during the Summer of Love in Franklin, N.J. Two years later they had Donna, and Vince came along four years after that, making their family of four complete.

Albert got a job as an aircraft mechanic with Eastern Air Lines and the family moved to Marietta about the time Vince was in kindergarten.

“Pops was such a union guy,” said Vince.

In 1986, when Vince was 10, big changes were afoot at Eastern. Frank Lorenzo bought the airline and attempted to institute dramatic cost saving measures that included cutting salaries and encouraging pilots and machinists to circumvent regulations. In March 1989, more than 8,500 machinists, mechanics and baggage handlers walked off the job at 27 airports, including Hartsfield in Atlanta. Striking pilots soon joined them. And Albert was among them, putting in his time on the picket line.

To young Vince’s delight, his father would take his teenage son with him to walk the picket line at night and yell “scab” at strikebreakers.

Today Vince questions whether taking a 16-year-old to a picket line was a good idea, but at the time he loved it. And he learned that loyalty and perseverance were characteristics his father held dear. At risk of losing their livelihoods, health benefits and pensions, Albert and his fellow union members stuck together. In the end, the long, drawn-out strike contributed to forcing the airline to shut down in 1991.

But that meant Albert no longer had a job, and Rose’s health was beginning to decline, which prevented her from working. Worried about how he would support his family, Albert grew frustrated and angry. The stress often escaped in tongue-lashings when the kids misbehaved.

Albert eventually got a job as a general maintenance man, fixing air conditioners and managing a small staff in the Richard B. Russell Federal Building in downtown Atlanta. Until his memory started slipping and he’d get lost on his way home.

It started with little things. Things Vince found easy to ignore. No one wanted to believe a man in his early 60s couldn’t recall how to make a sandwich. Albert could fix airplanes and air-conditioning units, how could he forget how to use the television remote?

But when he started forgetting Vince’s name, and then his own name, Vince knew it was time Albert saw a doctor.

In the doctor’s office, Vince was shocked when Albert couldn’t name the president of the United States or tell time by reading the face of a clock. He remembered Rose, who’d been gone about three years, but everything else seemed fuzzy.

Just before his 62nd birthday, Albert retired.

Once Vince got a close look at his father’s finances, he realized they needed to sell the house. They eventually moved to a rental house in Acworth, and Vince cashed in his stock options with Hot Topic to start a town car business, which foundered for a couple of years before shutting down.

Then came Amy

Vince realized that if he was going to take care of Albert, he needed to take care of himself, first. That meant taking a much-needed break from his caregiving duties. For eight months Albert stayed with relatives in New Jersey while Vince resumed some semblance of his former life.

That was when he met Amy King.

Vince was playing pool with some friends at a pub in Acworth when Amy walked in. A recent divorcee, she was attracted to Vince’s spiky bleached hair and struck up a conversation. They dated casually at first, but as they got to know each other, Albert realized Amy was special. She listened, and she cared. He started to open up about his depression, his dreams, and for the first time he started to share details about caring for his dad.

“She saw something in me that no one else did.”

By the time Albert came back home, Amy had moved in and helped bring order to their home. The refrigerator was stocked, the floors were clean and now Vince had someone to help him care for his father. He could even play the occasional gig at night.

With Amy in his life, Vince was inspired to do better. He started writing songs again, which gave him an outlet for his frustrations. “I want to be a better man; have the strength to stand to be who I am,” he crooned.

He honed his sound, a blend of alternative and classic rock, and the act of singing gave him an outlet for releasing tension. He sang about his father’s illness and the illnesses of addiction and loneliness, all the things he’d been experiencing in his life.

Vince started recognizing that what he had perceived as missed opportunities — his musical aspirations, his career with Hot Topic — had allowed him to have something much more important in his life: a meaningful relationship with his father. They became best friends.

“I started to wake the hell up and made a choice to be happy, not miserable. Everything started to slowly fall into place,” he said.

One night Vince and Amy were in the kitchen playing gin rummy, a favorite pastime of theirs. The stakes were high: The loser had to wash the dishes or perform some other housekeeping task. Unable to afford an engagement ring, but knowing he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, Vince got down on one knee and slipped a paper straw wrapper around Amy’s finger.

“I didn’t care that we didn’t have the money,” Amy said. “I knew I loved him, too.”

Shortly after that, Vince got the idea for the Alzheimer’s Music Festival, a way to combine his two primary interests, rock ‘n’ roll and Alzheimer’s disease, and to raise money to help family caregivers. It also gave Vince something to focus on for the future.

With the help of some friends and in partnership with the Caring Together in Hope nonprofit and the Laona M. Kitchen Foundation, Vince secured performance space at 120 Tavern & Music Hall in Marietta and booked some local acts, including singer/songwriters Alex Guthrie, Andrew Katter and Bo Dunn. And Vince, performing as Zangaro, hosted his first Alzheimer’s Music Festival in 2013. It was a huge success.

Vince says he owes it all to Amy.

“She saw what was happening and she stayed. She sacrificed a lot.”

A month later, Vince and Amy got married and moved with Albert to Canton.

The Alzheimer’s Music Festival has since become an annual event, so far raising more than $80,000 and helping at least 50 families care for loved ones. The next one is Sept. 16 at Madlife Stage & Studios in Woodstock.