Marital responsibilities held Mom back from transitioning from Vina the seamstress to Designs by Vina, and I will later tell what I have been able to learn about this career path closed.
Florie called Mom every morning at seven. I know, because I was there a lot of those mornings. Florie was my “canary” at a distance. If Mom did not answer, I would have heard immediately, in Columbia, Missouri. They had the most charming conversations, sometimes arguments, but always at a high level, always respectful.
Mom would put me on the phone, and I was usually embarrassed to be hoarse and incoherent at such an ungodly hour. Florie was always happy to chat with me. We would make promises to see each other on my next visit, but alas, in that last year, we ran out of “nexts.”
A few years before, when well-read Florie learned I was going to live in the Southern Cone, she mentioned her business trip to Buenos Aires, and gave me a well-documented historical novel, Woman on Horseback by William Edmund Barrett (1938). It was about the late 1860s war between Paraguay on one side, and Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil on the other. This so prepared me for my stay in South America; folks were impressed that an American would know these things. That history helped me understand attitudes and psyches down there.
Florie sometimes accompanied Mom and her cohorts at the weekly Bible studies at Jeanie Gallo’s house, and later at the Seminara sisters’ place, three houses down. Understand that all these redoubtable ladies were Italian, ergo Roman, Catholics. Rose and Mary Seminara, Georgette Adams, Toni Caggiano, and Jeanie Gallo were a large part of Mom’s life—and I will give them their due. And among these ladies was Florie, not even an adopted child; she belonged. Florie read the New York Times daily, from cover to cover, and the Bible study was a great opportunity get into “All the news that’s fit to print.” Once in a while, during heated discussion, she would look up from her paper and make some pithy comment. The Pope wearing a yarmulke was good material. She was hilarious, and so was Mom. They were made for each other.
Bible study more often than not strayed to commentary on politics, current events, public morality—a higher form of gossip. An insight into Florie’s religiosity and musical tastes: “When I die I want to go to hell.” Okay, I’ll bite…. “Because Frank Sinatra is there.”
Photo courtesy Georgette Adams
Florie and Vina.
Circa 2006.
2. Julie is ‘De Man’
Seems like Julie was always in my life. Julie (Giuli/Giulio) de Ramo is a rough-hewn bear of a man with a large heart. He’s in his mid-nineties, and has been a widower for almost twenty years. His Tootsie was loud, brash, very intelligent, and extremely supportive of her husband. She was Vina’s good and faithful friend, and she defended her to the extent that she would puncture the façade and posturing of my stepfather—only when he needed it, as all men do, at times. Understandably, Stepdad disliked her—intensely. Julie has been holding the fort without Tootsie, and for all but the last three years, Vina stepped into the breach, buttressing Julie’s forza (strength). I recall Julie’s dutiful 8:00 a.m. phone calls to Mom, on the heels of Florie’s. Hence, his chapter follows Florie’s. Mom’s sweet “Good morning” to Florie morphed into “Julie, don’t be ridiculous! You don’t remember what you told me yesterday?” The transition was from love to tough love.
Mom and Julie were an energetic comedy team—they argued about everything, especially food and food preparation. I was an avid listener to the mostly entertaining “play-by-play.” Even when they were on the phone, his voice at the other end was audible in most of Mom’s apartment. In the midst of recordings I made of my conversations with Mom, Julie called a few times, and I can actually make out what he is saying—this at a distance from the receiver of Mom’s now old-fashioned land line.
It seemed that Mom, the home team, usually came out on top of the “Julie-Vina Debates.” However, when Mom would pass the receiver to me, Julie never asked me to take sides; he always asked about my health, and that of my Nancy, kids, and grandkids.
The man can cook, however. He even makes his own salsiccia (sausage). Of course, Mom always said he used too much salt and oil. I can still see that butter “iceberg” floating in his clam sauce in the skillet. Julie still keeps an eye out for sales on 86th Street, though he can no longer count on Mom to pick up and drop off canned plum tomatoes, a quarter-pound of pine nuts, a tin of Medaglia d’Oro espresso grind, etcetera when she’s “in the neighborhood.” Beyond Mom’s eleven-block walk to the 86th Street emporia, she needed to schlep her two-wheeled cart another two long blocks to Julie’s apartment building. She’d say, “What does he think I am? I’m just an old broad, and it’s freezing (or hot) out there. If I fall on the ice, goodbye.” Then, in the same breath, “You gotta hand it to Julie, he’s doing all right for ninety-two, and he has all his marbles.”
Combining Florie’s grammar and vocabulary with Julie’s stories would be a Brooklynese epic poem, with alternate stanzas recited in the unique Brooklyn accents of each. Yes, I believe there are Jewish and Italian variations of the dialect. Of course Mom, the editor, would never agree with Julie’s details. So, one Easter Sunday, Nancy and I are at the apartment, and Julie is a guest. I mention zeppole and sfingi, which unleashes a spirited “discussion” about the difference—classic “Who’s on First?” material. Julie says: “Zeppole are fried dough with ricotta filling, like cannoli, and sometimes with a cherry or some other fruit on top. The sfingi have custard filling and powdered sugar.”
“Julie, what are you talking about?” says Mom. “The sfingi are stuffed with cannoli cream, and have orange zest and sugar on top.”
Then Julie offers, “I remember Alba’s Pastry Shop on 18th Avenue, every March and April…” Of course, by now, the battle royal is joined—except that Julie is in general retreat, and sfingi and zeppole changed uniforms several times during the campaign.
I should know the difference between zeppole and sfingi, ‘cause these are classic St. Joseph’s Day pastries. Mom would send me five bucks and a San Giuseppe card every March 19, Il Giorno del Mio Onomastico, which is my name saint’s day so I could buy the pastries—not much chance of doing so in Durham, North Carolina or Columbia, Missouri. A sabbatical in the Boston area did provide an outlet at the North End.
Julie’s stories keep me enrapt in his redundant biblical style: “So, I get to the door. I open it. I look up, and I hear a noise at the top of the stairs. So, I decided to go upstairs. I’m climbing, and, when I get up there, what do I see? Well, I looked, and…” (Tell me Julie, fercryinoutloud, the suspense is killing me!)
Among his several city jobs, Julie was a trolley conductor in his youth, when Brooklyn had trolleys. Indeed, the Brooklyn Dodgers got their name from the Trolley Dodgers. (Got trolleys, Los Angeles, huh?! And, while I’m at it, how many lakes are there in LA? Why did you not import water when you imported the Minneapolis Lakers? Too late now.) Julie’s trolley navigated all areas, from congested streets to tall-grass marshy fields—much of Bensonhurst is filled-in marshland; che peccato (what a pity!) “I gotta make this sharp turn, and cars know to stay outta my way, but this wise guy won’t move, and boom, body damage. He had some case against the city.” Linguistic sidebar: He had soooome case—drawn out, like “He had no case, what a chooch”—in “high Italian,” ciuccio, or jackass.
As a kid, I was just another guaglione, a ragamuffin kid of the ’hood. Guaglione sounds like why-OH, as in, “Why-OH, kay see-deech?” Guaglione, che si dice? or “Hey kiddo, whaddya say?” This guaglione recalls taking the West End line the three stops to Coney Island, and a few times seeing Julie working for NYC Transit. He seemed like an Italian Paul Bunyan. He made me feel okay for leaving Bensonhurst to go to college. He was great to my kids. I grew in his esteem, became a mensch, as a support for Mom through her difficult times with my stepfather especially at the end of his life, and then again later with her recurrent cancer.
During WWII, Julie was stationed in Natal, Brazil—the