The Good Sense to Finally Die

"Do you have any milk for this?"

My Uncle Bill gave me a bemused look as I gestured toward U.S.M.C. mug that he had placed in front of me second before. The steam rising from the cup guarded Maxwell House's finest blend, the final defense against its ultimate destination in my stomach.

"It's black. That's how you drink coffee." His 60 plus year old eyes gave me a glint of warning that the conversation was already over, except at age 20 I didn't recognize it.

"I take mine with milk."

Uncle Bill gave me one more look over, a small red vein appearing just over his right eye, providing an odd connection between his steely eyes and his tight cropped white hair.

"Wayne, in life, you can't count on having milk. You can't count on having sugar. You can't even count on it being hot. You can count on black coffee though. You are going to have it black. You're now going to learn how to drink it black."

The vein disappeared as he extolled his wisdom, replaced by a warmness. I drank the coffee. Black.

Uncle Bill was like that. He drank his coffee like that. Nearly twenty years later I remember the conversation and it's how I drink my coffee, Like a man.

Uncle Bill was a man's man. Like most men of a certain generation he had served in the military. He wasn't an Uncle by blood, the Parillo brood had linked up with his Meade blood when he married my father's sister Anne some 60+ years ago.

He was, outside of his own sisters, the person my father knew the longest. Sometimes serving as a father figure, a mentor, a compatriot, and a sounding board he was that guy for my father. I am positive that there were times my Uncle Bill didn't think much of me.

But that isn't why I said he had the good sense to finally die.

He was probably right. To him I was a little too glib for my own good, a little too smug, and a most likely deserving of a good swift kick in the ass. He would occasionally slap me down with a well timed remark, throw in a little common sense wisdom and wonder what was going to come of his country with people like me around.

It was his country, by the way. He lived at the end of a cul de sac - so close to the people across the street that you could hit the house by throwing a baseball. It was almost as though construction workers had built the road, put down his house, then quit because there was no point going anymore since the toughest guy always lives at the end of the block and there was no one tougher than Uncle Bill. My Uncle Bill was the embodiment of the American Dream. He served his country, he bought a home, raised his four kids and loved traveling around with his wife in their motor home type trailer. He paid his taxes on time and if I ever mentioned to Uncle Bill I was a democrat then I probably would have gotten a kick in the ass.

Uncle Bill had problems with his lungs - the prize of a lifetime of hard work. Over the years his lungs slowed him down. Slowed him down enough that he couldn't travel around in his motor home trailer anymore. It sat there at the end of his driveway, a memory of a time past when he was a mobile man.

It wasn't completely surprising when my father called me last year to tell me Uncle Bill was in the hospital. What did surprise me was that the man had fallen down some stairs and broken his neck.

But that isn't why he had the good sense to finally die.

That happens, 83 year old men fall. The next time my father mentioned Uncle Bill it was to say he was in the hospital again. I asked if it was his neck again. No, this time it was his lungs. Massachusetts had been hit by several snow storms and his street hadn't been plowed.

Uncle Bill couldn't breath and the ambulance showed up. Only it couldn't get up the street. They had to call a plow to plow the street and then they got him into the ambulance. Because Uncle Bill appears to have been a piece of jerky residing in a human body - he survived.

Numerous times during the year Uncle Bill made ambulance trips to the hospital. My Aunt is 77 and she couldn't get him to the car. The ambulance would show up, take him to the hospital and then days later my father would find himself driving Uncle Bill back home since Anne needed the help getting her husband inside.

My Aunt is not a selfish woman. Except in one vein - she didn't want her husband of 60+ years to die. Then a few days ago my father let me know my Uncle Bill had finally died.

He had paid off the mortgage - this wasn't Willie Loman finally paying off the house - where we feel bad as he didn't realize some sort of dream. His daughter is a lawyer and she was there. His two sons from the west coast were around. His other daughter was on the way to be by his side. He has numerous grandchildren and his life was fully lived in every sense of the word.

That isn't why I say he had the good sense to finally die. No, it was the medical bills.

Uncle Bill was a veteran so the veteran association paid for some of his bills. Some. Not all.

Uncle Bill owned his house.

He owned his trailer that sat at the end of his driveway.

You have to have nothing for the V.A. to pay all your bills. The bill collectors started in on my Aunt. They started in on my Uncle. They left them wondering why they had bothered to pay their taxes, buy a house, play by the rules, and be responsible human beings. Where is their bailout? Where is their help? Where is their tax break/write off/of a general thank you for living within their means and not being a burden to anyone.

Is that what really happens in the end if you live long enough - someone tries to come and take everything away since he had the good sense to build a family and a life, but the bad sense to keep living.

Wayne

Six Times Daddy Got Hurt, Maimed and Nearly Killed

"Daddy you have brain damage!" Sienna is going to utter those words, or some variant there within. She will probably tell me I don't recall being a teenager, never had any fun, and never did anything dangerous.

I pre-present my daughter with a list of Six Times Daddy Got Hurt, Maimed and Nearly Killed. Some were much closer than others, some I was okay by dumb luck and some were keeping a cool head.

Remarkably enough these are the times I remember off the top of my head and the list used to be ten. Only I can't remember four of them right now.

Guatemala
A case of mistaken identity led to a member of the Guatemalan military pointing his handgun at me. Judging by the adornment of his uniform I am pretty positive that he would have gotten off for shooting me. I am also glad I was carrying a copy of my U.S. passport with me at the time.

Sliding Down a Volcano
I tore my labrum, an injury so severe I later required surgery. Naturally I did not want surgery and as Danielle and I headed to Chile for an adventure vacation I received a cortisone shot so I could have a normal time. Part of the trip was climbing a snow and ice covered volcano. The only way down the volcano was to slide down an ice slide and use an ice-pick to stop yourself. This type of climb is dangerous enough that you are required to wear a helmet.

On the way down my shoulder gave out and I spun out of control since I couldn't stop by myself. What we had been told was to throw the ice pick if you slide out of control as you are likely to impale yourself. I threw the ice pick to the side and flipped over as I continued to slide. I then flipped again and found myself going head first and face first down the icy volcano. The cracking noise of ice meeting helmet echoed in my ears and my neck was being compressed on each hit.

I kept my head enough to flip back around and get my feet in front of me. I actually gained enough control that I stabilized. Still out of control I opened my legs enough to let snow in - hopefully creating friction to slow myself.

I distinctly remember that thought. The snow between my legs caused me to shoot off the ice slide and onto a more icy snowy area. I really have no idea how I was going to stopped right until my feet met some frozen volcanic ash.

My legs folded as the momentum was absorbed and for a moment my momentum caused me to stand up. For only a second and then I fell onto my back. I lay on my back, eyes tightly shut, unmoving as I tested various joins to see everything was still intact.

Amazingly enough everything was perfectly fine. Except I opened my eyes and couldn't see a damn thing. During my face plant my snow goggles had filled with snow. I sat up, took off the goggles and gave them a shake - they were cracked. I found myself in a field of frozen volcanic ash and took off my helmet.

Remarkably enough the helmet was scratched up, missing some point, yet perfectly in place. I looked down at my feet resenting again a large piece of ash. Really a small boulder. It was the perfect size for me to hit with my feet and stop me.

Now why doesn't Mommy ever tell this story. She has her own ski accident story that caused her to have shellshock and not being able to go up the volcano. Which is good since she might have had a heart attack watching me tumble and she was needed to take care of me later that night when my body temperature shot off the charts.

Hello, Mr. Tree
On a wet road in Framingham my car hydroplaned off a back road. I braced myself against the steering wheel, hit with enough impact that I broke the wheel, and out of the corner of my eye watched my friend Rob's head meet the windshield and create a wonderful spiderweb pattern as blood flowed. When the Police showed up they casually mentioned I couldn't have been speeding because it I was we'd both be dead.

Rafting
When I was nineteen years old I went whitewater rafting with Tio Brian and some of his college friends. Our raft flipped as we went over a small waterfalls. I actually got caught in the backwash of the small waterfall. I wasn't caught for more than a few seconds except I'm not Aquaman so I found the lack of breathing rather unpleasant.

The life jacket had enough floatation strength that it pulled me out of the backwash as I cycled through. Which is good since I'm not sure I could have executed the How-To-Escape-a-Waterfall-Backwash move (wait until the cycle pulls you to the bottom, plant your foot and push with all your might; in case you ever need it).

A Boat Trailer Falls On Me
As a six year old I loved hanging out near Nono while he worked. He was painting his 22 foot sailboat called The Wench while it was on its trailer. The trailer was balancing against a cinder block.

He must have pushed where he should have pulled because the boat pitched forward and OFF the cinder block. A piece of jagged metal drove into my leg...mostly since I was sitting under part of the trailer.

I remember Nono and Grandma arguing about whose turn it was to take me to the emergency room. This conversation took place as I watched a white towel wrapped around my cut slowly turn red. It only took six stitches to close the wound - one for each year.

That is Going to Leave a Scar
I was helping Tio Brian and Tia Sole move. It was a hot day and as I packed the moving truck I was standing on top of some packed boxes that turned out to be a really bad place to stand. I became dizzy, feel off, and a piece of metal sticking up from a desk sliced into my leg.

I grabbed my leg with my gloved hand, immediately flexed my toes to see if I had sliced a tendon (always test body parts before moving) and thankfully my toes reacted, I then limped to the back of the truck as I refused to look at the leg (never look at the cut as you could pass out).

"Dad!" I yelled. I will take a moment to say that whenever you are injured ALWAYS yell for the person with the most experience. This is usually the oldest person. Chances are they have seen something just as bad and will not panic.

Somehow Nono appeared, quite alarmed at the sound of my voice. "I cut myself," I said as I limped to the edge of the moving truck.

The story is actually funny as if you ask Tia Sole about the story she'll tell you about Tio Brian running around in circles on the lawn when he saw what happened and how two of her best towels were ruined.

The rest of the story explains a lot of how Nono raised his boys. Or explains something about Nono in general and where your sense of humor has its genesis.

Nono, Brian and I piled into the front of the Voyager van with Brian driving, me in passenger seat and Nono sitting almost on top of me while he helped apply pressure. Tio Brian started us toward the hospital and we seemed to hit every single bump. When we would hit a bump Nono would apply more pressure, thereby causing me the only actual pain at that time.

"Ow!" I said at about the fifth bump.

"It's going to hurt Wayne, that is a good sign." Nono's comment is actually true - it is when you're hurt and everything goes numb that you worry.

"Dad, I can take the pain of the cut it's your friggin weight that's killing me. You need to lose a few pounds," I said.

Nono burst out laughing and Tio Brian smiled.

We got to the hospital, I was checked in at the same time that someone who had severed his finger tip came in. When the hospital workers' saw I wasn't going to bleed to death they propped me up - bare ass except for the hospital gown - over a bedpan type device while they went to sew the guys finger on.

Since I wasn't in actual pain I figured the cut wasn't that bad. Not a good idea. I could easily see the muscle of my leg - it looked exactly like a filleted fish and THAT was the point where my face became ashen. Which Nono noticed.

"Don't look, you moron," he said. I then noticed my blood all over his hands, which he also looked down at, "I'm never going to be able to go the butcher again," he added.

Tio Brian joined us and saw that I'd live Nono looked at him and said, "Well, Wayne isn't going anywhere. I guess we should go back and finish packing you up."

Then yes, Nono and Tio Brian left me alone in the hospital bare ass naked with my rear in the air.

In Conclusion
So when I give you advice of carry a copy of your passport, don't speed on wet rules, don't play under boat trailers, don't help family members move, be careful sliding down volcanoes and white water rafting you know why. I promise I won't leave you in the hospital though - even if I am helping someone move.

Wayne

Bottle drama at 4:56 AM

The clock read a very bleary 4:56 AM. Bleary since my eyes can barely focus on anything when I wake up, never mind at 4:56 AM in the morning.

Sienna had been crying for a good half an hour.*

Somewhere along the line Sienna started refusing to drink from the bottle. Refusing may be too strong a word - after all she only cries, refuses to hold the bottle, and general creates what day care refers to as "drama." Actually refusing is exactly the right word. She isn't drinking as milk as before. Day care is worried a tiny bit and so are we.

Danielle and I are trying to do our part by giving me the 5:30 AM feeding via the bottle. Sienna can't tell time though and believes that 4:56 AM is an appropriate time.

Two minutes of warming up the water. Putting her bottle in it. Then getting Sienna from her crib.

She is in crawl position and heads right toward the sound of the door opening when I enter the room. She lifts her head up and lets out a wail. Even in the semi-darkness I can see the reflection off her tear soaked face.

I pick her up and after a few steps she stops crying - though she looks dazed. Crying off and on forty five minutes will do that to you. I am doing my best not to trip as I walk down the hallway. Every imperfection of the wood suddenly seems like a tripping hazard as I make my way to the kitchen.

Sienna does NOT like being loaded and seatbelted into her boppy this morning and starts crying again. She is used to Mommy's breast when we are in the house and she knows Mommy is SOMEWHERE around here. She can sense her.

Baby Spider-sense.

I get the bottle, kneel down next to her, and the two tiny hands immediate the progress to her mouth. She adds to her Baby Drama by attempting to do a neck bridge while screaming. I am positive that someday this will flip the boppy - instead the seatbelt does its job.

I try to reason with her.

Hah.

Right.

She stops long enough to take the bottle in her mouth, gives the nipple a chew, and then spits it out. Never mind me having no time to reinforce the concept of holding the bottle.

This dance continues for the next five minutes - only stopping long enough to remove a hanging toy that Sienna has decided it is time to play with - with the bottle in, bottle out, more crying; I intellectualize the entire situation.

I have to. Sienna is hungry and her pattern is being changed. A pattern Daddy and Mommy helped created.

Still though all I want is for her to drink from the bottle.

The Baby Drama has drawn Scudder in from the bedroom. He comes by, sniffs the situation out, then sits down in the kitchen. I snap at Scudder when he lets out a plaintive meow.

I'm not about to snap at my child. She now has the bottle in her mouth. She takes down a full ounce this time. She gets one hand up. She has stopped crying now.

This is usually the part during the breastfeeding where she stops eating for a second, gives a smile and the continues. She stops eating, gives me a frown and lets out a wail.

I THINK for a moment that I hear Danielle yell for me. I hope not as I tell Sienna that Mommy isn't an option and that she has to eat the food. That we will be here all morning if necessary.

It is a blur really. Fatigue. Hope. Everything as disconnected now as it was in the moment. Sienna drinks some more - spits out the bottle and then turns bright red.

Her faces seems to morph slightly into a square that takes on the hue of a fire hydrant and her eyes water up once again. This is her universal sign she is going the bathroom.

I offer her some encouragement while she finishes her baby business. At least I know there will be a present waiting for me in the diaper. She eats some more.

More.

A little more.

She has an ounce left.

One ounce.
She quits on me.
One ounce short.

The undeniable I'm Done! A parent can tell these things. A tired parent may even been convincing himself.

5:18 when I take her back to her crib. She lets out a HUGE wail - the loudest one yet when she knows that pre-breakfast is now done. One dirty diaper change later she is back in bed.

I figure it will take me two weeks of morning baby drama before she is holding her own bottle. She has done it in the past. Today was about breaking the concept that if I refuse Mommy is around to feed me.

I feel strict. That I was forceful with what is going on. I held to me guns.

Yeah, I'm a parent. Nine months and one day into Sienna's life and I am definitely a parent. I look at the baby monitor: she is already asleep, less than a minute after I left her.

Wayne
--
* To any non-parent this mostly likely sounds similar to child abuse. Please. You pick up a crying child quickly and you know what you get? A child who knows she will be picked up if she cried. Kids are smart, Sienna instantly knows what mommy and daddy are really feeling. If I had her people reading skills I'd be in charge of the universe. A child can also cry soothe herself back to sleep after a few minutes.

Random Run ins with People in My New York Apartments

Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.

It sounds like someone was trying to break into our apartment by knocking on our door approximately 3,000 times in a ten second span. I was in our living room on our couch doing my impression of a fat, tired man laying on a couch - performing the part well actually - having just gotten a very cranky Sienna off to sleep. Danielle looked up our kitchen table where she was enjoying her Sunday ritual of "squeezing in the reading of the New York Times when I get a chance."

"Stop that!" I yelled it as I moved from the couch toward the living room door. It wasn't a particularly deranged knocking of the door - if you have ever seen Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory knock on his neighbors door you'll get the idea - and I was mostly concerned that the fool pounded would wake up my child.

However I'm not an idiot either. I looked through the peep hole.

There was a young 20-something in a tuxedo standing at my doorway. In the grand scheme of life looked like someone had tied four twigs together, glued four cotton balls to his head and called it a human being. I shall call him Stick Boy at this point.

I whipped open the door and he was rather surprised to see, well, ME. "What the hell are you doing?"

Stick Boy took a step backward and immediately raised his hands into a mea-culpa. "I'msosorry. I thoughtthiswasmyfriendsapartment.YoumustthinkI'manidiot. I'msorry."

I looked down onto the street and I was a few of Stick Boy's friends by an SUV. One guy, two women, and all of them dressed for some sort of social event.

"What are you doing?" Stick Boy's male friend yelled up. Concerned over what his buddy had seemingly gotten himself into.

"I thought this was your apartment!" Stick Boy yelled back. "I'manidiot," Stick Boy repeated. Backing further away.

"Yes, you are," I said.

Stick Boy stepped through our open outside door - we have two sets of doors, I still have no idea how he got through the first set.

"My daughter is asleep, if you woke her up..." I left it trail off as Stick Boy made his way through the door. I shut it behind him, locked it, and listened as his friend dressed him down for being a moron.

Once inside Danielle and I got to talking about random New York run ins with apartments. Stick Boy isn't even the top five. Living in New York you just run into weird stuff living in apartments, or involved with apartments.

Here are the rest.

The Avatar People
Danielle and I agreed on the price for our Butler Street apartment as had one last meeting left: meet the landlords. Really, a perfunctory moment designed to make sure everyone isn't crazy. As we sat in the real estate office on Smith Street across from our landlords and the real estate agent (who was licking his lips at the check HE was about to receive) about to put pen onto paper...two people on stilts dressed as the blue creatures from avatar appeared.

They pressed their hands and faces to the window of the real estate office and bellowed, "Don't sign the lease! Don't sign."

We still signed. No alien creatures were keeping us from a good piece of real estate.

The Kiddie Pool
I lived in on the sixth floor of a six floor in the East Village during the late 90s. It was a two bedroom apartment and legendary among my friends for its lack of cleanliness.

One fine miserably hot summer evening I was awoken at 2 AM by some loud crashed above my living room. As plaster fell around me I was concerned that there was (a) a possible murder taking place and (b) I was going to get no sleep.

I threw on some shorts, a t-shirt, grabbed my cellphone, headed to the roof, whipped open the metal doorway going to the roof. I would like to pause the story here to point out that this is the type of behavior you do in your 20s - walking to a roof where a crime might be taking place - yeah, I would rethink that (literally) when I reached my 30s.

Story onward.

I whipped open the metal doorway and saw two young men in their early 20s dressed only in tightie whitey underwear jumping up-and-down in a kiddie pool.

"Hey!" I have no idea why I yelled. Probably the lesser known of the fight-flight-scream in shock reaction.

"Hey man!" one of them yelled.

"You guys are caving in my living room!" Like alcohol being consumed, pure shock leads to the truth.

"Sorry about that," the second guy said, "it's hot and we needed to unwind." He took a cigarette out of -- I don't even know where that cigarette came from -- and lit it.

"It's all good. Just stop jumping."

"Thanks. Hey, you want to join us?" The question came from guy number one.

There are many things I will attest to having tried in my life. Frollicking around on an East Village roof in a kiddie pool with two men in their tightie whities is not one of them.

The Dog
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Once again I was concerned about my East Village roof caving in as something was taking place. Once again I went to investigate.

As I opened the metal door I was nearly run over by a dog. Forty pounds of muscle, sinew, and hanging tongue coming straight for me. The dog got to within inches from me and with the grace of gazelle performed a hairpin turn while scooping up a tennis ball - that I certainly had not seen - with its sharp-I-can-eat-you teeth.

Across the roof was my neighbor Jason.

"Sorry about that," Jason said as the dog sprinted back to him, dropped the ball, and headed back out for another pass. "He is a stray and we took him home. We don't have a leash though and he needed some exercise. Did his running disturb you?"

Just a bit Jason. Just a bit.

(Quick add on. Scudder had a habit of walking out of the apartment when I would get home. Jason and his wife's apartment were adjacent to mine. One day as Scudder stepped out Jason's door open, Scudder stepped toward Jason's apartment and found himself nose-to-nose with the dog. Scudder never tried to sneak out again).

Say Nothing
When I lived in Cheever Placer in Brooklyn, once again a legendary apartment due to its tilt. Not a slight tilt either, I could sit in a corner of my living room, roll a ball at an angle and it would come back to me in seconds.

A married couple lived in a building - he an ex-con and she a rather violent probably heading for jail at some point in her life. They were very nice people though, except for when they fought. Terrible. Loud. Violent fights. The police were called several times by the ex-con's mother (who also lived in the building.)

One night I was coming home and heard them screaming at the top of their lungs. They were on the 2nd floor and I was on the 4th floor of the walkup and as I headed up the stairs I came to the unfortunate conclusion that their door was open.

The two of them were in the doorway, in plain sight, slapping away at each and that is when they saw me. Everyone stopped and stared at each other. The fight-flight-scream in shock instinct gained another new level of "say nothing."

The ex-con turned to his girlfriend and said, "Well now EVERYONE in the apartment knows how stupid you are!" He then slammed the door.

I continued on to my apartment. Really, what would you have done?

Yeah, living in New York - and anywhere really, I once opened the front door to the house in Framingham naked because religious people were bothering me - always has an adventure or two. Random run ins with apartments.

I am sure Sienna will come up with her own stories and adventures.

Wayne

When Sienna is Sick

I was having a not-so-good day at work. I can't even qualify it as a bad day at work as there was a minimal amount of additional stress on my normal workload, though I had just received some work news that put me in a rather foul mood. Bad day is when something bad it happening - like a family member having a problem.



When the phone rang I recognized Danielle's number.

"Cranky husband," I said as I pressed the headset button on my phone and sent the Ma Bell signal through my headphone-esque looking crown.

"Day care called," Danielle said, foregoing greetings and salutations.

My mind immediately jumped into exactly why daycare would call. Either Sienna did or something or something happened to Sienna. Daycare isn't the type of place that will arbitrarily call. Or to put it another way, if someone bit Sienna they would mention it to us when we picked her up, not with a midday phone call. Conversely if someone bit Sienna and it broke skin then we'd get a phone call.

"She is running a fever. I'm going to go pick her up. A lot kids are sick today. There is a bug going around."

That was rather good of Danielle given that I was covering a co-workers project at work and I wasn't in a spot to work from home easily.

After I turned off my headset I thought to what was going on. The day still had its stresses at work though nothing compared to the sudden shift in priorities. How sick was Sienna? Was it a cold again? A cough? A something else?

That is part of parenting. Wondering exactly what is wrong with your child without letting your mind get away from you. Or at least too far away from you. It sucks really. The this is only the beginning and in the grand scheme of things - I can't quality it as a bad day since Danielle will take care of Sienna and we'll all be well in the end.

Wayne

About My Nonny...

Someday Sienna is going to ask about her grandparents - or if she is anything like me her greatgrandparents. In honor of Magic Johnson announcing he was HIV positive 20 years ago and a coincidence I give the Nonny post.

I ended up thinking about Nonny*, my paternal grandmother a couple of times in the last two days. Yesterday it was when Danielle and I were discussing Grandparents naming - my father goes by Nono, my stepmother goes by Nona, and my mother-in-law will go by, according to her, "whatever Sienna wants to call her." This morning my co-worker John and I got onto the subjects of old school toughness and grandmother's**. Ergo, you get the Nonny entry.

My Nonny was an Italian woman disguised as a block of flesh measuring 4 foot 6 high by 4 foot 6 round. I never recall seeing her in anything except a black dress, white shirt, thick glasses, and unmoving black curly hair - though pictures show her with a occasional bit of color. She had made a living as a seamstress, which accounted for her incredibly strong fingers and hands. If she grabbed you she GRABBED you and there was no way she was letting go until she wanted to. She was old school in how she dispensed love, justice, and wisdom.

By the time my brother and I were old enough for her to have a noticeable impact on our life, she had been tempered by numerous other grandchildren - or at least that is what we are TOLD. It is a frightening concept to image her at the height of her kickassness powers. She spent about a third of a year living with us - spreading her love between ourselves and various other family members the other two thirds of the year. After my Mother died she ended up getting an apartment about half a mile away from us.

Food is Love...
Like all Italian grandmothers my earliest memories of Nonny involve food. Not in one of those cooking all day events, or homemade sauces, or any family recipe secrets - my memories involve pizza. Specifically pepperoni pizza from Centre Pizza in Framingham. If Nonny was coming over we got pizza. This was a HUGE deal as Papa Gino's was actually closer and cheaper, though Nonny knew we liked the more expensive Centre pizza and the tiny pieces of pepperoni dotting the salty cheese which sat on a field of spicy goodness.

We've Heard So Much About You...
As I already mentioned my brother and I had heard seemingly thousands of Nonny stories. Her old school ways came from being a street smart Bostonian with a love that melded with pride in the form of my two Aunts - Linda and Anne, and her baby boy my father Joey. By the time my father was six Grandpa** was no longer in the picture, which effectively left Nonny as a single parent during the 40s & 50s.

A single parent resulting in a thousand stories. Here are my favorite all-time "Don't Mess With My Nonny Stories."

A Plate of Spaghetti
Nonny was watching my cousin Ricky and asked him what he wanted for dinner. She made him a plate of spaghetti and put it in front of him. "I don't want THIS" Ricky said. Wordlessly she dumped the plate of spaghetti over Ricky's head.

The Tree v Nonny
Nonny was driving her car and slid off the road straight into a telephone pole. The pole fell onto her car roof, crushed it inward, leaving her bloodied and unable to move. She looked ratched unconscious when the paramedics showed up. One of them said, "We have a big one in here." Without opening her eyes she replied, "When you get those pole off me I'm kicking your ass."


Nonny & Boyfriend's
My Aunt Linda's boyfriend Phil was over and in the forbidden upstairs room. Specifically the bedroom. Which is when my Nonny arrived and saw him on her bed. She ran across the room and JUMPED onto him, landing a perfect form body splash. She looked like a fullback hitting the hole and reportedly got good air on the jump. She then chased Phil out of the room, bouncing him down the hallway for being where he was not supposed to be.

No Sympathy for Your Dumb Actions
Nonny was babysitting my brother and I when I was about ten years old. I loved black olives. It was my favorite food in the world and we always had 24 ounce cans of olives in the house. I asked my Nonny if I could have some, she said yes - except not too many - and left me to my own devices. I then ate the ENTIRE can.

Then I drank the remaining olive juice.

Soon after I threw up olive and olive juice all over my bedroom floor - I can still picture the tiny chunks of olives sitting on the wood floor our cat Smokey walking over the remains, giving one good sniff and then sprinting out the room. In tears I ran to Nonny and asked her to make me feel better AND clean it up. "You Son of a Bitch, clean up the mess. I told you not to do it." She then handed me paper towels.

Now, by now stretch of the imagination was Nonny mean. She was quite loving. When my mother died she gave me some practical words of wisdom, "Your mother is dead. It's done. I'm old. You have to help take care of your father."

Practical. To the point.

She had just come up from a different place and really was of a generation where she wanted and needed her children to do a bit better than she did.

Her Practicality on Education...
My mother's family disowned her for a while since she was Jewish and married a Catholic. Very Romeo & Juliet - though without all the death. I once asked my father how Nonny had reacted - seeing as how she was a hardcore Catholic. My father told me that she actually didn't care as long as it didn't interfere with his graduate school education. All she cared was that he did well in school. When my brother was born and my Nana and Grandpa (the Jewish side of the grandparents) heard he would be raised Jewish all was forgiven. Knowing my Nonny, she probably figured she already had enough Catholic grand children anyway.

She was Street Smart & Protective...
Having heard about the street smart and protective stories I actually got to see it in action one particular time. I was goofing around in my driveway with my friend John and I had a fold up knife in my front pocket. All of a sudden from a window overlooking the driveway came a booming voice, "Wayne, get up here!" "What? No. We're going out." "Up here now!" "I said--" "Up.Now.John, go home."

Ticked off I went into the house. She greeted me with, "Is someone bothering you? Why do you have that knife?"

She had seen the outline of the knife in my pocket. She threatened bodily harm to whoever was bothering me. No cops. No questions. Just a name. "No one, is bugging me, Nonny." She looked through me to see if I was lying and when she saw I wasn't, her hand shot out and w

ithin half a second she had me off the ground and was shaking me like a rag doll. "Don't be stupid. You carry a knife and you'll find trouble!"

She took the knife from me and tossed me out of the room. I STILL don't know how she was the outline.

She Respected Courage...
My friends were terrified of Nonny. She could intimidate without trying. One day John wanted to play with me and couldn't find me at home. He then rode his bike to my Nonny's apartment to see if I was there. I wasn't. I thought she would be mad that he went there. Instead of she loved it, thinking he was respectful enough to go there. John is the only friend she would actively ask about and I think it made her doubly happy when she found out his parents were first generation from Scotland. She would always ask, "Is that, Son of a Bitch John coming over?"

Ah Yes, Son of a Bitch...
That was a way of saying she liked someone. You were a "son of a bitch" and somehow it made the person smile. In the days before political correctness she had a mouth on her that wasn't even offensive since every adult I knew about her talked the exact same way. I can't even repeat the words in this blog.

I do know that she gave it was well as she took it.

She was always "Ma" though...
Parents have a way of reducing you to a six-year-old child and my father was no exception as he always said, "Ma" in a thick Bostonian accent that was a badge of honor from growing up in the city. Oddly enough other than his sisters I NEVER heard anyone refers to parents as "Ma" - always Mom or Mommy. Coincidentally no one calls my father Joey - only Nonny and her own part-Boston accent and part-old country accent managing to chew up the word and spit it out as seven syllables.

Yes, Nonny was a tough old bag.

Tough enough that she was declared dead. Twice.

Last Rites the First Time
During an operation to remove a brain tumor she received last rites. She survived. The Doctor declared that she had worn him out and that the tumor was SOFTBALL sized. Which admitted he would not have tried to remove if he had known it was so large.

Last Rites the Second Time
As my Nonny grew old she (reluctantly) was put in a Nursing-type hold in Fitchburg and as she grew weaker a hospital. Looking way too skinny and her skin seemingly translucent and looking like a wrinkling overcoat her heart stopped. As they worked to revive her she received last rites. She survived. Again. When told about it, she muttered the question, "Again?"

Coincidentally my Aunt Anne was in the room BOTH times she was received last rites.

A Final Goodbye...
After the second last rites Nonny was so sick that he little baby Joey was called back from the Peace Corp. She ticked HERSELF off by living and becoming healthily enough that she finally told my father to go away. Among the final words were, ""Don't have a funeral for me. I've inconvenienced you enough and you have a life to live."

She died several months later. There was no funeral. Only the memories of a Nonny who loved her family and lived life to the fullest. She also made me smile.

My favorite all time Nonny comments...

• "Hitting a child is fine. Hitting a kid a lot is not-so-fine. You gotta know the difference."


• "I want you to be happy. If you marry a Jew that is okay. (Long pause) Though if you marry a Christian that'd be better."


• "Jesus died for your sins. If you went to Church you'd understand that. Though the bagels are good at temple."


• "I hope you get all your mother's looks. Not her driving though. She was a terrible driver."


• "Joey, you're my baby and I'll always love you. You're getting fat though."


• On my father's girlfriend Robin moving in with us, "An Italian? These kids are Jewish - she better raise 'em that way."


• On my friend Neal, "Every parent thinks his kid is special. His are wrong."


• On me helping my brother with his paper route at age nine, "Go to school or this will be your job forever."


• Upon meeting Robert Parish in a line a supermarket, "You're tall. You're black. You must be a Celtic. They don't allow other blacks in Boston."

What Does Magic Johnson have to do with all of this?

1991. The world was changing and Magic Johnson just quit playing basketball due to HIV. Nonny comes up to me, "Hey, Wayne, about sex." Me, "uhhhhhhhh." Really, how do you react when your sixty plus your old Nonny comes up to discuss sex. "You know Magic - right? Well, he got the AIDS. If he can get the AIDS you can get it. Wear a condom." 20 years later I STILL don't know how to reply to that.

Sienna. That is your greatgrandmother. The legendary Nonny.

Wayne--

* Interestingly enough Nonny is spelled Nonni and means "grandparents" or "grandfather" in Italian. I have no idea why we called her Nonny. We just did.
** John's family is from China and as a fourteen year old girl John's grandmother used to sneak food into the Japanese prison camps.
*** Depending on the story Grandpa either died of consumption when my father was six or Nonny threw him out of the house for being an alcoholic and he was considered "dead."