Читать книгу Beginnings - Edward Galluzzi - Страница 8
ОглавлениеThis beginning was some 22 years ago. Charly and I were married on a cold January morn in 1984 having proposed to her six months earlier. We had many discussions about our marriage, as I am Roman Catholic; Charly is not being a generalized Christian. Catholicism is steep in deep ritual, rules, and Canon Law. Doctrine dictates that a Catholic can indeed marry a non-Catholic Christian; however, permission from our region’s Bishop would be required. Also, Charly must learn and accept the teachings of the Catholic Church on Christian marriage. In turn, I, with Charly’s knowledge, must promise to continue practicing my faith and to bring up our children in the Catholic faith. Although Charly did not summarily reject out of hand the conditions of faith, she was never one who wanted her choices to be predetermined. After much discussion, we opted to have a civil marriage recognizing that a more proper Catholic or Christian wedding was a future prospect. Ironically, Charly participated in Catholic instruction and was baptized into the Catholic Church one year later.
So, our wedding day was not a particularly enchanting day—at least from the point of view of ritual, pomp, and ceremony. We were not blessed with a grand church wedding attended by all the relatives and friends of the bride and groom; instead, an everyday Justice of the Peace ‘gave up his good life’ just to unite us. The wedding sanctuary was a sterile office setting with row upon row of desks and filing cabinets. The mechanical taps of electronic typewriters forced by the fingering of hurried clerks echoed in the background. Neither the tune nor the cadence produced was remotely reminiscent of the wedding march.
Fortunately, not everyone was a stranger as there were several people present that Charly and I knew. My brother Rick, and his family stood by our sides as witnesses to our formal mating. As we waited for the Honorable Justice, the kids became restless and pranced around the well-worn wooden chairs. Twenty minutes after our date with destiny, the Justice arrived and introduced himself as the “Honorable Justice Justin Justwill.” After we exchanged customary pleasantries, the Honorable Justice’s opening remarks were notable, steeped in tradition, and forever etched in our minds: “I can make this as short or long as you want. You don’t even need me. You have your marriage license.” With such fiery passion and ritualism, Charly and I were overcome with wedded bliss . . . and tradition be damned!
The ceremony continued long enough for a single wedding picture to be snapped. It was not your ordinary wedding picture for it accentuated the incomparable marriage motif in the background: the American flag and unending rows of mundane-colored filing cabinets. In a very short time, Charly and I were certified man and wife. For a moment, I was uncertain as whether to kiss the bride or salute the flag! Since I am not one to tempt fate, I ended up doing both. We had nobody’s blessing in particular—neither God nor church—but we were just as married and just as happy. Why not? After all, we were completely in love and cared deeply about each other.
Charly and I met several years before our wedding. I frequented a local toy store for though I had no children, they were very much a part of my every day life—nephews, nieces, kids of close friends, and children seen in my professional contacts. My parents lived far away at a distance separated by five states. The children of friends were considered my family—at least I often thought of them that way. Sometimes “feeling” part of their family can be a painful experience. You share in the family experience, but these experiences unkindly remind you from time to time that you are not a family member. You care and you are cared about. You give and they give back. You love and they love back. The cold realization, however, is that eventually you leave as everyone else stays. Even your friends can at times be unkind without intending to do so and they typically have no awareness or knowledge of their silent transgressions.
Having said all that, children and having a childlike nature were the common threads that brought Charly and me together. Being immature or I believe the politically correct identification of being maturationally challenged can have its benefits. Charly was the assistant manager of a local family-owned toy and hobby store. Although it was a very large store, the owners were quite family oriented. They took interest and pride in serving the shopper, including the smallest ones who otherwise were typically admonished for touching, dropping, breaking, or innocently staring at amazingly awesome store merchandise. Charly was perceptibly charming and accommodating. I attributed her charm to her kind temperament and warm smile. If love at first sight exists, Charly’s impact on me lends credence to that romantic idiom. She had, excuse the cliché, the kind of smile that made your troubles melt away as soon as you walked in the store. Charly paid attention to detail and her compulsiveness showed in the assistance that she provided you. It was not long before I shopped at the toy store for self-serving reasons. I shopped more often than needed. Charly seemed aware of this, but she did not appear to mind, complain, or file a protective restraining order.
I was surprised, fortunate, and content to have met somebody like Charly, let alone fall in love with her. Surprised? Well, yes. You see, I went through a period in my life during which time dating was frowned upon—actually, I was not permitted to date… did not consider dating… and willing accepting it. I later found myself in the position of catching up with my male counterparts in the social arena. However, I am getting ahead of myself once again . . .
Let me start at another beginning. This is the beginning of the end that we all share in common, the universal type: the day of delivery… Deliverance? Do you hear a banjo or two? I was born in October of 1951. My beginning of the end was, of course, linked historically to my parents. That goes without saying, but I decided to say it anyway. My mother was born in Carrara, Italy in May 1924. My father was of strong Italian heritage, but born in Memphis, Tennessee in June 1914. My father was in the armed services and they met during the waning years of World War II. Well, “met” is not exactly true. A mutual friend introduced my mother and father the old fashioned European way. My parents later married in New York in May 1948.
It would be less than candid to say I remembered anything about my entrance into this world, and based on the unfolding events of the time, quite fortunate as well. As my birth approached, my parents were experiencing a devastating beginning of the end coinciding with my beginning: the illness and subsequent death of my paternal grandfather several months before my birth. Grandpa Edgar was an Italian sculptor who worked in marble and stone, as he created many sculptures for buildings and museums that are still exhibited today around America. He was born in Southern Italy in 1884 and immigrated to the United States in 1909. According to the American Family Immigration Center at Ellis Island (http://www.ellisisland.org), more than 22 million immigrants, passengers and crew passed through Ellis Island and the Port of New York between 1892 and 1924. The Center documents that my grandfather traveled on the ship Barbarossa built in Hamburg, Germany in 1897. The Barbarossa had a service speed of 14.5 knots and carried 2,392 passengers. Historically, the Barbarossa was seized by the United States Navy for a troop transport in 1917 and renamed the USS Mercury. It was reportedly scrapped in 1924. Interestingly, World War II history buffs will recall that Barbarossa was the code name given by Adolph Hitler to the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941. Historians have referred to this attack as Hitler’s worst single military blunder because of the massive conflict that he unleashed ended four years later, in May 1945, with his reported suicide in his Berlin bunker.
The registry indicates that my grandfather traveled under the first name of Egisto. His port of departure was Genoa, Liguria, Italy. My grandfather immigrated to America in 1909 at the age of 26 stating that he was visiting his uncle Catozzie at 400 Bay Street, San Francisco. He arrived at Ellis Island on March 19, 1909 and received his certificate of naturalization in the United States on June 16, 1944 at the age of 61. At the time of his immigration, grandpa was described as having dark hair, brown eyes, and a stature of 5 feet, 6 inches. The ship’s manifest identified my grandfather’s marital status as ‘married.’
My paternal grandmother was born in February 1806. Why my grandmother, who called herself Adunia in Italy but changed her name to Antonetta in America, did not voyage with grandfather at that time is another story. I will only say that she immigrated to the United States some five years later in 1914 when, as it was told to me, grandfather demanded that she span the Atlantic soon or he would find a new life partner. Five other married men from Carrara, Italy traveled with my grandfather. Curiously, they also traveled without their spouses—well, that’s also another story.
Grandpa Edgar was said to be a kind man, spry in his old age and full of youth. I never met him, of course, but I saw my elderly grandfather laughing and running swiftly in several vintage black and white 8 MM home movies. Grandpa Edgar developed emphysema and other respiratory problems, which were attributed to the dust from his carvings that progressively hardened in his lungs over the years. He was bedridden for several years and weakened steadily until his death at age 67. His sculptures adorn many museums and buildings throughout the United States. Among his works are a bust of Abraham Lincoln, which stands in the Nancy Hanks Lincoln Memorial, and a bust of our state’s ex-governor at a state university. Grandpa also sculpted statuary in the state’s federal building and local high school. I was unaware of my parents’ struggle with their bipolar feelings of happiness and sadness as these two events collided horridly. I was safely protected in my mother’s womb, as my grandfather died on August 30th, several months before my birth. Perhaps coming along at the time that I did eased or distracted the ache of my parents and grandmother. I do not know because my family never discussed this tragedy.
My mother recently gave me a photograph snapped shortly after my birth. It was an old black and white photo that you knew with immediate confidence was taken with an original Brownie camera. In the photo, a nurse draped in hospital white held somberly my 19¼ inch frame and 7-pound, 11¼-ounce body. The nurse wore a white gown, white cap and white surgical mask across her mouth. She appeared as sterile as her uniform. I was wrapped in a white cloth and looked quite bored. The occasion apparently did not impact on me as a particularly invigorating one. I was giving the new world in which I found myself a big, wide yawn as my little fingers covered what they could of my mouth. The photo documented that good manners are as much instinctual as they are learned. God only knew what I thought about being held by this masked stranger, but I guessed that Tonto must not have been far away! I was a cute baby, and obviously destined to grow up and do great things… at least that was my subjective take of the photograph.
My earliest recollections begin at about age three years. My older sister came before me and my younger brother was born after me just like clockwork. Yes, I can hear you again with that ‘hmm… the middle child…” Diplomatic? Manipulative? Chip on the shoulder? Tired of being left out of things? Why doesn’t anybody listen to me? Why doesn’t anyone understand me? It is said that one can escape the effects of birth order. Even if I cannot, I am in good company with other middle children: Dwight Eisenhower, Jack Kennedy, George Bush, and Tony Blair. Perhaps I missed my real calling and should have gone into politics! But I digress…
I remember that our father drove to work early in the morning. We often accompanied him since my mother liked shopping downtown… or perhaps she liked escaping the boundaries of our home to which she was confined 24/7 with us three munchkins. At that time, women were not career minded and homemaking with its many care-taking responsibilities was the singular career of “choice,” especially for European women. “Keep them barefoot and pregnant” was not just an idle idiom. It was certain that we three musketeers shattered our mother’s nerves now and then, maybe even more often than that. We unquestionably frazzled each other’s nerves and resolved our differences rather bluntly. The physical approach to conflict resolution is not uncommon among young children as an initial response and our behavior was no exception.
Unfortunately, my father began work at the state’s highway department several hours before the customary time for store openings. The impact of these early risings stayed with me as I am still cursed with rising with or before the roosters, and crowing just as loudly because of it. The downtown ritual was unbending. My father dropped off mother and her brood in front of a little church. The church was built in the early 1900s and neatly tucked away on a circular, brick road that identified the center of the city; hence, ‘The Circle.’ The church doors were opened 24/7 back in those days. Vandalism against a church, of all things, was unheard of at the time. Churches were the center of miracles, not the victims of sin. I was raised Roman Catholic and always thought it ironic that God’s home is now opened only certain hours of the day. It is like a realtor purchased the hallowed property and prayer is by appointment only, or 2 to 4 on Sundays as always!
I admired tremendously my mother for taking care of three mildly hyperactive preschoolers in a confined place, holy or not, for two solid hours. I do not recall specifically what we did and I am sure God will remind us at some point, but I can only imagine we were neither religious zealots nor prayerful. We probably ran amuck through the church, touching things that were considered holy and screaming loudly enough to wake up the saintly dead. God must still shutter to this day when we make ourselves known in his presence. I understand His memory goes back a long time!
We eventually made our way to the stores as sleepy downtown became alive. Mom never missed going to the city market where the staples of life were fresh and emitting an aroma I can still recall by memory. My mother is an Italian immigrant who always looked forward to this rather European experience as the market was stocked primarily by Italian vendors. The farmers’ market was a sight to behold for a young child and the sights and smells were as breathtaking as any carnival. Everything was fresh and the pasta was homemade. Meat, fish, pasta, fruits, vegetables, cookies, candies and other sweets filled the stands. Chickens were slaughtered and plucked on the spot. We laughed as they persisted with their contorted dance without their heads—after all, we were preschoolers.
A multi-layered sugar wafer cookie was our favorite treat at the city market and mother seldom disappointed us. We were admonished to “be good” to receive our treats. Mom was an expert at applying contingencies to our behavior long before such techniques were formalized in psychology textbooks. And best of all, the layered sugar wafers cost only about 25 cents a pound. Mother knew how to stretch a dollar. What a cheap token behavior management program our mother created and implemented!
We walked from store-to-store following our mother like imprinted ducklings. Mother did more window-shopping than buying. Men riding three-wheeled bicycles hawked ice cream and other novelties. Blind men and men maimed in war having lost their legs were often seen sitting on boards with roller wheels pushing themselves along sidewalks and across streets. They often sold pencils and brooms to help support themselves and their families. To wee little ones, downtown seemed to have an endless number of stores, and like the state fair, we would not be able to visit each and every one of them. One store had a horseshoe shaped walkthrough with a large scale located at the center of its curve. We all took turns weighing ourselves for it was free and in those days free meant free— even our mother did so when we were not looking. The ‘five and dime’ store was a favorite of our family’s, not only because goods were incredibly cheap, but also the ‘five and dime’ had a dinner counter with a long single row of twirling bar stools. One could rest and order your favorite ice cream or sandwich. You could watch your order being prepared by women dressed in white because the stoves and other equipment were just on the other side of the counter. I think my mother liked it so much because it was a rare moment where she could watch somebody else do the cooking! And when were done with lunch, we could twirl the tops of the dinner stools making them higher and lower in an autistic-like way for no particular reason or goal.
Somehow time passed and my mother always managed to survive until lunch, a meal that she always prepared for us before leaving home. Mom did her best to skimp, save and cut corners in those days. She was better than my father at applied home economics. The family income was low even by the standards of the 1950s. Money indeed must have been the root of all evil because our family did its best to stay away from it! Whatever could be stretched was stretched. Our family seldom used condiments. We grew skeptical of everything in liquid form, as the staple was apt to be diluted by half or more with water. Although my mother does not receive patent monies, I am sure that she invented skimmed milk. Until I was an adult, I did not realize that products such as milk, ketchup, tomato sauce and shampoo were so rich in color, taste, and texture! Mother economized where she could. Anything that could be branded as a staple in our every day family life that was not nailed down became fair game. Mom “borrowed” just about everything she could from local department stores, restaurants and restrooms, sometimes even toilet paper. Mother was also very practical and sensible. Although I did not appreciate it at the time—um, this would be an understatement—my mother exchanged a birthday gift from my aunt, a stamp album, for something that every little boy would be overjoyed about—a pair of pants. My mother was a shrewd businesswoman who did not need a degree in economics to be savvy. For my part, I licked those pants for several months every time I put them on just out of childhood spite!
Then there were those special times of the year that going downtown captured the young and those young at heart. Christmas is a time of awe, miracles, and imagination for children. In the heart of downtown, a 284-foot limestone monument dedicated in 1902 to soldiers in the armed forces who died in the Civil War, was transformed magically into the world’s tallest Christmas tree. The strands of Christmas lights boasted nearly 5000 multicolored lights.
One prominent corner store had its beginnings in the late 1800s. A clock with eight foot illuminated dials faced in all four directions. Each holiday season, a cherub miraculously appeared on the top of this clock. The store dressed up its ordinary window fashions with seasonal scenes, most of which were animated and enchanted us beyond expression. Watching Santa laying gifts underneath the tree, carolers holding hymnals and singing, and reindeer pulling the sleigh captivated us and captured our hearts, as we pressed our noses to the glassed enclosures. In the basement of the store was Santa’s Toyland equipped with a small train that transported wide-eyed children throughout the land of magical toys.
Our family participated in any form of entertainment in which little or no funds were expended. We usually visited the cemetery after church on Sundays. Dead people neither charged for visitors nor seemed to mind their presence. Had we been older, this would have been a rather morbid experience. My grandparents were laid to rest in the cemetery’s above ground mausoleum and my parents purchased their own vaults beside them many years ago. One of the most fiscally appropriate judgments made by my father who paid $300.00 a plot. In making pre-planning arrangements I was informed by a credible source that it will cost $500.00 to open each vault by unscrewing 4 screws and applying leverage with a pry bar. Upon hearing this, I believe I was hit over the head by the latter and only one screw was involved.
This particular mausoleum hosted row upon row of marbled compartments stacked a half dozen high. I remember trying to peer between the bordered cracks of my grandparents’ vaults only to see what I thought was an eye staring back. This always spooked my brother, sister and me, as did a showing of The Wizard of Oz, especially the part where the stripped stocking feet of the wicked witch of the east curled and were sucked under the house that fell upon her—be gone before somebody drops a house on you! After our family paid their respects to the departed, we fed the ducks in the cemetery’s pond. The ducks always seemed happy to have contact with living people even the three of us with stale bread. It was generally a pleasant experience for such a morose edifice. Besides telling our friends, the only other drawback was that swans occasionally chased us around the lake. They were apparently unimpressed and impatient at how fast our little hands could dispense stale old bread. How rude!
As adults, we paid increasingly more respect at the cemetery as our paternal grandmother Antonetta and our beloved uncle and aunt, Joseph and Edna, were laid to rest. Grandma died in 1971. Aunt Edna lost her battle with cancer and slipped away at the age of 71. Uncle Joe died at the age of 80. Our father was lovingly taken care of at home by our mother and passed away at the age of 89.
On many Sundays, we had the double treat of not only visiting the cemetery, but also appraising new model homes. The suburbs were growing immeasurably at the time. The boundaries of natural woods, a ready free source for landscaping dirt and soil according to my father, were in constant flux and being driven away long before environmentalists complained of manmade erosion. Local and television personalities were often hired to help market the homes. I particularly remember meeting Leo Carillo one Sunday at one of the model home openings. He was best known for his role as Pancho, partner of the Cisco Kid from the 1950’s television western action series, The Cisco Kid. Pancho sat on his horse, gun drawn, smiling and waving to the crowd. We children were very pleased.
As a family, we also more or less went to see drive-in movies. Father parked the family green Plymouth off the shoulder of the road that was perpendicular to the movie screen. The three of us were huddled in the backseat with little room to spare. We would squint our eyes and did our best to peer at the distant screen. Drive-in theater owners of the time did not see a need to build tall walls to conceal the screen from view. We watched the movie in silence, as for some inexplicable reason theater owners also did not see the need to run speakers beyond the drive-in’s fenced boundaries. We followed the movie dialogue as best we could, which left much to our emerging imaginations. If nothing else, the three of us became visual learners and developed the art of lip reading at a very early age. This will serve us well in our old age as our hearing declines. Best of all, our trips to—well, near the drive-in— always included the iniquitous sharing of one nickel ice cream cone from a local and original Dairy Queen, and one bag of popcorn recently homemade by our mother, who stood by the stove and shook the kernels in a pan until their tiny bits of water exploded into popcorn. Family togetherness has never been the same!
During our downtown trips, we sometimes consumed lunch at this particular department store that had a restaurant-like dining area for paying customers on the second floor. A balcony and railing provided an engaging view of the main floor below. The decor was excessively white: white tables, white chairs, a white floor and a white railing. As our mother sat at the table, we were often kneeling on the floor peering through the white railing. The railing kept us from falling on unsuspected shoppers below, although not necessarily our food. We often amused ourselves by making less than flattering remarks about people who innocently milled below us. Bald men and balding men in particular were vulnerable targets of our unflattering critiques and giggles. We were young children after all and easily amused… and it was free!
Time passed and depending on how much effort in parenting we three young-uns forced out of our mother, we either went home earlier than planned via the public transportation system (bus) or we waited until early evening for our father to pick up his then tired and cranky family for the return trip home to suburbia.
Growing up second-generation Italian in America was often a challenge. We were all part of the great “melting pot” at mid-century except somebody forgot to tell those of us who were not the main ingredients that assimilation had its price. There were choices to be made as American and Italian cultures often clashed and clashed unrepentantly. Such differences in cultural experiences created mild discord between parents and children. Mom and dad strived to maintain what they knew: TRA-DI-TION! (Kind of feel a musical coming on...) We children on the other hand wanted to be like our contemporary peers in dress, speech and behavior. In essence, we were faced with two-generation gaps—a cultural one and the time-honored parent/child gap. Such was the predictable friction that stewed in our home as part of the “melting pot” of the 1950s.
Assimilation aside, things were not futile back then. We experienced customs curious and unique to our family and Italian heritage. There were a host of superstitions that impacted on my parents and intruded indiscriminately on our family life. What dictated our parents’ behavior dictated ours, as families were bonded units in the 1950s. The list of superstitions that concerned our parents seemed endless and unforgiving. We were forever admonished if we did not heed them for they would bring “bad luck” not only to us, but also to all family members, and perhaps to an entire generation of Italians. Family guilt was inherent and instilled early in our lives. Although we never really understood what all the fuss was about, we perceptively learned collective guilt.
You and your parents may have shared in some of the superstitions that consumed much of my parents’ waking hours and invaded ours:
• Never travel or visit a friend on a Friday
• Never visit a new place you have never been to before on a Friday
• Never place a hat or purse on the bed
• Never break a mirror unless 7 years of bad luck appeals to you
• Never open an umbrella in the house
• Never walk under a ladder
• Never let a jet-black cat cross your path
• Be careful about what you do on calendar days of the “13th”
• Be careful of places and events with the number “13” in them (do not live in a house with an address like 1310; if you have 13 people at a dinner party, set a 14th chair anyway at the table; if you were born on the 13th, dig your grave early)
• Never put on clothing backwards
• Never visit someone’s house after visiting a mortuary or attending a funeral for that brings bad luck to the person you visit
• Never send a card or gift to someone that bears crosses or birds—the cross thing was a tough one given our Catholic affiliation. For the birds, do you realize how few greeting cards exist without these feathered friends?
If superfluous superstitions were not sufficient, our parents were consumed with other events that were said to bring us bad luck:
• Spilling salt, milk, rice and especially olive oil brought sickness to the family
• Seeing a lady with a hump back (rather amusing and discriminatory since viewing a man with a hump back was said to bring you good luck)
• Seeing bound straw in a field or a flatbed truck carrying straw meant that news was heading your way, presumably awful news
• For the paranoid among you, people were said to be talking about you if you have two eggs in your hand and they break—break a dozen eggs and you experienced delusions of paranoia!
To be fair-minded, there were a few things, albeit a very few things, that supposedly brought you and your family good fortune:
• Seeing a man with a hump back (people who saw the Disney movie, Hunchback of Notre Dame, undoubtedly were infinitely blessed)
• Seeing a white horse, which was not often seen in the suburbs
• Seeing a man first on the first day of the year is said to bring you good luck all year round—don’t even want to think how to accomplish that feat
The Italian tellers of fortunes were apparently male dominated. Other good fortune came from a medal that was very popular in Italy as a good luck charm. It actually was two distinct medals made out of gold. The number 13 made up one of the medals and a small horn made up the other. Wearing these two medals together was presumed to bring you good luck all your life. I guess the horn cancelled out the ill luck of the number 13. A small price indeed to pay for eternal prosperity!
Is there more? Yes. There were a myriad of proverbs and sayings that were suppose to influence how Italians lived. These adages, in my mother’s tongue and dialect, included:
• Non puoi avere porcho e St. Antonio (You cannot have pork and St. Anthony—something similar to you cannot have your cake and eat it too)
• Ne di nartede, ne di venerdi, non si taglia e non si porte (Not on Tuesday and not on Friday, you can cut and you can travel)
• Paese voi usanza trovi (The town you go, the way you do it—whatever town you go to, you do things the way the people do them in that town)
• Sono gentile e son cortese ma pagatemi le spese (I am gentle and I am courteous, but I leave the check to you-typically a really bad tipper)
• Sono nato stanco percio vivo per riposarsni (I was born tired, so I live to relax—an aphorism I have very much taken to heart in my own life as my badge of honor)
• Se una donna per sbajlio mette il suo vestito al rovesceio, per quel georno tutto lva male (If a woman puts her dress on the wrong side, for that day everything goes wrong—I assume a man could wear a dress in any manner without ill effects—well, maybe)
• Si crede di prendere il prete perla barba (If you think that you can touch a priest by his beard—this loses much in the translation, but basically suggests that if you are waiting for something great to happen, do not; it is not going to happen or what happens will be small—sort of a precursor I think to the modern day lottery experience)
• Ne di Manzo ne di Maggione, none ti levare il pedizoine (In March or May, never take off your heavy underwear— linked to the crazy Italian weather in March and May)
• Tutte le pecore vanno alla chiesa a portare I soldi al prete (All sheep go to church and bring all the money to the priest—it is a ridicule in that people are called ‘sheep’)
Is there still more? Yes, there is more! If the superstitions and proverbs did not overshadow family living, then “folk”
remedies aimed to maintain our good health and ward off enemies of the family further stewed the pot:
• Rubbing garlic on your chest to cure a cold (and drive away your friends)
• Wearing garlic on a string around your neck (or many women pinned it to their bras) keeps you safe
• Curing a cold by warming up bricks in the fireplace and then placing them between two pieces of wool—these were placed upon your chest to keep you warn until the cold went away
• Picking flowers called Comomila (looked similar to dandelions) eased a sour stomach by placing them in a pot of water to brew and then drinking the hot juice
• The cure all of cure alls—a teaspoon of olive oil will cure just about anything, genuine or imagined.
The ultimate folk remedy for a sick person or to keep a person from becoming ill in an Italian family was the Evil Eye. When my grandmother determined that it was time to practice the ritual, she insisted that you drop immediately anything and everything that you were doing. This remedy involved placing a bowl of water on the unfortunate person’s head. She then placed three drops of oil in the water and a small prayer was spoken three times: “Rotta e finochio, Leva il malochio.” My grandmother continued the ritual while the oil in the water remained visible. If the oil drops dispersed, your sickness was thought caused by people wishing you bad luck. In essence, it was a method of determining whether your illness was caused by the ill wishes of others or by the common microorganisms of the day. It must have tarnished the friendships my parents fostered as they were in a state of wondering which friend or friends among them were wishing them ill will. On top of all that, imagine trying to explain to your playmates why you called time-out in the middle of a game. Having to pee was not only a better excuse, but a face-saver as well. Fortunately, my parents did not continue the practice and this gypsy ritual died with the death of our paternal grandmother in May 1971.
If all the home remedies and cures did not ward off bad luck or sickness, my father’s faith did—not in Catholicism as you might have thought to a good Italian, but in the leading evangelist of the time. From my father’s perspective, I could not always tell whether the Reverend sat to the right of God or God sat to the right of the Reverend. In the 1950s the Reverend celebrated his healing ministry on weekly television. At 9:00 a.m. (Indiana East time) each Sunday, the evangelist stepped into our living room as the five of us sat quietly in front of the television. He ended each service the same way by asking the home viewers, like us, to touch the television screen, as he prayed for our healing. Our family did as he requested at our father’s insistence. And there we were with our five hands pushed flatly against the television screen. I often thought how our whole family could have been incinerated in an instant by a well-timed electrical storm. However, we were spared for some reason obviously for some greater mission. Father brought us to see the evangelist in person at the local Coliseum. We were herded in line like cattle by our father and waited for several hours. The Reverend eventually appeared and placed his hands on our heads in passing. Father seemed happy—at best, we were confused and a trifle bored.
Growing-up Catholic and Italian also presented many rituals, ceremonies, and festivals whose essence impacted on our family life. Most festivals celebrate the feast of a patron saint of a city or town. When the feast of the saint is upon us, a great procession is held in the city with the townspeople carrying a statue of the saint through the streets of the city. All the windows are decorated with the best-colored blankets. All the young girls of the city wear white dresses and follow the procession scattering flowers through the streets. When the procession is over, the people return home to dinner, music, and dance, especially the Tarantella. This is an old dance that reminds the elderly of the city of their earlier days. The remembrance is brought about because of the old style of the dance.
In another celebration, the Easter period is filled with many activities. Beginning with Palm Sunday, all the children dress in their best clothing and prepare for the days activities by constructing a large palm. This was accomplished by holding together many small palms or branches of the olive tree. After the palm was constructed, the children placed homemade ornaments such as cookies and chocolate eggs on the palms. They then brought their palms to church and had them blessed during the Mass. After the children returned home, they placed the blessed palms in their bedrooms usually behind a picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary or Jesus, and kept them there until the next year. At that time, they are burned and replaced by new palms.
On Holy Thursday, the people visited all the churches in the city—my mother had 7 churches in her city—to see the sepulcher where Jesus laid. The sepulchers were made of mosaic or colored rocks. Mosaic rocks and flowers are also used to celebrate beautiful sceneries of our Lord’s passion and death.
On Good Friday, the maceleries—stores in which only meat was sold—are the view of the city. The best meat, especially lamb, was displayed in the window decorated by much greenery and flowers waiting to be sold on Holy Saturday.
On Holy Saturday, people gathered in Florence, Italy to see one of the largest processions, which included many city officials dressed in old style costumes. The procession went to one church after the other all through the city.
On Easter Sunday, millions of people gathered in St. Peter’s Square in Rome to hear and see the pontiff give his papal blessing. My mother took part in many of these ceremonies in her birth city of Carrara.
The city of Viarreggio was famous for another procession, the Viarreggio Carnival. Throughout the month of February, people came from all parts of Italy to enjoy a historical procession that included floats, great flower displays, people dressed in costume and masks, and dancing in the streets. This carnival is much like Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
The city of Venice also celebrated a similar carnival except that it is said the festivity was much more beautiful because it took place at night. A parade of gondolas with multicolored lanterns are loaded with food, musicians, and people who all enjoy themselves by eating, drinking, and singing through the Grand Canal. The carnival, which lasted all night, also included a display of fireworks. The next day, the Regata, a race between two gondolas, took place. It was considered a sport and included prizes of money and flags of the city. There was also a main prize: the Trofee Marciano, a trophy that became a permanent possession of a three-time winner.
Food is at the heart of all of Italy and the center of many festivals. Many food experts believe that the greatest chefs come from Bolgno. During the months of May and June, the Bolgnese people enjoyed a festival of food in the Parco della Montagnola. This festival attracted many people who came to admire some of the best specialties of Bolgno: Tortellini (ravioli) and Lasagnette (lasagna). The food was placed on large tables similar to picnic tables and served to the people who came to the festival.
Another festival, Festa del’ Uva, the Feast of Grapes, took place in Tuscany, which is in northern Italy. In Tuscany, the month of September is called Vendenia, which is also called the Festa del’ Uva. During September, all the people get together to pick grapes by hand and place them in a large barrel. While they picked grapes, they sang folksongs or stornelli, told jokes, and did anything else that would make people laugh. At night, when the day’s work was completed, the grape growers (owners) gave a dance for the young people while the elderly sat around and watched the young dancers.
Sometimes it took three or four days to pick all the grapes from the groves. However, once they are all picked, they are placed in a large barrel. The young girls of the village then wash their feet and climb in the barrel to mash the grapes. The juice of the grapes dripped out of the faucet at the bottom of the barrel and drained into a smaller barrel. Then the wine was bottled and set aside for fermentation.
On a more personal note, we always had productive grapevines on our property. Both my grandmother and mother picked grapes every summer and mashed them down with their bare feet in a large bucket into their own wine… and we did not sell any wine before its time—actually, our family consumed what little wine we made.
What happened is that our family had apparently more good fortune than bad. We all survived the superstitions, proverbs, and remedies. The historic rituals and ceremonies enriched our lives. We confused our friends perhaps a little, but survived nonetheless with no apparent ill effects. Well, for the most part… I work hard at not spilling milk or salt and never, ever spill olive oil. I don’t even go near the stuff!
