Travel with Victor D’Amico as he recalls times, events, and places that provided him with rich memories of the simple things that made his life’s passage both enjoyable and meaningful. Marrying a woman with strong ties to Italy fostered his appreciation of his own Italian heritage and, coupled with his travels, gave him an awareness of the world and its diversity.
D’Amico compares his early childhood with those of his children and traces his own journey through college, the Army, and the early years of his marriage. He recalls experiences with his children, their marriages, and his own fiftieth wedding anniversary. He describes his love affair with skiing, his time working and living in Munich, and reflects on getting old. Also included are snippets from his extensive travels, his appreciation for Italian cuisine, and the long and remarkable life of his mother-in-law and her influences on his family.
Spanning eighty years, Recollections is a memoir filled with candid observations and appealing tales of a life well lived.
RECOLLECTIONS
Things Hard to ForgetBy VICTOR D'AMICOiUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 Victor D'Amico
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4502-4573-9Contents
Acknowledgments................................................ixIntroduction...................................................xiGrowing Up.....................................................1An Offbeat Path Through College................................12Writing Makes Fondness Grow into Love..........................18Surviving an Army Fiasco.......................................22The Start of Marriage..........................................25Passage from Student to Teacher................................30An American Housewife Living in Italy..........................35A Good Samaritan...............................................40Birthing and Passing...........................................45Skiing: A Wonderful Lifetime Activity..........................51A Gratifying Career Ending.....................................70Living in Munich...............................................78Sustaining Family Connections..................................86Our Children's Weddings........................................93Celebrating a Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary.....................100Getting Old....................................................105The Last Hurrah................................................112A French Barge Cruise..........................................125Two Traditional Piedmont Dishes................................129Celebrating with a Hot Bath....................................129Cooking Risotto................................................132Ines: A Life that Spans an Ocean...............................135Preface........................................................135From Lyon to New York City.....................................137A Long Road to Motherhood......................................140Coping with a Maturing Daughter................................143Becoming a Grandmother.........................................150Connecting with Piedmont Again.................................156Turning into the Well-Traveled Woman...........................162Ines' Declining Years..........................................173
Chapter One
Growing Up By recalling some of the events in my early years growing up and comparing them with those occurrences in raising my own children, I am able to highlight some differences in a generation.
I was the oldest of three children, with a sister who was eighteen months younger and a brother who was born five years after I came along. My parents started their family in the year that the Great Depression began in 1929, and I am sure their early years of marriage must have been a struggle. They were both born in the United States of parents that came to this country in the late nineteenth century. Neither of them shared much of their past with either me or my siblings, so we knew little of their early life. They both had a limited formal education and found themselves in the working world at an early age. My mother, like many women, found employment in the garment factories, where she became quite skilled; this talent served her well later in life. She was hardworking, but somewhat sheltered and nave in the ways of the world. My father was just the opposite, and his street smarts included an ability to promote himself. He started out trying to sell real estate, but during my childhood he spent most of his time selling wine to liquor stores. During the war he worked at a nearby war plant, where he became a union shop steward, but once the war ended he returned to his wine-marketing vocation.
My parents never had enough money to open a savings account even though my mother worked most of her life sewing clothes. She was very talented in this endeavor and could make a suit or dress for a woman after just being presented the fabric and being shown a picture of the garment. This work occupied much of her time, and although money was often scarce, she never neglected putting an appetizing dinner on the table each night. We children would often go our separate ways, but we always assembled each day for our main meal.
My father at all times had a job, was well liked, and was very suited to being a salesman. He didn't drink or frequent bars, but his weakness was the need to gamble; his favorite outlets were betting on bocce games, playing cards, or wagering on horse races. It was probably the reason he never had any money to put in the bank. He had a strong sense of family and was a strict disciplinarian. An occasional slap in the head would signal his disapproval. His family duties extended to housing my mother's sisters when they encountered personal marriage problems. Like most fathers of that time, he had very little involvement in the activities of his children.
Most family outings consisted of visits during the holidays to the homes of relatives, where ample food was shared and an occasional card game was played. A special occasion I remember occurred when my mother took my sister and me to the World's Fair when I was ten years old. After sightseeing all day, she even managed to find the money to take us to a spectacular nighttime water show starring Esther Williams, a very popular Hollywood celebrity. I never forgot the disappointment I felt because my father never found the time to take me to this wonderful exhibition that was located only ten minutes by train from our house.
I recall living in a rented two-bedroom apartment over a corner grocery store not far from a typical New York City playground. It was a place where you could play softball, basketball, or handball, chin on a high bar, ride the swings or seesaw, or go down a slide. It had something for everybody. Of course, if you took part in a softball game, you had to learn to avoid all the obstacles on the field. If you played right field, you had to position yourself on the narrow side of the handball wall to cover the field. In center field, you had to contend with basketball backboards; and in left field, you had to get around the monkey bars.
My early years were spent on the streets near my house playing stoopball or other simple games like punchball with neighborhood kids. The former game only required two people: one player would bounce a rubber ball off the steps of the stoop, hoping to get the ball beyond the reach of the defensive player. The number of ball bounces or the distance traveled would determine what success was achieved. It was like playing a two-man baseball game and helped develop good eye/hand coordination for later participation in team sports. When I got older, I advanced to another form of a baseball game, where a rectangle painted on a wall was a target strike zone and the player in front of it would try and hit your pitches with a bat. Three-man basketball games were also very popular and very competitive, because if you lost, your team watched for a while. It seemed as if there was always something to do, and there were never any adults needed to help organize activities.
Playing outside was always the preferred way of occupying my spare time, but I also managed to find things I could do by myself. I spent endless hours playing with an erector set I was given one Christmas, and I discovered a baseball game I could play with dice. I created a league of teams and kept track of the games played between them. I obviously didn't need any help to keep myself amused.
My parents never read me stories, but somehow the library near the grammar school attracted my attention and I enjoyed such books as Bomba, the Jungle Boy. However, I became involved with more modern and adult books when I was hired to work in a business whose time has now passed. Next door to where I got my haircuts was a small store rented by two men who ran a rental lending library business. One day, when I was in the eighth grade, they approached me and asked if I wanted a job. They bought recently published books and distributed them to candy stores and drugstores. At one time almost every block in New York City had a candy store where one bought ice cream, sundaes, sodas, cigarettes, newspapers, and-yes-candy. Many people visited these establishments each day, and the stores were an ideal site for a lending library, where for a small fee you could rent a book. New bestsellers would cost about twenty-five cents for several weeks, while older books might rent for as little as ten cents. They wanted me to reinforce the jackets of new book purchases with a heavy brown paper that had one side that became adhesive when wetted. It was important to preserve the flashy covers to attract a reader's attention. At other times I would repair the spines of older books, and during the summers I would help them deliver new books to their clients. I held this job through four years of high school, and it helped me pay for the train fare I needed to get to school, feed the cigarette smoking habit I acquired, go to a movie on a weekend, and take a girl on a date. I never had to ask my father for money; in fact, at times I gave him part of my wages. The advent of pocket books soon made this type of business uncompetitive, but I appreciated the opportunity it had given me.
After I entered high school, I left the streets of the nearby neighborhood to play with the bigger boys at the park or school yard, where teams were organized and games were more competitive. Softball occupied most of my time, and I played any position that needed to be filled. I remember one contest where I was pitching and the teams unknowingly selected my younger brother to umpire balls and strikes. I believe I won that game! We played in some organized leagues, but our most exciting games were when we bet money on our team to win. One time we played a very good team and paid a pitcher to perform for us so we could be more competitive. Winning that game caused a lot of celebration.
My father encouraged my playing softball by coming to many of the games, but he forbade me to play football. Of course, I didn't agree with his opinion, and my attempts to play were made complicated. I managed to borrow a helmet, shoulder pads, and pants and hid them in the hall closet. Keeping this activity secret was difficult, because when I came home from playing there was always some part of me that ached and hiding my discomfort was a real challenge. The struggle to cover up my playing started to dampen my enthusiasm for the sport. When I cut my tongue playing without a mouthpiece and my father found out about the deception, my football career came to an end.
I hung out with a group from high school, friends that played at the grammar-school yard and a much larger crowd at the city park that some called a gang. Although they were often mischievous, they were rather tame compared to present-day gangs. However, on the night that President Roosevelt died, we got into a bit of trouble. We were drinking beer in a small park that had a narrow entrance and benches that were surrounded by hedges. Someone who had too much to drink decided he wanted to get rid of his empty bottle by throwing it out into the busy street next to the park. It came down in front of a police car that was passing by, and before we knew it, two policemen had corralled ten of us. They took down our names, addresses, and ages, and they said our parents would soon be hearing from the police. None of us were smart enough to give phony information, and we nervously waited for the next stage of justice to unfold. Each day, starting with the oldest boy, a different parent was informed of our wrongdoing. To have all the culprits face the punishment of the parents was enough satisfaction for the authorities. I got lucky. Since I was younger than many of the boys, my parents never received any notification, but the anxiety I endured waiting served to teach me a lesson.
As I reflect back on these incidents from my growing up, I wonder what it told me about myself and the influence of my parents. They were typical of parents at that time. They saw their role as putting food on the table and clothes on your back and instilling in you a strong sense of discipline. The lack of direct adult involvement in what I did seemed to instill in me a strong sense of independence, and I did most things by myself or with a small group of friends. Except for sharing meals together and visiting relatives, I did little with my brother and sister. My sister, who was close to my age, attended a different high school, and when my brother started in high school, I was already in college; thus aside from contact within our house, we went our separate ways.
I routinely traveled throughout the city as I went about my days. In high school I rode the subway back and forth to Brooklyn from Queens each day for an hour. On weekends I would often go to Jamaica, about a half hour from home, to see a movie with a friend. During the summer, groups of us would hitchhike to Rockaway Beach to enjoy the ocean. On rare occasions, we journeyed across Manhattan to Newark to see a burlesque show. In college I took my father's car from Queens to pick up a date in Brooklyn, and then drove to a fraternity party in the Bronx. During my youth I never ventured beyond the environs of New York, but I considered a good part of the city my playing field.
My parents knew that I traveled around a lot, but they weren't overly concerned because most of the Big Apple at that time was relatively safe. I couldn't ask advice from my parents because I felt their growing up was so different from what I was going through, but that's probably what most children think about their parents. My mother was so proud of the meals she put on the table for us. You knew it was Thursday when pasta with tomato sauce was served. On Sundays meatballs were added to the sauce; and I remember, when I came home late on a Saturday night, making a sandwich of the browned meatballs was my favorite snack. It wasn't fancy, but it was Italian comfort food and there was usually plenty of it. My father didn't wait for you to ask for advice; he spoke his mind on a subject and his pronouncements were often expressions of control. My sister especially noticed his attempts to manage our lives.
Without any help from parents, I found out about and enrolled in a recently organized junior college with a work-study program. Wages from my working semesters allowed me to pay for the time I spent in classes. With the money I saved and some financial help from my parents, I was able to attend New York University and eventually received an engineering degree. My sister received no encouragement to enter college and started working after graduating from high school; she contributed to the family income. At that time higher education for women was not a high priority. My brother was more fortunate, since his athletic ability earned him a full scholarship to St. John's University.
My family never had much, but I never felt deprived. It seemed that all my friends were in similar situations. Later, I may have felt that I missed out on some things and would want to do better for my children, but I never felt disadvantaged.
My wife Yvonne's experiences in growing up led to developing her own awareness and assertion of independence. Her parents immigrated to the United States in their youth, and their social life involved interaction with friends born in their native region of Piedmont, Italy. Ines and Lorenzo were self-conscious about their use of English and talked to Yvonne only in the dialect of Piedmont. Her exposure to foreign tongues continued when Ines returned to work and her grandmother, who spoke only the Piedmont dialect and French, came over from Italy to take care of Yvonne. Yvonne started learning English when she entered kindergarten and, being a good student, she learned quickly. Most of her girlfriends came from very similar backgrounds, so she had a minimal exposure to what was a typical city environment. However, her curiosity to expand her interests led to her becoming an avid reader and excelling in an advanced accelerated high school program that led to her acceptance at Queens College. Her parents had little empathy and support for her college aspirations, and after two years Yvonne went to work. My parents gave me some support in helping with my education, but Yvonne's parents were more interested in seeing that she married a nice boy from Piedmont like her friends had done. Fitting into the American culture was something Yvonne had to accomplish by herself.
We got married when I was twenty-five and Yvonne was only twenty. We didn't waste too much time in raising a family; after less than five years we had three children-Susan, the oldest; Larry, two years younger; and Ray, just eighteen months later. They were so cute, and hugging and kissing them was so natural and pleasurable. I was not able to recall similar physical demonstrations with my parents. Maybe they stopped these affectionate expressions at an earlier age than I could remember. Yvonne and I lived first in a three-bedroom house in the suburbs with a big backyard to play in. There was a hill to slide down in winter and a clump of trees and bushes to hide out with your friends.
When Susan was almost six years old, the family left our typical suburban environment and crossed the Atlantic by boat to live with Yvonne's parents-who had planned a lengthy vacation in Italy-in a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment in Ivrea, Italy, while I went to work in remote eastern Turkey. Although her relatives in the area gave some support to Yvonne, she was the principal organizer of family activities. In a period of seven months, I got to see the family twice; each time I delighted in seeing their adaptation to Italian surroundings. The Italian people are so taken with children, and a large family with such a young mother caused much admiration and expressions of delight. How could you not smile when a cute two-year-old American boy goes into the dining room of a hotel and greets the diners with a loud "Buona Sera"?
The children don't remember much, if anything, of their stay in Italy. But on our return, Susan's first-grade teacher commented to Yvonne how mature Susan appeared in comparison to her classmates. She and Larry attended an Italian preschool for a little while, and Yvonne took all the children on short trips and visits to some relatives, so they were exposed to Italian culture. I guess it must be true what they say about travel broadening your mind and having a positive effect, so although the children don't remember much about living in Ivrea, the experience may have given them a good start in life.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from RECOLLECTIONSby VICTOR D'AMICO Copyright © 2010 by Victor D'Amico. Excerpted by permission.
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