Friday, July 19, 2013

APPLE PIE AND COFFEE


There is a joke about this fellow that came to America from Italy. He was sponsored by a Pisano and lived with him for a few days. After the second day, the fellow went to his sponsor and said in Italian, “While you are away all day, I get hungry, and would like to go to a place to eat, but I don’t speak English and can’t read the menu! Can you help me?” His sponsor, a good man was sympathetic and taught him to say: “Apple pie and coffee. In English”

The fellow, anxious to try out his new phrase went to a luncheonette and sat at the counter, where the short order cook asked him what he wanted. “Apple pie and coffee” he proudly said, This went on everyday for about a week, when he got tired of apple pie and went to his sponsor and said, can you teach me how to order a sandwich of some kind in English?” The sponsor understood his problem and taught him Ham and Swiss on rye in English, where the fellow eagerly went off to the luncheonette and sat at the counter, a smirk on his face because now he would show the guy behind the counter he was savvy when it came to foods.

The short order cook asked him what he wanted expecting the usual when the fellow said: “Ham and Swiss on rye!”

The cook, somewhat surprised asked: “Mayo or mustard?”

The fellow replied: “Apple pie and coffee.”

Then there was this true story that happened in the ‘30s when there was an influx of Italian immigrants that came to this country. My grandmother Frances was a sponsor of a few people from her hometown in Naples, and they came to live with her. One day one of them decided to apply for citizenship and needed to know how to get to the government courthouse to apply. This meant going into Manhattan on the subway. Not being able to read English, my grandmother had an idea. She took this woman to the subway station and gave her 10 pennies to hold in her hand. The10 pennies were for going and then the ten pennies again for coming back. Each penny would represent a station. She was told by grandma to put a penny in her pocket after each stop. When she ran out of pennies, that would be the stop, go upstairs and you will see the courthouse. On the way home, the same process should begin, where the last penny is her home station.

Off goes the lady with ten pennies in her hand, when suddenly about half way into the ride; she drops the pennies from the excitement of getting a seat! The pennies scatter all over the car and she loses some of the pennies. To this day we wonder if she ever got her citizenship papers, she may still be on the subway!

Then there is this, told to me by my Uncle Joe. This is a little risqué, and once again our hero is an Italian immigrant. Back in the day, to enlist in the army, you could go down to Whitehall Street and in a big building was the army induction center. In 1941 the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, and Luigi was angry enough to want to join the army and fight for his newly adopted country. He was told he had to go to Whitehall Street in Manhattan to join. Not really knowing his way around the big city, he set out from Brooklyn and emerged from the subway somewhere near his destination. Stopping at a newsstand, he asks the owner where the induction center was, and the owner says: “See that white building down the street? That’s it.”

Luigi sets off for the building and after a few hours is finished and walking by the newsstand once again but looks like a total wreck, walking very gingerly. The newsstand owner recognizes him and asks: “Hey, aren’t you the fellow who asked for directions to the induction center?” “A yeser” replied Luigi. “Well, what the hell happened to you?” Luigi stood there in agony and then went into his sad story:

“Whella, itza likea dis, I’ma seea the fellow, he say, you wanna be a soldier huh hokay, turnarounda and a droppa you panza anda benda hover and a cough, I ado what he saya, but I think he say a bend hovera and take off!”

Take an Italian immigrant to lunch today: just don’t order apple

1 comment:

Jim Pantaleno said...

Love the ten pennies story.