Life with Fred & Lucy, Episode 33: Card Sharks

                                                            

Aunt Rita, Uncle Frank, Aunt Louise, Uncle Jack, Aunt Helen, Mom, little Lucy, me

My father and his siblings loved to play cards. It was a chance for them to get together after a long day at work. Sometimes the games were held at our house, but most often they were held at Aunt Helen’s or Aunt Rita’s house.  My aunts Helen, Louise and Rita were my father’s younger sisters from his mom, who had passed away when my father was very young.

 

My grandfather, Michael Maratea went back to Italy to find a new wife. That’s what people did back then when a wife died. I guess it was something like a mail order bride. Grandpop had his family in Italy put their feelers out for prospective mates who were willing to take on the job of raising four children and working long hours in a grocery store, and all for the chance of living in America. Side note:  My grandfather had originally joined a seminary to become a priest. Priesthood ran in the family and we had several Maratea men as Cardinals in Rome. I think the love bug hit Grandpop and he left the seminary and married my grandmother Maria.  

                                                              

                                        Grandmom Rose and Grandpop Maratea

My Grandma Rosie not only took care of my father and his three sisters, but she gave birth to four children, and that’s how my father acquired four more siblings, Aunt DeDe, Aunt Margie, Aunt Rosie and Uncle Michael.

    Aunt Louise and Aunt Rita before card game                                                                              

Pinochle

This was my father’s favorite game and he and his sisters played this game all the time. My father knew how to count the cards and because he did, he could figure out what each person held in their hand at any given time. He wasn’t a gambler and never went to the casinos at Atlantic City, but it’s a good thing he didn’t do casinos because he would have been banned. He was that good.

                                                                

My father was also a poor loser and I was witness to the many arguments that would break out when someone messed up the game. Whenever I heard my father ranting, “What are you stupid? Why did you throw that card, dumb ass?” I immediately knew who he was yelling at. My poor Aunt Louise was usually the poor recipient of these outbursts.

                                                                                                                         

My Aunt Louise was also a recipient of one of my father’s more famous practical jokes. My father tricked my poor aunt into thinking that her husband Jack was helping my father care for pigeons that were kept in a pigeon coop on the roof of our home. Why? It was an excuse for Uncle Jack to sneak over our house and play cards. We never had pigeons. This went on for a long time before Aunt Louise found out. She read my father the riot act, but that never stopped Fred from orchestrating his long list of pranks on his family.

Apple Pie

One time, my father was pissed off at a man who usually showed up at the card games over my Aunt Rita’s house. Ed was a business partner of my aunt and uncle and he was often invited to play cards at my aunt’s home. I never learned what Ed did wrong at one of those card games, but what I do know is that my father had found the perfect revenge. Ed hated pumpkin pie and my father sold pies at our grocery store. Fred would bring a pumpkin pie at every game even though Ed vehemently complained.  Ed’s only salvation from the hated dessert was when the season for pumpkins had passed.

                                                                

 

My father had taught all us kids how to play pinochle, and while he was alive and well, we played whenever we could all get together...but I haven’t played the game since he died. My grandsons wanted to learn the game, but I forgot some of the rules and how to keep score. Yes, I know I can download the information from the internet, but it’s just not the same.

                                                             

My father and mother take turns visiting my home and my sister Lucy’s home. I should say their spirits visit us. The dead are always with us and my parents are both determined that I don’t forget this.  I was thinking...maybe if I leave the deck of cards out...maybe my father will help me remember how to play the game.

Life with Fred & Lucy, Part 18: Fred's Posse

                                      Uncle Pat and Fred                                                        

Owning a grocery story was a lot of hard work. My father and mother had to be up before six in the morning in order for the milk and bread delivery men to drop off the needed daily supplies. Our customers were at the door by seven.

                                                                  

We were busy with the morning rush hour as men stopped by for their lunch and pack of cigarettes or the mothers stopped in to buy lunchmeat, bread and milk for their children’s lunches. Back in the day, children came home for lunch. In South Philly, you went to the neighborhood school and everyone walked. 
                                                                                                                          

In the afternoon, after lunch and before dinner, my father and mother had a chance to unpack stock, eat lunch, prepare dinner, and get rested and ready for the dinner rush. The dinner rush lasted until after six in the evening and then my father had time to spend with his posse.
                                                                     

Yes, indeed, Fred had his own groupies! These men and young men were neighbors that took a liking to my father and they would hang around until closing time, which sometimes was close to ten at night. The posse would talk about everything from who was making money on the Vietnam War, to the Russian sputnik, to advances in science, world news, you name it and they conversed about it. These posse members were intelligent and well-read neighbors who brought my father a welcomed break from the monotony of the long hours he toiled in the store. 
                                                                

Joe Short was the mystery man of the group. No one knew his past, or what he did for a living, but he spent a lot of time at the library and was an expert on military information. I often wondered if he was a spy because he knew a lot about covert activities.

                                                              

George was a young man who like Joe, kept well abreast of what was going on in the world, especially with the space program. George was in the Air Force and knew plenty about area 51 and the history of the United States involvement in Vietnam. 

Uncle Pat was my father's childhood friend and even though he wasn't related, we called him uncle. We loved Uncle Pat because of his sense of humor and because he read newspapers from all over the world just like my dad, and was knowledgeable on all foreign affairs.                                   

                               The Fabulous Bob Charger of WOGL 98.1                              

Carmen was the youngest of the group, but he was Mr. Music to us and knew everything about the singers, record companies, latest dance craze; he was the music expert of the posse. He went on to become a well-known radio personality on WOGL 98.1 and is now known as Bob Charger.

When we four kids worked with my father in the store at night, we would listen to these guys talk and we learned a lot from them. Like I said they were smart and a lot of what they predicted has come to roost. Working those long hours in the store, made my siblings and me strong physically and emotionally, but being surrounded by my father’s posse; made us smart.

Sometimes, all four members of Fred’s posse were in the store at the same time. Those nights were a special treat for my father and whatever customer happened to be shopping at the store. Instead of rushing home with their bags of groceries, the customers would linger and join in the conversation.

There were times that my father didn’t lock the doors until way past closing time because the posse and fellow shoppers were deep in debate over whatever political, scientific, or world event topic was being discussed on that particular night. You can’t do that today, not in the supermarkets we now shop in for our food. Today if Fred and his posse gathered in a supermarket isle and debated over world events, they would be viewed as revolutionists or loiterers and thrown out.

                                                            

Thankfully, we have coffee shops today and after I go to church with my sister Lucy on Sundays at St. Monica’s, we stop at the Dunkin Donut on 18^th and Oregon Ave. There you will find people from all walks of life in deep debate over today’s world events. If I close my eyes, I can make believe that I’m back in Fred’s store with the posse.

Life with Fred & Lucy, Part 5: Bolts and Candy

                                                              

This story is about Fred’s unintentional run-in with the neighborhood Hardware Store that was located on Broad and Porter Street in South Philadelphia. The hardware store was a small family owned business. The owners were friendly and their store carried everything needed for both a do-it-yourselfer to a professional contractor. I’ll name the owners of the hardware store, Mr. & Mrs. Brown in order to protect the innocent.

                                                            

         

               Me on the left outside of Fred's Grocery Store on New Year's Day 1962
 

My father was a hoarder and he had OCD; a double threat, which led to the conflict with the Browns. Fred had a compulsion to store large quantities of items in case of emergencies. The wooden shelves that held our canned foods were constantly coming loose, spilling cans all over the place. Fred fixed the shelves when he could, but, sometimes he was unable to leave our store and buy the hardware needed to fix the shelves so he handled this problem by buying a large quantity of nails, screw, hooks, etc. from the Browns. No problem right? Wrong!

                                                                     

One day, while I was working next to my father in our little grocery story, a customer came in and mentioned that he was working on his broken kitchen door. This customer had to leave for work within the hour and didn’t have time to go to the hardware store. My father was trying to help, so while I sliced the ham for the man, my father sold him one of his personal boxes of 3”nails. The man was happy, my father was happy and I was clueless; my normal state as a child.

                                                                  

 

 

A few days later, same man comes in to buy ham for his lunch. My father was busy in the basement stacking the cases of soda (at that time soda came in glass bottles) and the man asked me for a box of nails. I knew where they were kept and remembered what my father had charged. I found a box of 3” nails and sold it to the man. Everyone was happy right?

Did I forget to mention that Mrs. Brown happened to be in the store at that time to buy milk and bread? She said nothing to me, but the next day, there was a note on the front step of our store. It was from Mr. Brown. He wasn’t happy and had threatened to sell penny candy in his hardware store if Fred continued to sell hardware in the grocery store. My father had no idea what the hell had happened, but he knew who was working in the store the day before. After questioning me and my siblings, my father figured out what had happened.“You kids are going to be the death of me!” 
                                                                                  

Side note: my parents were quite democratic in dealing with the four desperados that they had created. If one of us did something wrong, we were all punished. Considering how bad we were, I considered this treatment ,fair.

                                                         

Fred had planned on apologizing to the Browns during the week, but that very day, a neighbor (a busy body who loved to tattle) mentioned that the hardware store had a sign on its window notifying every one of the penny candy now on sale. “You!” my father said as he grabbed my hand and marched me down the street and to the hardware store.                 

My father and Mr. Brown argued for a bit (rather loudly) until my father convinced Mr. Brown that he had never intended to sell hardware in his store, it had been a one-time favor for a customer. Mrs. Brown saw how upset I was. After all, I was the reason they were arguing, so she grabbed a small paper bag and filled it with candy.

A war was averted, the troops recalled, but Fred preached to me the whole way home. I got off easy that day and I got to eat candy.

Next week’s episode will be on my father’s stockroom, titled appropriately “How not to break your baby sister.”

Life with Fred & Lucy, Part 4: Oranges to Aspirins

                                                      

In my last post, I told you how my father tried to keep up with the supermarket that had opened its doors just a few blocks from us on Oregon Avenue in South Philadelphia and how he used his two daughters as spies to scoop out the prices that the other grocery stores were charging for their products. 
                                                           

                                                                                                                               

This week’s post will be about the war my father started a war with the neighborhood pharmacy across the street. Everything that was needed from sniffles to a bruise was purchased from the family owned pharmacy across the street from our store. If we had a fever, my mother would cross the street and buy the needed aspirins, or because my brother was such an active little boy, bandages. If Mr. Shay, the pharmacist, needed a quart of milk, he would come to our store. Nice and simple and everyone got along fine, right? Wrong!

                                                              

                                                              

My mother was known all over South Philly for her bad driving, but on one particular day, while driving haphazardly through the neighborhood, she happened to spot Mrs. Shay coming out of a competitor’s grocery story. Lucy told Fred, who was already upset with the Shays because they had upped their prices on the St. Joseph's baby aspirins. With four kids, someone was always bound to be sick and my father bought lots of aspirins from the Shays.

What did Fred do? He began to sell aspirins, Milk of Magnesia, and boxes of Smith Brothers’ cough drops. The battle had begun! As soon as Mr. Shay learned about my father's venture into the pharmaceutical business, he went bananas, literally bananas. The next day, Mr. Shay was seen placing a small wooden table outside of his pharmacy. He then put a crate of oranges and apples on the table.  
                                  
The neighbors (customers) were now expected to choose sides. It was quite comical to watch the neighbors sneaking past the pharmacy to get to our store without upsetting the Shays. Mr. Shay was trying to coerce them into buying the fruit from his pharmacy while Fred stood outside his store shaking a bottle of aspirins and calling out, “Big sale, cheaper over here." Our poor neighbors were caught in between two mad men like deer in a car’s headlights.

                                                          

This went on for several weeks with Mr. Shay adding vegetables to that wooden table and my father adding Band-Aids, Iodine wash, and Calamine lotion to his repertoire. It was so bad that the neighbors had to resort to wearing costumes just to sneak past our grocery store. It was a three ring circus with Fred and Mr. Shay, the ring leaders.                                                                                                                            

Finally, to keep peace in neighborhood and not to lose our loyal customers, Fred had a sit down with Mr. Shay. Think of the meeting between the Governor and Rick Grimes from “The Walking Dead.” Yep, just like that!

    

My father agreed to stop selling medicine and Mr. Shay got rid of his produce table. For a little while, peace had returned to Porter Street, but the war with the neighborhood hardware store was just around the corner.

                                                                                  

Life with Fred and Lucy-part two-Security

                                                                    

 

The last time I posted about life with Fred and Lucy, I promised to tell you how we managed the security for our grocery store. If you think the C.I.A. was good at spying on people, then you should have known Fred. My father and mother were both OCD, especially about being robbed.

                                                                 

                  Our Grocery Store at 15th and Porter Streets

The grocery store was a family business and everyone was put to work. Along with the canned foods, dairy products and luncheon meats, my parents sold penny candies, loose potato chips and loose pretzel sticks. This was in the early fifties and you  were given a small paper bag to fill with candy, chips or pretzels.

                                                                            

Most people were honest, but every once in a while a group of strangers (kids from another neighborhood) would come in and steal the candy. They would do this every few days and this drove my father bat shit crazy.
 

You didn’t make a lot of money owning a store and the profits were earned a penny at a time. What did Fred do? My sister Jane, me and, my three cousins, Anthony, Jerry and Michael became Fred's front line of defense.
 

Acting every bit like General George Patton, my father prepared his own version of the Battle of the Bulge. The only difference was the bulge we would be fighting was the stuffed pockets of the teenaged boys stealing our candy. It was a brilliant plan! My father installed a buzzer that would buzz on all three floors: 2^nd, 1rst, and basement. No matter where his workers were, we would hear that stinking buzzer.

                                                    I hated that buzzer!
                                                                 

Anyway, when he pressed the buzzer, we kids would drop whatever we were doing and run to our secret observation points: I hid behind the pasta shelf, peeking through the boxes where I could grab hold of the thief’s hand in mid-theft. Jane had the potato bin where she was in charge of tossing potato grenades at the enemy; 
                                                                    

Cousin Anthony stood at the door to prevent the hoodlums' escape while cousins Jerry and Michael stood in front of the penny candy display. It was a success!! Word spread throughout the neighborhood, and soon ,the teenaged thieves stopped raiding the store. My father’s ‘Battle of the Candy Bulge’ was so successful, that the other neighborhood grocery stores adopted the buzzer weapon.

My mother never had to resort to the buzzer, because all the neighborhood kids were afraid of her. She had a wicked stare.

                                                            

                                             

Next episode: How we became secret agents