Material things have no value
For they can be lost stolen or forgotten
And those things of value
Can soon rust to nothing
Returning to the ground as all things must
~ Gemini Joe ~
M
y mom and dad were famous in the neighborhood because they were charitable. Some guys would come in for spaghetti and meatballs and they would want extra bread and butter, and sometimes, extra sauce to dip their bread in. My mom was sick so Dad took her to the doctor. The doctor told him that she had cancerous tumors and would need an operation. My dad never told anyone in the family. He kept it all to himself. Now, my mom couldn’t do anymore seam stress work and she didn’t have the strength to work in the luncheonette anymore.
Uncle Pat who was my dad’s brother wasn’t doing good financially. Times were bad and he couldn’t seem to find a job. Finally, he asked my dad if he could buy the luncheonette. Since my mother was too sick to work, he said okay and let Uncle Pat take over the business. He didn’t have the rapport that my mom and dad did. People stopped going because he seemed to be too business-minded, and in that kind of a neighborhood. You can’t do that! They are all close, like family.
Anyhow, my uncle couldn’t make it any longer, he had to close down the luncheonette, and that was the end of that. Of course, my dad never got paid for the luncheonette.
Thinking back, there were hard times, but we got through it. The family all stuck together which was great.
My dad knew that my mom was going to pass away, but he told her, “We’re going to make a nice country house on the lake.” He bought some land in Lakewood, New Jersey, right on the water. It was fun, because none of us knew what was happening, and we were happy to have some property in New Jersey by the lake. We went horseback riding and swimming every chance we could get.
My dad really went through this whole charade. The funny thing is he was just as sick as my mom was, but he never complained.
We’d jump in the car on the weekend and my brothers would follow in an open truck that Dominic had filled with cement blocks and all kinds of things in preparation to make this log cabin or some kind of place by the lake that my mom would be happy.
Dominic’s new wife, Marie, lived in the upstairs apartment, and she helped to take care of my mom when she was too sick to cook or clean. Marie was good that way, but she was a tough woman. Always cursing and yelling, she seemed to fit right in with the family.
One day, she pounded on my bedroom door. “Joe!” she shrieked.
“What is it?” I moaned and rolled over to go back to sleep.
The sound of her fists felt like a sledgehammer hitting me in the head, and I buried it under the pillow.
“Get up,” she screamed, “Your mother’s dead! Did you hear me, Joe? Your mother is dead!”
I jumped out of bed and bolted into my parents’ room.
My mother was lying on the bed. Nonie had been there all night. She was very quiet. I looked at this poor little old lady, who just sat in a chair and watched her child die. A very strong lady. We took her home.
My mom lost her fight with cancer in December of 1949, and that was it. We did what we had to for Mom. But time goes on. Life goes on. I was only nineteen, and I lost her right before I had to go into the Army.
My father took it hard when Mom died. He tried to be strong, but he was sick, too.
“Joey,” my dad called to me one morning.
“What do you need, Pop?”
“I want you to go to the track for me.”
“Me? You want me to go?”
“Didn’t you say you wanted to work for me?”
“Yes, but …. All right, Pop.”
I ran back to my room to get dressed and came out wearing my Sunday suit.
“Take this bag of money and go to window six at Belmont Park. Remember, window six! Give the clerk this note and he’ll give you some tickets. Then, take the tickets to the parking lot on Pennsylvania Avenue. There’ll be a car waiting. Are you sure you can you handle this?”
“Don’t worry, Pop,” I said. “I can do it.”
I walked up to the betting window at the Belmont Race Track and pushed the bag under the glass partition.
After reading the note, the clerk counted out the tickets and stuffed them in an envelope. I left the track and went to the parking lot where a black limousine waited.
The door opened and a man said, “Get in.”
I slid into the backseat of the smoke-filled car.
“Do you have something for me?” The man asked.
“Yes, sir.” I said and reached into my coat pocket for the racing tickets. I handed them to the man, but before I could pull my arm back, he grabbed it.
“So, you’re Joseph’s son. Who do you think you are… a big shot?”
“N-no sir,”
He laughed and stuffed a fifty-dollar bill in my pocket.
“Next time, lose the suit.”
“Yes sir!”
Our days are guided by the Lord
We pray to wake each morning
Given to another new day
And all of its many hours
So we ask him his forgiveness
If we should wrong our fellow man
For in his caring love from him
He will surely understand
Our destiny he holds
In his loving hand
All our joys and sorrows
Dispensed by his command
~ Gemini Joe ~
W
hen the Second World War was going on, all the boys had uniforms and everyone was away from home. Then the Korean War started and I was drafted. They were separating the men according to qualifications.
Everyone said, “Don’t tell them you know how to drive or you’ll be in there longer.”
I thought, why play around. I drive. I have a license. I would like to get a driver’s job in the army. They gave me a few tests and determined my mechanical attributes were up to par. I immediately got a Class A license which was required to drive any vehicle in the United States army, tanks, anything. I boarded the train to New Jersey with the dime that the army provided.
In six months, I became Sergeant of the motor pool, but everyone was going over to Korea because if you went, you got out of the army six months early. I put in for it because I wanted to go home, but they wouldn’t let me go because they put me on a cadre system where I was training men to maintain the trucks.
I thought about going AWOL, but I couldn’t do it. When my brother Dominic was drafted into the Army he didn’t like going at all, and he was quite a bad boy. He kept going AWOL. Once, he came home on leave and decided he wasn’t going back.
After a week, the MPs came to get him. He, and my brother, Victor were sleeping in the bedroom and there was a knock on the door. My mom was so scared. There they were in full uniform with guns. She thought they were going to shoot her.
They said, “We’re looking for Private Dominic Finno. Is he here?”
My mom went into the bedroom crying and she told Dominic, “The MPs are here for you.”
My brother Victor knew he was scared. “I’ll put your uniform on,” he said. “I will go back with them.” Since they were twins, he didn’t think they’d know the difference.
“No!” Dominic said. “I’ll face it myself,” and he left with the MPs.
At the time, it caused a lot of stress on my poor mom.
So I didn’t go AWOL. I was a good boy all the way to the end.
Dad moved into the basement apartment in the back of the house to give my sister Dolly and her husband more room because their family was growing.
There was a long table in my father’s apartment. It took up most of the room and there was a small kitchen area in the corner. Within arm’s reach of his chair, his prescription bottles cluttered a standing tray, and on his left, respiratory equipment.
Sixty years of smoking had caught up with him, and he suffered from emphysema. Sitting in his chair, he reached for the hose of his oxygen tank and sucked air with slow deliberate breaths. When the oxygen didn’t work, he attached another hose to the tube protruding from his throat and pumped out the phlegm pooling in his lungs. It made me think that I should stop smoking, but I couldn’t do it.
My brother Dom and his wife Marie lived in the top floor apartment with their three daughters, Victor, and his wife, Victoria, stayed in the small room in the basement, at the front of the house. I was in the service so I wasn’t home too much. Maybe that was a good thing because my family was always fighting.
Dominic had two German Shepherds. When it was cold outside, Marie sometimes let them go into the hall to do their business. My sister Dolly wasn’t happy about that and was constantly fighting with Marie. One time, she told my Dad and he calmly picked up the shit and placed it outside their door. You could hear them yell in New Jersey when they stepped in it. That was funny, but my brother didn’t think so.
With all those kids living in one house, sometimes things didn’t go well. Dominic’s daughters loved to play with their ball in the hallway. They bounced it on the walls, which made the pictures jump around in my sister’s apartment. Whenever she told them to stop or threatened to tell their mother, they said that their mother told them to play there.
Whenever my sister, Dolly went downstairs to visit Dad, she never went empty-handed. She made a special trip to the bakery first to get our father’s favorite treats.
Cannoli’s overflowing with ricotta filling, Napoleons with Bavarian cream layered between the crisp puff pastry, and Pasticcotti, tarts filled with lemon custard.
When she entered our father’s room, his tired eyes lit up as soon as he spotted the little white box tied in red string.
“What did you bring for me?”
Dolly opened the pastry box and smiled as her father gorged himself on treats.
“What’s going to happen to me when you die, Pop?” she asked. “You know how cruel my brothers can be. They’ll kick me out of the house. I know it!”
“Don’t you worry about them,” he said.
My father fought with my brothers to pay their share of the living expenses, but they refused. Instead, they were continually asking him to loan them money.
Sometimes they would argue all night, but by morning, my Dad would give in and lend them money.
Once, Victor convinced him to fund a mobile vegetable stand. But the fruits and vegetables they sold were hard to keep fresh, and the business soon folded.
Then my brother, Dom tried going into the ice cream business. He would buy it at the Good Humor factory down the street and sell door-to-door.
When he thought they were taking advantage of him, he told me he wasn’t leaving them anything when he died.
“Please, Pop, make everything equal,” I pleaded. “If Mom were here ….”
“Joe! I don’t want to hear anymore.”
“But Pop! We’re family!”
