Mom Personal history
27 May 2012
The first question is: what is/are your earliest memory (memories)?
The first memories I can claim as my own, and not notions derived from looking at old photos or hearing my own parents talk are mostly from the period when we lived in Buffalo, New York, near my mother’s parents, Dominic and Carmela Galeota. I could probably write many pages about these times, and if prompted, I will gladly do so.
The incident that I remember which is probably the earliest, Imust have occurred when I was about 2 ½ years old—about the age Eli is now. (Whenever I’m with him, I wonder what he will remember years from now, what will make an impression or leave a poignant sense-memory.)
My memory is of sitting in a moving car—probably a big old Desoto or Oldsmobile, which would have looked something like this:
—and driving along a road with lots of dust. We were driving a long distance, I think it may have been our move from Alabama to New York. I sat in a child seat that was basically the opposite of what child seats are today. It was constructed of a metal-tube frame with a little vinyl seat, which I recall as being a blue and green plaid. I remember that my bare legs stuck to the material in the heat, so it was probably spring or summer. The child seat, again unlike today’s careful placement, was hung over the back of the front bench seat, between my parents, in what would these days be called the “death seat.” In this incident, it could well have proven to be so.
As we drove along, a large truck passed us and threw a stone up behind its tires which hit our windshield right in the middle. it made a terribly loud sound on impact, startling all of us. My mother was alarmed, my dad was angry. He pulled the car over to inspect the damage, and I was check over for glass chards, but I don’t recall that any of us was hurt. Mama poured ice water for Daddy from an aluminum Thermos jug and we went on our merry way, to my grandparents’ home.
Here are a few of the things I remember from my the Galeota home on Ferry Street.
• dolls in crocheted dresses on the beds upstairs,
• I remember Aunt Queenie's room when she was engaged to Uncle Stu -- so pretty with scarves and pretty clothes and a marvelous make-up table. She was so sweet to me.
• I remember the aunts talking a million miles an hour all at once, in the sunny kitchen and the uncles sitting in the dark living room Harumphing over the newspapers. Such a contrast!
• And the food--- nothing specific, but everything wonderful and plentiful. Every once in a while, when I’m in a big city and walk into an Italian grocery or deli, or even a neighborhood Italian restaurant, I’m snatched back into Nonni’s dining room with steaming serving bowls of gravy and vegetables and pasta passing before my table-level nose between the hands of loving adults on either side of me.
• I remember Uncle Johnny's ice cream and candy store, which as far as I was concerned, was Kiddie Heaven. I can still smell that place somewhere in my brain-- sweet and toasty and rich-- that memory shines like no other.
• Did my grandfather play the accordion?? I seem to remember him playing some hand-held musical instrument and coaxing me to dance in front of him in the dining room while he played and laughed.
• They had a garden which seemed very large to me, although they were right in the middle of the city, so it was probably just a backyard. There were tomatoes and probably peppers, but there was definitely rhubarb and gooseberries, which were both quite tart, and just writing the word “gooseberry” make my tongue curl behind my teeth as the water rushes into my mouth at the thought of a pale green, sun-warmed globe held up to my lips by Umpa, and his laughter as a bit down on the sour fruit.
• My Nonni chased me across the kitchen to pinch my toungue for sassing my mother. I can’t remember if she caught me or not, but I knew she was quite serious. She was not a baby-sitting grandmother; I mostly visited her with me mother. When I did get tended there occasionally, it was my Aunt Quin who watched me.
I have many more memories of the house on Ferry Street and our own apartment on Elmwood Avenue but perhaps these will do for now.
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