Great sad and evocative stories from a past that e...

2008-12-28T18:39:00.000-05:00

Great sad and evocative stories from a past that each year fades further away. Being about your age and an Italian from Toronto who grew up in the now non-existent (we all moved to the suburbs)Little Italy everything you write reminds me of my youth--everything! How is it possible two Italian immigrant cultures a thousand miles away can be so similar? I have my Aunts I had my Nonno and Nonna;as I child I took it all for granted and probably despised it, as an adult I now feel a terrific nostalgia for those roots now mostly cut away. Beautiful writing and necessary to record a beautiful past. Congratulations.

Beautiful story

2006-05-11T18:08:00.000-05:00

Beautiful story

A wonderfully bittersweet bit of reminiscing. Sout...

2006-04-07T11:01:00.000-05:00

A wonderfully bittersweet bit of reminiscing. South Philly's own Proust.
I remember those little stores and buying "pimpleballs", cuting them in half and watching the guys play half-ball ( I was terrible at it bad eye sight and being a lefty trying to bat right). Whenever on went on the roof we would go into an abandon house, climb on the roof and throw the ball down.

Frank, How the memories of this strange little bus...

2006-04-03T11:48:00.000-05:00

Frank,
How the memories of this strange little business , and its even stranger proprietors, and customers flooded me as I read your thoughts. I was not as much a regular at Carlos as you were , because we lived blocks apart and "Josie and Charlie's" emporium was my favorite haunt for treats and small toys. And I bought many a "pimpleball" and cut it in half to play half- ball .Always inhaling the fish oil inside, as "they" told us thats what it was which kept the ball supple .Using a broom or mop handle as a bat , These bats were coveted because they were hard to come by . And I was chastized many a time because I stole one from my mothers yard, after cutting off the working end. And she did not appreciate that. So when one was procured it was kept with great care for the next game whenever that could take place.
Carlo"s shop was narrow and long and always seemed dark to me.When I think of it now, it was like a movie set of what a turn of the century grocery store would look like in a film designers head.
Carlo's sister looked indeed like a wax museum model of a 40"s era woman. And she would have made a great extra in any film from that time.
Now I have to speak of "Ma"
Ma also known as aunt Mary to me, was one of those strong women who has great influence on your life , even though at the time you have no idea its happening. I miss her very much and I think of her very often. Mary was my father's older sister. One of several sets of twins that Serafina gave birth to , the number never quite settled on by the siblings. Mary was uncle Ralphie's twin , and My father Tony , was aunt Annie's twin, but for all intents they may well have been quadruplets because they functioned as a unit, they were never far from one another and saw each other almost every day. When they did not see each other they spoke on the phone.
My father was the only one of them that ever drove or even owned a car, this meant that any trips we took as a family usually meant all of the siblings and thier children would cram into my fathers vehicle of the moment , and off we would go. The weekly trip to visit Serafina my Paternal grandmother , who was institutionalized at the state hospital Byberry took place every Sunday. We would pile in the car ,the one I recall was a bottle green Dodge big as an aircraft carrier or so it seemed to a little boy.And I would sit on my mother's lap in front , no seat belt, holding the weekly offering of Rigatoni's in a white porcelain bowl. To keep the small boys busy your grandmother, aunt Mary would give us a nickle for every four leaf clover we could find, I never found any but she snuck me the money anyway. No small gesture for a woman of no means who hardly ever parted with a cent if she did not have to. She was the Jack Benny of the Italian immigrant community in South Philly.
And to this day when I am at a party with my cousins we always cut the first piece of cake "like aunt Mary did" razor thin to serve at least 1000 people .
One of the siblings would go inside where we the children were never allowed to enter.Out of the large gates would come a tiny old woman bent over with age , brown and wrinkled, with the most luminous blue eyes I have ever seen .
(My mother always told me a story about My grandmother that I had no reason to disbelieve. She said that when she was pregnant with me , Serafina put her hands on my mothers belly and said "I hope the baby has my blue eyes".My mother and father who were both very dark haired and dark eyed , had one child a boy, me, Geraldo named for my grandfather. I have blue eyes that have been called "mazzola blue" by my partner. He says they are unlike any color blue he has seen before.)
She was always dressed in a black and white flowered dress , her "Sunday Best"and would be directed to sit in the back of my Dad's car. She would stare into space and eat her macaroni, as we kissed her and greeted her . The car was always parked under the beautiful weeping willows that lined a creek. So the branches would sweep across the car and make wooshing noises in the breeze. I cannot think of four leaf clovers or see a weeping willow tree without these visions entering into my head.And if I close my eyes I can see the ghosts of these people moving in slow motion,soft breezes ruffling their clothes. All is sepia toned.They surround this tortured old soul eating out of a white bowl in the back of an ancient car. As wild boys crawl on hands and knees near by searching for clovers so they could spend the reward money on Candy at Carlo's.

Comments on Ghost of South Philly: My Own Private Byzantium There existed in my you...

Great sad and evocative stories from a past that e...

Beautiful story

A wonderfully bittersweet bit of reminiscing. Sout...

Frank, How the memories of this strange little bus...