Grandpop Stories

I was a bit younger than most of my cousins, so I only knew our grandpop as an old man. He died at age 78 in 1970, so he was already 70-years-old by the time I was just five. But I also have the perspective of having lived with him every day my entire life until his passing.

Grandpop was always kind to me, though he was certainly losing it in his later years. He used to come into my bedroom in the middle of the night, stand by my bed and wake me to say "Nicky, I'm-a no gonna see you no more. I'm-a gonna die." This went on for many nights in the last year or so of his life. When my mom came back from the hospital after he passed, she was crying and saying "he said he was gonna die!" I remember thinking (not sure if I said it out loud) "well, he said it every day for a year. He had to eventually be right once." Dark humor, but absolutely true story.

In the middle 1960s, my father lived with us on Decatur Street. The marriage was very rocky, and my father was a pretty miserable human being, to be quite honest. I have a very vivid memory of him trying to kick a stray dog I was trying to pet in front of our house (he missed; the dog bit him; Good). I know most of you probably never saw that side of him, but it is true. He had a prior marriage, back in 1930, and he had a daughter, Phyliss, who was born in 1933. I did not know about her until I was in my 40s, and I never met her. She had at least one child, a daughter, who would be my half-niece. I never met her, either, and have no clue what her name was or is. She would likely be around my age, I think.

My father and grandpop absolutely hated each other, and they fought quite often and loudly. As a result, me, my mom and my dad moved out of grandpops house and bought a house on Van Hook Street. which they owned for only about a year in the very late 1960s in what I believe was an attempt to save their marriage. Of course, it did not work out in the end. I was a shy and fearful child, and all this fighting certainly did not help. As an aside, we sold the home to Debbie Cipriani's dad, Rick Anthony, a DJ at WCAM who later died while on the air. He was a good guy.

During our brief time on Van Hook Street, my mom had Bella come over for a visit, and she unfortunately had a major episode during which my mother had to call the police. It was a very difficult thing for a young kid to witness, and I remember it vividly, as there had to have been 20 cops there trying to restrain poor Bella. Afterward, my father verbally berated my mother for being "kind-hearted Annie" by having Bella over for a visit. He said this in front of me, and it's another cruel moment that I will never, ever forget. Not long after, they separated for good and we moved back in with grandpop, where we stayed until his passing.

There was one occasion sometime in the late 60s where grandpop had a huge fight with my mother about something. As young as I was, I have no memory of what it was about. But grandpop left the house in a huff and went on a bender in Camden. He did not return home that evening, and everyone was very, very worried. The entire neighborhood was sitting out on the porches waiting for word of his whereabouts, and I think Uncle Pip and others were out looking for him.

At some ungodly hour of the morning, might have been 3 or 4 am, a taxi cab stopped down Decatur Street, about 15 houses down from ours. I remember looking down the sidewalk as a figure emerged from the cab and stepped into the light down there. And there was the recognizable figured of grandpop, with his customary hat, staggering down the street drunk off his ass. But we were all very relieved because he was safe. I never learned what the fight was about, or at least I don't remember.

Presto's story about the flowers is pretty accurate, but I can add some color. The woman who's flowers he dug up (she lived one block up toward Mt. Ephraim Avenue, I believe) came to our door SCREAMING at my mother, "your father dug up my flowers!!!" Grandpop denied it right to her face, saying "she's-a crazy!" But sure enough, there in our back yard were this woman's flowers, planted there by the old man. My poor mother had to dig them up and replant them back in the woman's yard.

There was another fun moment when some other neighbor woman came to the screen door asking for my mother. I was in the living room, and the old man answered the door. He turned away from the woman and shouted to my mom (and reminder: this was a SCREEN DOOR), "hey Annie, here's a bigga fatta bag!" And my poor mother had to then come to the door and speak to the woman. Can you imagine??

I have another vivid memory of Cousin Donna coming over to babysit me on a night when my mom went out somewhere, maybe on a date, as this was after my father had moved out. The old man was really pissed off about something. Not really sure what, but I gather he was mad at my mother for something. Anyway, he was in the basement doing his "ooo-ooo-ooo, dee-dee-dee" noises and banging on the ducts down there very loudly. I remember Donna being very scared, but this was something I was used to -- nothing new -- so it didn't really bother me. I suppose I calmed Donna down by telling her this was business as usual.

And then there was the 1969 moonwalk. Me and my mom sat watching on the black-and-white TV in the living room. The old man was wandering back-and-forth from the kitchen to the front of the house, as he was wont to do. My mother keep telling him to sit down and watch, and he would wave her off like, "I don't want any parts of that." Finally, she said, "pop, sit down and watch! The men are walking on the moon!" His classic reply: "You believa datta bull-a-shit??" Maybe he was ahead of his time.

He started to get a little crotchety in the last few years, and he used to refer to my friends as "the gotta damma gang," which was hilarious given how innocent they all were. He would often not finish his lunch, put the remainder of his sandwich in his shirt pocket, and head upstairs. My mother would yell at him and ask him where he was going with the sandwich, and he would say "I eat-a later." And I can remember him eating pea soup, getting it all over his hands, and then grabbing a roll and trying to hand it to me, saying "You wanna roll?" No thank you!!

Again, many of these things are simply the result of the ravages of age, as we are all kinda learning ourselves now. But again, he was a good man, a nice man, an immigrant with little education who worked hard to provide for his family after the terrible loss of his wife at age 30, the results of an abortion gone bad. This final story sums him up for me, and I will never ever forget it.

My mom got me a puppy that we named Skippy. It was a cute little beagle. The old man LOVED that dog. Sadly, he got out of the yard one day and was struck by a car on Decatur Street. I can remember Gary Talvacchio rushing into the house to tell us, and the old man hustled out there, picked up the puppy and brought him in the living room. He died there on the rug, as the old man hovered over him, saying "he's a just sleeping." He was crushed by this dog's death, and he cried over him. It hardened him further to life, and he was obviously very deeply affected by it, as I was. It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life, and to this very day it haunts my dreams. But it made me love the old man. He had a good heart.