Rocco 106

My father Rocco would be 106 years old today. This blog today is dedicated to him. He died when I was 17. I was living in the Haight in San Francisco, and working in a restaurant called Connie's on Filmore Street in Japantown. Connie cooked African food. It was the first time I ever cooked anything like it being a Yankee from Connecticut. I fell in love with it right away. It was a tough neighborhood back in those days.

I had just gotten off of work, and had shot up some Mexican brown heroine when we got a knock on the door from Western Union. No one in my family ever sent a telegram to say hello. We didn't have a house phone. I knew it was bad news right away. The day was May 8th, Mother's Day 1971.

He was due to retire in a month's time. He was coming to live out west, in Reno, Nevada, with all his wise guy buddies from Brooklyn. It made sense since my sister Roxanne and I both lived in Frisco, as Rox always called it. He was a master machinist by day and a "good fellow" by night. He had a fourth grade education, but he was a math wizard, numbers. He said the sound of the factory was driving him insane.

He loved Stogie cigars,  dark haired women (Mom was a blonde), silk suits, the Dodgers, dogs, fishing, traveling, the horse track, gambling, Scotch whiskey, dancing, and my mother Mary's marinara sauce. He was 100% Italian. I have his hands and his eyes and no other physical characteristics. I got the Polish genes and the Guinea temper.

When he wasn't working in the factory he often wore a suit and a tie, and usually had the stub of an unlit cigar hanging out of his mouth.  He had a terrible temper if he was mad, and he could be very dangerous. He was not a man to cross. He had an unhealthy distrust of lawyers, doctors, and priests.

I found out recently that he penned a song that won a song writing contest. The softer side of Rocco.

He was what people today call a "wise guy". I never heard that word when I was growing up, never. He was just Rocco, nicknamed Bozzo, and no one ever called him a clown. Dad was a little guy,  5'6", with a big heart and lightening fast hands. He was always giving change to bums, and brining home drunks who didn't have a place to stay in the winter. Unemployed house painters with names like Red Leckner.

He would always fiddle in his pockets so he could hear the change jingle jangle. He made friends everywhere he went, some enemies too.

He was pretty good cook and he loved to eat. We had a breakfast and lunch joint on White Street in Danbury, where we lived. We lost it in the flood of 56'. I know it sounds like a made up novel, but it's true. I don't have the imagination to come up with this crap.

He was a bad husband and a good father. He taught me how to fish, hunt, train dogs, how to grow food, sent me to barber school so I would have a  trade, and never judged me. He gave me a  whooping 3 times, and I deserved it each time. He came to every baseball game I ever played and took as many kids as could fit in the car for ice cream afterwards. Kids loved my old man. He always got me out of trouble when he could, connections.

Most of all Rocco taught me about life and people, the good and the bad. He taught me to use my instincts, and to trust those instincts. He also taught me to tell the truth and always said, "No one's going to stand up for you, but you. Say what you've got to say because you might only get one chance to say it." I loved him and he loved me.

He wasn't much of husband. Mom deserved more, but he was a great father. She threw him out when I was 10. She should have done it earlier. He came to visit me every night and we would go on the route, which took us to sweet shops, barber shops, pool halls, gin mills and ultimately to Aunt Dolly's restaurant for a slice of pizza.

If there was one argument that I ever had with him it was how he treated my Mom. He had a good woman, and he didn't appreciate it. I never let him forget the fact that he blew it with my mother Mary.

The last time I saw Pop I gave him a haircut at his brother's barbershop, my Uncle Westy. He loved it when I cut his hair and gave him a shave. The next day I caught a plane for San Francisco.

Happy birthday Pop. I'm going to make pasta for Geri tonight.


Peace,

Make Food/Not War

What I ate today:

Breakfast: Cereal w/soy & banana

Lunch: Salad w/Kale, Romaine & Feta cheese

Snacks: Genoa salumi

Dinner: Penne pasta w/turkey bolognese

Exercise: 5.5 miles walking, .5 miles running