HE WAS REDUNDANT!

Well, we all live for our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren. But sometimes we must go on to more historical relatives, like my Great Uncle Felix. ‘Uncle or Zio Felice’ as he was affectionately called when he was within hearing distance was Grandma’s older brother. Calling him literally ‘Uncle’ twice when addressing him was a bit redundant but also a good idea. He was partially deaf and if you didn’t get him with the first ‘Uncle’ you still had a shot with the second ‘uncle or zio’. When Grandpa died, Uncle Zio Felice became the self-anointed patriarch of all who spoke broken English on Dad’s side of the family.
Physically he has been described as that mean 2’x4’, the ‘Little half a Cigar’ and Little Caesar my descriptions, a Joe Stalin wanna-be, long handlebar mustache and a pair of feet with a hat. He wasn’t very tall yet in his immediate family he towered over everyone at 4’7”. The family got to calling him stretch until he heard it one day and that stopped.

Zio always wore a suit and tie he was a gang foreman for a construction company and the father of 19 children! Not only was his family large, but also, he was starting his very own Italian neighborhood! Grey fedora, black suit and tie, brown shoes, he made a fashion statement, mainly: “Where are my black shoes?”

Every night his kids would stand behind their chairs until the little dictator arrived. Once Mr. Stalin sat down, all 19 would then assume their positions around the table and wait for Papa to stick the first few zitis in his mouth. If you are wondering what his hobby was, I just told you.

A story goes that when he came to this country on the boat from Italy, someone told him there was NO macaroni in America, in which he then headed toward the railing to jump overboard and swim back to Italia. What stopped him? He couldn’t find his black shoes to take with him.

He was a complex man if someone wanted to further his education, say go onto 8th grade you needed the approval of Uncle Zio Felice. Like El Excelente’ in the 70’s coffee commercial, he would give his nod, and the joyous population, all 19 would stand up and cheer, sometimes on a chair to be seen.

He lived on a short fuse, ready to ignite over the littlest of issues such as: “Where’sa my blacker shoes?” and “You gotta bigger plate for this ziti, anda I no liker this a benter fork1”

Uncle Zio Felice was also a teacher. During the Great Depression, as well as World War II or “Il Seconda Guerra Mondiale” as he called it, my Uncle Joe, Dad’s younger brother while waiting for an acceptance letter from Harvard or Yale, went to work on Uncle Zio Felice’s construction gang. He was assigned the job of hauling bricks upon a gangplank to the next level being built, the bricks in a wheel barrel. As the first day wore on, around lunchtime Uncle Joe went to Uncle Zio Felice and showed him his hands, cut and bleeding and blistered.

Uncle Zio Felice: “Avete mani molli!”
Uncle Joe: “Cosa faccio?”
Uncle Zio Felice: “Va l'orina su loro, quella li indurirà.”

So, behind the building, Uncle Joe went to piss on his hands to make them hardened, just as Uncle Zio Felice said he should.

It was World War II, and being he was a tyrant, he had a son who wished to become a priest, and Uncle Zio Felice wouldn’t hear it. His son decided to join the army to get away from his father and landed on Anzio Beach, not far from his father’s birthplace, where he died fighting for his country. Had his father relented, he would have lived.

Many years later on a Saturday morning when I was about 12 years old, my Dad said to me: “I have to take your Mother somewhere. I expect Uncle Zio Felice to come with Grandma and your Aunt to see our new house for the first time. If he comes while I’m away, show him around.” Sure enough, the entourage arrives with a flourish, as little ‘Stretch’ steps from the car and I greet him. I immediately escort him and those that follow to the house, through all the rooms, and finally, take him back outside to the front of the house at his request. “Tella me, awhatta you doer over here?”

“What do you mean?” I say.

He points to a spot off-center of the lawn, about halfway toward the street, and says to me: Wella, over here a you puta the bricks inna a nizer big circle and a inna the middle a here you putta the flaga pole.” “Ona the bottom ofa the flaga pole you puta the flowers, a nizer colors."

“Then I put a nizer picture offa Garibaldi?” I whispered under my breath.

“A whatta you say?”

He died in the early 1970s, at the tender age of 90 something, it might have been the diNaboli Cigars that did it!