my beautiful Bronx...

I remember when the Bronx was like 'the country'.

It was beautiful, with trees, grass, and lilac trees.

Everyone knew everyone, it was safe to anywhere (within a certain limit). I would go to Lowry's candy store down the block and have a malted at the counter by myself and leave with a 12 cent Archie comic in hand.

I would over-hear adults talking about going into Manhattan and we kids would think wow they are going into the city!

My memories of the 4th to 6th grades in the Bronx and then 7th & 8th grades in Harrison, NY stand out to me most, out of all the years in my life...which I find oddly incredible.

I remember my father, strict and always yelling at something or someone, sometimes with good reason sometimes with no apparent reason at all. He would get up in the dark of the morning and be off to work by 5 am to a job he hated and home by 4:30 pm every day. My Mom cooked a full dinner every night. I remember the dinner table was quiet unless my father was talking. I also remember one false drop of the fork or one comment that didn't

'sit well' with him he would flip the table over.

We would all have to clean it up...is it any wonder why I have stomach issues?

I remember my father as a man who was feared, at least in the neighborhood. He was loud, strong and intimidating. He was an iron worker. There were times, however that he seemed happy; one of them was when my Uncle Peter, a singing waiter at the Balalaika Restaurant on Bronx River Rd., was singing. My uncle Peter, Aunt Millie and my cousins Donny and Peter lived on the top floor (we lived on the 1st floor) of the brick 3 family house my father owned on East 236th St. Uncle Peter sang songs by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tony Bennet and Louie Armstrong. He sang songs by Jimmy Roselli, Louie Prima and more... all reflecting our Italian/American heritage. My father was one of his biggest fans. My uncle was also a 'stand up' comedian, with my aunt Millie the brunt of many a joke (all in good fun). I remember seeing my Aunt Millie laugh at these jokes, we all did. I remember a party we had in the backyard, complete with carved out pineapples for the ladies to drink from, papier-mache' palm trees attached to the chain link fence around the yard and many, many people. This time Uncle Peter had a microphone for his songs and his jokes, and this time with my cousin Peter, sitting on the top floor fire escape, revealing the joke's punchline before my uncle could finish, everyone laughed and everyone was happy.

Every day we played outside until dinner, cleaned up after dinner, did our homework, watched a little TV and were in bed by 8. On Saturday we did chores. Relatives all lived close by so there was always family visiting. My mom was in a knitting club (with her close friends) that took place in our living room. My uncles and my grandfather helped my father build a new bathroom in our house and pour concrete in half the backyard, the other half was sod and it's perimeter were rose bushes. It was my fathers pride and joy, that yard! It was a privilege to water the sod/grass, it had to be done in a special way...with even horizontal movements of the hand held hose. I remember we had to take off our shoes when we walked on the grass. On my communion day I sat on a blanket on the grass with my white dress and veil and pictures were taken, even though I had 'the mumps' . After pictures, I had to stay inside even though my communion party was going on, with a towel around my chin to the top of my head... I guess that was a thing when you had 'the mumps'.

Every Easter, my sisters, brother and I would get a new outfit. We girls would get white patent leather shoes and a new straw hat. My mom would cook lamb and we always had company. Every holiday we would watch certain shows, Easter was 'the Robe' and other 'religious' type movies. Thanksgiving was the the 'Macy's Day Parade' and the March of the Wooden Soldiers....of course my father had first preference and we watched what he watched, a lot of army movies !

I remember my mom and I taking the old buses to shop at Alexanders. I remember walking on 'the avenue', White Plains Rd with my mom pushing the stroller with my sister in it. We would go to the chicken market and pick out the live 'caged chicken' we wanted and she would cook it for that night's dinner... what did we know the next few moments for that chicken would be its last.

We walked to Johns Bargain Store, we got lemon ice at the bakery, and sometimes in the summer we would walk to the park at PS16.

My Mom, my Aunt Millie (her sister) me, my brother, my baby sister and my cousin Peter. We would wear our bathing suits under our clothes and run through the sprinklers they had there. We would burn 'our bottoms' on the hot metal slide, climb the steel monkey bars and swing on the metal swings. For lunch my Mom made sandwiches of either zucchini and eggs or potatoes and eggs and them being in the sun only made them taste better as it warmed them through the foil they were wrapped in... bottled Yoo Hoo's were usually what we drank, never soda.

For some reason I remember the feeling of an October afternoon after school, looking out the window at a 'darker than usual' outside, me being in my house with the 'inside lights' on earlier than usual, my mom cooking dinner, the TV on in the background and me feeling 'comfort, me feeling safe'.

I went to St Frances of Rome, the Catholic school up the block. Every year we would get new, navy blue leather shoes from the shoe store down the block, they were part of our school uniform

To this day I remember the smell of leather when I opened the shoe box.

I remember wanting to be a nun when I grew up...

I remember some of the older nuns were extremely mean to the boys if their homework was sloppy or if they misbehaved, boy's heads were hit against the blackboard and bloody knuckles resulted from the yardstick... I don't remember any girls ever getting the same punishment.

But I remember other nuns... nuns I aspired to be like, who were younger and kind, caring and beautiful. Their faces were all we could see as their hair was completely covered by a black veil, part of the 'Presentation Nuns' uniform. I also remembered when their veil was modified and the big white cardboard-like head piece above the forehead was removed, it was a big deal because now they could show a little bit of their hair! I used to walk to the convent, knock on the door and ask to speak to Sr. Joanne or Sr. Eleanor. They would come to the door and we would talk for 20 minutes or so and I would leave...I have no idea what I would talk to them about but with patience and generosity of their time, and always with a smile, they were 'there for me' every time. I remember 'playing school' in my room with my classmate and friend Susan Torieri, we had a large school bell and of course we were nuns, with half slips on our head.

I remember my father made me a desk out of wood. It had swerved legs, a shelf and little cubbies...to this day the smell of 'cut wood' brings me back to the day he gave me that desk, It was the best gift ever! My grandson has it today.

I remember in the sixth grade being in a play called the King and I,

I played head wife, Lady Thiang...I wore my hair in a pony tail on the top of my head.

We then moved to Harrison NY, in Westchester County.

I remember being devastated to leave my friends in the Bronx...

the only place I ever knew. I eventually made new friends and felt sure of myself enough to take the script from the King and I play, from the Bronx and make it into a 2 hr performance...it was the first time my new school St Gregory the Great, ever had a play (with tickets 'for sale' at $1.00 ea.). The prinicpal, Sr. Aimee was not supportive and would come to our 'teacher chaperoned' practices and say "if this play ever gets off the ground I'll eat my hat". The play was a great success...I never saw her eat any hat! I directed another play the following year, the Sound of Music . I found out years later that our teacher and the chaperone of our Sound of Music production, Mr. DiMaggio continued with the plays after I moved, formed a drama club at the school and even had a plaque displayed with him as the founder of the drama club with no mention of a new student from the Bronx, a little 7th grade girl being the first to ever direct/'put on' a production with paid tickets at St Gregory the Great School. I remember the disappointment I felt when I heard that and even a little bit of the betrayal I felt from this teacher...silly maybe, but it's what I remember.

I was excited to go to Harrison High School. I had acclimated very well and I had decided I was going to be a director when I grew up... but due to an unfortunate turn of events, we moved again before I could start Harrison High School. The drama club at my new high school was very different, I looked around and didn't even try to fit in...my dream of being a great director had ended as quickly as it had started.

We were now in Rockland County, where my high school days began and where my 'I remember's' started to diminish...