The Nonnas

The Nonnas

Every summer, we visited my Italian grandparents’ bungalow on the Great South Bay. Two tiny bedrooms on the main floor flanked a dining room/kitchen area. An ancient gas stove, the kind you light with a match, commanded the kitchen. An old refrigerator stood next to a table which sat anywhere from eight to eighteen. A door in the dining room opened to a steep stairway to a dormer attic filled with double beds, cots, and cribs. A screened porch stretched across the front and backdoor steps led down to a communal yard. The bathroom held a free-standing sink, an ancient toilet (flushed only when absolutely necessary), and a glass-lined water heater. The shower was a cold-water hose out back. A sign over the front door read “Capacity 12; 52 on Weekends.”

We kids considered it paradise.

All six houses on our dead-end street were filled to the brim with at least three generations. Kids spilled out every morning, grabbed their friends, and headed to the pier to fish or crab or to reenact epic dramas on the rocks along the bay. In the afternoon’s heat, our parents swam with us at the bay beach or loaded us into cars, and the whole neighborhood headed to the ocean beach. In the evenings, we gathered around a huge table under a grape arbor to feast on pasta, fresh veggies from the garden, and “frutti del mare,” the clams, crabs, snails, and fish caught each day. As the sun set, we gathered around a wood-fire in a rickety old grill, swatting mosquitoes, as the little ones fell asleep in their parents’ arms and the big kids skittered about while grandparents warned us to watch out for the fire. 

“Paisans,” related by our common heritage, the grandparents, and some of our parents often slipping into Italian, we laughed at generations of funny stories, cried over lost but never forgotten loved ones, sang sentimental songs, and cooed over every baby joining our family. Holding this huge family together were the “Nonnas,” our grandmothers. 

The grandfathers arrived every Thursday night and left on Sunday afternoons. Our parents cycled in and out as work schedules allowed. The Nonnas stayed all summer to cook, clean, and care for their children and grandchildren. They tended the garden, cleaned the crabs, clams, and fish, cooked the pasta, washed mountains of dishes, changed diapers, washed faces, swept porches and steps, haggled with vendors selling produce from the backs of trucks, bandaged fingers cut by fishhooks, scrubbed and wrung out mountains of clothes and sheets, hung them out to flutter over the backyards, told stories, and hugged everyone. We kids didn’t realize how much love was wrapped up in our Nonnas hard work. We all helped out a bit but our paradise rested on the labor of our Nonnas who loved us so. 

After we were settled into bed, the Nonnas dropped exhausted into lawn chairs around the fire to share stories of their grandchildren, their worries and hopes, their sorrows and joys. Now we are the grandparents. When our grandchildren visit, we are sometimes exhausted, but we wrap our love around our grandchildren and remember the Nonnas who loved us so. 

Paradise returns.

Unsung Hero

Unsung Hero

July 25, 2008

The list of heroes is long and varied. Peter Pan vanquishes Captain Hook by tossing him to the ticking crocodile. Harry Potter saves the wizarding world from Lord Voldemort. Frog remains cheerful despite spending his year with the dour Toad. Amelia Bedelia triumphs over the illogical English language. Max becomes the King of the Wild Things and finds his dinner still warm. 

Yet there is one hero who goes unsung in the world of children’s literature, one hero whose name remains unknown, one hero who might only be described as wet. That hero, a moral compass for children everywhere, is the fish in The Cat in the Hat.

You recall the tale. Sally and her brother are withering away from boredom. It’s too wet to go out. It’s too cold to play ball. So they sit in the house doing nothing at all.  

BUMP!  The door flies open and in steps that rogue among rogues, The Cat in the Hat. Immediately the mayhem begins.

Now, as you remember, their mother was out, so when the Cat proposes some good games and some new tricks, Sally and her brother do not know what to do. Should they follow this leader into realms unknown or should they continue to gaze at the dribbles of rain on the window glass? 

At this moment, our hero speaks: “No! No! Make that cat go away! Tell that Cat in the Hat you do not want to play. He should not be here. He should not be about. He should not be here when your mother is out!”

 Note the commanding tone of our hero. He has no doubts about the wisdom of following Mother’s dictates. After all, what is the seat of all wisdom? A mother’s lap.

The Cat, recognizing a worthy foe, counters with smooth words and acrobatics. He hoists the complaining fish, trapped in his proverbial fishbowl (oh, the philosophical implications), into the air and, quoting the messenger angels, says, “Have no fear.  Have no fear!  My tricks are not bad.”  

The cat falls and our hero plunges into a nearby teapot — that universal symbol of hearth and home (at least in England). From there he continues to expound, “Do I like this?  Oh, no! I do not. This is not a good game. No, I do not like it, not one little bit!”  

His warnings, alas, go unheeded.

The Cat refuses to listen to reason and introduces his friends, or should we say his minions, Thing One and Thing Two. The fish, immediately recognizing the danger, shouts, “Put them out! Put them out!” But the children, enthralled by the charismatic Cat, ignore him. Thing One, Thing Two, and the Cat demolish the peaceful afternoon and most of the house. 

Belatedly, our narrator awakens to the danger of allowing unbridled passions into his quiet existence and says, “I do not like the way that they play!  If Mother could see this, oh, what would she say?”  

Too late!  Mother is in sight. What will they do, oh, what will they do?

Ever the hero, the fish rallies and counsels, “So, DO something! Fast!”  

Taking command, Sally and her brother order the nefarious Cat to clean up his act (and the house). As Mother enters the Cat exits with a tip of his famous striped hat. Mother, in parental innocence, asks “Did you have any fun? Tell me. What did you do?”

The question of the ages: When faced with moral choices, oh, what do we do? The fish, our hero, without status, without laurels, without even a capital F in his name, might answer, follow your conscience, listen to the wisdom of your elders, think before you allow outsiders to influence your choices in life. 

Yet, even with this paragon of wisdom, this philosophical giant, this, well, why don’t we just say it, this fish, living right in their midst, Sally and her brother cannot give an answer.  

As the fish smiles in his bowl, they gaze into the reader’s eyes and ask, “What would you say if your mother asked you?”      

(Thanks to Dr. Seuss. The Cat in the Hat, 1957)