Practically Laura

Yolie: Fini

Why am I writing about the grandparents?  Well…recently Yolie died; she was the last of the four.

She was ninety-nine years old.

In these last years she was living in Texas (a place she never dreamed she would live), so we got to spend more time with her…it was a blessing.

But she never liked the Tex-Mex being served at the nursing home…of course.

As a death often will, it reminded me of the little instances…little incidents of our first meeting…as unlikely and miraculous as any other, and I wanted to  write a few down…so I have.

I also asked my in-laws to share a few memories of their parents.

My father-in-law, Al, wrote:

My mother, Yolanda, was born during August of 1911 in Jersey City.  Throughout childhood until I married, we lived at 2011 New York Ave. in Union City.  When my parents married, they moved in with my grandfather, a widower, John…so until his death in 1971, they lived in Union City.  They moved to Toms River after his death.

Mom’s first job was with The Cattle Club in New York City.  I have no idea what she did, but she made lifetime friendships while working there.  Later, when I was in high school she was employed at Yardley.  Every night she would come home smelling like a lavender bush.

My grandfather, John, would cook dinner for us.  It was usually some Northern Italian dish with rice and veal—not the traditional Italian food.  Sometimes it was okay—sometimes I would pass for a p. b. & j sandwich but not often.  Usually, I was starving at suppertime…as after school we played football (two-hand touch) every day.  On the block where we played, everyone had iron picket fences, so when a ball was passed and hit the fence—Pop!!—I needed a new ball.  Dad would complain, but a new ball would quickly show up.

My father, Philip, was born on July 19, 1909 and died in 1998.

Dad worked at various jobs, but most of his working life was with Testing Machines in Amityville, New Jersey.  When he started with Testing, they were located in New York City, but the company later relocated to Amityville while he was working for them.  He had to take a train to N. Y. C. then another to Amityville.  I often heard my parents talk of moving to Long Island to shorten his commute, but it never happened.

We would spend two weeks at the Jersey shore every year.  My parents and cousins would rent a beach house.  My cousin and I would stay at least a month while each family had a two week stay.  After I married, my parents bought a house at the shore in Lavallette, but they sold it when they moved to Toms River.

Dad enjoyed retirement by doing things around the house.  I really think he was glad not to have the commute (one and a half hours each way).

They’re both buried in New Jersey.

I miss them both.

My mother-in-law, Marie, wrote:

One of my fond memories of my mother, Frances, was listening to her and Craig debating on political issues.  At times it was amusing to hear them try to get the upper hand on the debate.  They usually ended up laughing.

Another amusing memory was of Craig disguising his voice, and calling her to say he was phoning about a political issue pertaining to his party.  She was ‘not interested’, so she would hang the phone up not realizing it was Craig.

My father, Fred, had more than one job, but his love was music.  He played bass in bands.  Then in his mature years he played with the Garden State Symphony in N. J. and the symphony in New York.

I have fond memories of my father landscaping our yard in Atlanta.  He landscaped a beautiful azalea garden in the back yard, and when they were in bloom I thought of him.

Dad and mom stayed a month with us when we moved into our new home (in Atlanta).  We had a lot of fun together, but it was sad when they left to go home to New Jersey.

They are still missed.

************

I have a few last stray, funny memories to share…and a bit more.

Frances was a huge Yankees fan.  During our visits, I have memories of her sitting in her comfy chair near the T.V. glued to the game.  She was religious about it.

Surprisingly enough, about five years ago Yolie told me she had trouble understanding me when we first met in the eighties.  This is particularly funny because I don’t even come close to having an extreme Texas accent…now my brother-in-law is another story (No worries…I understand you, Steve.).

Every day I realize how blessed I’ve been to stumble into these incredible families.  Families who started their lives in the U.S. by selling rags on the streets of the city are three generations later…encompassing a group of seven cousins--four with college degrees (one soon to attend college)…three of those with masters degrees and all successful.

They’ve lived the American Dream.

They’re living the American Dream…it has the slight flavor of oregano, but it’s still American.

 
Laura on the Jersey Shore - 1987

Yolie: Team isn't Everything

Being from the south…and I need to be careful how I say this…but there appeared to me to be a general feeling those from the north considered us prejudiced solely based on our place of birth.

Did they actually believe this of us?  I’m unsure…some yes…some no, yet it seemed to be knowledge not so much spoken as impressed upon us at birth or by some weird social osmosis.

Therefore, when I would hear Craig’s grandparents speaking of their fellow card players and neighbors in terms of ethnicity, it gave me the impression there was more prejudice going on in the north than the south.

After all, I grew up a city girl.  My neighborhood was pretty well and happily integrated.

I was proud of this fact.

Later on…I decided I may have been mistaken about the grandparent’s habit of adding titles to their card buddies' names.  For example, there was ‘Alice, The German Lady’ or ‘Eleanor, The Jewish Lady,’ etc.

In retrospect…I think for them it was a manner of identification.  It was almost like stating the team a person roots for at the World Cup.

I’m almost positive either would have been happy to be identified as ‘The Italian Lady.’

Of course…their own team was the best team…everything Italian was best…but it didn’t keep them from treating me (and others) with kindness and hospitality…and, for that, I’ll always be grateful.

They never seemed sorry their grandson (full-blooded, Italian American) introduced them to a potential family member…not from New Jersey, not Catholic and without a real ethnic identity.

And it may have been as early as the first visit I felt compelled to share with them…the non-facts of my ancestry.

“I’m Scottish, Irish, Native American, French…and who knows what else.  My family has been here forever…,” I shared with a shrug.

They looked at each other and then smiled back at me.

I think they had already given up on Craig’s family returning to the Catholic Church; my Protestantism was definitely out of their comfort zone, but they didn’t let it affect how they treated me.

Conversely, the whole Catholic, Italian, northern thing was pretty much a novelty to me.

I’ll admit…I was curious.

It was different.

There were times I was sitting there observing and soaking it all in like a giant sponge.

It was a wonderful novelty…like all the food rules, or I guess you could almost call them traditions.

By the way, the reason the salad was sitting at the edge of the table untouched during the big meal I described in my last post…was because they preferred to eat it after the main portion of the meal.  They believed it helped with digestion.

And let’s face it, after a meal that large…any help in that direction was probably a good idea.

Earlier that day (forever known as The Day of the Big Meal), Grandpa Fred was cutting up some Italian sausage to put on crackers.

So Fred and Phil, the other grandfather, were hunched over the plate in the small den off the kitchen when Craig and I walked in.

We wondered what they were getting up to.

Fred decided to share, so he invited us over to partake of the ‘hot’ sausage with an obviously contained smile on his face.

I’m wondering now if the grandfathers had ever had to share this particular treat.  I’m guessing the grandmother’s shied away from the potential of an incredibly fiery tongue.

Well, I was from Texas and loved spicy foods…with a passion.

I wasn’t shying away.

You see, in Texas the ability to handle spicy foods is practically a rite of passage…and I had passed it with flying colors…several years back.

So I think he and Phil hoped I would be hopping up and down and begging for water after the first miniscule bite.

They were ready for some fun at my expense.

But much to their disappointment (and mine), it didn’t seem to have any bite.

I chewed…and thought it was okay but kept wondering when it would kick in.

It never did.

So Fred and Phil stared and stared…waiting for steam to drift from my ears, or my head to explode, but nothing happened.

To this day, Craig and I are still snickering about this little episode….

More photos from the first trip:

 

 
Laura in Philadelphia (Looking 80s)

 
Craig in New York (Dreaming Business Dreams)

to be continued…

Yolie: Food Rules!

“Do you like to play cahrds, Lora?” sharp-witted Grandma R. asks me with a twinkle in her eye.

I think the mischievous twinkle originated with Frances (also known as Grandma R.), by the way.

Craig, Frances and Fred

“Yes,” I respond not realizing she’s referring to poker which I’ve never played in my life.

“They play penny poker,” Craig informs me.

“What’s penny poker?” I ask.

“Well…” and he launches into a long explanation of some of the myriad of variations his grandparents (i.e. card sharks) play amongst themselves and the neighbors…with nothing higher than a penny.

The poker variations include such names as ‘Baseball’,’5 & 10s’, ‘Spit in the Pot’ and ‘One-Eyed Jacks are Wild.’

Unbelievable.

We sit down and I try to play, but…I can’t keep all the twists and turns straight, so…in the end, they good-naturedly agree to play a round of spades with me. They’ve never played it before, but once they realize it’s very similar to hearts they’re off…

I can play spades with my eyes closed, so my mind begins to wander back to the day before.

Yesterday evening, we sat down to a huge family meal with Craig’s Dad, Al, and the rest of the grandparents.

Al was soon flying back to Texas. He had driven up a car with Craig, so Craig would have its use over the summer.

Well…to get back on track…I'd never seen a meal like this one.

The table was groaning under the weight.

It was a real Italian meal.

The kind you only dream about.

There was an enormous bowl of pasta (they call it macaroni unless it’s spaghetti) with the best meat balls you’ve ever tasted on the side.

There were chicken cutlets.

There was homemade sausage.

There was an extra bowl of ‘gravy’ (I call it spaghetti sauce).

There were stuffed mushrooms.

There was bread.

There was salad.

There might have been something eggplant….I’m sure I’m leaving stuff out, but, suffice it to say, it was an astonishing sight.

To this point, I thought we knew hospitality in the south (and we do)…but this was hospitality on a scale I’d never seen or envisioned. I mean…THREE MEATS!

You see…we had already had appetizers, and multiple desserts were still to come.

It was mind-boggling.

Then I began to discover the mystery and ritual.

I wasn’t just sitting down with a welcoming family (who were hiding their sizing up incredibly well), but I was sitting down with one which when they did gather for this sort of meal…did things in a certain manner.

There were unwritten rules!

And Craig, for all his good-guy ways, didn’t think to fill me in beforehand.

So...because of the size of the pasta bowl Frances is serving us as we pass her our plates, and (as the guest) my plate is the first one up.

It was fairly quiet (I would later discover this was a rarity) as she began putting pasta on my plate…a little smile on her lips.

And to give you a little background, I was not large at all but had a good appetite, could put away the pasta, and I was hungry.

So, at first, I wasn’t too alarmed when the pasta started piling up. A small mountain would be
just fine with me.

But, as she served my plate, her smile grew bigger and bigger (it was flirting with smirk status), and the pasta started growing to alarming proportions. We weren’t talking Enchanted Rock…it was starting to look like Mt. McKinley.

“Lora, you sure can eat a lot, can’t you?” Yolie commented in surprise. Her voice sounded
unnaturally loud in the quiet room.

Craig, Yolie and Phil

I quickly cut my eyes to Craig; he had a helpless expression on his face, but Al saved the day.

“It’s okay, Lora. You have to say ‘when.’ Craig, didn’t you tell her?” Al chastised his son with a
roll of his eyes.

Craig meekly admitted he hadn’t.

“Here,” Al said and continued, “Craig will take that plate.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

Al’s now my hero.

Luckily for me, the rest of the dishes were passed from place to place, so saying ‘when’ wasn’t an issue…and once I’d gotten my Enchanted Rock-size pasta serving, I started feeling a little more comfortable.

Then I noticed something a bit strange.

The salad was sitting untouched and lonely at the side of the table.

To be continued…

Yolie

A little girl was born in 1911.

Her name was Yolanda.

Her parents immigrated to the United States from Italy before her birth, so she was the first in her family to be born in the new land.

I think her parents came through Ellis Island.

And I’ve seen pictures of Yolie’s beautiful mother; she died fairly young.

My father-in-law, Al, was also an only child, and despite his left-handed tendency toward mischief (there’s this caterpillar story) was considered pretty much perfect in Yolie’s eyes.

So when he met and married my mother-in-law, Marie…Marie was not granted the same perfection status which sometimes made for a rocky relationship between Yolie and she.

Eventually…Marie and Al had two children, Craig and Cheryl (because back in the sixties all the children had names which began with the same letter…it was some sort of rule).

Al worked for one of the big oil and gas companies. During the 1980s, he was banished from the land of milk and honey (New Jersey) to Texas (where very few others with Italian surnames resided) for no good reason.

Craig, the grandson of Yolie, had to change his plans for college. Instead of attending Rutgers or one of the other infinitely better New Jersey schools, he now decided to look for a university in Texas.

It made sense. He would be closer to his family.

So he chose Baylor, and that’s how we met.

In the meantime, Yolie and his other grandparents continued to happily reside in a place called Holiday City located in Toms River, New Jersey.

By the way…Holiday City looked like something out of the early sixties. When John Mellencamp sang about “Little Pink Houses,” he was probably singing about the southern equivalent of Holiday City. A 1980s snapshot would picture row after row of little white houses with small, tidy yards sporting a wide variety of garden sculpture. But, I have to say, the Virgin Mary figured pretty popularly into the equation.

Back in Texas and despite his very different last name, I could see Craig just reeked ‘good guy’ (and was handsome as well), so we started dating during the latter half of my senior year at Baylor.

The following summer, Craig planned a temporary return to New Jersey to stay with his aunt and uncle while he worked at a pharmaceutical company to make money toward his continuing stay at college.

This meant a three month separation for us…just when our relationship had barely gotten off the ground.

So Craig had a brilliant idea (I knew he was smart!). He would invite me up for a visit before his new job started. We would spend time with a friend in New York then head down to New Jersey to see what it had to offer. We even managed to get in some Philadelphia time.

But while in New Jersey, I would meet his extended family.

This is how I (The young, city-bred, Texas mongrel) happened to meet Yolie (the Italian-American, Jersey grandmother).

to be continued…