BLOG NUMBER 77,APRIL 26, 2013: THE YOUNG ITALIAN CHAPTER 1

THE YOUNG ITALIAN

CHAPTER ONE:

Growing up in what is now mid-town Toronto, I learned in the Catholic School System, taught by by Nuns and Priests, that mankind was born with the stain of ‘Original Sin’. Harsh but true they said; that a newborn innocent baby needed to be baptized in order to remove the stain. Back in the day, it was never questioned as to what would become of a baby who was stillborn or one who died during birth.

No matter. I had not suffered such a fate. I had been baptized and sailed through the first 4 years of Elementary School at St Monica’s with the knowledge that I had been saved. 

The original Saint Monica's Catholic School

My mother, Angelina, took me to confession on Saturdays and to church every Sunday at Saint Monica’s Church.  My dad, Gerardo, stayed at home. It was obvious to me that he must have been baptized. Apparently he never sinned and was a good Catholic if not a devout one. His only weakness was that he refused to go to church.  In spite of the Catholic mandate he always insisted that missing mass was not sinful, as he worked countless hours and needed to sleep in on Sunday.  

My Saturday confession consisted of a set routine: “Bless me Father…….I had 2 or 3 unkind thoughts….I am truly sorry……”.  My sister always stayed in the box for a longer time but would never reveal to me what lengthy transgressions had been committed and confessed. Mom was generally slower as well but I chalked it up to her broken English and Sicilian dialect.

FATHER MCKEE AT WORK

The Parish Priest, Father McKee, was one of dad’s best friends. Every other Saturday Father would visit and try to get dad to go to church. They would wrestle for it and dad never lost. He was a wiry and tough man with an iron will.  Also, he always made sure the priest drank three or four glasses of wine before the ‘attendance at church discussion’ came up. 

Exposure to trouble and outside influence was curtailed. My daily weekday routine consisted of walking three blocks to school, listening to teachers and doing what I was told. Never should I fight or take anything that didn’t belong to me.  I would walk home for lunch then back to school, do some more listening and obeying and then get right home. I was one of 3 first generation Italian boys in my class. The sisters were certainly attentive to our needs. They were not trained pedagogically but they certainly knew the stories and lessons to be learned from the New Testament. They were not worldly but then again who knew? Or cared? Sister Stella was my favorite. She was gentle and sincere and had the ability to make you feel important. Her lessons were easy to follow and I became obsessive about spelling, proper grammar and arithmetic. No broken English for me! Sister prepared us for our First Communion and made us aware of the importance of accepting Jesus into our hearts.

MY FIRST COMMUNION

We were a family of 4 siblings, myself being the youngest. My sister Cristina, was older by 2 years and a natural born shit-disturber. Brother Jonny was 8 years my senior and seemed to always be in some kind of trouble. Cynthia was 10 years older and served as a second mother to me. She was kind, unselfish and beautiful.

Jonny (rear), Cristina (right)
Me (Middle)
Garage roof terrace

Cynthia above the garage

My mom and dad ran a grocery store business. The store was located on Yonge Street just north of Eglinton Ave. beside a restaurant to the south and a candy shop and movie theatre to the north.  Saturday afternoon treats included a nickel to go to a movie or spend at the candy shop along with some meat remnants from our store’s deli counter which we fed to the neighbour’s dog.

Since mom worked long hours in the store, 6 days a week, Cristina and I were saddled with a twit of a baby sitter named Tina. She was my aunt Mary's niece and her investigative and reporting skills could have qualified her for a job with CSIS. Whenever she needed relief from our antics, Tina would tie us to the foot of our respective beds and give us a piece of chocolate which she stole from the store. She did not need to restrain us with chords. All that was required was a threat to tell Gerardo of any misdeeds. 

The store today. The old Circle Theatre has been 
replaced by apartments, (left)  
as has the store's back yard

We lived in a 3-bedroom apartment above the store.  I shared a bedroom with Jonny. There was a flight of stairs leading to a dining room and kitchen on the ground level behind the store. Here Cristina and I used to sneak to the top step and listen unobserved to the raucous, late-night games of Euchre between parents and aunts and uncles. There was no TV in those days but the card games were always entertaining.

Most Sundays after church we would drive over to my Uncle Val’s home in Forest Hills where I was allowed to play in the back yard with my cousins. One of the neighbours was a crotchety old man who constantly gave us orders: "get off my fence, stop the noise, keep the ball out of my yard, stop touching my dog."

Auntie Anna had a living room with plastic covered sofas reserved for adults only. There was a flight of stairs leading to the bedroom level where cousins were not allowed to set foot. We sometimes sat on the second step to listen to the stories replete with broken English and cuss words. Kids were to be seen but not heard. When detected on our perch, the order rang out: "Get outside enna play....enna behave!" The house  had a basement recreation room where many games of sock hockey took place. It became a favourite place where one was allowed to be a kid.

Once in a while my older cousins Paul and Anthony would take me to a neighboring park where we played hit and catch baseball. It was here, under their guidance and influence, that I learned to love the game of baseball.

Playing sock hockey was a serious offence in our apartment. If we forgot and started an impromptu game, Gerardo would suddenly arrive on the scene spitting fury.  Jonny always took the first blow, while I scrambled, in vain, to avoid the ass-kicking. We always managed to laugh afterwards when dad disappeared and it was safe to do so. We never learned to play the game quietly.

The store property had a large double garage with a gravel roof, which served as a deck and play area. We shared a rough back yard with the owner of a neighbouring restaurant, Mr Ellias. It was on this garage deck that the Saturday night wrestling matches took place between Father and Gerardo. Often, at Holy Communion the next day, Father McKee would administer the host with hands scarred from the roof top gravel. Sometimes the smile on my face had nothing to do with the coming of Jesus.

To the east of the store’s back yard lived a pimply-faced kid name Frankie Keene.  Kristina and I learned to resent if not detest the lad. We would trim branches off the side yard tree to fashion bows and arrows. We used string purloined from the store to tie the bow. Our targets were a series of orange crates. They were set at various intervals over a distance of 50 yards.  We would run down the centerline between the crates and loose our arrows while the other guy counted off seconds. Points were scored on the hits with a bonus for time.  A match consisted of 5 consecutive runs after which we would be exhausted. During our recovery period, out would come Frankie with his store-bought bow and arrows that would stick in a crate when it was hit.  He never ran. He simply swaggered down the course and retrieved his arrows on the way back. It was times like these when I used up some of my unkind thoughts.

BLACKIE

Mr Ellias, ran a restaurant in the store front beside dad’s North Yonge Fruit Market. He had a small black dog, named, of course, ‘Blackie’. I loved that dog. Cristina and I would feed him remnants and often play ‘go fetch’ using one of our rudimentary arrows. He would sit and watch our Biathlon competition and never interfere. When Frankie came out he would growl and scratch dirt.  Dogs can tell!  We laughed and clapped.

While I was in grade 3 at Saint M's the school conducted a basket drive to raise funds for the parish. Our teacher, Sister Stella, implored us to search at home for 6 quart baskets. I remember telling her that my dad had lots of baskets in his garage. Sister asked if I could take a friend home at recess to collect some. My friends Tom,  Greg and I went to the garage behind the store where there were neat stacks of bundled baskets, 4 to a bundle. We gathered 2 bundles in each hand a total of 16 baskets each.  Proudly we headed back to school. Unfortunately for us, my dad chose that moment to come out on the back porch. “Hey, werra  do you go witha dos baskette?”, he shouted coming off the porch and approaching us. Tom answered back, somewhat defiantly: “These are our baskets!” Before I could say or do or think anything, the next thing I remember was my friend flying through the air from a kick in the ass, baskets flying everywhere. Tom hit the ground running and Greg and I dropped our baskets in panic and took off.  We caught up to Tom on the way back to school. He asked, “Who was that guy?” When I recovered from my embarrassment and told him it was my dad, he burst out laughing.  I joined in with great relief and we all had a good laugh going back to school. Back in class Tom told Sister the basket story, much to my chagrin.  The class roared and even Sister giggled. I could not stop worrying about the reckoning that would surely follow after school. I did not contemplate suicide but running away from home came to mind and was given due consideration.  I dreaded the thoughts of coming home to see the yard strewn with baskets. That afternoon I almost tiptoed up to the back yard.  To my great relief and surprise, the scene of the crime had been cleaned; there was no ass-kicking and dad said nothing to me.  That Saturday night, instead of the wrestling match, I observed Father who could not stop chuckling to dad while reporting on the basket-drive story. It was then I learned that my dad was the merchant buying the baskets from the school's drive. 

Aunts, cousins, mom (Angelina, centre) and dad 
(Gerardo the ass-kicker) in front of garage 
on the Yonge Street store's back yard

Me with parents at cousin's wedding
in Syracuse NY

We had a family of cousins who lived in Syracuse N.Y.  It was always exciting when they came to visit or when we would take the 4-hour drive to visit them. On one such visit to Yonge Street the group was chatting away in front of the garage. I was on the deck above and attempted to shinny up the brick retaining wall designed to prevent accidental death. The wall was almost as high as myself. I was interested in what was happening below. Unbeknownst to me, someone had placed a brick on the ledge and in my attempts to see below, I knocked it off the ledge. Fortunately it landed on top of a garbage container rather than a human head.  The same cannot be said of the rebound. The brick hit Cristina and cut her for stitches. I arrived on top of the wall just in time to peek down and see the carnage. Everyone looked and pointed at me but not for long as I retreated to the apartment and hid.

My cousin Cristie, defended me by saying that I would never do such a thing deliberately. Cristie had beautiful red hair and I was secretly and madly in love with her. To this day, Cristina claims that I dropped a brick on her head!

At the end of my grade-4 school year my life was about to change dramatically. Dad announced that he had sold the store and we were moving. I never got to say goodbye to Sister Stella.

QUOTE: In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on.

-ROBERT FROST

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