Table of Contents ToC
Bio of my Mom and Pop: (Italy)
By 1914 Mom was a teenager and getting ready to get married. By 1918, so many young men had died in World war I that she had given up on finding a suitor and was preparing to enter the convent and become a nun.
The chief of the carabiniere approched Mom's mother, Filomina to marry Mom, but Filomina knew that since carabeniere were federal police, the chief could be transferred at any time. Filomina would loose her social security. Her social security was Mom. Since she was the only daughter, it would fall on Mom to take of Filomina in her old age -- as it did.
About 1921, Pop came back to Sezze -- wearing the gold. That was the expressing for Italian men who came back to Italy after working in America -- wearing gold watch-bob. Pop was looking for a spouse and knew Mom when she was fourteen, from when he left Italy in 1911. Pop approched Filomena to marry Mom. Filomina asked Pop if he had savings and Pop said yes. Filomena told him to come back with his savings book. The next day Pop did. Filomena looked at it and gave her approval. The rest of these stories come from that approval.
Tobacco: (Italy)
In Italy Pop worked as a rancher and his father was the ranch foreman. When Pop was young, his father, Luigi, one day sent him to get some tobacco for his pipe. It was a long trip to the nearest place tha sold tobacco. It took him all day to get the tobacco and return. In those days the tobacco came in the form of a plug. It looked like a cigar and you cut off a plug to fit in a pipe. Pop said he was sent to get enough tobacco for one pipe full. There was a moral to that story as there was to all his stories. I think it had to do with respecting your father and not complaining.
Grandpa Luigi: (Italy)
Pop's father, Luigi, was a foreman on a ranch owned by the Pietrosanti family. Pop's mother, Lucia, acted as a banker; people who had some money came to her and asked her to lend it and share the profit with them. It's ironic that Fausto, the son of Pop's brother Lidano, was a banker. Fausto's father, Lidano, was a cheese dealer. In 1940 Lidano was killed on the Appian Way, which Vittorio, his son, at the age of four, witnessed. When Amalia, his widow with six children, asked his Lidano's customers if they owned him any money, they all said no.
Grandpa Luigi and his Flannel Shirt: (Italy)
When Luigi -- Pop's father -- died, it was because he went to bed without changing his woolen undershirt. Usually he changed his shirt every night before going to bed. The one night he did not, he came down with pneumonia. I heard this story from Pop, and as I recall the story, it was a woolen undershirt, but Uncle Frank said that is was a flannel shirt. Uncle Frank had a memory like a steel trap. Each time I visited him in the nursing home, I often asked him about one of his stories. Even though the visits were separated by many months, he always told me the same story with the same details.
Mom's and Pop's Family: (Italy)My Mom had four brothers; Nicolino, the oldest, was a grain trader. I met her brother Pietro in 1970 in Sezze. Her nephew Torquato immigrated to France as did her nephew Pino. Pino returned to Italy in 1969. In 1970 I met him in Latina at the resturant Bel Ami which he had just opened. Another nephew Filippo immigrated to Canada where Mom, Pop and I visited him in about 1950 when he arrived. In 2002 I received an e-mail from Patricia Tassi who lives in Strasbourg, France. She was curious about how I knew so much about her family. She had found the Tassi genealogy on my web site. After exchanging several e-mails we found out that her father Torquato was my Mom's nephew. She then sent me a number of Tassi scanned images which I put on the web site.
My Mom and and Squeeky Shoes: (Italy)
When Mom was a little girl, there was a fad going on among her girl friends. They wanted a squeek in their shoes. For a piece of cheese, the local shoemaker would to put a squeek in her shoe. She said, since her family was well off, she could afford give the shoemaker the cheese. That was the first of many stories she told me that her family had property and Pop's did not.
My Mom's Suitors: (Mom)
The chief of police of Sezze wanted to marry my mom. but because he was a Carabinieri , Mom's mother, Filomina, would not let her marry him. A Carabinieri was in the military police force and could be moved to another city. Who would take care of Filemina when she became old? Pop came back from the US to find a bride. Filomina asked if he had savings. Pop said: yes and Filomina said: show me. The next day pop brought his savings book and soon after my mom and pop were married.
Courting: (Italy)
In Italy Pop courted my Mom. He said he serenaded her under a balcony. He played a guitar and sang to her. When he came back to America he said stopoed playing the guitar. I asked him many times why he stopped, but I could not get an answer out of him. Also I could never get an army stories out of him.
Tilda and Lucia: (Italy)
Louie says my sisters Tilda and Lucia both died of Spanish Influenza, in the same year -- one in about January and the other in about June. Lucille remembers my mom saying that they died of pneumonia -- "the pneunom". I remember mom telling me that one of them died of diarrhea. Both died at about the age of 18 months.
When Celeste was born, I called my mom and told her we had a new daughter. I pronounced her name Cheleste -- which is the Italian pronunciation. I thought that would impress her. There was a long silence. Mom said: you did not name her after Tilda or Lucia. It is an Italian tradition to name children after dead relatives. Then she started speaking again. I guess that after the initial shock, she forgave me.
Louie and his Grandma: (Italy)
Louie said when he was young he would hit his grandmother Filomina's legs with a stick and she was too feeble to chase him. That would get our Mom angry and she would chase after him. He also told me that our Mom, in Italy, would not argue with neighbors; she would just close the window shutters. He remembers a lot about Italy but Joe, who was younger, remembers very little.
Umbrella (Italy)
This story was told to me by my brother Louie about when he was a boy in Italy. He came home one day with a broken umbrella. My Mom asked what happened and Louie said that the son of a restaurant owner broke it. Mom told Louie to go the restaurant man and ask him to pay for a new umbrella. Louie went to restaurant and the owner said to come back when his son was grown up and get the money from him. Louie reported the conversation and Mom said to go to the restaurant and throw a rock through the window. When the owner comes out tell him to wait till louie grows up and he will pay for the window. Louie went to the restaurant and stood in front of the window but could not throw a rock at it. He came home and told our mom and she said it was ok and to forget about it. I guess that was her idea of how to solve a problem in a small town in italy -- even though I am sure she never read "The Prince" by Machiavelli.
My Mom and Banks: (Italy)
When my Mom was in Italy and Pop was in America, she visited all the banks in Sezze and found who would give her the best interest rate if she consolidated all her banking accounts in that bank. She then put all her savings in that one bank and Louie, Joe and she lived on that interest while Pop kept his savings in America. When my Mom joined Pop in America he had enough savings to buy a house. He had six thousand dollars to buy the house but decided to take a mortgage. He told me later that he did that so the bank would represent him if had any problems with the house.
Louie's and Joe’s school: (Italy)
When I visited Sezze in 1999 Vittorio brought me to Louie's and Joe's grammar school. It was a former palazzo established as a school by a wealthy family. They set up a foundation for that purpose. Louie said that in the 1930's, on special occasions, the students would all be assembled in the courtyard and listen to a speech broadcast through speakers. The speaker was Il Duce.
The Three Luigis: (Italy)
Louie had two first cousins his age named Luigi after their grandfather, so they were called Gigio Picolo, Gigio, and Gigio Grosso (Little Louie, Louie and Big Louie). They were Luigi Evangelisti, my brother Louie and Luigi Bernabei. Luigi Bernabei has passed away and was the husband of Gabriella. Luigi Evangelisti has also passed away and was the father of Alessandro and Lidano and the brother of Vittorio and Fausto. He had three sisters: Anna, Lisa and Lina. When we visit Sezze we have always stayed with Vittorio and his wife Bruna.
Pop to America: (Italy)
Uncle Frank told me the story that one day Pop was in the Pietrosanti home. The Pietrosanti family owned the ranch where Pop's father worked as a ranch forman. One day while Pop was talking to the Pietrosanti daughter in the doorway of her bedroom the father came into the house. He did not like what he saw. That sort of thing was not tolerated in the early 1900s in a small town in Italy. To keep Pop's father from losing his job, Pop first came to America in 1911. That is how things were in 1911 in a small village in Italy.
Coming to America: (Italy)
Pop went back to the US in 1926 because if he arrived in the states by a certain date he could become a naturalized citizen. So Mom and Pop were apart for eight years until Mom came to America in 1934. The story I always remembered was that Mom stayed in Italy for the eight years because she had to take of her ill mother. When her mother died then she was free to join Pop in the US.
Recently Louie told me that Mom's mother, Filomina, died two years after Pop left Italy. Mom could have come to the US after the two years buy instead waited eight years before she came. My dad, who was in the USA, warned my mother that if she did not come soon she would be trapped in a European war. Saving her two sons was enough motivation to break the ties with the town she grew up in. It must have been difficult to leave every thing she knew and was familiar with in Sezze. Finally, Pop conviced her to come to America. My Mom said she had to contibute her wedding ring to the government drive for Gold to fight the war in Afica. She was angry about that. Maybe that is what convinced her in 1934 to come to America with Joe and Louie. They come over on the on the ship Rex, an Italian ship and travelled with Maria Baio who was visiting Italy and lived in Endicott. Louie said they must have come over in second class; the first class had a larger swimming pool than the one he swam in.
Julio's story: (Italy)
Pop's cousin Cesere George belonged to a wealthy family in Sezze. The custom was that the oldest son enters the seminary. Julio, his son, told me that while in the seminary Cesere was playing pool with a monsignor. They got into an argument, the monsignor struck him and Cesere then hit him over the head with a pool stick. In Notes that Mario wrote about his father there is another version of the story that precipitate his coming to America.
His father then had him accompany his uncle to America as an object lesson, exposing him to what life was like in a less civilized setting. They accompanied a shipment of horses to the south. Mario, Julio's brother, reports in his history of the Giorgi that the uncle died in Virginia leaving Cesere alone in America. When Cesere was asked to spell his name to the authorities, he used the Italian pronunciation for the letter I so the name Giorgi came out George. In Italian the letter "e;i"e; is pronounced "e;ee"e; as in seek (and letter e is pronounced "e;eh"e; as in echo).
While in Virginia Cesere heard that Endicott Johnson Shoe Company was attracting immigrants to Endicott to work in their factories, so he went north. After an unpleasant year working on the railroad, Pop looked up Cesere who helped him get a job with EJ.
My Mom told me that Cesere had asked the local Italian Catholic priest for a loan to buy a house. The loan was denied and Cesere then asked an Italian minister for the loan. He got the loan and joined the Protestant church. Julio says that there was no loan, Cesere's wife belonged to a family who had been Protestants for generations; and that Cesere converted to the Protestant faith.
La Merla: (Italy)
Every family had a nick name in Sezze. When I was first planning to visit Sezze she said, when you arrive in the town do not ask for Evangelistis or Tassis but ask for them by nick name. Louie said that only once our Mom said something negative about Pop. She commented on the Evangelisti nick name of La Merla. She said it referred to one who soils his pants when frightened. She must have been very angry about something because I never ever heard her say anything derrogatory about Pop. I found out recently that La Merla means the blackbird
Uncle Frank and Ellis Island: (Italy)
I looked up Pop and Uncle Frank on the Ellis Isand website: www.ellisisland.org. I did not find Pop but I found Uncle Frank who arrived in 1913 at the age of 17. The ship's manifest said his final destination was his brother who lived at 40 North Steet, Endicott, NY. Sometime later Steve Morse, a colleague from IBM, gave me a link to an interface he wrote for the Ellis Island records. Using Steve Morse's link, www.stevemorse.org, I still could not fined Pop. Then I used a feature of using the beginning letters of a name. Using Evang I found him. Our name had been spelled Evang i listi.
Bernabei home: (Italy)
Uncle Frank, when he came to America, sent his savings to his mother Lucia. She saved it and then bought the house that the Evangelistis had live in for a long time and in which Pop was born. The bottom floor had had a dirt floor and Louie said that is where the animals were kept when he lived there. A marble floor had replaced the dirt floor. That is the house of that Gabriella Bernabei lives in, with her daughters Sonia and Marina and her son-in-law Max. The house is at Vicolo della Torrecella,15 in Sezze.
Sezze: (Italy)
Sezze is known for: being the Artichoke Capital of Ialy, a Passion play enacted at Easter time and for the ruins of the American bombings during WW2 -- They kept some of the ruins in tact as a memorial.
Short Bio of my Mom: (Mom)
My mother, Domenica Tassi Evangelisti, was born in Sezze (Latina) in 1898 (Louie says it was 1897) and died in Binghamton N.Y. in 1972. She married Pop in 1922, had two daughters: Lucia and Tilda. After they died she had Louie and Joe. She stayed in Italy when my father returned to America in 1926. Eight years later, in 1934, she came to America with Louie and Joe. I was born two years later. She died in 1972. Here are some stories about her:
My Mom and the world: (Mom)
When I was very young we often went on picnics with a large number of Italian friends of my parents. They would go out searching for mushrooms and dandelion leaves for dandelion wine. They cooked pasta in a huge pot over a fire. But later in life my parents did not socialize very much. My Mom always wanted to stay at home. She got upset when ladies called on the phone to gossip. She did not want to hear all those bad stories. My Mom visited Louie once while he was in college - for his graduation and she visited me once at college - for my graduation.
Joe's and Louie's Hats: (Mom)
Several times when I was young my Mom brought me to a trunk in a back room of our apartment. It was the trunk she brought to America in 1934. She dug to the bottom of the trunk and located two black hats. They were shaped like short cylinders with tassels on them. It was during the war and she whispered that these were the hats Joe and Louie wore when they dressed up in their uniforms on special school occasions. She said not to tell anyone.
Passing on Cookies: (Mom)
We often visited Maria Baio. I played in the basement of her house with all the other kids. Mom came down and brought me to the side. She said that if I was offered cookies that I should say I did not want any - three times. After that I could accept cookies. She said that Mrs. Baio might not have enough cookies for all the adults. That incident like a lot of others told me the place a child should play among adults. We came second.
Ottawa and Torquato: (Mom)
When I was about nine my Mom and Pop took me to Ottawa Canada. Filippo Tassi was immigrating to Canada from Sezze. My Mom did not like travelling but to be there to welcome Filippo was something you did; it was a matter of family. Filippo is still there and is married to Bianca who is also from Sezze. They have four children: Rosetta, Sabina, Giuseppina and Giovanni (John played football at Montana State
Suits: (Mom)
Whenever anyone in the family needed a suit, Mom went with them to Shapiro's Men's Shop. It was the best store Men's store in Endicott. After a suit was selected she would negotiated with Mr. Shapiro for the price. He seemed to enjoyed the process. I am sure that this how things were done in Europe before Mom and he came to America. After the price was set, she would then ask for a free tie. Then they would negotiate which tie -- an expensive or a less costly one. When Mr. Shapiro retired and his sons took over the business she attempted the same process. One of the sons laughed at Mom when she began the negotiation. She never bought another suit there again. My college graduation
Mom, the Cook: (Mom)
Mom had about thirty recepies which she rotated. I never saw her cook a meal from someone else's recipe. She always put on a complete meal- starting with a pasta and ending with fruit and cheese. Once, when I was not living at home, I visited unexpectly. She showed me what was in the oven. She was baking ham and cheese sandwiches for her and Pop. She said since it was only for the two of them, she didn't make a full meal. It seemed she was apologizing. Years later the lady who lived above us when I was young, Dina Pazzaglini, said to me: " You know your mother was a gourmet cook." I guess I took her great meals for granted
Alien: (Mom)
During the war two men came to the house and talked to Pop in quiet voices. Then they went to the radio and clipped two wires. Years later I found out it was the short wave radio and they did so because Mom was an alien. About the same time I went with Mom to Night school to study for her to be nationalized. After she took the test she asked me who the 16th president was. I said: Lincoln and she exclaimed how should I know who the 16th the 17th or the 18th president was. She missed "the 16th" when they covered Lincoln. Recently I saw in Louie's scrapbook a picture of her in 1942 with a group who just obtained their citizenship paper's
Short Bio of Pop: (Pop)
My father, Paul Evangelisti, was born in Italy, in Sezze (Latina) in 1888 and died in Binghamton N.Y. in 1972 - three weeks after my Mom died. He came to America in 1911, returned to Italy in 1920 and came back to America in 1926. He worked in the Endicott Johnson Shoe Factory. Here are some stories about him.Socks: (Pop)
When Pop first lived in America, he lived in rooming houses. He would wash his socks in the bathroom sink. He always made sure to rinse the sink so that no threads remained in the sink and he would admonish his Italian friend to also keep the sink clean. He was concerned about the reputation of the Italians in Endicott.
First Arrived: (Pop )
When he came to America, the Ellis Island Records show that his destination was Luigi Zaccheo in Carnegie Pa. He said he looked up cousins named Giovanni and Filippo Zaccheo who got him a job on a railroad. Pop always said he worked at St. Johnsville. I found out recently that it is located between Utica and Albany, just west of Fonda, NY. The railroad might have been the F J and G RR -- the Fonda, Johnstown and Gloversville Railroad
The Army: (Pop)
Pop served in the US Army in World War 1. Because aliens were not allowed to carry arms, he served in the Ambulance Corps. I often asked Pop about his service in the army and he never told me any stories. Recently Louie told me a story Pop told him. Pop was serving in a tent with many cots placed very closely. One wounded soldier complained to Pop that the leg of a patient next to him was bothering him. Pop lifted the leg and got no response. He found that the wounded soldier was dead.
Getting back to America: (Pop)
Alien veterans were entitled to citizenship if they were residing in the U.S. by a given date in 1926. In those days the country was tightening up on immigration. Pop was living in Italy with my mother and my brother Louie -- and my mother was pregnant with my brother Joe. He left Italy to meet the deadline. My mother stayed in Italy to care for her ill mother. She was the only girl in the family and it was her responsibility to care of her mother in her old age. After eight years she joined Pop in America.Cemetery: (Pop)
When I was about four, Pop would take me on a walk up Main St., into Endwell. We lived in Endicott at 2004 1/2 Main St. About a half mile east of us was a cemetery on the south side of the street. It had a gate which was about ten feet high. On each side was wall which began at a height of three feet and ended at six feet at the gate. Pop let me walk from the beginning of the wall to the end. He held my hand. I do not remember any conversation. We just walked together with me going higher and higher.
Discipline: (Pop)
When I was young and I gave my Mom a difficult time, she would say, wait till you father come home. When he came home he would take out his belt or his shaving strap and chase me around table. I soon realized he could catch me but he did not. I soon it was a ritual that he performed for my Mom.
Buying Things: (Pop)
When I was about five, I asked Pop for two cents to by a new pencil. He said no, we had a lot of short ones home. That gives you an idea how we were not much in the way of consumers. They replaced things but seldom bought a novety. Louie and Joe bought the first TV that came in our house. We used the same washing machine that had a wringer on the top for years. I often got my arm caught in it. It had a safety feature to release the wringes when an arm was caught in it. Finally Louie and Joe bought them a front loading washing machine.
Victory garden: (Pop)
Pop had a victory garden during the second world war. The government encourage people to grow their own vegetables. I used to go with him, up Main street, to a large lot that had been subdivided into smaller lots. His friends also farmed there. It was a community activity. I remember, in particular, the fava beans. I never saw them at the A&P across the street.
Sword and Pistol: (Pop)
Once, during a time that I was playing "War", I asked Pop if I could buy a pistol. He the said no. A couple days later I presented me a carved pistol. It was a German luger. uring the same time we played "Robin Hood". We made swords from fruit crates which were made of thin soft wood. One day Pop presented me with a carved wooden sword; it was made of oak. I won a lot of sword fights after that.
Belmar Vacation: (Pop)
When I was about twelve Dina Pazzaglini, the lady upstairs, went on a vacation to Belmar NJ. She recommended Belmar to my Mom and so we went there the next year. It was hot on the beach and I got a tan than made me look black. My Mom and Pop stayed on the beach under an umbrella. But Pop's leg was exposed to the sun. He got a severe sunburn with blisters, but never complained once.
Pop and Meals
About once a month pop made polenta. For a couple hours he would sprinkle corn meal in a pot of boing water. He would add it a little of a time because it was course corn meal -- not the homogenized kind that we find in stores now. When it was cooked he poured it on a board about four feet by three feet. That was the same board my Mom mad home make linguini. The other thing he did was grated the cheese every time we had pasta. He would wait until a few minutes before we ate to grate it. He never grated it earlier. Evidently that was the right time to do it.
Meat and Bread: (Pop)
In our family, it was the custom to eat meat with bread. Twice in my life I decided to put meat in my mouth without following it by a piece of bread. Each time my father caught me and said: "What's wrong with the bread. Is it made of flour." In a peasant society , you lived on bread. Meat was like a condiment. At our meals the first course was pasta, rice soup -- so thick your could not see the broth -- or pasta e fagioli. These were the "filler ups". In spite of that you had to eat meat with bread. It was close to taboo not to.
Pop in the basement: (Pop)
Pop would be in the basement two times a day to tend the coal furnace. I often went down with him in the evening while he removed the cinders and added coal. When he develped angina, he made a carrier to help him to carry the can of cinders out to the curb on thursday nights. When I realized that it was difficult for him to handle the cinders, I came home early every thursday to carry out the cinders.
His basement was his workroom. It was always neat and ordered. There was separate room where there were casks for storing wine and where he kept his tools. The room was locked and he kept a key in the main basement. We had an unspoken agreement that I could use the tools, but I had to return them to their proper location. I often used them and always returned them.
In the basement he he would fix the soles to my shoes. He had a metal stand that held the shoes. He would put a number of tacs in his mouth and remove them one at a time to tac into the soles. After he added new soles and heels, he would send me to the cobler on North St. to stitch the soles to the shoes.
The basement was also the place where he cut my hair. he placed a one foot log on top of a chair and placed a cloth around my neck. Then he used mechanical hair cutters to cut my hair. When i got older, I went with my frends to a barber for my hair cuts, One of the barbers was Mr. Giordano who owned a shop on North St.
Wine: (Pop)
Before I went to college, I helped Pop to make wine every two years. Because of World War II, cork was not available, so my Pop saved his corks and reused them. During war casks were also not availabe, so Pop obtained vinegar casks from Tedeschi's Italian grocery store on the North Side. Since it was vital to have clean casks, one of the tasks was to purify the casks with hydrogen sulfide. He did this by igniting a stick of sulfur and placing it in the cask. It was attached to a string and was about six inches long. He said there was a secret to doing it right. It had to do with how far down in the cask to place it and how long to keep it in the cask before sealing the cask with a cork. When he was older he had a stroke which affected his speech. He never passed the secrets onto me.
Wine making began every two years by picking up the grapes at the railroad station. The Italian men in Endicott would order grapes and they would be delivered to Endicott in railroad cars. It would take us several trips by automobile to get them to the house. Pop transported them in a 1937 Ford which he bought in 1939.
The grapes were first crushed, and then squeezed by a press. Since we did not get much grape juice from the press, I asked my Pop why did we bother to go through the pressing process. He said that the skins had the important ingredients for making good wine. Then the grapes were fermented in open casks. The fermenting of the grapes cause a loud bubling on top of the cask. The bubling sound was actually scarry.
Pop had the reputation for making excellent wine. Years after Pop died we found a bottle of his wine. We opened it and it tasked nutty -- an expression i had heard before but never expierenced. After Pop died, my brother Joe went to the basement to find the wine making euipment, but was disappointd to find Pop had sold it.
Being Angry: (Pop)
Pop had tried to get extra years credited to his pension at EJ for the years he worked before he went to Italy. A friend and he both tried to get the credit and failed. Years later Pop found out that the friend had attempted again and succeeded but did not tell Pop. Pop was angry at him for a long time. Prior to this Pop played cards with his friend and other friends every Friday night. After finding out that the friend had not clued him in he stopped playing cards with the friend
College: (Pop)
When I went away to college Pop gave me a check book and said that I should write the checks and he would make the deposits. In those days the student payed for his own tuition at registration with a check. Pop did not earn a lot of money as a shoeworker. Every week he would put his pay check on the bureau until he went to the bank to cash it. I would often see it and I never saw a check for more than fifty dollars. The total cost of going to college for me was ten thousand dollars for the four years. I had a small scholarship and worked in college and at IBM during the summers. In the four years I was in college, Pop and I never discussed the check book. I wrote checks and every once in a while, the monthly statement showed a deposit,
University Story: (Pop)
When I was in college, my father told me a story about a farmer who sent his son to the University of Naples. The son returned home for a visit. One evening he and his father went for a walk. The son looked up at the moon and said: "That's the same moon we have in Naples." The father replied with great consternation: "I sent you to the University and that's what you have to say."
The Ant Story: (Pop)
Several times Pop told me a story about an ant. The ant was returning to her nest one day when he found himself in front of a twig. Every time he tried to climb over the twig he failed to get over it. He saw that he could go around it, but he kept trying to climb over it. Finally after many attempts he succeded. That was a story with a moral.
Courage: (Pop)
Mom and Pop always used postcards and not letters when writing to me after I left home for college. In her postcards, three quarters of the contents were in the regards section -- regards from this person and that person.
After I left college and I was ill in the hospital, Pop sent me a postcard. He spoke very little and the postcard was enough to say what he wanted to say. On that postcard he said: "Fa Corragio." In English it might be translated to "have courage". But in Italian "fa" translates to "do" or "make" depending on the context. To me Pop's postcard, which I still have, said "make courage".
Tonsils: (Endicott)
My earliest recollection was being in hospital after having my tonsils removed. I said to the nurses: "voglio aqua fresca" but they didn't understand I was asking for fresh water. When Joe and Louie came after school, they translated for me and got the water. My Mom said I was too young to have remembered that because I had the operation when I was very young so I dreamed it or it happened.
Temper Tantrum: (Endicott)
One day when I was about three I had a temper tantrum. My Mom handled that kind of behavior as a good Sezzesian would -- by tying me to my crib. She used a sheet and enlisted my brothers to help. They seemed reluctant but like good little Italian boys they obeyed. My struggle lasted only a short while; I was smart enough to know when I was defeated. I learned early how Mom dealt with a little boy's temper tantrum.
Dina: (Endicott)
Before Kindergarten I spent a lot of time with Dina Pazzaglini, the lady upstairs. I would go upstairs and just hang around while she did her housework. Dina told me later that we talked in both English and Italian. I've always kept contact with Dina and visit her often when I go to Endicott.
Lost and Scared: (Endicott)
When I was about five, I came home from playing and found the house empty. I got panicky and started crying. In desperation I went looking for my parents at their friend's homes. I went to several homes in a radius of a block from our house. I did not find them and came home- still crying. There they were. That made me a very happy guy.
Veronica: (Endicott)
When I was about five, my parents would often visit the Seele family. Their daughter, Veronica, and I would hide behind the couch and play. I remember her trying to kiss me (or did I try to kiss her.) We also played an 'innocent version' of Doctor and Nurse.
Endicott schools: (Endicott)
I went from Kindergarten through 6th grade at Henry B. Endicott Grammar School, three years of Junior High school at St. Ambrose and three years at Union Endicott High School.
Kindergarten: (Endicott)
When it was time for me to go to Kindergarten, I did not want to go. Each day my Mom would take me to school and then sneak away. One day I saw her sneak away in conspiracy with the teacher. I got angry at the teacher and tried to kick her.
Bully: (Endicott)
In first and second grade there was a bully named Ron who chased me home from school a lot. I asked Louie what to do and he said to beat him up. Thanks Louie for the advice. Ron was about three times bigger than me.
Dr Carlucci: (Endicott)
During a polio scare in the late 40s, i had symptoms of polio. Mom and Pop called Dr Carlucci to visit the house. I knew this was serious because we had free medical benefits from Endicott Johnson Shoe Company -- but you had to visit the Medical Center. They asked Dr Carlucci if I had polio and she said we have to wait and see. I stayed in bed for a week and the then the sypmtoms -- stiff legs -- went away.
Dr Carlucci, a women, was married to a retired Protestant minister. There were not many Italian Protestants in Endicott. Pop was a friend of Reverand Carlucci and for some reason Louie received a stature of a black and white dog from the Reverand. For years it stood on a landing in our main hall way. When Pop became depressed, after he retired, Mom would give him tasks to do around the house to keep him occupied. She had him paint the black and white dog. When Mom and Pop passed away, and Louie went through the house, the dog was missing. Later he found that it had been given to Nancy, Louie's daughter.
Bikes: (Endicott)
I inherited my brother Louie's yellow bike. Once I lost my breaks going down Devil's Hill -- a street a couple blocks east in Endwell. The street was perpendicular to Main St. and ran down hill toward the Sesquhanna River. The River ran paralled to Main St -- south of it. I was riding down the hill when my breaks failed and I failed to make the turn at the bottom. I ended in a field.
The idea of having a new bike was not to be expected. I was really impressed when Jim Cuddy was given a new Schwinn bike. It was a beatiful blue. I think he was told not to let anyone ride it, but from time to time he let us ride it. Ray Wilhlem and Norm England, Jim and I hung out in those days of grammer school at Henry B. Endicott school.
Patty Rossi: (Endicott)
When I was in the 4th and 5th grade at Henry B. Endicott school, I spent a lot of time with Norm England and Ray Wilhelm. We all had a crush on and competed for the attention of Patty Rossi. In 6th grade she went to St. Ambrose School. I followed in the 7th grade.
St. Ambrose Junior High School: (Endicott)
I enjoyed the three good years at St. Ambrose. I remember the pastor was Monsignor Alexis Hopkins and the curates were Fr. "Moose" Moriarty, Fr. Curran, and Fr. Charles Ayelesworth. Fr. Aylesworth said a very fast mass. He would drum his fingers on the altar waiting for the organist to finish the hymns.
The nuns I remember are Sister Matilde for ninth grade, Sister Honorine for eighth and Sr. Helen. Maureen Coleman remembers Sr. Rose for seventh grade. Fran Melia remembers Sr. Regis and Sr. Ann Richards. Frank Zedek who was a year older than us, remembers Sr. Pierre. Frank wrote a story about her and his younger sister on his website.
Fran Melia and Maureen Coleman helped me compile a list of the members of our class at St. Ambrose:
Anne Audrey, Matt Brown, Milo Brunick, Barbara Campbell, Mary Ellen Cavanaugh, John Cevette, Maureen Coleman, Jim Cuddy, Margaret Driscoll Pendell, Jim Driscoll, Chuck Eisworth, Carlo Evangelisti, Fran Fairchild, Ed Gehl, Archie Grassi, Mary Lu Hammond, Louise Hickey, Ron Kocak, Barb Loftus, Janet Mack Higham, John Malia, Dave Mandyck, Fran Melia, Patricia Nestor Hughes, Joyce Reardon England (deceased), Patty Rossi Di Santis, Nancy Sawicki, Jack Selner (deceased), Jim Simpson, Bob Walters, and Rita Wickizer Mandyck.
That is 31 names but I seem to remember 20 boys and 20 girls. Who am I Missing? I think Jerry Orman and Patty Gyles were in our class.
Trying Hard: (Endicott)
In the eighth grade I found it difficult to stay quietly in my seat. I often spoke to classmates nearby. Sister Honorine was always after me to behave. One day I decided to try not talking during class. At the end of the day I thought I had done fairly well - better than most days. At the end of the day Sister asked me to stay after class. When everyone had left she said: "Carlo why don't you pick a day and on that day really try to behave in class."
Junior High School Graduation: (Endicott)
When I was in ninth grade I was leaving the house by way of the back stairs. Mom stopped me and gave me a graduation gift: a watch. I was so excited that I ran to rush down the steps and slipped. I bumped down the first flight of steps on my rear. I had never been given a gift like that before. I couldn't believe it.
At graduation from St. Ambrose, I had to give a speech. I had difficulty writing it so Sister Matilde wrote one for me. I memorized it and with my parents in the bleachers, I gave the speech. Things went well but three quarters through I forgot the next line. Every eye was on me. Every thing was dead still. Suddenly I remembered the line and finished the speech. That was very close to a total disaster.
Endicott Johnson Factory: (Endicott)
I sometimes visited Pop at work. He worked on a lasting machine which formed the toe of the shoe to a wooden last. He would work on a rack of shoes and do the same operation on maybe twenty shoes. Then he would clip off a section of card attached to the rack. At the end of the week he would count his coupons and turn them in at the factory. This was known as piece work. You were paid for how many racks you worked on. He told me some guys worked fast to make more money. He said he worked at a moderate rate.
When I visited him all his fellow workers greeted me when I arrived. Most spoke Italian. Sometimes I ate with him at the EJ cafeteria. Other times I went to the cafeteria with classmates. They had a bakery at the cafeteria where you could by bread for ten cents a loaf. But is was white bread and did not have the texture of the bread my Mom made home -- once a week.
Meals (Endicott)
Our meals started with a pasta, followed by meat and vegetables. When it was time to eat the meat coarse you were expected to eat the meat with bread. Once I violated the rule and ate a piece of meat without following it by bread. I followed it by another piece of meat and Pop caught it and said: "what is wrong with the bread, Carlo, is it made of farina (flour)". Italian peasants did not have a lot of meat so you stretched it with bread and I had violated a taboo.
Mom either made her own pasta or cooked rigatoni. For home made pasta she mixed flour, egg and water. Then she rolled out the pasta in to a flat sheet. She did this on a wooden plank about three by four feet. She rolled the sheet into four inch wide rolls. She cut this to make flat pastas. I once asked how she was able to cut them so each cut piece was so precisely. She said she started doing it when she was a child. She made sauce on Sunday morning and put any meat she cooked in the sauce, except lamb. I never saw rare roast beef until I went to college. She cooked enough pasta on Sunday to last the whole week -- and during the week it got better because in, the refrigerator, the meat sauce permeated the pasta.
Sometimes instead of pasta we had minestra (thick soup). It was pasta fagioli -- as southern Italians call it "pasta fasool" -- or a soup of rice in chicken broth, so thick you could stand a spoon in it. Then at the end of the meal she served cheese and fruit. I once asked her why she served cheese and she replied: "to degrease the mouth.". I guess it was like the "goop" auto mechanics used on their hands to dissolve the grease on their hands.
She cooked the meals, served them and washed the dishes. One day Pop put up a schedule for Joe and I to wash and dry the dishes. Mom must of told Pop that doing all the work was getting her down. Pop was adamant that we do those dishes which was not like him. Making Mom happy was important to him.
Uncle Frank and Aunt Mary (Endicott)
Once, we visited Rochester with the some of the George Family. When we arrived I ran into their restaurant -- the Koffe Kup, at 376 State St. Aunt Mary exclaimed: did they bring all of Sezze. Luckily my parents did not hear her
There are several things i remember about those trips. Uncle Frank made his own soap for washing dishes and once when I was scooping ice cream, he told me that was not the way to do it. He then showed me how to scrap the ice cream instead of digging into the ice cream.
When they visited us, they often took us to a farm outside Binghamton, NY -- the Santalucia farm. They had a Model A Ford and They also had ducks running about. I recently called Santalucia family and talked to Andrew Santalucia who lived at 13 Ostrum Rd in Kirkwood, NY, He remembered our visits.
A SummerJob: (Endicott)
After ninth grade I got a job as a custodian at Saint Ambrose working with Joe Nester. When Joe left I replace him. The full-time custodian asked me what hourly wage I wanted. I asked for 85 cents per hour and Monsignor Hopkins said he could get an adult for that amount. I caved in and took what he offered. That summer I worked all alone. It was the summer my fiends learned to smoke cigarettes. They would buy a pack and pass it around. By September when we returned to class they were no longer passing them around. So I did not start smoking until college.
In High school our group did not date much. The girls hung out with girls and guys hung out with guys. At dances, when the music started, the guys would cross the dance floor, ask the girls to dance, and then go back to their side. I found it very difficult to even call a girl and just talk on the phone. One day I took a chance and called Polly Senio and got a date to go to the movies. A group was to meet at a particular movie theater. Polly and I went to the movie but the others did not show up. I kept looking around to see if the others arrived. I could not figure out why Polly was irritated with me, until I realized I was showing more interest in the others arriving at the theater than being with her. I was clueless.
Jim Cuddy: (Endicott)
In my senior year of high school I was the campaign manager of Jim Cuddy's run for president of the student government. We lost. Maybe I did not work hard enough. But later Jim was elected class president and I became class treasurer. Later I figured out that the exposure during the student government campaign had yielded a reward.
Discovery in High School: (Endicott)
In high school physics I learned about the formula d=1/2*a*t*t for computing the distance and object falls as a function of time. I started computing distance for succeeding times and noticed they formed a geometric progression -- we had studied those earlier in algebra. That was the first original thing I learned on my own. Later in college I found that a series of recorded data turned out to fit a parabola. That was a lab report worth taking a weekend to write.
Fraternity and Duda: (College)
When I was a freshman in college, I was not going to join a fraternity. When I was rushed by KA, they said I could become steward in my last two years if I served as assistant steward for two years. I would serve as assistant with no salary and as steward I would get free room and board. I served two years as assistant and one year as steward. When Don Stadtmuler became president, he wanted to save money so he found someone who would run for the office without a salary. I was angry with that but as was my way, I did not allow myself to feel it. The last year Charlie (Duda) Baltay, who was a good friend, got me a job serving tables at his fraternity, Alpha Delta Phi, for board. It worked out fine.
Dating and college: (College)
In my freshman year in college I dated a girl from Skidmore. During the date I was in the living room of a house with my date. I began looking at magazines. I did not realize at the time that during a conversation one did not look at magazines. I was nervous and clueless.
Studying with Duda: (College)
During our junior year Duda and I decided to study for differential equations together. We were in different classes but we were going to take the same final exam. From our study sessions I learned how Charlie approached learning. He did not use the standard approach of solving a lot of problems as practice. He analyzed all the types of equations we had learned to solve. Each type of equation had a different kind of solution. He placed the types of equations into a structure depending on their order and degree. Then the solutions for each type of equation made more sense. When it was time to take the exam all you had to do was find the equation in this structure of equations and remember the method of solution. Duda is now chairman of Physics at Yale. Staying above the details served him well.
Two Friends: (College)
In college I had a friend who came to the Newman (Catholic) Club meetings with me. We went to all the lectures by Jesuits from near by Auriesville. Years later I asked him if he had the same ideas about God that he had in college. He replied: "I think now, that He doesn't micromanage as much as I thought He did."
When I was in the Newman Club I traveled to Chicago and Cornell to attend conferences. At Cornell I met another friend from high school, whose father had hosted the Appalachian Convention: a national meeting of gangsters. The only thing unusual about this friend is that he drove to high school in a black Cadillac. Two different friends -- you get to know all kinds of people in life.
College and a trip to Italy: (College)
During college I worked summers at IBM and made good money. One summer Mom and Pop were going to Italy for the first time since before World War II. They said they were going there to sell Mom's land for my college expenses. I wanted to go with them but I felt I could not ask -- since the trip was to finance my education. Later I figured they used the excuse of selling the property to see Sezze one more time before they died.
Grades: (College)
In college to keep my scholarship I had to stay on the Dean's list. The conditions for staying on the Dean's list were that you needed a B average and only one C. If you had one C you needed to balance it with an A. During the first semester I was afraid of loosing my scholarship. I worked very hard and surprised myself with a high grade. For the next seven semesters my grade went down a little each semester as I socialize a little more each semester, until the last semester when I got all B's and a C and an A. So I kept my scholarship for the full four years. My freshman scholarship was renewed so I had it for two years and for the last two years I had the Western Electric Prize scholarship.
Year in Scotland: (College)
When I was in college there was a program for studying abroad. It was a year at St. Andrew's University in Scotland -- but it did not have engineering. Each year one student was selected and I was selected to go for my junior year. I turned it down, because they did not have engineering and I would have to come back and still do two years of engineering to get my EE degree. My dad had taken a medical disability retirement and I did not want to him to pay for an extra year of of education. The President of Union, when I told him I declined the year at St Andrews, looked at me in disbelief. I often thought how different my life would have been if I had taken the year at St.Andrews. For one thing I would not have met Lucille at the end of my junior year and we would not have had our four kids.
Homework: (College)
In college I did my homework every night. At midnight I dropped my pencil and went to bed, even if I was in the middle of a problem. Many other guys did not do their homework regularly and so crammed for hour exams that came every few weeks. I was always prepared for them. But I saved the weekends for doing lab reports that were due the next week. When I began the lab reports on Saturday morning I would have difficulty writing the discussion and conclusion sections. I would postpone finishing the reports until Sunday night, and then I would dash them off. So, many weekends were blown trying to find the energy to get the lab reports done. If I did them Saturday, I could have had fun for the rest of the weekend. I took me years to learn not to be a perfectionist when writing.
Meeting Lucille: (College)
I met Lucille at the Newman Club Summer School held in Chicopee MA. It lasted for a week in the summer after my sophmore year in college. I talked to her several times during the week. When it was time to leave the school, I asked for her address. She said: "you'll never write to me". But I did. In my junior year I took a course in transformers. Our transformer class took a field trip to Pittsfield MA, where GE had a transformer plant. Lucille worked there, designing them. During the trip I remembered she worked there and I called her to have lunch. Soon after I invited her for a college weekend party. Then she came for several weekends.
I was graduated from Union College on a Sunday and went to work at IBM on a Monday. After three months I went into the Air Force and attended Communications Officer School. Then I was sent to Okinawa. While I was stationed in Okinawa. we kept writing. When I got home Lucille and I were married. I then returned to IBM.
Learning Programming: (IBM)
When I was working in Endicott I had free time and wanted to learn to program. So I asked Doug Andrews for suggestions for a program I could write. He gave me a very complicated program. I could not even get it started because it was so complicated. Then I was assigned another task and for months I thought I worked for a computer company and but I could not learn to program. Months later I had free time and I did learn to program. I learned to start with small programs and work myself up to more difficult ones.Character Recognition: (IBM)
At IBM I started working in character recognition. My first project was to write Boolean expressions to recognize the ten numerals represented as ones and zeroes on a 7x10 matrix. I had difficulty getting started but soon they assigned another person to work with me. I taught him how to design the logic statement and then things moved along fine. I wrote half the logic and he did the other half.Allan and State Hospital: (IBM)
While living at Dehart Avenue in Endicott, I began going to do volunteer work at the Binghamton State Hospital. Alan Atrubin, who was in the Character Recognition group, joined me. We visited a ward with instant coffee and pastry and we hung out and talked with the patients. Allan had a small Austin Healy, so part of the time he and I drove to Binghamton in a low flung sports car. In 1962 Al went to Rochester MN when our group was transferred there. My Manager needed to send someone to Yorktown for a year and knew my parents were in Endicott, so he sent me.
ASDD: (IBM)
I was sent to the ASDD lab in Yorktown. I had learned to program in Endicott and continued programming at ASDD. I also wrote character recognition logic. Then I worked on a project in telecommunications and helped write flowcharts. Two different projects to do medical diagnosis by computers followed. Then I went to Research and programmed in graphics. We made a movie of one of the systems we developed. The system allowed a user to put blocks on a screen and interconnect them. The arrangement of blocks could represent an analogue computer or any such application that used block diagrams.
Graphics: (IBM)
I applied for my first patent in the graphic group and had my second paper published while in the group. These were all joint activities with other researchers. Later the group was managed by Les Belady. It was later was dismantled and we all went to work on a project called System A. It was to be a new operating system for a new large computer. I also worked on a project for signature verification. We wrote programs to compare two signatures and determine if one of them came from the same person. After that I worked in graphics with Dave Bantz and Satish Gupta. The last project I worked on was Image processing under Fred Mintzer.
Trip to England: (IBM)
In 1970 I was scheduled to give a paper in England but Lucille did not want to travel with a three month old Celeste. Frank Sauer helped to persuade Lucille to go on the trip since my ticket, hotels and meals were paid by IBM. In Cambridge England we went to bed and Celeste was wide awake due to jet lag. In Paris Lucille breast fed Celeste in a restaurant and we got a lot of stares from the locals.
SRI: (IBM)
In 1970 I went to IBM's Scientific Research Institute for three months. We were expected to stay in NY City for the week, but I sneaked home Wednesday evening by bus and got back Thursday morning. One of the things I did while in the city was to go to the ballet. I went to modern dance performances and enjoyed them a lot.
Masters Degree: (IBM)
In Endicott, while I was working at IBM, I began taking courses for a master's degree from Syracuse University. After taking the courses it was time to do a thesis. At work, in the character recognition group I was in, we had tapes with million of scanned numeric characters. I developed a method for determining a set of dissimilar characters for each number and a way of calculating the closeness of an unknown to these dissimilar samples. The closeness to a dissimilar determined how I recognized an unknown character.
I had difficulty writing my masters thesis. I ran so many computer runs that my advisor said I had enough data for a doctoral dissertation. He said to just write up what I had. When I started writing it, I could not get past the first sentence. I struggled with it like I had with lab reports except I did not have a Sunday night deadline to galvanize me. During that time, my year at IBM ASDD was up so I put the thesis aside. Later I found out there was a seven-year deadline from when you started the masters program to completing it. So every day at lunchtime I wrote for ten minutes. Before long it was done. I defended it when Paul was born. The committee suggested some changes. When they found out that I had to be home with Lucille to help out, they accepted it without any changes. It took me years to learn that the first sentence did not have to be perfect. Years later I submitted a paper to a journal which was essentially my masters thesis.
Before the wedding: (Endicott 1960)
Before we were married I visited Lucille in Pittsfield and returned home on a bus. We had split the tasks for the wedding and one of my tasks was to get the wedding announcements. The bus stopped in Albany for a bus change and I happened see a store that took orders for printing. So placed an order for the announcements and had them shipped back to Pittsfield by bus.
Our garden: (Endicott 1960)
After Dehart Avenue we lived on Naticoke Avenue for a year. There we were offered a plot of land by the landlord for a garden. We planted it and at the end of the year we harvested a lot of vegetables. I did not know that Lucille was weeding the garden during the day. I came home at night and watched the vegetables grow not knowing that they needed weeding. We canned a lot of tomatoes and pickles. We still have some of the canned pickles. Then we moved to Lakeland Avenue in Mohegan Lake for two years. We bought the house on Orchard Rd. in 1964.Auto Accident and Orchard Rd: (Jefferson Valley)
When we were in the house for a short while we got into an automobile accident. I hurt my arm and Lucille hurt her leg. I did tasks that needed us to go down the steps. She did tasks that needed two hands. We got by as a team. Lucille needed several operations on her leg. It took eight years for our trial to take place. We got essentially what we were offered when the accident took place. The moral here is that it is not worthwhile suing.
Visits to Sezze: (Jefferson Valley)
In 1970 I was first able to visit Italy, when I gave a paper in England. Lucille, three-month-old Celeste, and I visited Italy and four other counties. In 1985 I gave a paper in Florence and was able to visit Sezze for the second time. In 1999 Lucille and I visited Sezze one more time. Later we took Celeste to meet her Italian cousins. After Celeste was married we went with Michael to visit vineyards on the Chianti trail from Florence to Sienna.
When I was going to Sezze the first time, in 1970, I was sporting a beard I had started during a snow storm in 1968. When I told Mom that I was going to Sezze, she said: do not go to Sezze wearing that beard. Well, I did. When my cousin, Vittorio, was showing me around Sezze, he spotted several women, dressed in black, in a courtyard. He introduced me as the son of Mimucha, which was my mom's nickname. They immediately warmed up to me. But one of the ladies grabbed my beard, yanked it, and said: che e questa barba -- which translates to: what is this beard. I guess my Mom knew the culture of the town she was born in.
Before I went to Sezze in 1970, I knew the names of my cousins, from hearing about them when we received letters from Italy. When I planned my first trip to Italy my mom told me which cousins were the children of her brothers and my dad did the same. That is when I became interested in our genealogy. When I arrived in Sezze, I began asking questions about previous generations. I remember being told: "we don't know -- all the old people are gone". When I got back from Italy, a friend, John Mee, gave me copies of the forms used by the Mormans: one form for marriages and their children and another form for pedigrees -- parents of an individual and parents of the parents. I put the marriage and pedigree information on my website. The moral of this story is to get information and family stories from "the old people" before they are gone.
The beach and trips: (Jefferson Valley)
During the summer we often went our beach on Lake Osceola in Jefferson Valley. After work I would go directly to the beach and Lucille would be there with a picnic lunch so the kids could play longer at the beach. We spent many hours at the Beach. When the weather was not so favorable we sometimes took trips on weekends. The Museum of Natural History was a favorite place to visit. *to do: add story of king of the raft, swimming to the rock and Steph and his kids visiting the museum
Celeste's trips: (Jefferson Valley)
I took automobile trips with Celeste and Clare McMullen. On one trip we went up the Connecticut shore. At every motel, the girls would rearrange the furniture. Another time we went up the Maine shore. I would drop them off at a town to explore and later I picked them up. There were also trips to Malls in White Plains. After delivering them to a Mall I was expected to get lost while they looked for boys to flirt with. I also often took Celeste and some of her girl friends roller-skating at a former movie theater in Baldwin Place. Sometimes I would rent skates and joined in.
Lake George: (Jefferson Valley)
Several times I took the boys to Lake George. They rented water skis and risked their lives. Once we rented wind surfers and Stephen went down up the lake with the wind. He evidently couldn't tack; the guys who did the renting picked him up with boat. Celeste went with us on some of the trips. We lied about her age and rented water skis. She was as much of a hellion as the boys.
A visit back to Endicott: (Jefferson Valley)
Once, when my mother was getting elderly and I visited her in Endicott, she said to me in Italian "Carlo -- you won't believe this until it happens to you. La vechhia e la miseria". The translation is "old age is misery". Several times I told this proverb to friends who grew up in the Bronx. A number of them said that in the Bronx they often heard "la vechhia e la corogna". The first time I heard this I asked "What does corogna mean"? My friend replied: "carrion" -- old age is dead meat
Proverbs (Jefferson Valley)
When Uncle Frank was in a nursing home I would visit him. One day I told him I had heard an Italian proverb, I told it to him and he came back with a retort to it. Then I told him another Italian proverb and he came back with a retort to that.
One proverb was: Che va piano va sano va lontano -- ma mia arriva, which translates to: He who goes slowly goes safely and a goes a long way, and the retort was: but he never gets there. The other was: Una mano la altra mana -- e due mani lava la faccia, which translates to: One hand washes the other hand -- the retort was: and two hands wash the face.
Later I heard another proverb which I told to a deli owner in Ossining. It was: La vecchia e la carogna -- ma che non arriva e' un vergonia, which translates to: Old age is carrion -- but for he who doesn't get there -- it is a shame.
Picasso: (Jefferson Valley)
We had a cat named Picasso -- when she died we felt bad, especially Lucille and Celeste. We buried Picasso in the back yard. If you ever come to our home look in the back for a cinderblock -- that is headstone where Picasso is buried.
8:10 PM 10/26/2008