DECEMBER 12, 2025 HOLIDAY REFLECTIONS ANTIQUE from page 7 to a pond of ducks by Ford Motor where she worked, and we’d invest a Sunday afternoon feeding them (we didn’t know we should’ve brought seeds instead of bread that was not the best for them). This would often be after a trip to the “Lighting Candle Church” as I like to call St. Henry’s in Lincoln Park. It was always so fun because we’d light some candles as part of our prayings. Once when I had a bad cold for a week, Granny brought a fun water jug in my room to make drinking lots of water fun! She also bought these two little curious motorcycles that she or I would hide somewhere in my room for the seeking person to find, as I was getting better. Granny and I often play card games like Crazy Eights, Old Maid, Go Fish, and Memory Game. Granny is also who taught me how to read and when I was five, I was reading to her and writing my own stories like “The Flower that Stamped Its Stem”, “The Truth Fairy,” and a Pecos Bill style cowboy story. In just a few days, just before my birthday in December, I’ll need to be pushed to the old Oakwood hospital where I was born to have my appendix removed, though none of my family know this yet. My second grade teacher will stop by my four-day hospital stay to tell me how glad she is that I survived, to give me some birthday and Christmas cards from my class members, and to help me ‘catch-up’ on my homework. I’m glad there’s TV in the hospital because I get to watch two of my FAVORITE shows “Happy Days” and “Laverne and Shirley.” Fonzie is a good, all-American guy, “cool-type” of person. He’s a hardworker in his mechanic shop, and he’s always a good and helpful friend. His character is “breaking ground,” allowing a cool, tough guy to also share a softer side. The TV guide for this evening says we’ll meet up with his more tame counterpart, a high school kid named Richie Cunningham, and his friends and family at Arnold’s Diner. Mr. Defazio, the Italian waiter, will chat with them and serve them; there will be laughter and fun. A young couple, Joanie and Chachi, will also stop by, as will a “hot” woman named Leather. Mrs. C is always supportive and has good practical life wisdom, and Fonzie has a lot of sharp sense. This Christmas episode will find mutual encouragement by making sure to invite Fonzie to be a part of it. Meanwhile, Lavene and Shirley who work for Shotz Brewery will go singing at an elderly home. These two shows are really popular — especially Happy Days. The year I was born, TV had only been around for about 20 years; it’s amazing it’s now in color and not black and white as it was then. In 1978, we have no VCRs, video games, iPods and of course we were just at the brink of a beginning for computers. Our culture “at large” could not completely have imagined these just yet; though the concept for these items was beginning to take shape. There is a lot more reading of books, and more direct communication with people. Oddly though, most high school seniors often look like they’re in their 30s. There seems to be a great deal of pressure for “maturity” and upward mobility and being ready for new technology. When I return home, besides my catching up with homework, Mom will play Barbies and dollhouse with me as I recuperate; and actually, Mom so beautifully and capably put together the dollhouse kit that crafted it. I will be sure to get to Nana’s soon for our regular visits! I’m glad there’s more of a traditional, previous world feel for a little girl to explore at Nana’s. Nana brings out the Italian chocolate boxes that have long instead been the just right home for her heirloom jewelry. She carefully picks up each piece like a show and tell item, telling me special memories and meaning of each one. There are the two necklaces (“kadanga”) that had belonged to Nana’s mom, and that she gave to her, and the two or three rings from Nana’s mom and a sister. There’s the “gold 13” pendant that Nana’s mom gave her for “Good Blessing” travel to America, and good fortune here. Thirteen has long been a “lucky” number in Italy, and this 24k gold was made in honor of Pope Leo XIII, a champion of the working people’s rights. There are several crosses, including the two that are “look-through,” kind of like my toy view-master — one displays the Lord’s Prayer, and the other a depiction of Jesus on the cross. (Nana will give to me the blue cross with red flowers; it was hers for a long time, and she wants me to have it. This, so sadly like our family photos, will one day be lost to an eviction.) There are many cameos, brooches, earrings, and other various pendants and necklaces, each with their own story of who gave it and why. Special occasions and “close-to-heart” people were remembered. There are two pocket watches that Nana’s dad gave her to bring to America, also for good fortune and to forever remember him, now that a whole ocean and another brewing war would separate them, but for one last visit, three years later, then forever. The smaller pocket watch that is gold colored somehow has the “modern” Arabic numbers, and a depiction of a steam train, rolling right out at you. It also has a “fob” with it. The silver-colored, quite large pocket watch that might have been slightly larger than Nana’s Dad’s hands — has the beautiful old, Roman numerals though; and just a touch of some green foliage and red formal decor on its face. It has decorative, fancy shapes all around on it; there is no ‘fob’ to it. Nana says that its exaggerated size was the style back when that one was made. Nana carefully keeps also and frequently shows me - Nono’s war medal from when he’d served in WWI in the Italian Army; and also a cute, little white chapel-like frame that a photo of her and Nono just after their marriage and just right before their move to America is set in. Nana often cries as she shows me these special items, and tells me the story of each one. Now that Nono is gone from her with his memory loss, the observable contrast of her and Nono’s juvenile, smiling, eager innocence in that photo — is just brutal. It’s part of our family’s story though, and Nono has always been Nana’s man; and we must never lose that; and we won’t. Nana shows me her wedding ring on her finger; she tells me it's been there since Nono placed it on her hand when they married, and she will never remove it. Around Nana’s house there are some items that handyman Uncle Mario, Nana’s brother, made, such as the green “skanette” — a versatile, wooden piece that can be used as a stepstool or a quick sit, but that Nana will use mostly as rest for her swollen legs in her later years. Somehow Uncle Mario also crafted a green comfy cushion for it, and it has a handle-part that he built into the middle of it. There’s the precious violin that he carved out and then installed the strings; he also crafted its bow. There are two knives at Nana’s house and our own, that Uncle Mario fashioned the steel blades and the wood handles for; these are really good cutting knives, and the handles are really solid. In Nana’s basement there’s that long, dark-brown, glossy dining table that we find useful not only for holiday dining and as a holiday meal prep table, though also Granny insists it will save our lives also with couch pillows over us with the table over us when tornado season occurs — usually in late spring, though in July 1980 a horrible one will rip through, affecting many. And under that table, we will go! We were preserved by God’s hand. Also in Nana’s basement, there’s her 1930s, white-with-black-burners stove and over that each Christmas and Easter we prepare our family Ravioli recipe. And in another section there’s Nana and Nono’s old phonograph — the type that can play only the oldest of records ever made — the old, really thick type that smash and break if you drop them just once. Our family enjoys learning the Greats from the 1920s and the 1930s again on that old phonograph. My favorite is Mario Lanza and sometimes I segue just myself to go downstairs and listen to his singing. Nana is always GLAD the records are getting use and keeping our GROUNDCOVER NEWS 11 family traditions ALIVE! Mario Lanza’s music was formative for the so ‘modern’ rockstar Elvis, whose music we all love and who died tragically just the year before. However, concert specials from when he was alive are often featured year-round, and also some of his Christmas concerts in December. Dad follows the concert sometimes by playing an interview with Elvis from when he was alive. Maybe not everything ‘modern’ is ‘so bad;’ Baptist preachers are always warning us of all the dangers of that even more modern rock group, KISS, though. In Nana’s garage there are two old cars, one from the 1930s, the other possibly 1925. These Nana keeps in museum condition for the sentiment that Nono had for them. It was also a part of his upward rise, becoming fully US-American though his family in Italy had been a part of the upper class there. Also, in Nana's garage, a fun, wooden wine press which with Nono had sometimes made his own “vino” the good old fashioned way. In Nana’s larger cellar in the basement (there are two), there is a box of brushes and a hoof pick that Nono used to groom his army captain’s horse. Those were dear to his heart and in a few years when I become the owner of a horse at a boarding stable, Nono will allow me to use the two of these I ask for to groom my own horse. There’s also a keychain with a plastic green horse shoe and a wheat penny in the middle of it that was Nono’s. On many days that we are not using Nana’s basement to prep our family recipes, Nana has two clothesline ropes running all along the basement length, on one side of it. Though Nana has a clothes dryer, she still sometimes likes to dry her laundry as when she was in Italy. Then we arrive at another curious, very special memento. The trunk that Nana and Nono used to bring all of whatever they were bringing to America with them. It became a sacred resting place for our family’s oldest photos and portrait paintings, ones of my great, great grandparents, who were Nana and Nono’s parents. And Nana would show these to me frequently and tell me the stories of her childhood — of her family, our family. She would cry and remember and it would be good and necessary to feel happy again that we were keeping them alive — always in our hearts and also me being the next generation. Nana kept her wedding dress in there and there were other special family mementos and linens in that good old trunk. I’m ashamed that before the very first time that Nana opened its contents and her heart to share spilled out with it with me; I had thought it must be that there’s some million dollar value that our family is keeping secretly in there, see ANTIQUE page 13
12 Publizr Home