About five years ago I started writing a memoir. I kept at it for a little while, writing about 1,000 words a day for a few weeks. I hadn’t yet been to therapy and there were many things I didn’t really understand about my life, but I still find the unfinished memoir to be a fascinating look into my own past. I’ve decided to post it in installments here, with only a few redactions. You can find the other sections by clicking the Memoir category.
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3.
I have a friend named Otto who’s intensely connected to the past. He loves old movies and TV shows. He listens to music from the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s. He’s an Italian-American who’s lived in the same city all his life. He knows people, and they know him. He knows the birthdays of his relatives, living and dead. He’s like my Tartus, and I’m Dr. Who The Hell Am I?
I’m drawn to Otto as a person and as a gateway to a different world and a better time. Being around him is like stepping into my family’s stories about our early days in Lenox, Massachusetts, in the 1940’s and 1950’s. I joke with Otto that I’d like to rob the Italian restaurant we frequent, because when I’m with him, I’m like Claude Raines in The Invisible Man. I’m not part of the club, so no one can see me in the restaurant. I’m the invisible Irish-American kid with the orange goatee. (And you know what? I’m not even all that Irish. Just the bit that shows. About which more later.)
Otto shops at a meat market called Palermo’s, so I shop there, too. You know those mom-and-pop stores that used to know your name and wonder about you if you didn’t come in for a few weeks? If you’re anywhere near my age, the answer to that question is probably “no.†But I’ve read about them, and so have you. I’ve seen all those paintings Norman Rockwell did. He did most of them within a couple miles of the corner where I grew up, because he was from the next town over. He painted my mom’s doctor, the local cop and the soda fountain. Once, he even painted a picture of my Aunt Linda.
Well, Palermo’s is my Rockwell painting. It’s my Cheers bar. The guys behind the counter know who I am. They know what I usually order, and remind me to get it if I forget. The place is run by a guy named Guy who slices the meat himself, and whose wife and kids work in the store, too. Everybody who comes in knows everybody else who comes in. Except me, of course, because I’m a tourist.
When I go to Palermo’s with Jen and the boys, it’s as if I get a chance to step back into a gentler time. It’s an almost euphoric feeling, as if the real world – the world that I know is waiting just outside the old metal door – is being held at bay by the smell of the sauce and the friendly smile of the kid who cuts my porchetta.
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NOTE: As you can see from Otto’s note below, I’ve betrayed my general ignorance of Dr. Who my misspelling TARDIS. I’m still a nerd, though, right?
Wow, I was confused there for a moment by the Tartus reference. As much as I love old TV, Sci-Fi was never my specialty so although I’ve heard of Dr. Who, I’ve never seen it. At first, I thought Jason meant I was an old Syrian city because, according to the god, Google, that’s what Tartus is. Then I searched “Tartus Dr. Who” and discovered that he must have meant Tardis which our search engine deity explains “A properly maintained and piloted TARDIS can transport its occupants to any point in time and space.” I take that as a great compliment although I’m not sure I always live up to the task.
The definition of Tardis goes on to say: “The interior of a TARDIS is much larger than its exterior.” Ain’t that the truth! Perhaps I’d be happier if it were the other way around but alas but mind has been on overdrive for about forty years now – not that much good has come of it.
I chuckle at the recollection of Jason’s suggestion of robbing the Italian restaurant we frequented. Not because his “invisibility” is overstated but just because it’s funny. Considering both of our economic states perhaps he should have tested his theory.
I actually owe Jason a great debt of gratitude. He states that I’ve lived in the same town for 47 years now. For much of the period of my twenties and thirties that truth distressed me. However, one Sunday afternoon in Palermo’s, the deli he so deliciously describes here, we were doing a live broadcast of a radio show that I hosted and that he engineered. He was actually the manager of the radio station at the time and didn’t need to bother with such mundane duties but he was a good friend and knew what a technological dolt I was that he came along to help. It was there that he first said to me, “I envy you.” I found the statement quite arresting considering there seemed to me almost nothing that he couldn’t do better than I. When I questioned his statement he told me he envied my roots, the fact that I’d lived in a community so long that I was actually a part of it. He told me that he’d bounced around so much his whole life that he never really felt like he was a part of any place where he lived. I’ve never forgotten that day or that revelation. Without knowing it, he gave me a great gift that afternoon. The gift of greater awareness and gratitude for my place in my own little universe. It may be a boring little life but it’s my boring little life.
If you read Jason’s blog or listen to The Jazz Session you realize what a talented, sensitive guy Mr. Crane is. I’m just fortunate that he happened to fly through my little universe.
Thanks for these wonderful comments, Otto. See folks? Ain’t he great?