Hello and Good Evening Another short story tonight, only Its about my Father Salvatore or as some called him Sal, but to us kids he was Pa,, what I know about Pa comes from being with him at his shoe repair shop every day after school Monday thru Friday from 3 oclock to closing at 6:30, from the 4th grade thru high school, and all day Saturday from 6 in the morning till closing at 6 in the evening, I got to see more than anyone in our family except brother Ben who did it for a few years in junior high... Pa was the youngest of 8 siblings, never new his father who was shot in a fight before Pa was born, and his Mother died shortly after giving birth to Pa, so he was raised by his older brothers and sisters, moved around from one to another, left school at age 10 and worked as an apprentice in a cobbler shop, learned to repair shoes, and there learned to draw styles of mens and womens shoes, cut the leather uppers and to sew the uppers attach and build the final shoe..all this as a kid, what ever he earned was given to whoever was raising him at the time.. eventually he had a shop of his own in Italy, had several kids and a couple of grown ups including my mothers brother, my uncle Frank, who is still alive at age 94 and is sharp as attack today.. theres a ton more about Pa some of which Ive already told you, but tonight, its about the little things I saw at his shop, working so hard to do a good job for his customers, caring, that if they were short of cash, he would say, Thats all right, here take your shoes, and pay me when you can, you can guess when he would get his money, maybe someone might pay him something, but a lot of the time, they would bring him some foods from their garden, or a bottle of red wine... there were times that I would see Pa put together a big box of stuff to send to Italy, for my grand parents, and for my brother and sister, clothes, shoes, soaps, wash towels, etc, then he would sew a big sheet over the box, stencil the names and address and walk to the post office with it to get it sent out.. I saw Pa every Saturday morning run across the street from the shop to the bank to deposit money in a savings account, what I didnt know and no one except Ma knew, we found out after he died, that he had 6 Bank books, and he would deposit cash in each one, turns out, each bank book was for a certain thing.. savings, mortgage, bill money, and a private account for Ma to be used after his death.. Pa also took out policys for each of us kids and when we reached 18, we each got a check,.. we never knew any of the bank accounts or the policys..all I can tell you is that what I saw and who I saw as being my father, was a man whose only reason to live on this earth, was to provide for his family, take care of Mas needs and our needs, he would be the one who took us to Robert Hall for our Easter suits, and dresses for the girls, he rarely said he loved us, but showed it by his caring and working to get what we needed, I made sure I told him I loved him and he would just look at me and say, me too... theres more about Pa, but for tonight, I am finished,,,, Ill pick it up tomorrow night... you have a great rest of your night, God Bless... see you tomorrow...
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 22:34:30 +0000