Old Reliable

It seems every family has a favorite restaurant, one they never tire of.

It could be the particular food, the servers, the ambiance, or the price that brings us back year after year - or all of the above.  It's a place the family relies on for birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, or even weddings.

If the restaurant survived the decades of recession, it's probably family-owned.   I'm not talking a pizza joint or a chain restaurant here, the kind we frequented after our sons' hockey games or baseball practices for a quick meal.  I'm talking a place where the tables are covered in white linen with cloth napkins and there is a fresh rose as the centerpiece, maybe a candle, too.

Outside Trieste, Italy

Our family loves all things Italian, especially the food, so we used to take our young sons to DiMeglio's in Woonsocket, R.I., to celebrate the end of school or a birthday of Charley's or mine.  At that point the boys still had birthday parties for their friends.

On the sidewalk outside DiMeglio's you could smell simmering tomatoes, basil, and freshly-shaved Parmesan. The spaghetti sauce (gravy) had simmered all day in a gargantuan gleaming  pot.  Portions covered eleven-inch white dinner plates, so we always had left-overs to take home.  It wasn't a big place, squeezed beyond some warehouses and near some mills, but the owners knew their customers.  Mrs. DiMeglio, in her apron, greeted us with a hug - we became so welcome that our older son was a frequent visitor to the chefs in the kitchen. Diners sat close to each other, getting into animated conversations that often necessitated raising our voices to be heard.


Then DiMeglio's closed.  The family who remained weren't interested in continuing the long hours, and the rent soared. We began going to the Old Canteen on Atwells Avenue in Providence, R.I.  A little more formal than DiMeglio's -  the paint was pink, soft music played, and a mural of Venice dominated one wall.

We celebrated graduations and engagements there with champagne and Veal a la Mike. We celebrated house completions and house sales.  We celebrated birthdays and births and book publications.  Last week Charley and I went back to reminisce over a marriage that's lasted 50 years.

Joe Marzilli, the owner, was no longer there.  His son greeted us as we opened the door from the front staircase on the street.  Sammy, the busboy in his sixties who always brought extra garlic bread to our table, was no longer there.

But the pink walls remained, and the candlelight, and the pink leather chairs. The waitstaff's smiles were there, though they were no longer exclusively male.  The sauteed escarole and spaghetti a la Canteen (with chicken livers and mushrooms) and artichokes in l'olio and garlic and my faorite Prosecco were still there, and the Italian families from "the Hill."  Our "old reliable" made time stand still, even though we hadn't.

A Look Back

To commemorate a BIG wedding anniversary this June, some friends asked me to write a little about our first married years together.  The next several blog posts will do that.

I married Charley two weeks after I graduated from Colby College in 1965.  A Lieutenant in the Air Force stationed in Dover, Delaware, he'd graduated from Colby two years ahead of me.

Maine is a long way from Delaware! We wore out the tires on Charley's VW, going up and down Route 95 during my last two years at Colby.  Somehow I planned a wedding my senior year, while studying for comprehensive exams. Comprehensives were exams that covered four years in our major field of study, and if you failed you didn't graduate - simple as that!  A week before graduation, students who failed had to inform their parents that they need not come to Maine.  Those students could return to take the exam at specified times over the course of the year.  Colby no longer requires "comps," but thankfully I made it through on the first try!

We owned nothing but his car when we got married.  What we did own was debt - to Colby for student loans.  We lived in an officer's duplex on Dover Air Force Base, where Charley was a supply officer.  We got all the Air Force furniture we needed to furnish our "home."

I worked as the Information Director for the Delaware Department of Education in the state capitol offices. A year into our married life, we knew Charley would be reassigned.  Our friends and neighbors were pilots who were getting assignments to bases in Southeast Asia.  We expected the same.

The personnel officer called Charley into his office.  "Lieutenant, I have your assignment here.  You're going to Prestwick, Scotland, for two years.  You'll be reporting there in three months."

"Are you kidding me?" was all I could say when Charley told me.  He would be second-in-command of the base!  We began  planning our vacations all around Europe.

I gave notice at my job.  We hired movers to transport our wedding gifts, a few pieces of hand-me-down furniture, and our car to Europe.

Four weeks later, President Lyndon Johnson went on television to announce a build-up of 50,000 troops in Vietnam.  Charley's orders to Scotland were cancelled the next day.

"Vietnam?  Where the hell is that?"  we asked each other.  We got out the Atlas.

The personnel officer called Charley in again.  "Lieutenant, you're going to Saigon for a year. You'll be reporting one month from today."

I made plans to take the Graduate Record Exam and applied immediately to graduate schools.  A short month later, I was living with my parents again in Connecticut, and Charley had arrived in Saigon.  We'd been married fifteen months. While I commuted to Columbia University in NYC, Charley supplied parts to the "Jolly Green Giant" rescue helicopters, which plucked  pilots from the jungle who'd been shot down throughout Southeast Asia.  Our travel plans to Europe were on "hold" in favor of plans to meet in Hawaii six months into his tour.

To be continued.....

A Busy Time

My hairdresser in Florida, Jill, has two girls, ages sixteen and thirteen.  Summer, the older, pitches for her high school softball team, which recently competed in its regional semi-finals.

The tournament was in Homestead, Florida, between Miami and the Keys.  It's where Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992 and a good ninety minutes from their home in Delray Beach.  Also about as far away as you can get from Tallahassee, where the family was supposed to attend Jill's step-daughter's graduation from Florida State the day after the tournament.

"I just got off the phone with Summer's coach AND the division president," Jill's husband, Mike, said.  "I thought they could reschedule the game for the previous night, but the division president won't allow it."

"Did you really think they'd change a tournament for one player?  Why don't you go up to Tallahassee for the family dinner on Friday night?  I'll take the girls to the tournament in Homestead.  The three of us will drive straight through to Tallahassee after it's over, and the girls can sleep in the car. At least we'll be there to get good seats for the graduation," Jill said.

"But I can't drive the truck all the way up to Tallahassee," her husband said.

"You take our car and I'll rent one for me and the girls."

Halfway to Homestead that Friday Jill's rental died. They waited for AAA and got back on the road an hour later, arriving at the tournament as the national anthem blared through the p.a. system.  Summer pitched five innings and her team won. The state finals would be the following weekend.

They woke Mike up in his hotel in Tallahassee at 1 a.m. and arose at 6 a.m. for the graduation.  Parking was impossible, but they found a spot for their SUV ten blocks away.  Jill wore new orange heels to go with her sundress.  Two blocks before the stadium, one of her heels caught in a crack and tore away from the sole. "At least the blood goes with my red and orange dress," she said, as her husband helped her up off the sidewalk and offered his handkerchief.  Jill completed the walk in bare feet.

That afternoon, after spending time with the graduate, Mike, Jill, and the girls drove to Ocala, where their friend, Al, owned some cabins.  "I haven't seen this place, but how bad could it be?  We're only going to stay one night. Besides, they're treating us to dinner at their restaurant," Mike said.

Al greeted them warmly and led them to their cabin.  "We'll see you at the restaurant in about an hour," Mike said.  He plopped his carry-on bag and Jill's onto their bed.  Dust rose up in a cloud.  Jill pulled the bedspread back.  The blanket looked like Swiss cheese.

"There's no signal here," Summer announced.  "No cell phone and no internet.  Great!!"

"I know.  We couldn't use the GPS either," Mike said.

They rallied to eat.  The menu consisted of fried everything - catfish, shrimp, and scallops, to name a few. Jill and her daughters pushed the heavy food around their plates, but Mike dug in  The bill arrived for $60.  "I thought we were Al's guests," Jill whispered to Mike.

"So did I."  The family was on the road by 6 a.m. the following morning.

Summer's state championship game would be played the following weekend in - you guessed it - Tallahassee.  "Try to find a teammate whose parents are going," Mike said.

Charles J. Sykes, aka Bill Gates, Speaks to the Graduates

     In honor of those graduating in 2013, I'm summarizing some thoughts of Charles J. Sykes from his 2007 book, 50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School.  These thoughts have been attributed incorrectly to Bill Gates, but according to Snopes.com, they are not the words of Bill Gates and he never gave this speech to Mt. Whitney High School, Visalia, California. This is in no way intended as a political statement, but is certainly food for thought.

Rule 1:  Life is not fair - get used to it.                                  

Rule 2 - The world won't care about your self-esteem.  The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 - You will NOT make $40,000 a year right out of high school.  You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you EARN both.

Rule 4- If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 - Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity.  Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping - they called it opportunity.

Rule 6 - If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7 - Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now.  They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes, and listening to you talk about how cool you are.  So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8 - Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not.  In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer.  This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9 - Life is not divided into semesters.  You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself.  Do that on your own time.

Rule 10 - Television is NOT real life.  In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11 - Be nice to nerds.  Chances are you'll end up working for one.

CONGRATULATIONS!