Eventually, I hope the blogs shall produce a self-portrait, not in charcoal, oil, or watercolor but in words, phrases, and clauses. Am I doing so because I think I'm some big deal? No, I am definitely not a big deal, but since I started this writing venture, I am a stick-to-it kind of guy and will continue until I believe the portrait is finished, or else if God is finished with me first. Of all the relatives from my childhood, the one individual who rises above all the rest is my mother's father, Grampa, his actual name, Francesco "Frank" Colacicco (Kah-lah-CHEEK-oh). I never heard anyone call him Francesco except for his wife, Palma, when she was irritated with him. To this very day, I can still hear him in the early morning, stirring up a lather with his cream-colored ivory-handled shaving brush in a tin cup that held manly scented soap. I am also able to recall the spicy Bay Rum after shave he applied each morning to his cheeks and neck. I shall never forget the aroma of his pipe tobacco and its resulting smoke.
I yet recall his visiting us years later shortly after his Palma died, sitting at our kitchen table in our "small-ah town," as he called it, and mixing his morning Coffee Royale, into which he added, beyond the cream and sugar, a single shot of brandy, not one drop more, not one drop less. That was it. Grampa was not a drinker. On rare occasions, he'd offer me a sip of his coffee, that is, if mother wasn't watching. At those times, Frank and I grinned because we friends and equals got one over the enemy.
In 1892, when he was but fourteen years old, Frank left his family and loving home in Caserta, Italy. From there, he traveled by land the ninety miles to the seaport of Ausonia where he boarded a sailing ship that would take him to Manhattan, New York, a voyage of over five thousand miles. How many similar age boys of today would even think of leaving home in order to learn a trade? How many would spend the next four long years without returning home? How many would travel to a country thousands of miles away, minus an adult relative or friend by his side? Added to that, how many teens would dare seek to live in a place in which he couldn’t understand the language? Most contemporary parents wouldn't allow their teens to even consider such a venture. Truth is, there are multitudes of homes with thirty-year-old children who remain with their parents instead of venturing into the world on their own. They persist to be dependent for much too long of a time.
I refer to Frank as "Grampa" although I realize the correct appellation is either Grandpa or Grandfather. He never explained to me how or why he had been offered an apprenticeship although he often said, "Georgie, you-ah ask too many questions." I assume his parents must've known an Italian barber in New York who paid for young Frank's trip. That was a good deal for the boy and the barber because the boy would learn a trade and the boss would have an indentured servant for the next four years.
Before he left home, Frank promised 14-year-old Palma Cappelli, my grandmother, that he'd return in four years, a journeyman barber. He promised he'd marry her and then take her to the United States of America where they would have a family and live happily ever after.
Frank was 75-years-old and visiting with us in Wisconsin Rapids when he told me that story not long after his Palma died. "She-ah was my best-ah pal," he said of her. Those were his precise words. While watching him relate the past with such emotion, delicacy, and significance, I assumed he was in love with Palma from the day they met. Theirs was, indeed, a lifetime of mutual adulation.
The day young Frank arrived in Manhattan, the owner-barber directed him to a back room of the barber shop. That room would become Frank's living quarters and bedroom for the ensuing four years. The barbershop had as many as six barbers, according to Frank. During the day, the teen swept the floor of freshly cut hair slightly before each customer rose from his chair, peered into the mirror, liked what he saw and smiled, ready to venture on the sidewalks of the large city with a clean shave and a haircut, his cheeks as smooth as glass and as cool as the walls of an iceberg. Additionally, the lad emptied, cleaned, and buffed brass spittoons assigned to each chair. He also rubbed clean and daily shined mirrors that had become smoked-smeared. Shiny and sparkling, the mirrors were used to display to customers the results of sartorial professionalism, a clean shave and a finely sculpted haircut. Also, Frank sharpened scissors and cutters, oiling them with but a tiny singular drop.
During the winter, Frank tended to the barbershop's coal stove. He told me the boss warned him to let the fire go out after business hours but start a new fire the next morning before the boss unlocked the front door. "I-ah cheated," Grampa explained to me, "when it got so cold the wool-ah blankets couldn't keep me warm."
Grampa said most of the barbershop's customers were Italians who taught him American figures of speech. (I never once heard Frank curse). On occasions, customers talked Frank into singing Italian folks songs and arias by Monteverdi, Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, and Verdi. I suspect the arias were accompanied by tears from customers recalling the land of their youth.
When I was three years old, my pregnant Mother and I rode the train from Wisconsin Rapids to New London where we caught another train to Milwaukee. We waited for a short time in Milwaukee before we boarded yet another train that would take us to Chicago where I was first introduced to Frank and Palma. Mother and I traveled there to pick up my older brother, Bill, in order to take him home. I had not known either of my older brothers. Bill had lived with Frank and Palma and their offspring while mother was hospitalized due to a bad car accident. My oldest brother, Jim, lived with my father's relatives.
Each weekday morning, Frank left the upstairs flat where he and Palma lived in order to report to work at a Chicago casket factory. No longer did he cut hair. The reason: "My hands. They-ah shake too much."
"Why?" I asked, realizing almost immediately he would not explain as he looked away to a far off place neither of us could see.
When he returned home in the late afternoon, tired from a day of what must've been difficult manual labor, he smiled and sat on a comfortable chair, inviting me in his ever so soft voice to sit on his lap. Climbing to his lap and sitting, I watched his wrinkled fingers tamp the tobacco in his pipe's bowl before both hands searched various pockets for a wooden match. After he lit the tobacco and took a couple of long draws, I heard him coo soft words to me. I leaned against his chest and heard his beating heart while I felt his lifting and receding chest as together they soon produced in me a sound, comfortable sleep.
I yet recall his visiting us years later shortly after his Palma died, sitting at our kitchen table in our "small-ah town," as he called it, and mixing his morning Coffee Royale, into which he added, beyond the cream and sugar, a single shot of brandy, not one drop more, not one drop less. That was it. Grampa was not a drinker. On rare occasions, he'd offer me a sip of his coffee, that is, if mother wasn't watching. At those times, Frank and I grinned because we friends and equals got one over the enemy.
In 1892, when he was but fourteen years old, Frank left his family and loving home in Caserta, Italy. From there, he traveled by land the ninety miles to the seaport of Ausonia where he boarded a sailing ship that would take him to Manhattan, New York, a voyage of over five thousand miles. How many similar age boys of today would even think of leaving home in order to learn a trade? How many would spend the next four long years without returning home? How many would travel to a country thousands of miles away, minus an adult relative or friend by his side? Added to that, how many teens would dare seek to live in a place in which he couldn’t understand the language? Most contemporary parents wouldn't allow their teens to even consider such a venture. Truth is, there are multitudes of homes with thirty-year-old children who remain with their parents instead of venturing into the world on their own. They persist to be dependent for much too long of a time.
I refer to Frank as "Grampa" although I realize the correct appellation is either Grandpa or Grandfather. He never explained to me how or why he had been offered an apprenticeship although he often said, "Georgie, you-ah ask too many questions." I assume his parents must've known an Italian barber in New York who paid for young Frank's trip. That was a good deal for the boy and the barber because the boy would learn a trade and the boss would have an indentured servant for the next four years.
Before he left home, Frank promised 14-year-old Palma Cappelli, my grandmother, that he'd return in four years, a journeyman barber. He promised he'd marry her and then take her to the United States of America where they would have a family and live happily ever after.
Frank was 75-years-old and visiting with us in Wisconsin Rapids when he told me that story not long after his Palma died. "She-ah was my best-ah pal," he said of her. Those were his precise words. While watching him relate the past with such emotion, delicacy, and significance, I assumed he was in love with Palma from the day they met. Theirs was, indeed, a lifetime of mutual adulation.
The day young Frank arrived in Manhattan, the owner-barber directed him to a back room of the barber shop. That room would become Frank's living quarters and bedroom for the ensuing four years. The barbershop had as many as six barbers, according to Frank. During the day, the teen swept the floor of freshly cut hair slightly before each customer rose from his chair, peered into the mirror, liked what he saw and smiled, ready to venture on the sidewalks of the large city with a clean shave and a haircut, his cheeks as smooth as glass and as cool as the walls of an iceberg. Additionally, the lad emptied, cleaned, and buffed brass spittoons assigned to each chair. He also rubbed clean and daily shined mirrors that had become smoked-smeared. Shiny and sparkling, the mirrors were used to display to customers the results of sartorial professionalism, a clean shave and a finely sculpted haircut. Also, Frank sharpened scissors and cutters, oiling them with but a tiny singular drop.
During the winter, Frank tended to the barbershop's coal stove. He told me the boss warned him to let the fire go out after business hours but start a new fire the next morning before the boss unlocked the front door. "I-ah cheated," Grampa explained to me, "when it got so cold the wool-ah blankets couldn't keep me warm."
Grampa said most of the barbershop's customers were Italians who taught him American figures of speech. (I never once heard Frank curse). On occasions, customers talked Frank into singing Italian folks songs and arias by Monteverdi, Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, and Verdi. I suspect the arias were accompanied by tears from customers recalling the land of their youth.
When I was three years old, my pregnant Mother and I rode the train from Wisconsin Rapids to New London where we caught another train to Milwaukee. We waited for a short time in Milwaukee before we boarded yet another train that would take us to Chicago where I was first introduced to Frank and Palma. Mother and I traveled there to pick up my older brother, Bill, in order to take him home. I had not known either of my older brothers. Bill had lived with Frank and Palma and their offspring while mother was hospitalized due to a bad car accident. My oldest brother, Jim, lived with my father's relatives.
Each weekday morning, Frank left the upstairs flat where he and Palma lived in order to report to work at a Chicago casket factory. No longer did he cut hair. The reason: "My hands. They-ah shake too much."
"Why?" I asked, realizing almost immediately he would not explain as he looked away to a far off place neither of us could see.
When he returned home in the late afternoon, tired from a day of what must've been difficult manual labor, he smiled and sat on a comfortable chair, inviting me in his ever so soft voice to sit on his lap. Climbing to his lap and sitting, I watched his wrinkled fingers tamp the tobacco in his pipe's bowl before both hands searched various pockets for a wooden match. After he lit the tobacco and took a couple of long draws, I heard him coo soft words to me. I leaned against his chest and heard his beating heart while I felt his lifting and receding chest as together they soon produced in me a sound, comfortable sleep.
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