Papa's favorite story

            In truth I don’t know much about my grandparents, both immigrants from Italy.  The only accounts of their lives that I’ve gotten have been garnered from large, noisy dinners where all twenty of the Romanos gathered around the table and fought for elbow space and spaghetti.  As the oldest cousin, I’ve always sat nearest to the adults, soaking up their conversation and the random glass of wine.  After the dinner ended, and the younger kids sat messily in high chairs, satiated, and the middle children had run off to play teasing games in the backyard, Papa would sit back and tell stories in his rumbling, oak-wood voice about his youth, growing up, immigrating here, and how he got where he is today. 

            With my Nana, he only speaks in their native languages; a southern dialect I think, and even after a couple years of studying still can’t hope to understand.  He was born in the heart of Rome to a well-to do family, and came over to America after the family moved south for a bit, to live in Little Italy.  While there, he studied hard, got an education, and ended up going to college at the University of Michigan on a tennis scholarship- although he never actually played on the team.  English was something he picked up quite easily, but the home was always for Italian.

            One story he told repetitively, about the prejudice against Italian immigrants that he had to fight, and how he overcame it.  I only edit it for language.

            “When I was growing up, there was this beautiful girl the lived around the corner from us, nice house, big lawn.  We lived in a crowded house filled with noisy kids, and we all slept in the same bed.  Well, we went to school together, and I saw her at the time, and I decided that she was mine.  I had to have her.”  At this point my Nana usually interrupted to scold him, “Pietro, che cosa fai?  Che s******!” using that Italian-wide shaking three-finger gesture at him. 

            “Ah, donna, let me finish!” He’d reply.  “Well, one day, I see her outside, so I go into my room, and use what’s left of my money to buy her flowers.  I walked to her yard and gave them to her, and I asked her to be my ragazza.  But she said no, because she wanted a guy who could take her to the movies.  Well, I went out and got a job the next day- the neighborhood’s paperboy.  I had three routes, and in a couple months I could afford to take her to the movies.  So I went up and asked her out again, and she said no again.  This time, she wanted a guy who played sports and had a car.  So I taught myself tennis after school with this friend I had from further into the city, Ricardo or something, and I got other jobs, and I eventually bought a car.  This was a couple years later, too.  Well, getting closer to some school dance, I drive by her place and she’s outside.  I ask her again, she says no.  I say, ‘Why?’  She says she wants someone rich.  So I Decide I’m going to go to college, become a rich guy, so I do that.  I come home after school, what do you know, she’s still there.   I just got into the dentist school, and I’m looking good, I mean real good.”  Nana would usually interrupt there too, but I’ll admit it for vulgarity sake.  “Well, I pull up to the neighborhood and she’s outside.  I drive up, looking like a big shot, and thinking- I’m going to get the girl finally.  Well, I pull up and we talk, catch up on our lives, and I ask her again, and this time she says yes.  So I coolly open the door, and she gets in, and we drive off towards my place.  On the way, I ask her why she never said yes before.  She answered that she didn’t want to date a wop, but now that I was a dentist, it wouldn’t matter.  Well, let me tell you, I got so mad- I slammed on the brake, she goes flying forward because the stupid idiot wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and I open up her door and tell her to get out.  She gets out all confused, and so I tell her, ‘I can get flowers, I can buy movies, I can play tennis, I got a car, and I got a job… what do I need you for?’ and then drove off.  He met my Nana some months later and they lived happily thereafter, raising a family and living their lives.  I don’t know if the story was true, or to prove a point.  He always taught me life lessons through stories like that. 

Jared Thoma