Jungle Juice can turn the best of us
into wild animals.
Minds get spoken
kisses get stolen
dance the night away until your legs
ache for relief.
Let loose your weekly stresses
singing “Sweet Caroline” in a Mod
where you don’t know half the people
but are sure that you’re
friends with them on Facebook.
Make some bad decisions
but not too many.
Let the Jungle Juice flow through your veins
and induce
Immediate regret for wearing heels
while traipsing across campus
Endless laughing over something you’ll never
remember at breakfast and
Insane amounts of pictures to be taken with the same
five people and poses, over and over again.
Life seems pretty damn good when you’re
looking through the bottom of an
empty Jungle Juice glass.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Stop Sign
The door slams behind me
I’m cold already
I cross my arms over my chest
And start walking
The mist hits everywhere
My eyelashes are coated
The breeze sends leaves dancing
The long dark pavement stretches
Out in front of me
It’s soul mate the sidewalk
Bends and curves to match it
I squint and look up
After being mesmerized
By the pavement that is
Darkening with each raindrop
A familiar sign tells
me to stop
how many of these
will I pass in my life?
How many will I ignore?
I’m cold already
I cross my arms over my chest
And start walking
The mist hits everywhere
My eyelashes are coated
The breeze sends leaves dancing
The long dark pavement stretches
Out in front of me
It’s soul mate the sidewalk
Bends and curves to match it
I squint and look up
After being mesmerized
By the pavement that is
Darkening with each raindrop
A familiar sign tells
me to stop
how many of these
will I pass in my life?
How many will I ignore?
Monday, December 21, 2009
Sundays with Sinatra
I see Dad in front of our kitchen stove, the one he took from Gaetano’s after it closed. He’s got those damn jeans on again, the ones he thinks go so perfectly with everything, though the fraying hole near the back left pocket suggests otherwise. This Sunday, he’s completed his ensemble with Mom’s red and white-checkered apron, that manly one with the ruffles near the top.
He’s dancing, doing his signature “white man shuffle” complete with wooden spoon as his microphone. Sinatra’s croon makes the windows rattle with each note, which means it’s at the perfect volume. He twirls toward me and grabs my hand, channeling Frank’s finesse. I spin into his chest as his arm wraps around me. I catch the lingering scent of Polo at his neck, but the hint of sauce on his breath tells me he’s been sneaking, a sin in Mom’s kitchen.
I wondered if he had dipped a piece of Nonna’s freshly baked Italian bread into the bubbling pot. That was one of the most unforgivable sins in the kitchen. If you got caught dipping bread into the sauce, madonne, you were in big trouble. Nonna would chase after you, with whatever cooking utensil was closest to her, yelling “ Don’ta you hever put bread ina MY sauce! MaWhatsamadda with you?!”
Dad, however, was one of the lucky ones who was able to sneak without a scolding. Coming back up from a dip on our makeshift dance floor, I squinted my eyes and shook my head disapprovingly at him. “ You think you’re so slick sneaking sauce don’t you?” I whispered. He shot me his usual retort, when he knows he’s done something wrong, and says “ Hey, you wanna piece of cheese, Rat?”
We continue to move together gracefully on the creaking hardwood floor, just like Annette Benning and Michael Douglas in “The American President”, our favorite movie. Even in my dance team sweats, he treats me like my every sway is followed by the elegant swish of an evening gown. I hated having a three hour dance practice on Sundays during competition season, it really cut into my ballroom dancing time with Dad.
I wished it was that Sunday where I could trade in my dance team uniform for my old prom dresses. Dad once waited for me, Elisa, and Gianna to rummage through our old homecoming and prom dresses to find the perfect one for twirling. Even though it was only my younger sisters and Dad on that particular Sunday, he gave us our “ Cinderella” moment, that feeling that you get when you walk into a room and all eyes are on you.
Dad had a way of making our forgotten little girl fantasies come to life on those Sundays, while the Rat Pack serenaded us on surround sound, and the comforting scent of Nonna’s sauce trailed throughout the house.
I’m not sure when our Sunday sessions started; they’ve always just been there. When I was younger, he’d lift me up to his chest to dance with me so that I could wrap my arm around his shoulder. I remember watching him glide over to my mom after he put me down at the island in the kitchen. He’d take her by the hand, lay her arm over his shoulder, and press his cheek to her temple as he turned her initial resisting into romance. I remember being impatient to grow up so that I could dance with someone like that, and find somebody who’d love me as much as Dad loves Mom.
He’s dancing, doing his signature “white man shuffle” complete with wooden spoon as his microphone. Sinatra’s croon makes the windows rattle with each note, which means it’s at the perfect volume. He twirls toward me and grabs my hand, channeling Frank’s finesse. I spin into his chest as his arm wraps around me. I catch the lingering scent of Polo at his neck, but the hint of sauce on his breath tells me he’s been sneaking, a sin in Mom’s kitchen.
I wondered if he had dipped a piece of Nonna’s freshly baked Italian bread into the bubbling pot. That was one of the most unforgivable sins in the kitchen. If you got caught dipping bread into the sauce, madonne, you were in big trouble. Nonna would chase after you, with whatever cooking utensil was closest to her, yelling “ Don’ta you hever put bread ina MY sauce! MaWhatsamadda with you?!”
Dad, however, was one of the lucky ones who was able to sneak without a scolding. Coming back up from a dip on our makeshift dance floor, I squinted my eyes and shook my head disapprovingly at him. “ You think you’re so slick sneaking sauce don’t you?” I whispered. He shot me his usual retort, when he knows he’s done something wrong, and says “ Hey, you wanna piece of cheese, Rat?”
We continue to move together gracefully on the creaking hardwood floor, just like Annette Benning and Michael Douglas in “The American President”, our favorite movie. Even in my dance team sweats, he treats me like my every sway is followed by the elegant swish of an evening gown. I hated having a three hour dance practice on Sundays during competition season, it really cut into my ballroom dancing time with Dad.
I wished it was that Sunday where I could trade in my dance team uniform for my old prom dresses. Dad once waited for me, Elisa, and Gianna to rummage through our old homecoming and prom dresses to find the perfect one for twirling. Even though it was only my younger sisters and Dad on that particular Sunday, he gave us our “ Cinderella” moment, that feeling that you get when you walk into a room and all eyes are on you.
Dad had a way of making our forgotten little girl fantasies come to life on those Sundays, while the Rat Pack serenaded us on surround sound, and the comforting scent of Nonna’s sauce trailed throughout the house.
I’m not sure when our Sunday sessions started; they’ve always just been there. When I was younger, he’d lift me up to his chest to dance with me so that I could wrap my arm around his shoulder. I remember watching him glide over to my mom after he put me down at the island in the kitchen. He’d take her by the hand, lay her arm over his shoulder, and press his cheek to her temple as he turned her initial resisting into romance. I remember being impatient to grow up so that I could dance with someone like that, and find somebody who’d love me as much as Dad loves Mom.
Tagging
Mario first tagged Jordan, who went on to tag Rinaldo, who then got Noelle, who targeted Nick, who then got me, who ultimately got Mike. In our quest for mischief in a sleepy town, Barbie’s were mutilated, frosting was misused, Saran Wrap became a holding cell, and immunity wasn’t granted to anyone. The Wethersfield High School parking lot was our battleground, and in the months leading up to graduation, war was declared.
The senior’s parking lot stemmed off the pool entrance on Eagle Drive. There were never enough places to park, and yet we still got ticketed for hauling our Jeeps and Explorers onto the islands at the end of every row. It was a sanctuary to the smokers who secretly snuck out during class changes to lean against the brick wall and blow their smoke rings while verbally bashing Mr. Moore and his monotone drone. It was where Scott changed Alyssa’s completely deflated tire after she ran over a nail. It was an alcohol exchange location on weekends, a witness to countless after-school fender benders, and the depot where the fan bus transported our painted bodies to and from championship games. It was also where no car was safe during a tagging war.
Jordan’s sleek, silver Saab was the first car casualty . Known for her superior organization, innate fashion sense, and her overall high level of “guy appeal”, Jordan’s chic Saab was perfectly suited to her personality. Her ridiculously good looking dad, Steve, made sure that the Saab was well maintained and required Jord to bring it to the car wash every week, keep it vacuumed and free of trash, and uphold the utmost respect for the car she was given. To understand this, is to understand my utter shock and amazement when Jordan didn’t faint at the sight of her car after Mario tagged it.
Saran Wrap, honey, maple syrup, and PlayBoy were the magic ingredients to the demise of the Saab’s beauty. Strutting into the senior lot after the final bell of the day brought us our freedom, Jordan placed a death grip onto my arm as we approached her car. As I lurched backwards, a little surprised by the strength of my five foot tall friend, I caught a glimpse of what she had seen.
Taped to the front and back windshield and every window of the Saab were tantalizing centerfolds, courtesy of Hugh Heffner’s flawless silicone beauties. Jordan, the poster child for discretion and modesty, frantically raced to unlock the driver’s side door, only to discover that not only was the entire car entrapped by layers of Saran Wrap, but a drenching coat of honey and maple syrup topped it off.
Watching the scheme unfold, Mario and the rest of the boys high-fived one another and held their stomachs as they doubled over in laughter. They had engaged us in battle, without expecting much of a retaliation, but there was no way that us girls were flying a white flag signaling our surrender.
What followed were weeks of search and destroy missions. We tagged the boys’ cars while they were left unattended at baseball practices, or during their ultimate Frisbee sessions on the turf. We kissed our Barbie’s goodbye before we dismantled them, laid their limbs and torso’s out on the hood of a car, and then squirted and smeared ketchup all over to complete our battle scene. We later walked out of dance team practices to find our own cars turned into rolling versions of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, complete with bread, soggy from milk, stuck on wherever possible.
Classes that spring were skipped to run covert missions down to Bliss Market to attain supplies. When Mike thought he could out smart us by illegally parking in the teacher’s lot, we hit him hard with Operation Cupcake.
Chocolate frosting covered every glass surface of his Jeep Cherokee. Rainbow sprinkles added the birthday flair we aimed to achieve, as did a very generous helping of chocolate sauce to coat the hood of his car. Though we debated lighting candles on the roof of his Jeep, it was ultimately decided that being imprisoned for arson was not the way to we would succumb in this battle.
As our car tagging war forged on and spread to the rest of our class, none of us gave much thought as to why it was called “tagging”, or why the operators of Mr. Sparkle Car Wash had started to shake their heads when we drove into their facility, hanging out of rolled down windows in order to be able to see where we were driving.
To this day, I have no idea who won the war, or how much money we wasted on buying supplies and washing our cars three times a week. I couldn’t tell you what I missed in those classes I skipped or those dance team practices I spent hovering around Dance 10’s windows in hopes of catching an attack on our cars.
What I can tell you is this: the senior parking lot on Eagle Drive holds a hell of a lot more than just cars to me, and the class of 2005.
The senior’s parking lot stemmed off the pool entrance on Eagle Drive. There were never enough places to park, and yet we still got ticketed for hauling our Jeeps and Explorers onto the islands at the end of every row. It was a sanctuary to the smokers who secretly snuck out during class changes to lean against the brick wall and blow their smoke rings while verbally bashing Mr. Moore and his monotone drone. It was where Scott changed Alyssa’s completely deflated tire after she ran over a nail. It was an alcohol exchange location on weekends, a witness to countless after-school fender benders, and the depot where the fan bus transported our painted bodies to and from championship games. It was also where no car was safe during a tagging war.
Jordan’s sleek, silver Saab was the first car casualty . Known for her superior organization, innate fashion sense, and her overall high level of “guy appeal”, Jordan’s chic Saab was perfectly suited to her personality. Her ridiculously good looking dad, Steve, made sure that the Saab was well maintained and required Jord to bring it to the car wash every week, keep it vacuumed and free of trash, and uphold the utmost respect for the car she was given. To understand this, is to understand my utter shock and amazement when Jordan didn’t faint at the sight of her car after Mario tagged it.
Saran Wrap, honey, maple syrup, and PlayBoy were the magic ingredients to the demise of the Saab’s beauty. Strutting into the senior lot after the final bell of the day brought us our freedom, Jordan placed a death grip onto my arm as we approached her car. As I lurched backwards, a little surprised by the strength of my five foot tall friend, I caught a glimpse of what she had seen.
Taped to the front and back windshield and every window of the Saab were tantalizing centerfolds, courtesy of Hugh Heffner’s flawless silicone beauties. Jordan, the poster child for discretion and modesty, frantically raced to unlock the driver’s side door, only to discover that not only was the entire car entrapped by layers of Saran Wrap, but a drenching coat of honey and maple syrup topped it off.
Watching the scheme unfold, Mario and the rest of the boys high-fived one another and held their stomachs as they doubled over in laughter. They had engaged us in battle, without expecting much of a retaliation, but there was no way that us girls were flying a white flag signaling our surrender.
What followed were weeks of search and destroy missions. We tagged the boys’ cars while they were left unattended at baseball practices, or during their ultimate Frisbee sessions on the turf. We kissed our Barbie’s goodbye before we dismantled them, laid their limbs and torso’s out on the hood of a car, and then squirted and smeared ketchup all over to complete our battle scene. We later walked out of dance team practices to find our own cars turned into rolling versions of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, complete with bread, soggy from milk, stuck on wherever possible.
Classes that spring were skipped to run covert missions down to Bliss Market to attain supplies. When Mike thought he could out smart us by illegally parking in the teacher’s lot, we hit him hard with Operation Cupcake.
Chocolate frosting covered every glass surface of his Jeep Cherokee. Rainbow sprinkles added the birthday flair we aimed to achieve, as did a very generous helping of chocolate sauce to coat the hood of his car. Though we debated lighting candles on the roof of his Jeep, it was ultimately decided that being imprisoned for arson was not the way to we would succumb in this battle.
As our car tagging war forged on and spread to the rest of our class, none of us gave much thought as to why it was called “tagging”, or why the operators of Mr. Sparkle Car Wash had started to shake their heads when we drove into their facility, hanging out of rolled down windows in order to be able to see where we were driving.
To this day, I have no idea who won the war, or how much money we wasted on buying supplies and washing our cars three times a week. I couldn’t tell you what I missed in those classes I skipped or those dance team practices I spent hovering around Dance 10’s windows in hopes of catching an attack on our cars.
What I can tell you is this: the senior parking lot on Eagle Drive holds a hell of a lot more than just cars to me, and the class of 2005.
Friday, December 18, 2009
True Life: I’m a Social Media Junkie
Five tabs are currently open on my Internet Explorer. While I wish I was more sophisticated and could say “Why yes, those five tabs do include CNN.com, USA Today, and The New York Times”, the fact of the matter is, I’m just not that classy yet. In this exact order, my current tabs read: Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, Ning, and US Magazine. Embarrassing? Perhaps a little. Extreme? That’s debatable. Necessary? For me, absolutely. If IV hook ups could carry social media information, I would be walking around campus wheeling a bag full of status updates and tweets trickling into me. My name is Monica...and I’m a Social Media Junkie.
Its hard to imagine being in college without Facebook, or even the internet for that matter. Social media has become such an intregal part of everyday life for me, so much to the point where I find myself sitting here with all those websites open, my cell phone next to me alerting me I have a text waiting, and chatting on Skype with a friend. Though I recognize that this may be borderline grounds for an intervention, it helps to highlight just how important social media has become in my life.
Even though I didn’t jump on the iPhone bandwagon, I joined a different kind of elite world, one that starts with a Black and ends with a Berry. My cell phone is practically an extension of my body, even though I swore I would never be that girl. We all know the one I’m talking about: she’s constantly texting, chatting to someone from her social circle, checking voicemails, or adding on to the seemingly never-ending little black book of phone numbers. That has become me…minus the fact that I just made myself sound like the queen-bee character on 90210.
Not only do I use my cell phone to do the essential functions it was made to do, but I’ve also bombarded myself by having access to the internet on it, having my email linked to my BlackBerry, sending photos and other multi-media messages, taking videos, and chatting over BlackBerry Messenger. I’m constantly tuned in to the social media world at any given moment during the day, even if I don’t want to be.
Sometimes its really tiring to be up to date with everything that’s going on, because lets face it, in the world of social media, things change constantly. Put down the decorations, I don’t expect a pity party. I made the choice to be that connected to the social media world. I could easily hop online, visit attwireless.com and have my internet access and BlackBerry data plan taken off my bill. Even though I should do so since its pretty expensive to keep all those features on my cell phone, there’s a big part of me that loves being so connected.
It’s safe to say that my parents have a hard time understanding how I can be so hyper connected all the time. Scratch that, it’s the understatement of century. It blows their minds every time my siblings and I have our laptops out, chatting on AIM, stalking on Facebook, and yet were also texting or talking on the phone as well. Though it’s hard for them to understand because not only is there a generation gap, but they don’t have the need to multitask like we do when it comes to social media.
The same holds true for my friends and I. Sitting in our apartment, we can all be in the same room, conversing with each other, but there’s always at least one, if not all of us, either on our laptops or texting. Now, this isn’t always the case, but it’s definitely not unheard of. Is it worrisome that our face to face social skills might be dwindling? To me, not so much. I think that even for someone like me who loves the world of social media, nothing can replace in-person socialization.
Even though I have hundreds of friends on Facebook, like many people I know, I don’t consider them all to be actual friends. I would rather have stronger ties with fewer people that I know are true friends, instead of having weaker ties with people I barely associate with except to be polite. If I have a horrible day that I need to vent about, I would rather be able to text a few close friends that I love and trust, as opposed to broadcasting my feelings out on Twitter for the world to see.
However, that’s one of my favorite things about social media: you can choose to use it to whatever extent you’d like. You can keep your social world, and acquaintances, growing, but you can also stay in touch and connected to the few people who really make your world worthwhile.
Its hard to imagine being in college without Facebook, or even the internet for that matter. Social media has become such an intregal part of everyday life for me, so much to the point where I find myself sitting here with all those websites open, my cell phone next to me alerting me I have a text waiting, and chatting on Skype with a friend. Though I recognize that this may be borderline grounds for an intervention, it helps to highlight just how important social media has become in my life.
Even though I didn’t jump on the iPhone bandwagon, I joined a different kind of elite world, one that starts with a Black and ends with a Berry. My cell phone is practically an extension of my body, even though I swore I would never be that girl. We all know the one I’m talking about: she’s constantly texting, chatting to someone from her social circle, checking voicemails, or adding on to the seemingly never-ending little black book of phone numbers. That has become me…minus the fact that I just made myself sound like the queen-bee character on 90210.
Not only do I use my cell phone to do the essential functions it was made to do, but I’ve also bombarded myself by having access to the internet on it, having my email linked to my BlackBerry, sending photos and other multi-media messages, taking videos, and chatting over BlackBerry Messenger. I’m constantly tuned in to the social media world at any given moment during the day, even if I don’t want to be.
Sometimes its really tiring to be up to date with everything that’s going on, because lets face it, in the world of social media, things change constantly. Put down the decorations, I don’t expect a pity party. I made the choice to be that connected to the social media world. I could easily hop online, visit attwireless.com and have my internet access and BlackBerry data plan taken off my bill. Even though I should do so since its pretty expensive to keep all those features on my cell phone, there’s a big part of me that loves being so connected.
It’s safe to say that my parents have a hard time understanding how I can be so hyper connected all the time. Scratch that, it’s the understatement of century. It blows their minds every time my siblings and I have our laptops out, chatting on AIM, stalking on Facebook, and yet were also texting or talking on the phone as well. Though it’s hard for them to understand because not only is there a generation gap, but they don’t have the need to multitask like we do when it comes to social media.
The same holds true for my friends and I. Sitting in our apartment, we can all be in the same room, conversing with each other, but there’s always at least one, if not all of us, either on our laptops or texting. Now, this isn’t always the case, but it’s definitely not unheard of. Is it worrisome that our face to face social skills might be dwindling? To me, not so much. I think that even for someone like me who loves the world of social media, nothing can replace in-person socialization.
Even though I have hundreds of friends on Facebook, like many people I know, I don’t consider them all to be actual friends. I would rather have stronger ties with fewer people that I know are true friends, instead of having weaker ties with people I barely associate with except to be polite. If I have a horrible day that I need to vent about, I would rather be able to text a few close friends that I love and trust, as opposed to broadcasting my feelings out on Twitter for the world to see.
However, that’s one of my favorite things about social media: you can choose to use it to whatever extent you’d like. You can keep your social world, and acquaintances, growing, but you can also stay in touch and connected to the few people who really make your world worthwhile.
The Summer Wind
At 29 Old Colony Road, the smell of salt air was trumped by the Sunday sauce of Nonna and Mrs. Fazio. I always knew what was for dinner on Sundays, but it still excited me while I was outside in my sundress, waiting for my turn at bat in kickball. We couldn’t play in the busy main road we lived on back home in Wethersfield, but that’s what made Old Colony Beach all the better.
The gates at the top of each street in our beach neighborhood alternated staying open every summer. When it was Old Colony’s turn to unlock for the summer, my neighbor, Mikey Bacarella, came up with a chant to signal everyone off the road while a car passed by. “Car, Car, C-A-R! What’da you do when a car comes? R-U-N, RUN!” By the time he got to the end, we’d all chime in to shout “RUN!” and then book it to either side of the road. I always thought Mikey was so cool when he’d start walking back onto the road mid-passing of the car, but his mom never thought so.
The chants and jeers of the outfielders taunting whoever was up at home plate got drowned out by Jimmy the Music Man’s cottage. He was a music aficionado, and the rectangular plaque on the chipping green clapboard read “Speakeasy”. I never knew what it meant, but I knew Jimmy, so that meant it was cool by association.
The tunes that blasted through his tiny fairy-tale like cottage filled Old Colony Road and there was always an eclectic mix of song choices. But today was Sunday, and Sunday meant one thing in Jimmy the Music Man’s record player: Frank Sinatra. To an outsider, it may have seemed cliché since all the families in ear shot were old school Italians, but to us, it was just tradition.
There was my family, the Carbone’s and Iannucci’s who lived halfway between the gate and the beach, the Fazio’s, Colangelo’s, and D’Amato’s lived together across the street from us, the Carella’s and Bacarella’s who sandwiched our cottage, the Gallo’s and Lapila’s were towards the top of the street near the gate, while the DeFrancesco’s, Reale’s, Orfitelli’s, Meucci’s, Russo’s, and the Sisti’s were down closer to the sand.
Jimmy’s music faded to the background when the King Freeze truck caused a standstill in the 5th inning. Joey Bacarella, the fastest 4 year old on the street, would fly out of his yellow cottage, naked as usual. His mom would lunge to grab him, but the mixture of suds and water dripping off of his half showered body made it easy for him to slip through her grip. Talk about a serious dedication to ice cream.
We’d line up behind little naked Joey, knowing that it wouldn’t be long until his mom would snatch him back into the cottage, usually without an ice cream. Mikey always made sure he got a Bomb Pop for Joey too, and he’d take a time out from the game to go put it in the freezer for later.
After dinner time on our decks, the Music Man would shift the mood from Sinatra’s big band swing style to an evening play list of Frank’s slower jams. Gina, Chrissy, Ali and I would sneak down to the dead end, our meeting spot for our club, the Wildcats. Gina was the oldest, and therefore our President, her sister Chrissy served as Vice President, our neighbor Ali was Secretary, and I, the youngest, was the nurse.
We claimed the dead end as WildCat Territory, even though we always let the other kids on the street come down to play too. There was a fence at the bottom of it that separated us from the public beach and three hip-height poles were cemented to the ground where there was an opening. I was always scared when I rode my bike through there out of fear of crashing into one of them.
The center pole was the only one that wasn’t cemented shut on top. The ashtray like hole that was left became the WildCat altar. Every time we walked through the fence to go to the Carousel Shop, bocce courts, or Arcade, WildCat code called for us to dip a finger into the rain water collected in that center pole’s top, and trace a WC over our heart.
Once when Ali and I were riding bikes in the dead end, she flipped over her handle bars and smashed her mouth on the pavement. Jimmy the Music Man was walking back from getting donuts when he saw me sitting with Ali on the ground, trying to use my bandana to soak up the blood on her mouth. Jimmy scooped Ali up, carried her home, and then walked me to my cottage when her Mom and Nonna drove off to the ER.
The Music Man always closed down our summers at the annual Labor Day party in Gina and Chrissy yard, the biggest one on the street. He’d spend the entire morning of the party hooking up speakers, passing records and wires through his window and into Gina and Chrissy yard. It never seemed like luck that he happened to live next door to them, it just was fate that the party yard was linked to the Music Man.
Jimmy always winded down the night with “The Summer Wind ” by Sinatra, of course, as our parents clank plastic cups of wine, and we ran with sparklers, serenading summer goodbye.
The gates at the top of each street in our beach neighborhood alternated staying open every summer. When it was Old Colony’s turn to unlock for the summer, my neighbor, Mikey Bacarella, came up with a chant to signal everyone off the road while a car passed by. “Car, Car, C-A-R! What’da you do when a car comes? R-U-N, RUN!” By the time he got to the end, we’d all chime in to shout “RUN!” and then book it to either side of the road. I always thought Mikey was so cool when he’d start walking back onto the road mid-passing of the car, but his mom never thought so.
The chants and jeers of the outfielders taunting whoever was up at home plate got drowned out by Jimmy the Music Man’s cottage. He was a music aficionado, and the rectangular plaque on the chipping green clapboard read “Speakeasy”. I never knew what it meant, but I knew Jimmy, so that meant it was cool by association.
The tunes that blasted through his tiny fairy-tale like cottage filled Old Colony Road and there was always an eclectic mix of song choices. But today was Sunday, and Sunday meant one thing in Jimmy the Music Man’s record player: Frank Sinatra. To an outsider, it may have seemed cliché since all the families in ear shot were old school Italians, but to us, it was just tradition.
There was my family, the Carbone’s and Iannucci’s who lived halfway between the gate and the beach, the Fazio’s, Colangelo’s, and D’Amato’s lived together across the street from us, the Carella’s and Bacarella’s who sandwiched our cottage, the Gallo’s and Lapila’s were towards the top of the street near the gate, while the DeFrancesco’s, Reale’s, Orfitelli’s, Meucci’s, Russo’s, and the Sisti’s were down closer to the sand.
Jimmy’s music faded to the background when the King Freeze truck caused a standstill in the 5th inning. Joey Bacarella, the fastest 4 year old on the street, would fly out of his yellow cottage, naked as usual. His mom would lunge to grab him, but the mixture of suds and water dripping off of his half showered body made it easy for him to slip through her grip. Talk about a serious dedication to ice cream.
We’d line up behind little naked Joey, knowing that it wouldn’t be long until his mom would snatch him back into the cottage, usually without an ice cream. Mikey always made sure he got a Bomb Pop for Joey too, and he’d take a time out from the game to go put it in the freezer for later.
After dinner time on our decks, the Music Man would shift the mood from Sinatra’s big band swing style to an evening play list of Frank’s slower jams. Gina, Chrissy, Ali and I would sneak down to the dead end, our meeting spot for our club, the Wildcats. Gina was the oldest, and therefore our President, her sister Chrissy served as Vice President, our neighbor Ali was Secretary, and I, the youngest, was the nurse.
We claimed the dead end as WildCat Territory, even though we always let the other kids on the street come down to play too. There was a fence at the bottom of it that separated us from the public beach and three hip-height poles were cemented to the ground where there was an opening. I was always scared when I rode my bike through there out of fear of crashing into one of them.
The center pole was the only one that wasn’t cemented shut on top. The ashtray like hole that was left became the WildCat altar. Every time we walked through the fence to go to the Carousel Shop, bocce courts, or Arcade, WildCat code called for us to dip a finger into the rain water collected in that center pole’s top, and trace a WC over our heart.
Once when Ali and I were riding bikes in the dead end, she flipped over her handle bars and smashed her mouth on the pavement. Jimmy the Music Man was walking back from getting donuts when he saw me sitting with Ali on the ground, trying to use my bandana to soak up the blood on her mouth. Jimmy scooped Ali up, carried her home, and then walked me to my cottage when her Mom and Nonna drove off to the ER.
The Music Man always closed down our summers at the annual Labor Day party in Gina and Chrissy yard, the biggest one on the street. He’d spend the entire morning of the party hooking up speakers, passing records and wires through his window and into Gina and Chrissy yard. It never seemed like luck that he happened to live next door to them, it just was fate that the party yard was linked to the Music Man.
Jimmy always winded down the night with “The Summer Wind ” by Sinatra, of course, as our parents clank plastic cups of wine, and we ran with sparklers, serenading summer goodbye.
Broken English
I never took Italian in high school. Nonna said the rosary for me everyday as a direct result of this. “ Che cosa’ai? Ma whadda you gonna do when I’ma old and can’t talka to you no more?” Yeah, she was a pro at laying on the Italian guilt trip, and I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t make me feel remorseful.
I knew that if I could rewind back to filling out my course schedule my freshman year of high school, I would bubble in circle B: Italian with Signor Policita, dedicating myself to that familiar language my Nonna had sung me to sleep in countless nights, while my body koalaed around hers.
I grew up singing the wrong words to The Beatles because of Nonna and Tata’s broken English. To me, the lyrics sounded just as good when they ended “Hanytime, hany day, you’lla come backa to me, Oh my Dolly…putta putta pum”. It didn’t matter that my friends didn’t understand why I always had to be home in time for Sunday dinners, or why as a 6th grader I brought leftover pasta fagioli to lunch instead of PB&J’s.
They didn’t know rules like “No dipping bread into the sauce while it’s cooking!”, or that there has to be seven different kinds of fish at Christmas Eve dinner. No one else I knew could have Biscotti’s, dip them in Mom’s coffee, and get away with calling it breakfast.
Jenny and Julie, my Americana friends down on Prospect Street, both had finished basements that hosted our middle school slumber parties. My basement, had a wine cellar. Dad and Uncle Lou would let us bambinas climb into the enormous purple stained barrel to run in circles to crush the grapes.
Me and my siblings, Elisa, Antonio, and Gianna, always fought to be the first to sink our feet into that disgustingly wonderful barrel where we could run and play follow the leader, until an accidental tripping was retaliated with purposeful shove. When the sibling rivalry flared up like that, a stern “Ay-Yo, knockitoff” from one of the men would fend us off for a while.
I could always measure how impatient we’d be for Dad or Uncle Lou to hoist us into the barrel by how sore our ribs were from jumping up to lean over the rim. We’d check if we could hear the grapes pop and sizzle as they fermented, or feel if they were still giving off heat.
It was worth the wait to squish into those grapes. Stomp, crush, squash. Stomp, crush, squash. Yell for the bosses when the oozing purple liquid fills the bucket below. They never sat far from us squishers, puffing their cherry cigars, singing along to the Rat Pack, washing out vintage wine bottles, waiting to refill with them their own vino.
While the basement is for the men, upstairs in our kitchen is where the hens of the family always gather. Clucking tends to peak before Christmas when it’s time to discuss the menu, the timing, and who’s gotten fatter since last year. Of course all this planning never works out, so I don’t know why they all insist on getting together.
Dinner always ends up being at least an hour late, and somebody always accidentally doubles up on the main entrée. I guess when you’re feeding a growing family of 40 to 50 the amount of food brought to the table is never enough.
No matter how many Christmas dinners at Nonny Rose’s you’ve been to, seeing a pot of ravioli so big that it takes all four burners on her stove to cook it is still a jaw dropper. So is the folding card table covered in bottles of Sambucca, Lemoncello, and Torre Gaia sent over from those cousins in Napoli. The ones who will call without fail and want to talk to everyone, even if it’s just to say, “Ciao”.
But after the phone call and 12-course dinner, the desserts are brought out and the shots of Sambucca become sloppier. Carmela is usually trying to persuade Tony or Lucia, to trade Yankee Swap gifts with her so she can have the lotto tickets they luckily picked. Alfie, Peter, Joey, and Steve always sneak out to smoke a joint before NeeNee corral’s us all out onto the front porch for the traditional family photo. Every year, as our familigia grows, the once sturdy porch on that white Victorian house seems to buckle a little more.
The passing cars on Hartford Ave honk at us as we sway and swing to try to keep warm while NeeNee is perched on the top rung of a ladder, setting the automatic timer on her Nikon camera and making sure the eight foot tall flashbulb is balanced in the snow.
As soon as the red light starts flashing, it’s our signal to start cheering NeeNee on as she races to scramble down the ladder, and sprint to join us on the porch. After several failed attempts at beating the timer, she finally makes it into the photo, but the flash never goes off. We give her one more chance before we all ditch the photo shoot and opt for the desserts inside.
Soon after, the dinner table’s covered in roasted chestnut shells and half eaten Tiramisu, but no one’s ready to clean up just yet. Four new babies are lined up sleeping peacefully in their car seats and don’t seem to mind the old Italians playing Scopa and serenading each other with “O Sole Mio”, that familiar makeshift lullaby we’ve all grown up falling asleep to.
I knew that if I could rewind back to filling out my course schedule my freshman year of high school, I would bubble in circle B: Italian with Signor Policita, dedicating myself to that familiar language my Nonna had sung me to sleep in countless nights, while my body koalaed around hers.
I grew up singing the wrong words to The Beatles because of Nonna and Tata’s broken English. To me, the lyrics sounded just as good when they ended “Hanytime, hany day, you’lla come backa to me, Oh my Dolly…putta putta pum”. It didn’t matter that my friends didn’t understand why I always had to be home in time for Sunday dinners, or why as a 6th grader I brought leftover pasta fagioli to lunch instead of PB&J’s.
They didn’t know rules like “No dipping bread into the sauce while it’s cooking!”, or that there has to be seven different kinds of fish at Christmas Eve dinner. No one else I knew could have Biscotti’s, dip them in Mom’s coffee, and get away with calling it breakfast.
Jenny and Julie, my Americana friends down on Prospect Street, both had finished basements that hosted our middle school slumber parties. My basement, had a wine cellar. Dad and Uncle Lou would let us bambinas climb into the enormous purple stained barrel to run in circles to crush the grapes.
Me and my siblings, Elisa, Antonio, and Gianna, always fought to be the first to sink our feet into that disgustingly wonderful barrel where we could run and play follow the leader, until an accidental tripping was retaliated with purposeful shove. When the sibling rivalry flared up like that, a stern “Ay-Yo, knockitoff” from one of the men would fend us off for a while.
I could always measure how impatient we’d be for Dad or Uncle Lou to hoist us into the barrel by how sore our ribs were from jumping up to lean over the rim. We’d check if we could hear the grapes pop and sizzle as they fermented, or feel if they were still giving off heat.
It was worth the wait to squish into those grapes. Stomp, crush, squash. Stomp, crush, squash. Yell for the bosses when the oozing purple liquid fills the bucket below. They never sat far from us squishers, puffing their cherry cigars, singing along to the Rat Pack, washing out vintage wine bottles, waiting to refill with them their own vino.
While the basement is for the men, upstairs in our kitchen is where the hens of the family always gather. Clucking tends to peak before Christmas when it’s time to discuss the menu, the timing, and who’s gotten fatter since last year. Of course all this planning never works out, so I don’t know why they all insist on getting together.
Dinner always ends up being at least an hour late, and somebody always accidentally doubles up on the main entrée. I guess when you’re feeding a growing family of 40 to 50 the amount of food brought to the table is never enough.
No matter how many Christmas dinners at Nonny Rose’s you’ve been to, seeing a pot of ravioli so big that it takes all four burners on her stove to cook it is still a jaw dropper. So is the folding card table covered in bottles of Sambucca, Lemoncello, and Torre Gaia sent over from those cousins in Napoli. The ones who will call without fail and want to talk to everyone, even if it’s just to say, “Ciao”.
But after the phone call and 12-course dinner, the desserts are brought out and the shots of Sambucca become sloppier. Carmela is usually trying to persuade Tony or Lucia, to trade Yankee Swap gifts with her so she can have the lotto tickets they luckily picked. Alfie, Peter, Joey, and Steve always sneak out to smoke a joint before NeeNee corral’s us all out onto the front porch for the traditional family photo. Every year, as our familigia grows, the once sturdy porch on that white Victorian house seems to buckle a little more.
The passing cars on Hartford Ave honk at us as we sway and swing to try to keep warm while NeeNee is perched on the top rung of a ladder, setting the automatic timer on her Nikon camera and making sure the eight foot tall flashbulb is balanced in the snow.
As soon as the red light starts flashing, it’s our signal to start cheering NeeNee on as she races to scramble down the ladder, and sprint to join us on the porch. After several failed attempts at beating the timer, she finally makes it into the photo, but the flash never goes off. We give her one more chance before we all ditch the photo shoot and opt for the desserts inside.
Soon after, the dinner table’s covered in roasted chestnut shells and half eaten Tiramisu, but no one’s ready to clean up just yet. Four new babies are lined up sleeping peacefully in their car seats and don’t seem to mind the old Italians playing Scopa and serenading each other with “O Sole Mio”, that familiar makeshift lullaby we’ve all grown up falling asleep to.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)