Travel with Victor D'Amico as he recalls times, events, and places that provided him with rich memories of the simple things that made his life's passage both enjoyable and meaningful. Marrying a woman with strong ties to Italy fostered his appreciation of his own Italian heritage and, coupled with his travels, gave him an awareness of the world and its diversity. D'Amico compares his early childhood with those of his children and traces his own journey through college, the Army, and the early years of his marriage. He recalls experiences with his children, their marriages, and his own fiftieth wedding anniversary. He describes his love affair with skiing, his time working and living in Munich, and reflects on getting old. Also included are snippets from his extensive travels, his appreciation for Italian cuisine, and the long and remarkable life of his mother-in-law and her influences on his family. Spanning eighty years, Recollections is a memoir filled with candid observations and appealing tales of a life well lived.

RECOLLECTIONS

Things Hard to ForgetBy VICTOR D'AMICO

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Victor D'Amico
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-4573-9

Contents

Acknowledgments................................................ixIntroduction...................................................xiGrowing Up.....................................................1An Offbeat Path Through College................................12Writing Makes Fondness Grow into Love..........................18Surviving an Army Fiasco.......................................22The Start of Marriage..........................................25Passage from Student to Teacher................................30An American Housewife Living in Italy..........................35A Good Samaritan...............................................40Birthing and Passing...........................................45Skiing: A Wonderful Lifetime Activity..........................51A Gratifying Career Ending.....................................70Living in Munich...............................................78Sustaining Family Connections..................................86Our Children's Weddings........................................93Celebrating a Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary.....................100Getting Old....................................................105The Last Hurrah................................................112A French Barge Cruise..........................................125Two Traditional Piedmont Dishes................................129Celebrating with a Hot Bath....................................129Cooking Risotto................................................132Ines: A Life that Spans an Ocean...............................135Preface........................................................135From Lyon to New York City.....................................137A Long Road to Motherhood......................................140Coping with a Maturing Daughter................................143Becoming a Grandmother.........................................150Connecting with Piedmont Again.................................156Turning into the Well-Traveled Woman...........................162Ines' Declining Years..........................................173

Chapter One

Growing Up

By recalling some of the events in my early years growing up and comparing them with those occurrences in raising my own children, I am able to highlight some differences in a generation.

I was the oldest of three children, with a sister who was eighteen months younger and a brother who was born five years after I came along. My parents started their family in the year that the Great Depression began in 1929, and I am sure their early years of marriage must have been a struggle. They were both born in the United States of parents that came to this country in the late nineteenth century. Neither of them shared much of their past with either me or my siblings, so we knew little of their early life. They both had a limited formal education and found themselves in the working world at an early age. My mother, like many women, found employment in the garment factories, where she became quite skilled; this talent served her well later in life. She was hardworking, but somewhat sheltered and nave in the ways of the world. My father was just the opposite, and his street smarts included an ability to promote himself. He started out trying to sell real estate, but during my childhood he spent most of his time selling wine to liquor stores. During the war he worked at a nearby war plant, where he became a union shop steward, but once the war ended he returned to his wine-marketing vocation.

My parents never had enough money to open a savings account even though my mother worked most of her life sewing clothes. She was very talented in this endeavor and could make a suit or dress for a woman after just being presented the fabric and being shown a picture of the garment. This work occupied much of her time, and although money was often scarce, she never neglected putting an appetizing dinner on the table each night. We children would often go our separate ways, but we always assembled each day for our main meal.

My father at all times had a job, was well liked, and was very suited to being a salesman. He didn't drink or frequent bars, but his weakness was the need to gamble; his favorite outlets were betting on bocce games, playing cards, or wagering on horse races. It was probably the reason he never had any money to put in the bank. He had a strong sense of family and was a strict disciplinarian. An occasional slap in the head would signal his disapproval. His family duties extended to housing my mother's sisters when they encountered personal marriage problems. Like most fathers of that time, he had very little involvement in the activities of his children.

Most family outings consisted of visits during the holidays to the homes of relatives, where ample food was shared and an occasional card game was played. A special occasion I remember occurred when my mother took my sister and me to the World's Fair when I was ten years old. After sightseeing all day, she even managed to find the money to take us to a spectacular nighttime water show starring Esther Williams, a very popular Hollywood celebrity. I never forgot the disappointment I felt because my father never found the time to take me to this wonderful exhibition that was located only ten minutes by train from our house.

I recall living in a rented two-bedroom apartment over a corner grocery store not far from a typical New York City playground. It was a place where you could play softball, basketball, or handball, chin on a high bar, ride the swings or seesaw, or go down a slide. It had something for everybody. Of course, if you took part in a softball game, you had to learn to avoid all the obstacles on the field. If you played right field, you had to position yourself on the narrow side of the handball wall to cover the field. In center field, you had to contend with basketball backboards; and in left field, you had to get around the monkey bars.

My early years were spent on the streets near my house playing stoopball or other simple games like punchball with neighborhood kids. The former game only required two people: one player would bounce a rubber ball off the steps of the stoop, hoping to get the ball beyond the reach of the defensive player. The number of ball bounces or the distance traveled would determine what success was achieved. It was like playing a two-man baseball game and helped develop good eye/hand coordination for later participation in team sports. When I got older, I advanced to another form of a baseball game, where a rectangle painted on a wall was a target strike zone and the player in front of it would try and hit your pitches with a bat. Three-man basketball games were also very popular and very competitive, because if you lost, your team watched for a while. It seemed as if there was always something to do, and there were never any adults needed to help organize activities.

Playing outside was always the preferred way of occupying my spare time, but I also managed to find things I could do by myself. I spent endless hours playing with an erector set I was given one Christmas, and I discovered a baseball game I could play with dice. I created a league of teams and kept track of the games played between them. I obviously didn't need any help to keep myself amused.

My parents never read me stories, but somehow the library near the grammar school attracted my...