A Story of War and Peace Among the People of the southwestern US

My father-in-law lived with the Hopi people in the southwest for a time. He told me this story.

When the 5 nations were brought forth, the God of War visited them each. The Apache fell in worship and he gave them many gifts, the ability to be fierce warriors, and much corn.

The Hopi did not worship the War God and he was infuriated. He decided to teach them why war was necessary, so he only gave them one ear of corn, figuring they would fight over it and ask him for his gifts.

Instead, the Hopi ground the corn and, saving a few kernels, divided it equally among themselves. The next year they were able to grow more corn and became a cooperative society, sharing the crops they grew and meat they hunted. To protect themselves from the more warlike people, they built dwellings into the mountains and preserved their way of life for many years. 

Few Hopi survive today (the Europeans being even more in love with war than the Apache) but they maintain their way of life.

The Day After Christmas

The day after Christmas, for a number of years from when I was 11 or so until I was 16, my father had to go to a business conference out of town. One of his colleagues would pick him up the morning of the 26th and off he would go. Then the fun began.

My mom would make pancakes in different shapes while my brother and I and my sister set the table or played with our presents. And we made noise.

For four days, we ran around the house, laughing, yelling, singing, chasing each other, and having fun. We got to have our friends over. My mom joined us in chasing games or went across the street to her friend Helen's house, and had coffee and stayed as long as she wanted or until we missed her and ran to get her. The beds didn't get made and we didn't worry about messes. At night, sometimes, we all piled into the big double bed and tickled each other and then slept long and deeply.

In the mornings, sometimes we had candy for breakfast. My mom laughed a lot.

Before my dad came home, we cleaned the house and put our toys away.

Years later, just a few years ago, actually, I was talking with him about this and that and the holidays, and I mentioned the conferences he went to the day after Christmas. He was astonished. "How the heck do you remember that?" "I guess, Dad, I guess I have a good memory," I said. What else could I say?

Looking back, I feel sad for him that noise and family life bothered him so much. I am sorry he couldn't take part in the joy we had with each other. I am sorry he needed so much order.

As for me, all these years later, fifty or more, I still find that I feel calm and happy, no matter what else is going on, when I wake up on December 26th.

Nota bene

She wandered over to my desk and whispered, "You. You were the only one."

Writing is hard. I think I just gave away my whole story. In just the first line. I'm supposed to have set the stage, put the story in perspective, and stuff like that. But I do have a grabber (I hope) first line. She really said that.

To be quick about it: the year was 1961. I was in the 7th grade and the woman speaking those words was my English teacher. She was very old-fashioned in an era that was bringing change to the culture even in a backward Indiana town. She wore straight long skirts, a pin-tucked blouse, a light cardigan, and always pearls. She had a difficult time with what is now called "classroom management". The room was generally in chaos. I remember the names of many of my classmates,  particularly the older sister of my brother's girlfriend, whom I helped as much as I could, even letting her copy my homework, because I was fond of my brother and helping his girlfriend's sister helped him. Ok, that's boring, but it did work. They had a long relationship and are still friends.

She didn't fascinate me like Mr. Farkas did with his challenge to draw a triangle with 2 right angles. I spent hours on that one, but was limited by imagination. It can be done.

She wasn't flamboyant, like our music teacher, aka "Daddio Diaphragm", who started class each week by having one of the biggest boys in the class come and punch him in the gut, to demonstrate the strength of the diaphragm. He'd show the kid where to punch, the kid would hit him as hard as he could (and some of those boys hated him).  Daddio would then carry on as if nothing had happened, running us through exercises to strengthen our diaphragms.

Our English teacher did none of those attention getting things. She read to us, or assigned reading to us, and sat at her desk while kids threw spit balls and paper airplanes and practiced saying "goddam" under their breath. That was a very bad word in Indiana in the early 60's. By the end of the decade, many of the boys were in Vietnam, I suppose, learning other words and throwing other things.

I didn't care as long as I could be left alone. I was fond of her, and felt sorry for her impotence in the face of the snickers and hoots as she explained the homework, written on the board in her elegant handwriting, always headed by "N.B.", short for the Latin (she told us) Nota Bene, or note well. "Not a booger", the kids said. So maybe I wasn't surprised the day she came into class, about 10 in the morning, weaving more than a little, talking nonsense, drawing clumsy squiggles on the board. The teacher from next door came by presently, and told her to go to the office. I think; I don't remember exactly how she came to leave. Of course we never saw her again, and no explanation was given.

But on her way out, she stopped by my desk and leaned over. And whispered to me.

Been a long time coming

From the Neapolitan side of the family  

Not all of my heritage is Sicilian, despite what I may have said elsewhere. There are ancestors from Caserta, the town near Naples most famous for having the jail where Sophia Loren was kept. One of those relatives was my great-uncle Aldo, of whom I have written. Aldo was not Mafia, he was just mob. Italian, not Sicilian. One has to be Sicilian to be Mafia, although perhaps they have relaxed the standards. He operated out of Boston, robbing trains and bootlegging, regular stuff. He was the one who supplied his sister with the gun she used to shoot at her husband. She emptied it in his direction at fairly close range but missed. Six times. Maybe she didn't really want to kill him although I doubt that. I think she was unpracticed.

Finally Aldo did something (I never learned what) that got him thrown out of New England. He left his wife behind and went to Chicago where he thrived.  This was about the time our family moved from New York to Indiana so we got to know him better.  I know I somewhere told the story of Uncle Aldo arriving at our house with a beautiful woman. She had blonde hair, bright red lips and nails and a luscious fur coat. Almost as soon as they walked in the door there was a terrible fight. I didn't understand any of it and Italian children know enough to go to their rooms when the adults are fighting. At any rate, the fight would have been in Italian (actually Neapolitan dialect), and very loud. When it settled down, Aldo and the woman I thought was as lovely as a fairy princess were both gone. Quietly I asked my mother why they had left and she said they weren't hungry.

As I said, Aldo thrived in Chicago. His visits to our house were occasional and, with that one exception, without accompaniment. My father, for the most part, showed him great deference. For the most part. When Aldo brought a paper sack full of watches for us to pick from and keep, my father would not let us. Aldo said they fell off a truck. I thought my father was angry that Aldo hadn't run after the truck to tell the driver something fell off.

After dinner, Aldo and my dad would go in the family room to smoke and talk. Aldo liked to brag about what he had done. I liked to listen, quietly, on the other side of the door. One time he talked about managing a nightclub in Chicago. He was the third or fourth manager of the place; all the others had been quickly fired. As soon as he was hired, he noticed that the prior managers were skimming off the top. Of course they were, that was to be expected. Along with bribes to police and ward bosses. What surprised Aldo was the sheer amounts that were being taken. Some was to be expected but these guys were taking as much as they could. Thus they were discovered, thus they were fired. Or worse.

"Minchia", Aldo said, "they were taking it all." He described devising a system whereby he could take enough to enrich himself but not so much that it would attract attention. "You gotta take a little, leave a little. You can't take it all."

This fairly simple statement made an impression on me. My father was an absolutist. Nothing but the whole cake would do. Nothing but one's total best, nothing but a total conquest; nothing else was acceptable. My dad would never engage in illegal activities, but he did strive for total victory and total surrender from an opponent. In an argument, he would continue until he heard that he was right, totally right. If he did the lawn, he did the whole lawn, every blade. Every speck on the garage floor cleaned. Every report card filled with A's. Anything less than all was failure. It was the principle of the thing.

Hearing those words "You can't take it all" took the huge weight of his perfectionism off my shoulders. It was more than a strategy to not get caught, it was a relaxed philosophy of life. "Ya win some, ya lose some." And that's ok. I'm a perfectionist enough; it's great to have permission to leave a little. Not every weed pulled, not every game won, not every task completed. It's ok.

I always have problems with finishing my stories. I'm at that spot now. So I will stop. Might come back to do more editing.

Oh, you want to know what happened to Aldo. So do we. He disappeared several decades ago. The body was later found in the Chicago river. His wife claimed it and brought it back to New England.

My Sicilian Grandfather

A lot of this is true. Maybe most.

The man below came to America because of the Italian salt tax. He was the youngest son of a wealthy man, who had sons and daughters who were educated by private tutors in a manor overlooking the Adriatic Sea and shadowed by Mount Etna. The family grew lemons and olives and the sons were sent to Paris in the summer to become cultured. They ate food from the sea: calamari, shellfish, and eels, as well as lamb and dishes cooked with fruits, pignoli and African spices. Mostly their meals were made for them, but my grandfather enjoyed lounging in the kitchen and learned the art of cooking and, of course, wine-making.  

Like all Sicilians, the family did not consider themselves Italian. The language is different, not even a dialect, but a different language. Sicily then, and Sicily now, is contemptuous of Italian rule, resentful. But my grandfather was drafted by Italy and had to go into the Italian army.  I'm not sure about my great uncles. I know several had come to the US to make money to buy more land in Sicily and return. Maybe they escaped the draft, I don't know.

The story I remember is that my grandfather was a good marksman, good at taking down faggiani, pheasants. If you shoot one, the others fly away, but the story is that my grandfather was so good he could get others in flight. So the army set him up on a hillside.  

People need salt and the Italian government taxed it, perhaps still taxes it. Maybe not. The farmers who lived on the coast would go down to the sea at night to gather salt water and thus evade the tax. The government put soldiers up on the hillsides to fire over their heads and scare them. I don't know, maybe even to shoot them. Whichever, it was intolerable for my grandfather, who despite his privileged upbringing had a fine sense for injustice. This he saw as unjust. So he went to join his brothers in America.  

My grandfather met my grandmother, who was from Naples, and they fell in love. Her family did not approve of the match because he wasn't Italian. They did not attend the wedding. He wanted to take his bride back to Sicily, the Sicily he loved with fragrant orchards and sun warmed villas, but she had only known grinding poverty and would not go. And so, rather than lose her, he stayed. The picture up top is him on his wedding day. 

My grandfather made out ok, he was athletic and worked as a skilled craftsman. My grandmother worked in a clothing store that catered to Italians, but she had worked in the textile mills as a girl.

A big problem for the Italians was the Black Hand, or Mafia. Not the jovial guys seen on the US TV series "The Sopranos", these were evil men who stood outside the gates of the factories and strong-armed men for part of their paycheck. People paid them or there would be a handprint in black ink on their door and someone would come and bloody them. Some people paid Mafiosi for special favors. They had knives, stilettos, and if a daughter had been dishonored by a man, her family would pay the Mafia to slit his nose and make him so ugly no other woman would want him. 

This was the early to mid 1900's. Guns were not very common. A skilled man could do what he needed to do with a knife. If he had a gun, so much the better. But they were rare.

Back to the Mafia and men's paychecks. My grandfather told the men not to give their money to the Mafia. He was an anarchist and did not believe in government, nor religion, did not believe in one person having power over another, and despised the Mafia. One day, when my father was about 7 or 8, the family returned to their apartment and a paper with a black hand was nailed to the door as a warning. 

I do not believe my grandfather was frightened. 

Time went by and nothing happened.  My grandfather continued to urge men not to give their money to the Mafia. One night two men came to the door. Graciously my grandfather let them in, offered them dark red wine, and sent my grandmother and father into the other room. They began to talk when suddenly my father burst in and ran to my grandfather, crying, hugging him. Roughly my grandfather pushed him away. "Bad boy," he said, "go back to your room, this is for men." But it was a ruse. My grandfather had a gun, and my father, as he had been told to do, had brought it and put it in my grandfather's pocket.

So then, with the boy again out of the room, my grandfather drew the gun. Guns, back then, were rare and impressive. "Get out," he said, "and do not come back."  Apparently they did, or so I was told.  And my father ran in and leaped into his father's lap, proud of the part he played. 

My grandfather would have been in his thirties then, here he is in his 60's, with me and my brother.  He was a kind and gentle caretaker who never allowed us to be struck or even scolded while he lived.  He took me in his lap and read the New York Times to me, out loud. All the News That's Fit to Print said a box on the front page. He died a year or 2 after this picture was taken.

I have his wedding ring which I wear on my largest finger with another gold band to keep it in place. 

There are a lot of holes in this story, as there are in stories that are handed down. I'm sure you can find them. 

Sicilian cooking: Bracciole

There are many recipes for these meat rolls called bracciole, but almost all of them are Italian. Sicilian cooking is heavily influenced by west Asian and northern African cooking. Most Sicilians will tell you they are not Italian (and indeed we are not). But I will not get into the politics today, just the cuisine. I am also not going to get into the tomato sauce (which might require several blogs) or the pasta.

There also won't be any exact amounts listed in the recipe, because I don't use them. I learned by watching my mother who learned from my grandfather. He was a true Sicilian who fought the Italian army when he was in Italy and fought the Mafia when he was in the US. Both subjects for future blogs.

Bracciole:
2 lbs. round steak, carefully trimmed of fat and sliced into thin sheets
Handful or more of pignoli (pine nuts)
Handful of golden raisins
Chopped fresh herbs: I like basil, parsley, and marjoram
2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
ground black pepper
salt




Lay the slices of meat on a cutting board and cover with the garlic, salt, pepper, herbs, nuts and raisins. Some people like to add more, it's good to experiment.

Italian bracciole emphasizes more cheese and larger amounts of herbs. The African/Mediterranean influence here can be seen in the nuts and raisins.




The tricky part comes next and that is rolling up the meat and tying it with kitchen string. Then take the bracciole and put them in a cast iron frying pan that has been coated with good olive oil. Using medium heat brown the bracciole on all sides. If the heat is too high, the oil will smoke; if too low, the juices will come out of the meat. You don't need to cook them all the way through, just enough to brown the meat and sear in the juices. Turn them so they are browned on all sides.




Your next step is to add a very good quality tomato sauce and simmer for 2-3 hours. You want the meat to be very tender, but not so tender that it is falling away from the string.


Gently remove each bracciola from the sauce, let it cool a bit, and carefully remove the string. Return to the sauce. Serve with pasta.

 A good red wine is always welcome.

On children and guns

I had a child once who moved to my small city from Detroit. I asked him what he liked best about his new home. He said he got to sleep in a bed, not the bathtub. In Detroit his mother put him and his sisters to bed in the bathtub, the better to protect them from stray bullets which periodically crashed into their ground floor flat. 

She had also put plywood over the windows. 

There were no night lights as lights attract attention. 

He told me he no longer worried about his mother and sisters. 

He played chess very well.