All I want for Christmas is that Holiday feeling of being 7 years old and leaving my house on Christmas Eve, hand in hand with my 80 year old grandfather en-route to midnight mass at St Anns church on Lancaster Street.....awake way too late and operating on adrenalin, I walked at my grandfathers pace, very slow and calm, and looked around at the nighttime...so curious that the sidewalks were filled with our neighbors also on their way to the Italian church...i was not the only little kid holding hands with a family member, climbing Sixth Street hill and a little bit cold. My mom had bundled me up with shirt, sweater and winter coat, corduroy pants and shoes covered by rubber boots and buckled by me.....if there wasnt a full moon it sure did look like one...the skies were bright and streets were snow covered...winter was always snow covered back then although it may have been my romantic imagination that supplied the white. We walked past the Fantozzi house and the lingering cigar smell always present on their front porch, past Sandy DeCarolis grandparents and in front of Albert Teds house (he was the big kid that scared me most, now a nice guy according to my brother Dean)...and then past the mercantile section of the hill....Carl Cellis grocery store and the Roma Bakery...two of the places where so much of my mom and dads money ended up. I bought donuts every chance I could and my father had me running to Cellis for capicola and mortadella and cheese and cigarettes and my mom wanted milk and bread and spaghetti.....I always though that Carl Celli was a sport, with a pencil in his ear and the racing form folded and tucked into his back pocket...but everything looked different at 11:48 PM as the bells clanged and the elders spoke in Italian greetings, all heading to Mass because of obligation, and because it was once a year and fun even for the old timers to come out at this time of night. So we passed Nanos house and my Uncle Enricos house, my grandfathers brother and his wife and daughter and her husband and my friend/cousin, their son, Robert Dufresne, where I would watch Lee Harvey Oswald killed live on their tv on a Sunday morning as I waited for Robert to get ready for Mass...seems our lives were always in preparation for Mass....then past Grillos corner store, then the rectory and on up the front steps of the church under the ding dong of the bells and into the warmth of the church entrance where the Holy Water was waiting for us all to sample....the church was filled and the organ was playing and everything looked like it did on a normal Sunday morning Mass, and I followed my grandfathers lead and set down next to one of the Stations of the Cross that I spent so much time kneeling in front of during Lent....... Sitting with my moms father, Joe Lanza, respected by all, a retired City Worker who broke the mold and refused to work indoors and held out for a job digging graves by hand....most of the Italians had reconciled themselves to working in a shop where the rewards were good pay and plenty of work...but Guiseppe could not do it...he was familiar with farming and farm animals and that was in his blood. He worked until retirement age and then went back to work at 75 at the chicken farm to earn enough to add a third apartment to the 6th street house so that my mom and dad and me would have a place to stay....the guy who woke up before 5 AM every morning and cooked breakfast for my diabetic grandmother, washed her feet, washed the needle and injected the insulin and made sure she tooke her medicine and ate well and was as comfortable as could be. he rarely left her side except to go to Mass (she was basically an invalid) or go shopping or to take a trip by bus, with me, to Fanny Farmer in Fitchburg to buy dietetic candy for my grandmothers pleasure.....he was Mr Fixit and repaired our bikes and anything else that could benefit from a trip to his workshop down cellar.....he was the one who was always good for a nickel so I could buy a pack of baseball cards or a candy bar.....when he was back in Alvito, Italy he passed by my grandmothers home all the time and although she was only 14 years old, he told her father that someday he would marry Concetta Tata, the green eyed, black haired daughter of his neighbor....they could not guess about the adventure to come, the solo trips to USA he took to raise cash for the rest of his family to come, her trip alone except for the three children by her side, one on her breast milk, as they occupied the belly of the ocean liner that took them to America and Ellis Island..... We sat in the church and I checked out the old men and the widows and the kids and their families....most of the spent their time in work clothing and seemed out of place in suit and tie....the necks were fat and squeezed and I loved to chuckle at the rednecks....the widows were all in black and very loud in prayer and song, and some of the kids wanted to giggle and fool around, but one stiff look from a family member threw the fear of God into them....the actual Mass was mysterious in its Latin (I would become an altar boy within a year and memorized the Latin mass) and the music was spine tingling, a short stout tenor was the feature...i thought he was Caruso but I learned later that he was Mr Firmani...mere mortal....I had my own prayer book and beads and I was proud to have them....after Mass my grandfather chatted in Italian with his friends, many neighbors from the old country, and again took my hand and me home to a more traditional American Christmas, to wait for Santa and gifts of toys and candy.....there were two Christmas back then...(1) was my maternal grandparents and it was a religious one with very few gifts or decorations...the second Christmas was the one that me and my friends banked on, materialistic, commercial, sugary and a vacation from school....it had nothing to do with prayer beads and choirs or holding hands with my grandfather.....the one I miss the most was in the warm church, filled with ordinary people in extraordinary dress and spirit....Merry Christmas to one and all...
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 10:55:30 +0000
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