by
Matthew Cornetta
* * *
.....And whatever happened to the simple things—the things that send tingles right through, leaving us with the warm rush swells of feeling acutely human... Let’s look at some of those things won’t we.
Her name was Louisa, she was the youngest of four children in an immigrant Italian family... She lived in New York City when Frank Lloyd Wright was kicking up dust and Fiorello LaGuardia was reading the funny papers over the radio because the truck drivers refused to deliver the news... She was born the same year that Babe Ruth allegedly pointed to the center field fence in Chicago... But, she didn’t know much about all that... .....There were the days, the hot days, when she would finish up at school and promptly return home and complete her chores... At four-thirty she would grab a steel bucket from the shed, near where the dogs were kept... She would take that bucket down to the local bar, where the man would smile at this bright eyed seven year old and give her a coca-cola... Then he would fill the bucket with cold beer for Louisa’s father, Domenico.... The beer was much appreciated.... But sometimes Domenico would want wine—summer wine—and his wife, Angelica, would take the red wine and decant it into a large, thick glassed jar. She would put a huge chunk of ice in too. Once it was cold, Angelica would slice sweet freestone peaches and Valencia oranges and a lemon or two, adding it all, gradually, with a cup of sugar.... Everybody enjoyed the wine of summer.... ......On hot summer nights, Domenico would prepare a cup of mild espresso and add just a tiny drop of anisette. He would bring this to Louisa’s room, setting it by her bed, on the small night table. He would sit down and empty some "Half and Half" tobacco into his pipe. Relaxing, he would stare at his small daughter, occasionally reaching over to stroke her hair, as she sipped the espresso. He would tell a story about the old country and Louisa would like to watch his eyes grow sad as he blew the smoke into the air—and the smoke and his old words mixed into the nostalgia and warmth of the moment and she knew that her father loved her very much..... That is why he came to her room like this every night until she graduated high school....
.....He was born, in 1905 in Russia.... Those were the days of Czar Nicholas II when there were great distances between the haves and have-nots... His name was Udel Dibotchnakov and when he was one, his father went barefoot to Siberia, in order to fight the Japanese.... The Russians lost...
....In 1912, young Udel was sent to Massachusetts to live with his aunt. His aunt used to say, "Udel Dibotchnakov is not the right name for these parts...." Within a few months she re-named him, Eddie Tobin. He grew big and strong but that still did not deter the American kids from taunting him, singing—"greenhorn, popcorn, five cents a bag—if you don’t like it—shove it up your ass!" Eddie liked to sing the song too—And he sang it all his life, remembering those adventurous days of being a "stranger in a strange land."
....By the Twenties, he had grown into a strapping young man... When he was seventeen, he got a job at a meat packing plant--- In those days they were still slaughtering the cattle in Manhattan... One day somebody bet Eddie twenty gold dollars that he couldn’t carry a hind quarter of beef (about 225lbs) from fourteenth street up to twenty-third street. Eddie took the bet and marched that half-mile, smiling and singing—"greenhorn, popcorn, twenty dollars a bag—if you don’t like it shove it up your ass!"
......Frankie was born in 1898 when William Randolph Hearst had Americans across the continent, shouting—"Remember the Maine!!" Frankie was all too glad to be out of Italy and so he had Americanized his name (it was Francesco) and settled in New York... He liked to box and drink and smoke... He liked to smoke four packs of camels (non filter of course) a day... Nevertheless, he married Isabella and they started a family. They had four children. Frankie, especially loved his two oldest boys, Eddie (b. 1918) and Frankie jr. (b. 1920) He liked Eddie because Eddie liked to smoke and drink and box, all at the young age of nine... He liked Frankie jr. because Frankie jr. had completely skipped being a boy and grew directly from infancy into manhood....
One day, during the height of the depression, Frankie jr. and Eddie were out on the streets in their neighborhood when they ran across a well known Irish bully, who was sparring with his father in the front yard... Eddie told the kid that he looked like shit and that that was not surprising since everyone knew that his father was a third rate boxer... The Irish father took offense and he insisted on talking to Frankie sr. So, the four of them walked on over to Frankie sr.’s house... When they arrived, the two fathers talked while their sons waited off to the side. Soon after, they all moved around to the back yard where Eddie was going to box the Irish bully.. The fathers had bet five dollars on the fight... It was pretty bloody but it all ended in about ten minutes... After the bully’s father paid Frankie sr., he put his son across his shoulders and carried him home.... Eddie went inside to grab his violin and a bottle of whiskey. He played an Irish jig and drank while Frankie sr. told Frankie jr. about the importance of sticking up for yourself....
....Sam was born in 1924 in a wealthy section of New York City.... While Calvin Coolidge was sleeping eleven hours a day and the Washington Senators won their only World Series, Sam was being pampered in the manner that befitted a rich boy.... It was all the work of Sam’s father who knew how to plant a dollar where five would grow... He did it in the meat business, starting with a small wholesale shop which soon burgeoned into an empire that churned out three hundred tons of product each day.... Sam barely worked at his father’s plant. Instead he liked to entertain the various debutantes in places like: The Store Club, The Wheatley Hills Tavern, The Copacabana—etc... But the ones he really liked, he would take to Lake Placid, or Lake Lucerne, or Lake Titicaca... Yes, Sam skied the world, from the Himalayas to the Alps, to the Andes, to the Rockies.... He always liked Utah the best......
But suddenly!! Yes suddenly, Sam’s father died and it was up to Sam to run the business... Within ten years he ran a fifty million dollar a year gold mine into the ground. He still skied however. Sam was incompetent when it came to business but he was excellent in the snow and he was "a sport" who liked to lavish his friends with gifts...
Even when he was cleaning uniforms for butchers down in the meat cutting district, he would always spring for coffee and donuts... On Fridays he would bring in those fabulous potato pancakes that his wife would make. Sam was a good man and he never regretted a minute of his life, not his epilepsy, not the mangled corpse of his young boy, crushed by a speeding train, and not fetching donuts for illiterates who had once worked for him.... Yes, Sam knew a thing or two about life.....
I have known all these people mentioned above. How they have lived!! How they have lived!! Pay heed. This is where life is. This is where the fun is—in the simple life where people have history and personal pride and accountability... We all like to say, "That’s not fair" or "I got a raw deal." There are no such things... There is only the passage of time and what we do with that time... There is the day to day and the little details of smiles and pipe smoke and summer wine, tickling the tongue into eloquent humor.... When we endeavor to fill our days with the simple things: the simple pleasures, the simple tasks, the simple give and take loyalty we have for those around us then we start doing this thing called living...