When I first read my father's affection for his own father, I couldn’t help but feel surprise with a mixture of guilt. My Papa was an enigma to me and after my grandmother passed away, he was withdrawn and a shell of the man he used to be. If I couldn’t remember him smiling or laughing when my grandmother was alive, I certainly never saw it in the years that followed his wife’s passing. The one thing that I will forever be grateful for is the example he set that true and solid love does exist. I don’t think a man has ever loved a woman more than he did his Christine. For years, I could hear him calling her name late at night and it broke my heart. Although I never saw them hold hands or say I love you – every night, their actions showed me how much they cared for each other. It’s a lesson that still holds true for me today – I believe nothing anyone says about love. They have to show me that they care and let me see what they say is true.
As I read through my father’s letters, I wondered why I wasn’t as close to him as he so obviously was to his. In the end, I’ve realized, the feelings are the same – it’s just the path that leads there was so very different.
Business men, doctors, lawyers and sports personalities all came into Cal’s to buy suits and coats at a discount. Pa said some would spend $1,000 or more during one visit alone. One day, the Red Sox player, Tony Conigliaro came in to buy some jackets. I don’t think Pa liked him; it seems he was less than a gentleman. However, Pa got his signature for you and your brother and I put it on your bulletin board in your bedroom. The years have faded the ink, but I still have it.
I never knew, or I don’t remember being told where that signature of Tony came from – it was just there. My grandfather had a love/hate relationship with the Boston Red Sox. He would watch every game and scream at the television when the manager, Don Zimmer, would leave the players on the field. I could never ask for help with my Italian homework if a Red Sox game was on. When the curse of the bambino was finally broken in 2004 and the Boston Red Sox became world champions, I couldn’t help but cry. I’m a Boston sports fan by default and I immediately thought of my papa and how overjoyed he would have been to see the trophy finally reside in the city he called home.
Cal owned the three story building on the corner of Dudley and Tremont Streets. Although he sold suits, he was not a tailor, so he was glad to hire Pa. He would sell suits of any size and Pa would rip them apart to fit the customers. One day, there was a fire on the second floor and Cal’s sustained mostly water damage. Pa told me to come in because the suits were on sale shortly after. Pa picked out four suits that had no damage and I got them all for about $20 each.
What I do recall about my grandfather was his profession. For years, it didn’t matter what kind of pants I bought – with his white chalk in hand and his pins and his sewing machine, my clothes fit as if they were made for me.
We had a German Shepherd who would nip at strangers. One day, the dog attacked a man walking by the front of the house. The man wore a leather jacket and it was torn high up on the left shoulder. Pa said he could repair the coat, and at just this time, a policeman came by and noticed the three stars in the window (they represented the soldiers in the family during WWII). The cop talked to the stranger and they both walked away. Pa admitted to me later that he knew nothing about working with leather.
For years, my father was banished to the cellar to smoke his cigars. They were horrible smelling things and I despised the smell of them. My mother was also no fan, which is probably why her step mother consistently gave them to my father every Christmas. He would alternate between these and pipes. Even though the tobacco in a pipe is just as dangerous to your health, I loved the smell of it. To this day when I walk by a smoke shop or smell a pipe, I think of my father. I gave him some tobacco as a gift once only to find out he had stopped smoking years ago.
Pa smoked as far back as I can remember – mostly Lucky Strikes. I calculate that he stopped at the age of 56 when the first warnings from the surgeon general came out about the ill effects. I don’t know if he stopped for himself or for his sons.
As I got older, the onslaught of puberty is one I don’t remember as being particularly traumatic or memorable. I remember being fat one moment, tall and skinny the next and of course, fuzz appeared on my face. I think it was another Christmas and my father got me an electric razor. I was in no mood to learn how to shave and as soon as he plugged it in and assaulted my face, I was screaming for him to stop. I didn’t like this new phase of my life. Although I use a razor blade today, I still despise shaving. If there were a way to laser it off – I would pay any price.
Pa always used a safety razor and at an early age because of an unknown skin condition I developed, Pa took me to Boston and bought an electric razor. (After some fifty years, the affliction just disappeared). After trying different brands, I am sold on Norelco. In the 60’s, when I worked full-time for the National Guard, I had access to the Post Exchange (PX) at Fort Banks. It was located in Winthrop and on a visit there, I bought Pa a Norelco, which I know he loved because he used the brand exclusively for the rest of his life.
I knew next to nothing about my grandfather’s life in Italy, only knowing that he lived in Ortona, a city on the Adriatic Sea in Abruzzi roughly 105 miles from Rome. He made only two trips back to his homeland and never spoke to me of his father or his siblings.
Pa relied mostly on his brother-in-law Frank to take him to visit his father’s grave in Newburyport. What is now a forty minute drive was a three hour one – at least, that’s what it seemed like to me. My grandfather’s grave is off to the side where mostly families are buried together. His was more of a pauper’s section. The cemetery has since been sold and a small stone bears his name, Dominic. No date of birth or death, but the nearest I can come up with is 1927. Aunt Lil remembers him taking her out when she was very little and he must have been around to see Pa and Ma married in 1925. Today, the cemetery is so full; it is difficult to see his small stone. Every time we went there, on the way home, around Topsfield, I think, we stopped at a store that sold large milkshakes.
My brother and I joined them on this annual pilgrimage, but my recollections of it are few. The drive did seem endless and I’m disappointed that I can’t remember the milkshakes. If there was ice cream involved in anything, I was there.
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