American Chronicles Episode 6 – She Made Her Own Beer in the 30s

American Chronicles 6. originally airing July 17, 2015.

SHE MADE HER OWN BEER IN THE 30s
© 2015 John C. Merino

Grandma and Uncle Chester, Circa 1942

The referee crouched…on his hands and knees and with a flat palm, slapped the canvas 3 times. The midget wrestlers bounced up, one pinned, one the victor. It was the preliminaries.

As they danced around the ring to the cheering crowd, Grandma grew anxious.

She held a program, wringing it in her hands……….opening and closing it……….glimpsing the photo of Illio D’Apallo. She was illiterate. It was the picture she read and re-read. Upcoming……the main event. Illio was her hero.

In 1958 we would get a ride to the 3rd street bus station…..sometimes taking a Brews Cab. I would hold her hand. “Tighta…tighta…” she would insist and I would squeeze. The ushers at the Aud in Buffalo recognized her and smiled. She was a wrestling day regular.

Her black mourning dress hung just below her knees. Her stocky black shoes, square heeled and frayed. The outfit she’d worn since Uncle Chester was killed on Okinawa in 1944.

Illio laughed at my grandmother. She would somehow get wring side seats and buy me a cola and popcorn.

When he pinned his opponent, she would curse in Italian, cheering Illio on and he’d turn to her……………..and with Bobo Brazil lying beneath………….he’d laugh.

He understood her dialect……..she was handsome at 67. She was his fan.

Grandma once boarded a bus in Buffalo headed to see my cousin Brenda in Los Angeles, California. She carried a large handled brown paper bag……salami, canned tomatoes, Trusello’s Bread, her homemade pizza, canned peppers and another small satchel with her clothes.

She refused to fly. The first leg of the trip was Chicago.

There, she was to transfer to a LA bound Grey Hound. She transferred……………and a day later found herself in Omaha, Nebraska.

It took the better part of that day for them to decipher what language she was speaking. When they finally did, and she showed them her ticket and the note my aunt gave her with Brenda’s contact information…….they called LA.

Brenda had to fly to Omaha and rent a car to drive the 1,500 miles back home with Grandma. “Ima no fly” she would say. Two days in a rented car they left smelling like salami.

I was at her house the day that man landed on the moon. “That’s’a boolshit” she said. “It’sa mountain in Montana”. I suppose it’s from her. I’m reluctant to fly.

At Christmas, she would dig in her apron pockets…………..the only colorful thing she wore.

Five dollar bills were handed out. Everyone was kissed sloppily like an Italian grandmother does. Everyone would laugh and thank Mama for the gift.

Her Cummatti Cungatina came from the same village in Italy in the province of Abruttzi………and she could read and write both languages.

Now Mario’s 5 and dime on Pine Avenue had the best selection of greeting cards in the city of Niagara Falls. The brother’s that ran it took book.

You could buy yoyo’s and penny candy, Styrofoam glider planes for a quarter…….and there stood Grandma……..for the first time, choosing cards for the holiday. This Christmas, everyone would get a card…………and $5.00 dollars.

Cungatina cut a paper grocery bag in half and spread it out on her kitchen table. She wrote across the top, “Love Mama” in capital letters and handed Grandma the pencil.

The instructions were simple. Copy that as many times as it takes to learn……and Grandma sat, sipping the homemade beer she’d brought, writing “Love Mama”.

When Cungatina agreed that it could be read, Grandma began to sign the cards.

She would place the card and a $5.00 dollar bill, each in its envelope, lick the seal and hand it to Cungatina. Her job was to address the envelopes.

This year, “Mama” would send cards. No more hand everyone a five dollar bill at Christmas diner…..and a sloppy kiss.

One was for Eva and her family. Irene and hers, Yolanda (my mother) and our family, and another for Uncle Joe in Rochester.

She was proud. She could write, if only one thing. “Love Mama”.

When Aunt Irene got her mail and sat at the kitchen table for the daily coffee and opening ritual, she spewed her gulp across the floor.

The holiday card she received read, “Congratulations on your Bat Mitzvah” ………Eva’s read, “Get better Soon” and Yolanda’s read…….”From our Dog to yours on the event of Her Spay”.

Grandma had picked the cards because she liked the pictures…………………she never sent Christmas cards again.

At every holiday diner after that, she would reach in her apron pockets, hand out $5.00 dollar bills, and a sloppy kiss and the story of “Mama’s Christmas Cards”, would be retold to embarrassing laughter…….embellished……….lest someone forget………..and I never have.

They say you’re not really dead until the last person that knew you say’s your name for the last time.

I’m John Merino and this is American Chronicles.

ABOUT: American Chronicles is a bi-weekly locally produced feature on WRFA written and produced by retired Gebbie Foundation CEO, John C. Merino. Currently, John is an Adjunct Professor of Micro-Economics, Organizational Management, and 20th Century World History at Mercyhurst University. American Chronicles airs twice monthly, Friday mornings at 7:15 and Friday Afternoons at 4:35. American Chronicles features original stories (partly fact and partly fiction), commentary on local, state , national, world conditions and more.