Mom and Dad

3.
Rena married Leno at 21 and had me, her first child, eleven months later. The children continued coming every two or three years until there were five. She was the youngest of three girls and grew up in the Taylor Street area of Chicago.

She was a devoted mother who never stopped worrying about her children. She was passionate about them, wanting them close by and always in line. Never one to hide her feelings, she always spoke her mind particularly with her husband and kids. Hers was not a quiet house with voices often raised in joy as well as anger. The battles she fought over the years - with her weight, her husband, her children, her religion, her in-laws - were sometimes painful but often healthy ones. Fires seldom smoldered within her for very long - loud eruptions either brought them to an end or at least put them out temporarily to be stoked up another time.

Rena kept a clean but disorderly house; she was always doing laundry, giving her kids baths or putting forth monumental efforts to sanitize one room while the others fell into chaos. She was an exceptional cook, able to feed twice as many as the table was set for at any given extraordinary meal.

“If I can cook it, bake it or wash it, I can do it,” she would say. “Just don’t ask me to sew it, draw it or paint it.”

She was as quick with a swat as a hug and worked hard to make sure her children were polite, respectful and unspoiled. She had her pet peeves about discipline and they were often enumerated in her discourses on “If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a kid who...” The list expanded well over one thing, but included: “a kid who spits...who says ‘no’ to an adult...who lies (I just hate a liar!)...who is sneaky...who has a big mouth...who doesn’t wash…who listens in on adult conversations... who whines...who throws a tantrum...who gives Indian burns...” Spitters, liars and whiners were probably the greatest of kid criminals in my mother’s eyes, although tantrum throwers were kids we held in complete awe. Whenever we witnessed such behavior in a grocery store or at a party, we would look from the performer to my mother, mouths agape at his stupidity.

We would wonder, has this kid lost his mind? Doesn’t he know what fate awaits him at home when he pulls a stunt like this? Nothing is worth the punishment for throwing a tantrum!

Actually, none of us ever had the nerve to do such a thing because my mother’s threats, from a very early age, were enough to permanently dissuade us. After seeing her reaction to one tantrum, - the flashing eyes, the set jaw - and hearing “Give me just five minutes with that kid and we’ll see if he ever throws another tantrum,” we never tempted fate. It just wasn’t worth it.

Raising and caring for her children was my mother’s greatest joy. Cortland Street was where her family started to grow and where, in a short time, the family passed some of its own milestones. For my father, it was a time of changing from one job to another, still under the watchful and often critical eye of his parents who lived only a mile away.

Cortland Street

Whenever I think of Cortland Street, it is almost always of a hot, sunny day with a dozen assorted kids playing up and down the street. I’m dressed in a sleeveless button-up shirt in red checks with faded shorts and gym shoes with a half-moon of white rubber across the toes. My white ankle socks irritatingly ride into my shoes when I run and I’m always stopping to pull them up. My sister Sue, four years old, is also a member of the neighborhood gang, and though she sticks with the younger kids, she usually has an eye out for me, just in case. Even at this early age, she’s stubborn and won’t admit to needing me for anything. Still, we have a secret understanding that we share without saying - we know we have each other.

Sue looks like me only shorter and fairer. We’re slight, skinny kids with pixie haircuts and big brown eyes. We share the same room and a mutual skepticism about that baby who cries so much. But this is summer - a time for endless play, and we take off each morning for the yard and beyond, while my mother stays in the house. The city heat and humidity gives us all rings of sweaty dirt in the creases of our necks, arms and behind our knees, but we don’t seem to notice. We lived for playing in packs, all day long, roaming from one yard to another. We dreaded the sing-song call of any mother, beckoning any player home for dinner. By summer’s end, most of the grass on the parkways and in many of the yards had been trampled away.

The parkway in front and on the side of our building gave us room for bike riding and the adjoining empty lot, though less than 25 feet wide, seemed like a huge playground. There was never a shortage of kids, games or things to do, only sunny days to do it all in.

Ours was a pleasant, if small, apartment with a non-functioning fireplace in the living room. The front living room windows looked south, down Long Avenue and the one west window gave the view up Cortland. It was the window my mother called us from, the early evening sunlight shining on her like a beacon, as she shielded her eyes and yelled out our names so the whole block knew it was time for our supper.
"Nan-ceee, Su-zeee, come iiinnnn nooowww!"

There was an unheated tandem room, often called a sleeping porch, off my parents' bedroom that was used as a playroom when the weather was warm; a second bedroom, a dining room, kitchen and small back porches for each apartment. In the lot next to the house, my parents put in two diamond shaped flower gardens. Gladioli and carnations grew as best as they could, despite the abuse of kids running over and through the beds. We had a swing set in the back that my father anchored into the ground with cement at each leg. I would push Susie on the swings until she learned to pump for herself, giving her “underdogs” to make her go higher.

We lived on the second floor and my parents rented out the first floor apartment to a couple of different families during the few years we lived there. There was a separate garage at the back of the lot but I can’t remember my father ever putting his car in it. The building itself was not very old and my father’s abilities in carpentry helped to keep it in fairly decent shape.

The alley behind us backed up to a train yard and across the street on the east side was a disposal company - two good reasons right there that might encourage my parents to move. Long before environmentally sound practices were the norm, a time when the smell of burning leaves only indicated a foreshadowing of winter, big red Roy Strom dump trucks regularly emptied their contents behind the company’s fence, much of which they proceeded to burn. Often it was a load of old tires. And it always seemed to be at a time when my mother’s freshly washed sheets were hanging in the back yard.

“It stinks! It stinks!” we would yell to her as we ran into the house, our hands covering our noses and mouths, whenever the burning and smelly smoke interrupted outside play on a summer day. She became fiercely angry whenever this happened and I can still see her storming across the street to the Strom offices, sooty sheets in hand, to give whomever a piece of her mind. She wasn’t a very tall woman, but like a cat encountering a larger enemy, the anger in her eyes and voice made her appear to be a formidable opponent. She had soft brown hair with a little bit of a wave that obeyed her much less than her children. She had a lovely figure in those days, something I’m sure my father noticed when they first met.

Going back to the beginning...

1.

I don’t know if there was just one reason that made my parents want to move from the two-flat on Cortland Street. Thinking back, it was probably a combination of things. Cortland Street was in an active neighborhood with lots of kids and our “house,” as all kids called their buildings, was on a double lot on the corner where Cortland met Long Avenue - about 1900 north and 5400 west in Chicago, just inside the border of the Austin community of the city.

We moved there in the late summer of 1955 after a few years in the suburb of Elmhurst. Our family was actually returning to this part of the city. My parents started their marriage in a small apartment behind the restaurant/tavern/banquet hall that my grandparents ran just a couple miles north at Austin and Grand. They moved to Elmhurst before I was two and moved back before I was five. The property taxes were killing them and they simply couldn’t afford to stay in that cute little ranch home. No doubt my grandfather had a lot to do with finding the two-flat; it was near his own apartment building and with an extra flat to rent out for additional income, it was the answer to my parents’ financial straits. Still, I know my mother had loved that little house, her neighbors and living in the suburbs.

Maybe the white picket fence helped a bit. It was the only fence on the block and surrounded the Courtland property. During the early summer, blue irises grew along the walk up to the front door, which was painted a bright turquoise. Three white diamond shaped designs decorated the door, the top one with a glass insert which I could only look out of if I stood on the landing inside, next to the door of the first floor apartment. The brick of the building was dark brown and the very top, in the front, had a castle-like design that you didn’t really notice unless you were at least half a block away.

It was on the front walk, behind the fence, that I set up my first business endeavor: a petting zoo of stuffed animals in milk crates made to look like cages. I was perhaps six years old and collected anything in the house that vaguely resembled an animal, including my favorite stuffed monkey that my aunt and uncle had brought back from their honeymoon in Cuba.

“Mom, look, I made six cents!” I yelled as I ran up the stairs.

“Where did you get that?”

“From my zoo on the front walk. You have to pay a penny to see it.”

She looked out the window to see my handiwork. To her, collecting money for such a thing was pretty close to shaking down unsuspecting kids - not the best in neighborliness as far as she was concerned.

“Well, you can march right down the block and give everyone their money back. You don’t take money from people for something like that! What were you thinking??”

I would have willingly handed over every penny to her, and then some (if I had it) to avoid facing the six kids I had charged. The embarrassment of payback prevented me from ever setting up a KoolAid stand and, as anyone in my family will attest, I’m still pretty lousy at bargaining, haggling or any kind of retail. Still, I brought the pennies back, mumbling my reasons and quickly darting back down the street.

Bah, Humbug!

There's nothing like missing the morning train to put me in a foul mood. It has only happened a few times, but when my timing is right, it really ticks me off. And since I'm a regular train commuter - not someone who usually drives but then decides to take the train when the weather is bad, I feel even more outraged.

I aimed for the 7:29 and I will admit my commute to the station was a little tight, allowing 14 minutes when I usually allow 20. I pulled into the station lot at 7:27 and had to park at the far end. As I was getting out of the car, the train arrived. It's hard to sprint the block-long distance to the platform when you are carrying a purse, briefcase, lunch, keys, hat and wearing a long, down coat and Ugg boots, but I tried. Just as I got even with the doors to the first car, they closed and the train pulled away. It was only 7:28.

I wasn't alone. There were other commuters who missed it by seconds as well and we were all fuming. The conductors had to have seen us.

I smoldered in the train station to wait for the next train which arrived 20 minutes later to an even larger than usual group of passengers. Still mad, I took my seat and read the paper. Emerging from Union Station to walk to the office, the snow began in earnest. But the walk actually helped and by the time I arrived, I felt better. It's amazing how a cup of coffee always has a way of improving any situation with that first sip.

I should do commercials for Dunkin' Donuts - their coffee, that is.

Mrs. Buffet's Pumpkin Bread

This is a recipe from my sons' kindergarten teacher at St. A's, Pam Buffet. The pumpkin bread was part of their Thanksgiving Feast. I make it every year and have tried a number of variations, like adding chocolate chips. I also have made a low fat version by cutting the oil in half (canola) and using 2/3 cup applesauce; and 2 eggs plus 1/2 cup of egg beaters instead of 4 eggs. If you make 2 large loaves instead of 4 small ones, they will take longer to bake.

3-1/3 cups flour, 3 cups sugar
2 tsp. baking soda, 1 cup of oil
1-1/2 tsp. salt, 4 eggs
1 tsp. cinnamon, 2/3 cup water
1 tsp. nutmeg, 2 cups pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)

Mix dry ingredients in bowl. Blend in oil, eggs, water and pumpkin. Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees. Makes 4 small loaves.

No Jolly Ranchers, Thank you...

I never know how much candy to get for Halloween. I panic at the thought of running out, but hate to think I may have bags of tempting treats tipping me off the scale. In the past, I've brought leftover candy to work, where it disappears very quickly, but not before I've stashed away some of the good stuff. And the good stuff has to be some kind of chocolate - none of the sour, tart or gummy treats.

I've always thought that the Milky Way is the perfect candy bar. As a Brownie in third grade, our troop visted the Mars Candy Company and at the end of the tour we each received a box of samples. Unfortunately, it was during Lent and on the bus ride home, I managed to refrain from eating any of the samples, even though my public school troop mates dug right in. The box stayed on a shelf until the following Sunday, but then of course, I had to share my booty with Mom and my sisters.

In recent years, though, I've become more enamored of Butterfingers and Reese's peanut butter cups. The peanut butter-chocolate combo is tempting enough to forsake all the weight watcher's points for lunch and just eat a couple pieces of candy. Not very nutritious, but satisfying - and there has to be some fiber in that peanut butter, right?

I haven't had to run the pre-Halloween costume-creating obstacle course for quite a few years since my sons have grown. The continuous changing of minds up until the week before Halloween would drive me crazy. One year the boys wanted to be Thundercats, specifically, Lion-O and Tigra. I found patterns for lion and tiger costumes and painstakingly sewed them on my trusty Kenmore, even stuffing the ears and tails so they were nice and stiff. My sons watched as I struggled with the costumes and as they were almost completed, they critically commented that they weren't "Thundercat enough." My husband saw the look of dread on my face and quickly shuttled the boys far away from me and my sewing machine. We managed to improve the look with face paint and, of course, cool swords.

My one son still talks about a costume we created together when he was about six.

He was the grim reaper and I found the simple instructions in a Good Housekeeping magazine. The best part was creating the darkened eyes and skeletal mouth with black and grey paint. I knew it was a success when he was reluctant to take it off after trick or treating and it was time for bed. He still enjoys dressing up for Halloween parties and last year was quite a hit as Paulie Walnuts from the Sopranos - complete with velveteen running suit, gold chains and graying at the temples.

I'll probably make a trip out to Costco today for another bag of candy. Since Halloween is on a Saturday, the number of tricksters may be a lot more than last year - and the people at my office can always take care of the leftovers, but not before a few Butterfingers find their way into the freezer.

Sempere fedele

September 11, 2009

Today, family and friends said good-bye to a hero.

Lino “Leon” Roggi of DesPlaines was laid to rest at Ft. Sheridan after a funeral Mass at St. Mary’s. He was 84 years old and was buried in his US Marine’s uniform with full military honors. He leaves behind his beautiful wife Marina, four children, grandchildren, a large family and many friends.

In 1944, Lino, Leon – or just “Roggi” as many called him, was a 19 year old Marine in Guam. His accomplishments in combat earned him a Silver Star and Purple Heart – as well as near-fatal wounds that left shards of shrapnel throughout his body. He carried those reminders of his war experiences for a lifetime; pain was a constant companion and memories of battle were never too far away.

Like many of his generation, Roggi spoke little of those events in the Pacific so long ago. We did know his actions saved the lives of other Americans before he was hit by machine gun fire. Despite the fact that he was given little chance of survival he was sent home to recuperate, or die, at Great Lakes. Perhaps it was his Italian hard-headedness, or simply knowing that nothing he had yet to face could compare with the horror he had already experienced, but he fooled them all.

He returned to Chicago, married Marina and started a family. One of my earliest memories of Roggi was when I was five or six and my parents were setting up for a party in our apartment in the Austin neighborhood. As the couples arrived, all dressed up, my sister and I were in our pajamas, ready for bed. Marina and Roggi walked in and I can remember turning to my mother and saying, “Mommy, he’s sooo handsome!” And he was. He had a wonderful laugh, dark hair and big brown eyes that held a mischievious glint, a sparkle that never faded over the years.

Roggi loved his friends, his cigarettes and the lotto, but most of all, he loved Marina and his family. He was a good friend to my parents, always there to celebrate, support, share, and return love. He was firm in his convictions, often not quietly expressed, but he had a soft side, especially where kids were concerned. His laugh was loud and genuine and his tears were real and heartfelt. He looked you in the eye when he spoke to you. You knew from the moment you met him, there was nothing phony about Leon.

Like my father, he was born in Italy and came to the US as a child. More than once, his naturalized citizenship caused confusion with local bureaucrats and during the 1950s, it was questioned by an election judge as he attempted to cast his vote. When Leon explained he had been born in Italy but naturalized through his parents, the judge insisted he couldn’t be a citizen. Frustrated, he opened his shirt, displaying his scars and saying “I wish I knew that before I got this!” The judge called the police and tried to have this decorated veteran arrested. I don’t know if he ever voted again.

Leon was proud of his service to his country but he scoffed at being called a hero. “The guys who didn’t make it home – those are the heroes,” he would often say. But in the eyes of all who knew him, he truly was a hero. It wasn’t only because of his brave actions as a young Marine, but how he shouldered that experience, never letting it go, and allowing it to forge him into the strong and loving man his family and friends came to know and hold very dear.

Semper Fi.