Caravaggio’s Son

By

Leo de Natale

Illustrations by Vince Giovannucci

          Some people have an obsession with colors.   There are many women who have a thing about purple.  They dress in purple, their homes are fifty shades of purple – sofas, wall paper, bathroom tiles.  Others prefer pink or orange.  A certain Rhode Island gentleman, however, chose a different hue.

          No one is really sure why or at what point in his life Arthur Di Nobili fell in love with the color black, especially black clothing.  His usual monochromatic attire consisted of black shoes and socks, black polyester slacks that crackled with static electricity in wintertime and black or sometime gray acetate shirts.  His left ring finger was adorned with a massive gold-and-onyx ring bearing the profile of a Roman Centurion.  Such apparel accentuated his swarthy southern Italian features that  naturally included a black mustache.

          In 1977, Arthur attended Princeton University,  on full scholarship (he  achieved three 800s on his SAT scores).   He was known at Princeton as the “Italian Johnny Cash”. He created an avalanche of sardonic laughter the day he wore to class his infamous black disco shirt festooned with hordes of scarlet parrots perched upon palm branches.

          He was  indeed a walking contradiction.  His outward appearance conveyed Providence Goombah — he was born in the Rhode Island city.  A virile six-footer, Arthur was the possessor of smooth, olive-toned skin.  His beard was so coarse, his friends teased, he could wake at 4:30 in the morning and  have five o’clock shadow thirty minutes later.  Arthur Di Nobili’s eyes were a deep penetrating umber and when, as he was so often, excited, his eyes would become bulged by the exposed white sclera as his eyelids retracted with emotion.  He also had the habit of voluntarily raising his eyebrow as a menacing emphasis.  His voice was deep and sonorous.

          Arthur was blessed with an IQ of 150 and relished such varied subjects as quantum physics, the Hegelian dialectic or Hittite pottery. He was engrossed with Baroque  art and his favorite painter from that era was Caravaggio, the master of chiaroscuro.

          His college dormitory cronies became enamored  with Arthur’s engaging personality.  He would regale them with such utterances as, “Look, all I care about is Nietzsche and getting laid.”  As the only child of divorced parents, he extolled the virtues of marriage, yet boasted of his womanizing during  visits to New York City.

          The crusty aristocrats of Princeton never knew quite what to make of this multifaceted personality.  He confounded them with his intellect (he was one of few to graduate with a straight 4.0 average). He had the uncanny ability to maximize the efficiency of his waking hours. 

For example, during his junior year Arthur was simultaneously on the dean’s list, co-captain of the varsity soccer team, president of the Dante Alighieri debating society and a member of the university’s a capella choir.

Perhaps the most unusual of Arthur’s many idiosyncracies was his obsession with the Mafia.  Although neither he nor his family had underworld ties, everyone presumed he did  because of his encyclopedic knowledge of what Arthur referred to as “America’s sub rosa General Motors”.  For years, his daily routine was to purchase four morning newspapers: the New York Times, the New York Post, Providence Journal,  and the Washington Post.  He would assiduously scan these for underworld news items- this was pre-internet.   On  his dormitory room wall he had drawn an elaborate and astonishingly detailed flow chart of the Mafia, complete with every chieftain’s name, moniker, place of birth, city of operation and the rackets therein controlled.

Once in New York City, Arthur and his Italo-American classmate,  Nick Volterra, a Type A personality from Westchester County, spent several hours in a Manhattan South police precinct for what Volterra called a case of mistaken identity. According to Nick (whom Arthur dubbed “Travis Bickle” for his resemblance to actor Robert Di Niro’s character in the movie Taxi Drive), the two spent a winter’s weekend in New York after a Princeton-Columbia basketball game.

“Arthur would always ‘dress up’ for a trip to New York,” Nick recalled. “He had this big, gray homburg hat he’d bought at the same haberdashery where Mafia don Carlo Gambino shopped.  He was wearing  his black Chesterfield coat and carrying that damned Samsonite brief case . Sometimes it contained only a sandwich but he liked taking it along for the “effect’” and I would say,  ‘What no violin case?’”.

          “Anyway, we’re on a bus on the West Side, and Arthur’s there telling me about the latest “hits” by the New York mob,” Nick said.   “He always got excited talking about that sort of thing, and his eyes got really beady and intense.  He was talking about the demise of a minor hood named Mario “The Nose”Granito.  He’d say ‘Yeah he was horning in on the Gambino’s loan sharking.  They garroted the son-of-a-bitch and stuffed him into a pink Cadillac. A pink Caddy, that’s a sign of real disrespect.  The Nose was a fag anyways.  He had no balls.’”

          Volterra said he became uneasy as he noticed two women in front of them exchanging fearful glances.  Suddenly, one of the women (it turned out they were Bellevue Hospital outpatients) yelled hysterically, “Murderers! Murderers! We’re going to be killed.”

          The bus driver pulled to a halt and tried to calm the women while Arthur, obviously enjoying the ruse, glared with those eyes and, as an emphatic gesture, grabbed his groin and shouted, “Hey right here’s your murderers, you scumbags!!!”

Three hours later, after undergoing interrogation at Manhattan’s Precint 4, Arthur and Volterra were released.  The police had questioned Arthur but discovered his identification.  Arthur gladly opened his brief case and displayed its contents: a jar of Skippy Peanut Butter, three changes of underwear and his four newspapers.

By his senior year, Arthur had decided to pursue a career in health care.  It was a tossup between dentistry and medicine.  He opted for medical school because he told friends he didn’t care for spending eight hours a day sticking his fingers into somebody’s mouth.  At Harvard Medical School, Arthur quickly established himself as the class eccentric.  No one could prove it but he was strongly suspected as the culprit who dressed an anatomy cadaver in monk’s robes, complete with a Chianti bottle in the corpse’s right hand and a lit cigar between the teeth of the body’s grizzled, formaldehyde-awashed face.

It was also at Harvard that Arthur was “thunderstruck”, as he put it, by Lori Johannsen, a  first year classmate from Minnesota.  If Arthur was polyester, Lori was crepe de chine; he was Mediterranean terra cotta, she was Scandinavian cut glass. Their often stormy relationship became a classic example of oil and vinegar, noir et blanche.   Light and shadow, just like the chiaroscuro paintings of Caravaggio, a major proponent of this technique and most often associated with a dramatic use of lighting.

Lori was at first glance a striking female.  She was tall, blonde, and blue-eyed.  She had an athlete’s lithe physique that developed from years as a varsity swimmer; her skin was alabaster-toned.  Arthur referred to her as his “Venus reincarnate”; others saw her as a flat-chested, weak-chinned hypochondriac who once told a fellow student she skipped classes because she thought her blood pressure would be elevated that day.  She could divine a common cold two weeks in advance.

 And for all Arthur’s sexual braggadocio, in actuality he reflected conservative attitudes of a second-generation Italo-American.  He could be and often was promiscuous with a coed here, or a comely graduate student there.  But Arthur had this Godfatheresque fantasy regarding the purity of womanhood he saw in Lori.  At times he fancied himself a latter-day Michael Corleone, the literary and intellectual Mafia character.

And so the relationship evolved, or regressed.  It was during the summer between third and fourth year of medical school that an event occurred that drastically altered Arthur’s life.  During summer break, Arthur and an old neighborhood friend, George “The Greek” Scatopolous, spent two weeks driving cross country to visit Lori and her family in rural Minnesota.    The two city slickers likened it to an urban Meriwether and Lewis expedition to the Northwest Passage.

For the first three years of medical school, the romance between Arthur and Lori ebbed and flowed.  It was a melodrama reminiscent of the old dime store novels.  She would harangue him over the rigidity with which he dearly held the Providence/Italian/Macho ethic.

“You’re as progressive as one of your grandmother’s zucchinis,” Lori yelled at him during one of their innumerable fights.

“Yeah well at least I take my clothes off at night,” he retorted, referring her distaste for nudity. “Your problem is you’ve always worn tight underwear!”

          Arthur arrived at the Johannsen home tired, hot and incredibly drunk on chianti.  A predictably ugly scene ensued at Lori’s doorstep.  Words were exchanged  with Lori’s livid father.  Arthur and “The Greek”, sped off towards Minneapolis via Interstate 84.  A thunderstorm with high winds blew out over the Minnesota flatlands.  Rain cascaded in sheets off the lightweight Chevrolet they were driving.

          Arthur could not recall precisely how it happened but a tractor-trailer containing 30 tons of feed corn jackknifed, swerved towards their car and sent it careening into a drainage ditch thirty feet away from the highway.

George was killed instantly as the car roof collapsed and crushed his cervical vertebrae.  Arthur was discovered outside the wreckage and was unconscious. 

For nearly a month he lay in coma at a Minneapolis hospital.  Lori visited once and spent the remainder of the summer horseback riding near her home.  She never saw him again.

          After Labor Day Arthur was transported to Providence and, as if by the influence of some magical elixir wafting through the city’s atmosphere, regained consciousness by September’s end.  The recovery, unfortunately, was incomplete.  Arthur was blind.  The neuro-ophthalmologist at Providence Hospital told Arthur and his anxious mother he had sustained significant trauma to the base of his skull called the occipital area, the location of visual processing.  The doctor said his sight might be restored within weeks or months but he might never again see the skyline of the Rhode Island city he called home.

          Arthur showed remarkable resilience.  “At least my world is colored black” he quipped with gallows humor.  But alone at night, and surrounded by internal and external darkness, despondency oozed through the crevices of his battered mind: “I’ll never see another Princeton-Harvard game,” he thought. “I’ll never see another St. Anthony’s feast in Little Italy…………I’ll never watch Frank Sinatra sing again.”

       Three days before his release from the hospital, a rush of noise entered his room.  He heard muffled voices and the air became heavy with the smell of sweet cologne and smoke from an expensive cigar.  As Arthur lay there, a large warm hand gripped his.  A man’s soft voice asked,

“Arthur, my son, how are you?” 

Arthur recognized the voice and immediately associated the face he’d seen at numerous Senate sub-committee hearings.  It was Raymond Patriarca, capo of the Providence mob. “Il Padrone” was a typical Mafia don: wanted and hated by state and federal law enforcement but revered by the Rhode Island Italian community.  He was, in their eyes, a modern day Robin Hood with garlic and prosciutto.

          “Arthur, you have made us very proud in the past,” Patriarca said in a lilting, paternal tone with an unmistakable Italian accent. “You have brought honor to this neighborhood.  You have gone to the best schools, achieved things that I hoped my own sons would achieve.  I want to help.”     

 As Arthur listened in near disbelief over the visitor now sitting beside him, Patriarca told him all his medical expenses would be paid.  Any rehabilitation or vocational training would also be subsidized.  This was the same Raymond Patriarca that two days prior had ordered an execution of Eugenio “The Tomato” Innocenti because of attempted burglary of his daughter’s summer home and the theft of three hundred pounds of provolone cheese from Patriarca’s underworld headquarters in North Providence.          

          Patriarca was good to his word.  The bills were paid. He provided Arthur  with a comfortable apartment near his mother’s home.  He paid for nursing until Arthur could fend for himself.

        It was at this juncture that Arthur experienced an artistic influence that shunted him along a different path.  As a child, his grandfather had taught him to play the mandolin, a stringed instrument that accompanies the Italian soul.  He had outgrown the interest for such an instrument but suddenly, in the dark world he existed, he took pursued even greater exponent of the heart – the violin.

          Jacob Cohen, a former virtuoso fallen on hard times, was discreetly contacted by Patriarca intermediaries.  He had once been concertmaster with the New York Philharmonic but a sour marriage, a few sex scandals  and his penchant for high living contributed to his downfall.  Cohen was now earning money by existing in a musician’s purgatory: tutoring would-be Paganinis.  Cohen admits today that mentoring Arthur was perhaps the salvation of his checkered career.  The publicity he later received, locally and internationally, catapulted him once again to prominence.

Working with Arthur was originally trying.  They traded ethnic slurs but after the initial feeling-out period, Cohen (referred to as a kosher Ichabod Crane, both in temperament and appearance) discovered the latent artist in Arthur.  Teaching a blind man to play violin, he would say, was simultaneously difficult and easy.  It was difficult because the musical notation had to be put into more abstract form; easy because the blind man’s remaining senses made Arthur more aware of  the nuances of music.

          The two men came to understand each other to such a degree they combined their talents.  They began playing duets and appeared at weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and musical events around Providence and throughout New England.

          Nearly three years to the day after that fateful evening in Minnesota, a miracle occurred.  Arthur was preparing for a concert before the Providence Jaycees when the sensation, the suggestion of light from an ancient, wooden bulkhead, appeared in the midst of his consciousness.  The light sprung forward, first slowly but then with greater rapidity, blur piled upon blur.  Gross forms were becoming discernible. Vision was coming back.  He could see!

  The news splashed onto local newspapers and television stations.  The national media learned of the blind, Princeton-educated violinist re-entering the world of light and images.  There were tears of joy.

Five years later, Arthur Di Nobili stood tall inside Providence’s Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral.  He wore black again but the black polyester was no longer an empty expression of poor taste in clothing.  It was  symbolic of the world into which he had been submerged.  Dressed in black, he played Mozart’s The Requiem at Raymond Patriarca’s funeral mass.  A thousand eyes cried.

By Leo de Natale

     The ochre-colored building sits ensconced on a hilltop in rural Agawam, Massachusetts.  At first glance it could pass for a warehouse or storage area for the potatoes and broad-leaf tobacco that are grown in this western Massachusetts town.  But the pungent mixture of horseflesh, manure and winter hay reveals its true identity.  The New England Equine Auction Center is indeed a stable.  For some horses it is a way station to the next  barn or riding school where 14-year-old pre-pubescents will yank the mouth and kick the body with insensitive spurs.

           For the remainder of those soft-eyed creatures with their coats of brown, black or gray, it means the proverbial end of the line: bidders for dog food companies – in the horse world known as “The Killers”- are always well  represented at the weekly Thursday auction.

          The horses stand there, row after row, peering over their steel-piped enclosures with as many stories to tell as the two-legged man/beasts standing astride and free on the other side.  One horse, an emaciated  gray five-year-old mare has escaped the noose.  A plump middle-aged mother and her two teenaged daughters describe how they’ve scraped together $500 on this admittedly doubtful reclamation project.

The horse’s exposed rib cage and pelvic bones, thrusting through the scruffy skin of its hindquarters and the whip scars behind the neck tell the story.  New wounds from horsebites demonstrate the equine pecking order that culls the weak from the herd.

The woman tells how the family intends to sustain its new charge as her daughter applies salve to the mare’s wounds.

“She put her head on my husband’s shoulder, almost saying, ‘Please’,” the mother said of the Quixote-esque horse. “We just couldn’t let her wind up in a tin can.”

The gray horse’s roommate, an old black-and-white pinto in the adjacent stall is destined for a different fate.  It stands there, listless, while the round-wormed parasites holiday within dark, diseased intestines and have ballooned the pinto’s abdomen to twice its normal girth. The pinto just stands, lacking the energy to swat as a convention of flies swarm unmolested around a motionless tail.  Within twenty-four hours the once noble beast will droop its eyes, gasp its last breath and crash upon the ground, its face covered with sawdust and woodchips.

Pinto horse has beaten the system.  No more trailers to untold places, no electric stun gun to shock its head into oblivion.  Rather, a backhoe will unceremoniously drag its hind hooves to burial in an adjacent meadow where new, young legs will prance over the bones. 

Requiescat In Pace, sweet horse.

Deus Ex Machina

By

Leo de Natale

         Illustration by Vince Giovannucci

I am old and  often contemplate the dehumanization we are experiencing at the hand of modern technology, specifically the ever increasing hydra-like control  the internet, computers and cell phones have over human beings.

          I’m not completely intimidated by social media, the internet, the constantly changing computer or software technology. I can adequately navigate through cyberspace but, like so many in my aging Baby Boomer generation, there’s an intimidation factor.  With increasing frequency, we’re becoming roadkill.  There’s one basic fear:  pushing the wrong button and, poof !, there’s a figurative explosion and you lose your emails, your texts and everything. I often think of the Dirty Harry quip,”A man’s gotta know his limitations.” We live in mortal fear of losing all data while the devices turn to dreck.

          Probably one of the most annoying aspects of cyberworld is the dreaded PASSWORD!  I’ve tried to use one basic password but the websites/servers seem to be constantly and arbitrarily changing: “Your password is not recognized”, “Forgot your password?,  Click here and reset” or, my favorite, “Are you a robot?”. “No!,” I respond, “Are you?”.   A broken man, I reset the password and it works–at least once.  But on a subsequent access it’s back to ground zero.  “Password not recognized”.   MIPS.  MIPS. It is so Devo.

          Of course more companies/websites are heavily relying on the annoying QR code, a Rorschachian symbol that permits entry into connections to many websites.  And I laugh phoning Apple because the android voice sounds eerily similar to HAL, the robotic voice in the classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey:  “Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave?” The cybernet  seems to say “I am your master.  You will do as told or will be denied entry.”

          Cyberspace is totally obtrusive and the more it’s used the more you realize what a hydra it has become.  It wraps its tentacles around us.  There was a time pre-computer/cell phones when humans weren’t constantly bombarded with junk mail, scams, hustles.  No one worried about being hacked or having identity theft.  In a mere quarter century, it has become the pleasure vs. pain experience circa 2025 and counting.

          My most recent clash with this pervasive phenomenon pertained to a pedestrian event:  my wife and I needed a new refrigerator.  The old Frigidaire was leaking and we proactively decided to replace it before the deluge and a refrigerator full of spoiled food.  There was a quick trip to Home Depot where Clarice, a frumpy middle-aged woman with technicolor shoulder length hair guided us through the various models and manufacturers. Her fingernail polish was flaking; some fingers had no polish.  Not a pretty look.

          “This LG model here is the most popular French door ‘fridge,” she said with a thick Boston accent. “We sell a lot of these ones.”

She was actually very pleasant and helpful and $2,000 later we were the proud owner of a new stainless steel LG Super Freeze model made in Korea (the Koreans have usurped appliance manufacturing – LG, Samsung produce and sell most refrigerators, televisions, washing machines et al).  

“And remembah, the LG has a twelve month extended warranty but you gotta go online to registah,” she said with some forewarning.

The unit arrived and had new bells and whistles.  One notable feature was punishment for not closing the refrigerator and freezer doors.  Fifteen seconds is all I got before ear ringing beeps yelled “close the door!”.

The stainless steel unit was slick and shiny, the interior was well designed.  After delivery, I started to notice little things that slip by when selecting an appliance.  Plastic trays on the doors were thinner and chintzy.  There was no rubber padding on shelves, so bottles and containers created unanticipated noise.  Quality used to be a watchword for household items but it’s the old story you pay more for something but it’s manufactured with inferior materials.  Of course I’m talking like a grumpy old man (“I remember in my day things were different!” blah blah blah).  Each generation succumbs to curmudgeonliness.

          Once our food was placed inside the refrigerator, it was time to register the unit and apply for the warranty benefit.  There was a time you could do this by telephone and speak to a human.  Today, you’re on your own.  The first hint there’d be gnashing of teeth occurred when the owner’s manual informed my wife and me there were data on the refrigerator wall detailing the process.  On the refrigerator’s left wall there was a 3×8 sticker that contained the usual – model number, serial number etc.  Also included was the aforementioned QR code, the increasingly ubiquitous symbol used by just about anything associated with the internet.

          Placing my cell phone in front of the QR’s squares and squiggles, I focused the symbol and was immediately shunted to a LG website with further instructions.  I was told to download a corporate app called “LG ThinQ”.   Switching to my laptop, I arrived at LG’s website, the vehicle for establishing an account and services provided.  I doggedly followed the usual prompts – name, email, address, telephone number. “Are you a new account?” the prompt asked.  Yes I am.   “You must register and provide – you guessed it – a password”.  Oh no, here we go again!

I knew the routine: password must contain a minimum of 8 characters; You must use at least one capitalized letter, a numeral and a character # or !, etc.  I dutifully typed in Sarge123! (we always use this password honoring Sarge, our first German Shepherd Dog).  Of course you are required to re-type the password for “security reasons”.  I received a stern message saying “This password is weak.  You must provide a stronger combination of numerals and letters!”.

 I retyped another password and was rewarded.   Like Ali Baba, the website opened. 

I then proceeded to complete the warranty application.  A creepy,  Orwellian phenomenon appeared before my eyes.  As I typed my surname the entire field was immediately filled.   The screen automatically included my address and zip code and then incredibly showed the last four digits of my credit card.   This has occurred before and my reaction is  wow!,  how  do they harvest this information, especially from a website I’ve never before visited?  This occurrence was eery and scary. I guess it really has come to pass.  Big Brother is watching you and all I could think of was H. G. Wells’ morlocks from his novel The Time Machine.  The subterranean ghouls control the robotic earth dwellers who are comatose and walk aimlessly while staring into their cell phones. I thought of young people today who cross streets without looking up or ride bicycles and simultaneously texting.

 For example, I recently was stopped at a red light.  A pimply-faced kid was driving a Vespa motor scooter.  With the scooter’s  green light flashing, he takes a left. His girlfriend is riding behind him on the guest seat.  Instead of paying attention and perhaps enjoying the ride she was- what else?- gazing at her cell phone.  We are doomed.

The only thing worse was watching  another kid following the Vespa  riding his electric bike.  Traveling at about 20 mph, he was helmetless and, simaltaneiously, texting and pulling wheelies.  He’ll eventually become an organ donor.  His young heart, lungs, kidneys and corneas will find a healthy home.

Of course, I just received an email from LG.  A reverberating circuit  informed  me the password was not recognized and then prompted me with the question “Forgot password?  Press here.”. Start from square one.

Dammit,   getting old is not fun.   I feel like yelling, “Hey!  Get off the grass!!!”.      Computers, phones, tablets are consuming more time and energy as we slouch towards the Wasteland.

 I wish it were 1965 again!!!!

“Arrrghh!!

Les Dentes de Roi

By

Leo de Natale

          As a child, I had a world class Bugs Bunny overbight.   Abnormal dentition ran in the family.  My mother and sister also had an array of crooked teeth.   As a rite of passage, my parents realized the social repercussions of malformed teeth and by Grade 6 I paid my first visit to  orthodontist Dr. Kaplan.   I joined the ranks of the select group of classmates who, for two to four yeas endured hardware in our mouths and wore the dreaded “night brace” that magically catapulted teeth into the desired position.

          Predictably, fellow classmates would rag on us – called us “barbed wire mouths” and made fun of us after lunch because of the food stuck in the metal jungle.  Tuna fish sandwiches were especially gross in appearance.  Foul breath was rampant.  So was the insufferable teasing.

          We all went through this orthodontic misadventure that was comparable to college fraternity hazing.  Unlike frat house initiation, there was not corporal punishment and the braces period eventually faded into oblivion.   Not so for me. During the rest of my life I nearly always observed and made mental notes about people’s teeth.  Besides the overbights, crookeds and John Kerry prognathic underbites, I’d note whether or not a person’s teeth were yellow, gray, missing/absent.

          Mike Myers is a comedic genius and his spoof film, Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery, is a paean to a nation besot of bad teeth.  Myers portrays the eponymous  character  Powers “superspy” and throughout the movie wears a set of large, yellow-stained  prosthetic teeth.  After being teased by his comely co-star, he admits the obvious.

          “Ok, the English have bad teeth!” he yells as the camera focuses on his gaping mouth. “They’re not shagadelic, Baby!”

          On the continent, it isn’t much different.  The late wall-eyed French existentialist Jean Paul Sartre had egregiously brown stained teeth from a lifetime of pipe smoking.  It was not a pretty sight.

          Austin Powers is considered a seminal comedic theme.  The movie is a spoof of the  1960’s James Bond movies.   The sight gags and plot lines satirized the genre to a point where the Bond movie’s producers completely changed the characterization when Daniel Craig was chosen to become the newest reincarnation in  2005.  A hairy-chested, toupeed, Sean Connery became a dinosaur.

          Segue to 2025.  My wife and I  became addicted to the British crime television series – Inspector Lewis, Midsomer Murders, Murdoch Mysteries et al. The programs are a British cottage industry and we noticed many of the character actors can be seen playing musical chairs in numerous programs.  It’s the British version of central casting.  In the English version of cinema verite, episodes would be sprinkled with a cast filled with ugly teeth. 

I began to think the producers regarded the tooth problem as a yellow badge of courage.  We’re Brits, godammit, and we’ll televise a physical trait that we gladly accept.

          American standup comedian Rodney Dangerfield had a famous joke about a man who seeks cheap dental advice:

“Hey, Doc, what should is do about my yellow teeth?” he asks his dentist.

“Wear a brown necktie!” was the response.  Badda Bing, Badda Boom!!

          My wife and I actually began playing a game.  We’d each keep a score tally of how many cast members were unabashedly demonstrating their genetic dental proclivities.  Most scores ranged between fifty and seventy five percent.  We realized there was a vast cultural divide between Americans and British.  We also noticed other countries – Ireland, Holland and Germany- were also infamous for eschewing orthodontists.

          The natural course of events led to the inevitable end stage: dentures.  The British Isles per capita consume more Poligrip, Fixodent and  the famous cleaner Efferdent than any European counterpart.

Which brings us to the title of this essay.   King Charles – boy, did he wait a lifetime to be crowned- is frequently in the news.  Everyone knows the British Royalty is a vestigial entity and purely ceremonial.  The Crown lost its governing powers after the 17^th Century.  The pomp and traditions still remain, however, and the Royal Family has become  a perpetual carnival with costumes, horse-drawn carriages and all the trappings of a society that lies in fairy tales and history books.

          The English still cling to the history and the what used-to-be  British Empire.  Now the Royal Family are merely a tourist attraction that’s perpetuated by  vicarious lifestyles that remain laced with palace intrigue.

          King Charles III is often photographed and, as the fictional Austin Powers, he does have bad teeth.  His lower incisors are an assembly of frozen corn niblets- yellowed crooked and with a mind of their own.  I stared at the photo and thought here is one of the wealthiest men in the world and Good Queen Bess didn’t care enough for her oldest son to slap him into a set of braces?  To this day he remains the poster boy for a quintessential Brit: not particularly good looking and accursed with ugly teeth.

Not to be undone, Britain’s island neighbor Ireland has teeth problems of its own.  It’s not unusual to meet a strapping young Irishman whose handsomeness ends when he opens his mouth.  Yep, there they are in full display: a set of teeth that are gnarled and blackened with rot.  I once knew an English fellow who was having trouble with his teeth.  He’d been suffering from abscesses.

          “I’m sick of these goddamn dentist’s bills,” he said .  “Yeah I made an appointment with the dentist and am having all of them yanked out.  I won’t have to worry about taking care of my fuckin’ teeth, guv!”

          The Brit didn’t realize that  over time a person’s gums shrink and the choppers have to be replaced periodically.  Otherwise his speech will be accompanied by the trademark denture whistle resembling a windstorm occurring as the prosthetic loosens.  And  over time the dentures turn yellow, despite using industrial strength Efferdent.

          According to history books, George Washington lost his teeth while growing older.   Dentures in the 18^th Century were primitive and made of wood – try putting those suckers in! His subordinates reportedly  referred to him as General Splinter Mouth.  Unsurpisingly,  no portraits of Washington exist with him smiling or laughing.  Just look at the $1 bill.  George doesn’t resemble a happy camper.

Perhaps the worst of it the dreaded denture breath, a rank odor that often compared to a Monday morning fish market.  As a young man famous actor Clark Gable lost his teeth due to poor dentition and prematurely needed dentures.  His breath was purportedly so foul that leading lady actresses gagged while kissing Gable.  They should have requested  hazardous duty pay.   Viven Leigh, his costar in Gone With The Wind, claimed her head snapped back during many of the movie’s romantic scenes.  She had neck  problems for the remainder of her career.

          In America we are the antithesis.  Cosmetic dentistry is a multimillion dollar industry.  It’s the Hollywood effect where movie stars historically needed/wanted pearly whites.  There’s an ever increasing influx of teeth whitening strips and tooth pastes that advertise whiter teeth.  A trip to the CVS tooth paste aisle is akin to the grocery store’s canned tomato section.  There are so many options one’s head spins: whole tomatoes, whole skinned tomatoes, tomato paste, chopped tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, plum tomatoes diced tomatoes etc.

At CVS there’s a wall of  tooth pastes. It is a myriad of products that contain sodium bicarbonate whiteners and have proprietary names: “Sparkling White”, “Optic White”,” Baking Soda and Whitening”, “Baking Soda and Peroxide”, etc.

 All these products promise whiter teeth but skeptics abide.  Americans wanting refrigerator white teeth borrow  thousands of dollars required to obtain veneers or the more radical implant surgery.   We are, as Bruce Springsteen sings, blinded by the light. Just ask most politicians, actors or television personalities.

King Charles III, however, will carry on, fight the good fight, and not give a damn about his mouthful of chick peas.

Autumn Flame

By

Leo de Natale

Red.  Or is it scarlet?  The wind blows, reveals a cascade of blinding color.  Acer rubrum is  performing its annual Show

Neighbors standing mouths agape in awe on sunny days.  It’s a thrill really.  For a week maybe two the backyard is ablaze with red maple Leaves nature in full celebration

Like a snowflake each leaf is a variation; some totally scarlet others with Black markings, faint yellow stripes

Slowly, predictably, time takes control; leaves fall to the ground and Laughing grandchildren make snow angels in a sea of red

Street maples can  muster only ho-hum yellow and orange leaves; none Compare to rubrum’s splendor

Alas in the blink of an eye the performance ends mottle leaves turning Brown/black

The naked tree thirty feet tall now laid bare; I cannot wait for spring to arrive when the Autumn Flame begins anew.

Why A  Hulihee?

By

Leo de Natale

Illustration by Vince Giovannucci

“To shave or not to shave. That is the question!”

By the time a young boy morphs into a teenager, the subject of facial hair, beards, mustaches and any combination of the two have bounced around in his head.  Most sons growing up watch their fathers exercise the daily ritual of removing the five o’clock shadow and facing another day. 

          “Daddy, can I watch you shave?” a 10-year-old son will ask as he becomes fixated on this rite of passage.

          “Yes, Johnny, you can,” the father replies. “And remember some day you’ll be doing the same thing.”

The boy watches his dad wash the face, apply the shaving cream  – that’s a favorite – and slowly, methodically stroke the cheeks,  neck, chin and  upper lips.  On a rushed day, the father will yelp- ouch! too close and another razor cut.  Out comes the coagulating styptic stick  that staunches the bleeding.  An astringent after shave is then applied with an accompanying “Ahh”.  The aroma lingers and the  boy files the smell in his olfactory memory bank. 

Once in a while adult  males will sniff Old Spice, Brut, English Leather, Drakkar Noir or other popular colognes and will be catapulted back to their youth. 

Beards and facial hair have existed since the man became homo erectus and lurched out of his cave.  Across the millennia – especially dating back to the Greeks and Romans- beards have been an integral part of society.  Anthropologists claim in ancient times the hairiness  had several purposes. 

The beards created evolutionary pressures among tribes to enforce dominance hierarchies.  Beards = testosterone and they affected mating habits- the iconic Neanderthal  man dragging his female mate by the hair and grunting “Me take you to cave”.  Also, it is proposed that among warring tribes, beards were actually useful in reducing the impact of blunt force during tribal battles.  Had they lived in that era Giuseppe Garibaldi or Beat poet Allen Ginsberg would have protected themselves well.

In  appearance early humans weren’t much different from the rest of the animal kingdom.    We were all hairy beasts and evolution shows some things don’t change, especially in various places in the world.  You wouldn’t confuse Swedes with Moroccans.

Throughout modern history men’s facial hair has varied as often as hemlines (when women more commonly wore skirts and dresses).  Egyptians shaved their faces and scalps although Pharaohs were often depicted with long, well-oiled chin beards.  Along came the  Greeks where hirsutism was the accepted norm. 

In fact, Socrates and his disciples purportedly would play games and watch fleas jump from one beard to another.  Simple pleasures for not so simple philosophers.  Beards grew and predominated during the Hellenic golden era.

The Romans succeeded the Greeks and theirs was a distinctly anti-beard empire.  The emperors were predominantly clean-shaven from Julius Caesar, Augustus, Caligula, Tiberius et al.   It is evident in the various sculptures that have been preserved through the ages.  The invading Barbarians liquidated the Roman Empire and men’s facial appearances reflected their conquerors’ preferences.   The grandeur of Rome morphed into a region of scruffy, bearded, smelly infidels lacking in hygiene and good taste.  During the Middle Ages, hirsutism was the European norm.  Then Protestantism erupted.  There was a clean-shaven Martin Luther and bearded Henry VIII and John Calvin.  These gentlemen created a tectonic upheaval in Western history, religion and facial hair.

Regarding beards, the Protestant Reformation created  the proverbial line in the sand.  During that period, Roman Catholic Church clergy were clean shaven.  As a matter of physically making an ecclesiastic statement, Protestants – with the exception of Luther- donned beards.  The religious battles with the Church were longstanding and the political positions of European states would follow a centuries-long conflict – rebellious England vs. Defender of the Faith France are a prime examples.  Both groups presumed a Michaelangelo-bearded Almighty God was on its side.

Politics and beards aside, many if not most men living between the 16^th and 19^th Centuries were unshaven.  A fundamental question persists regarding the decision:  to shave or not shave.  And that’s hygiene.  Men and women during those times were- shall we say- not terribly clean. European peasants reportedly bathed themselves about three times per year.   Washing and bathing were infrequent at best – remember Socrates and his flea-bitten disciples. If men weren’t washing their hair it’s safe to say the beards weren’t earning extra attention and were a safe haven for bacteria, vermin, dirt and last Thursday’s meat loaf.  During that era B.O. could mean either body or beard odor.

Facial hair history does have an historic timeline but today beards and mustaches provide an even more important contribution: Humor!  The laughter begins with the names.  Each style has a history and each generation seems to add various alterations.  There are more than twenty distinct beard styles with such names as The Garibaldi,  Monkey Tail,  Friendly Mutton Chops,   Verdi and, of course, the Van Dyke.

          Many famous men have sported beards that become eponymous or create visual memory lasting a lifetime.  For example, Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau was known for his masterpiece book “Walden” and other essays.  Thoreau was photographed with a beard style called the “neck beard”. While spending his time building a log cabin on the shore of Walden Pond, Thoreau decided the grow a beard that included only his neck.  His face was clean shaven that highlighted his crystal blue eyes.  During the 19^th  Century many strange things occurred in Concord, Massachusetts and Thoreau’s facial hair was one of them.

          It’s uncertain if Thoreau was a trendsetter but it turns out New York publisher Horace Greeley also grew a neck beard.  German composer Richard “Die Meistersinger” Wagner also followed suit.  Henry David was in famous company.  Wagner’s contemporary Guiseppe Verdi sported a beard that became associated with the world’s most famous opera masterpieces.  From an historic standpoint, maverick Roman Emperor Nero purportedly wore a neck beard.

          Facial hair has always had a humorous aspect.  Beards and mustaches obviously alter a man’s physical appearance.  A white bearded Santa Claus evokes childhood memories of a fictitious character who represents mirth and holiday cheer.  Segue to a rock music Frank Zappa whose mustache/goatee combination was so well known that his style has become eponymous.  Seeing his facial hair evoke memories of Zappa’s record album Weasels Ripped My Flesh.

          One can’t help but laugh at some of the outrageous names attached to beards.  At the top of the list are the Mutton Chops and its offspring, the Hulihee and Friendly Hulihee.  Also included are the “Claus”, Shenendoah, Old Dutch, ZZ Top, Handlebar Chops, Friendly Chops, Anchor and the Full Spade. 

Not to be denied, there are numerous mustache styles, some visually descriptive: Chevron, Lampshade, Painter’s Brush, Pencil – and the Parted Pencil .  Others evoke chortles: Walrus (think Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid), Handlebar, English, Hungarian, Dali, Fu Manchu and the Horseshoe.  There’s the arcane Imperial Kaiser Wilhelm mustache and a hybrid called the Beardstache.

There’s plenty of history with these names.  Civil War General Ambrose Burnside – considered the worst Union commander – carved a niche in facial hair history.  Gen. Burnside started his career by growing hair adjacent to the ear.  He popularized the look that eventually was named “sideburns”, a style contemporarily popularized by Elvis Presley.  Of course Burnside wasn’t finished.  His facial hair eventually morphed into another signature style: Friendly Mutton Chops.  No one ever took Gen. Burnside or his beard seriously.

          Noted Harvard trained paleontologist Dr. Keith Vitalis has dedicated his life to tracing the long hairy history of man’s obsession with beards and mustaches.

          “Men have a schizoid approach to mustaches and beards,” he said. “We either love them or hate them, myself included.”

          Vitalis speaks from experience.  He long ago decided to adopt a Janus-like appearance: he shaves only the right side of his face.  The left side has a bearded appearance resembling the full beard Garibaldi!

          “I do it for effect,” he said. “Some men love their facial hair; others are psychologically confused. For example, young men regard beards and mustaches as a rite of passage. Growing facial hair states ‘I am a man!’”.

          According to Vitalis, facial hair has psychological associations.  Men with weak chins or who have poor self images while shaved will hide behind a curtain of hair.  Other men try to make a social statement.  Today’s rock musicians are often bearded and express a counter-culture appearance while becoming millionaires with their musical success.

          What about old men who often sport a white mustache and/or beard?

          “Some men think growing a graying mustache/beard gives them an avuncular or perhaps patriarchal appearance,” Vitalis said.  In reality many of these men are hiding behind a wizened mask. Older men with beards think the grey hair hides aging skin or a sagging gullet – the bain of all elderly men and women.  A 73-year-old man with a gray beard is simply calling attention to his chronological age.  Can you take any man seriously if he’s wearing a white Fu Manchu?, Vitalis asks.

          Hairy faces have been with mankind since the dawn of time.  In  this era of computers, software and apps there is still room for fun.  Two ingenious apps, Beardify and Stachify, allow a man to create virtual and instant beards and mustaches.  One moment you’re Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox or Moses parting the Red Sea.  All in the flick of a finger on a cell phone.  You can even transform women’s photos into a band of bearded ladies.  The laughter created by facial hair never ends.  It grows and grows and grows.

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This is my blog essay number 60.  What started out four years ago as a diversion from the Covid 19 nightmare became a reinvigorated passion to write.  I’ve had fun stringing together essays and poems.  I want to thank my wife Kathy who’s been supportive in my endeavors.  She’s also my editor extraordinaire.  Thanks also to my dear close friend, optometry school classmate and colleague  Vince Giovannucci whose artwork and cartoons have  added such zest and humor to my essays.

By Leo de Natale

Adonis On The Half Shell

By

Leo de Natale

Illustrations by Vince Giovannucci

An elbow injury had forced me to alter my thrice-weekly exercise routine at the local gymnasium.  Instead of upper body weight machines that were painful, I concentrated on calisthenics and  leg exercises.  The quadriceps machine required me to push a solid angular platform with my lower legs.  I rested between reps and looked around me.  And there he was.  Directly across from me was a paunchy middle-aged man.  He had just arrived at the exercise station.  An Adonis he was not.

He was about six feet tall, probably in his mid-to-late fifties. A rumpled, faded Guinness Stout tee shirt outlined his growing pot belly.  He was lifting dumbbells while performing the aerobic step exercises, right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot.  Mr. “A.”sported a three-day-old beard that revealed graying chin whiskers. The scruffy look seems  popular these days but in “A”’s case it drew attention to his aging.  A neck gullet was forming and he was a hairy bastard. 

As he turned his back to me I was astounded by his neck.  I’d never seen a man whose entire neck was camouflaged  by hair that belonged on his chest.  You physically could not see skin.  There was that much hair.  Very Neanderthal. I asked myself, how does his barber handle this hirsute challenge? A hedge trimmer or perhaps a Lady McCulloch mini-chainsaw?

What was really amusing was his particularly bad “sweep over” that was making a futile attempt to hide his baldness.  Most bald men using this method have too few hairs to attempt to conceal the “curse of alopecia”.  This gentleman had allowed a three-inch wide band of side hair to grow and cover the middle portion of his bare scalp.  I was convinced he had applied mousse to prevent any movement of the “sweep”.  Those suckers were gonna stay in place, goddammnit, and be able to withstand the wind tunnel test.

Of course anyone who was on the gym’s second floor or standing 40 feet from him could easily see the fore and aft bare skin.  Sweep overs were man’s feeble attempt at deception  and the quintessential example of self delusion. 

The piece de resistance was his face.  “A” was bespectacled with Geek grade eyeglasses. They weren’t Armani’s or Ralph Laurens.  Just a cheap pair of Walmart spectacles that exposed his strong,  nearsighted prescription with thick lenses.  The most glaring issue, however, is our friend’s bad case of disfiguring acne rosacea, a skin condition that afflicts many persons of Northern Europe origins – English,Irish, German, etc. His nose, cheeks and chin were scarlet and called attention to his unattractive visage. 

His cheeks  resembled an interstate roadmap.  He would never be considered a chick magnet.  He was wearing a grubby pair of Chuck Taylor high-cut sneakers but didn’t realize the Chucks had only recently become a faddist fashion items.  He’d worn that brand  since the 1970’s.

His  dorkiness was accentuated by a 1950’s-style wrist watch, complete with the  Speidel Twist-O-Flex expandable watch band; his timepiece was not a bespoke Rolex Oster Perpetual.  Few gym-worshipers wore watches because they were normally glued to their iPhones and constantly texting.  If wrist watches were worn they were either Apple iWatches or the black, macho, oversized G-Shocks that provided every conceivable function – day, date, moon phase, stop watch and, of course, the time of day.

“A” was among groups of older gym rats who are trying to attain physical fitness and weight loss, a process made difficult with ingrained eating habits and metabolism changes affecting body shape and change.   At the gym there are many sculpted younger men and women preening and strutting their stuff.  Young women tantalize the males with their skin tight leggings that would explode if they emitted a  combustible fart.  Adding to the titillation are the spandex v-neck jerseys that expose cleavage. 

Others wear gym tops that are basically bras-in-disguise with some extra fabric wrapping around the back.  Such displays cause much knuckle-biting among the strong, red-blooded American males!

American women seem to want it both ways.  They flaunt their sexuality with provocative gym attire yet want to obliterate toxic masculinity.  Can’t have it both ways, ladies.  Blame it on the spandex.

Of course the preening men, most of whom are denizens of the weight room, display their male equivalent of such exhibitionis.  Those who are fit and muscular wear the sleeveless muscle shirts  exposing well defined biceps, triceps and pectorals.  They stare at themselves in mirror-lined gym walls.  They flex, admire their images and take occasional selfies.

          The men’s gym shirts are available online and have different styles and amazing names: Racerback, Stringer, Drop Arm Tank, Crest Tank, Sleeveless, Legacy Stringer, the one with little fabric in the back or front.  Of course, there was also the classic wife-beater undershirt that always appear in gangster movies.   

As an ever-increasingly added feature, many – males and females -are sporting tattoos in all shapes and sizes.  One fellow sports a black, full beard and is wearing a black sweatshirt.  I refer to him as Mr. Blackie.  Most people keep their sleeves loose at the wrist.

 Blackie, however, pulls the sweatshirt sleeves to his elbows where he exposes “sleeve” tattoos on both arms.  The tats occupy enough space to hide visible skin.  “Hey look at my ink! Ain’t it impressive?”, such an exhibitionist seems to say.  Some women display sleeve tats or something behind the neck, thigh or ankle.  Pick a body part and you’ll see ink.

Modern society has the acceptance of body tattoos and many, if not most Gen Zers  under age thirty have at least one tattoo.  Wait until they discover how unappealing these  permanent body alterations appear when they reach age 55, 60 and beyond.  Collagen loss produces flaccid skin.  The tats become an undiscernible  blob of black ink.

And then you have the geezer population.  Older men’s garb at the gym is usually comprised of baggy sweatpants and oversized sweatshirts emblazoned with a faded “Old Orchard Beach, Maine” emblem.  The really old guys eschew gym garb and wear chinos and a well worn plaid flannel shirt and/or polyester short sleeve dress shirt dating to the 1960’s.  This group is not interested in making a fashion statement.  Older women try to hide the sagging body parts with loose gym clothing.  But, hey, both the senior men and women are at least trying to remain physically active.  Points for the seniors.   It’s better exercising at a gym than morphing into a couch potato.

By the time a person reaches age 70, the body parts are wearing out.  A knee replacement here, a hip replacement there.  The human body changes appearance.  Most are moderately to severely overweight.   Everything sags.  Our faces start resembling a stone quarry.  Double chins suddenly appear; a gulletectomy is needed.  A man’s Adam’s apple disappears.  April is the cruelest month of the year, right, T.S. Eliot?

As for me, I’m included in the geezer group.  But I’ve tried to stay in shape – I’ve been regularly exercising for more than thirty years.  Although I’m happy to keep my weight down but some things change and there’s no controlling sagging, flaccid muscles, a slew of brown age spots, skin turning into crepe that create old man’s hands- just like my dad’s. 

Aging is a bitch, physically, medically and emotionally.   For such men as Mr. Adonis, the reality is premature.  I hope he turns things around.  For me and so many of my old brothers and sisters it is “One day at a time, one moment at a time, baby! Amen.

Made In China

By

Leo de Natale

Illustration by Vince Giovannucci

September, 2023

CPA Joe Di Nobili was in a foul mood. There was discord at his accounting office. Personality clashes had erupted and his job as Chief Executive Officer was to put out fires. There had been growing tension between two of his employees. It was a turf battle and he’d seen these tempests many times during his 30-year career. As in most offices, intramural friction created a lot of agita.

In his late forties, he was an attractive man. He was tall and fair skinned. His eyes were an unusual light green. His hair was brown and he had a slight cleft chin. He did not fit the description of a stereotypical Italian. He and his Irish Catholic wife Karen had two children, both of them were in college. Joe and Karen were presently empty nesters. They’d come to enjoy the quiet and solitude. They met at Tufts University. Joe received his MBA and CPA from the venerable business school, Babson College.

After the day’s squabbles at the office, he was glad to be in his suburban home in Arlington, Massachusetts where he could relax and have supper with his wife. After their meal the two sat in the living room. As a means of escaping the day’s hassles, Joe was reading another Scandinavian noir murder mystery. He rested his feet on a leather footstool and paused to admire the new tan opera slippers he’d purchased earlier that week.

       Good footwear was important to him but ever since childhood he dreaded buying new shoes, boots, sandals or slippers.  His feet were oddly shaped and sometimes difficult to fit.

       He had bought the slippers – the traditional brand L. J. Stoutfoot’s- at his favorite, longtime, old-fashioned shoe store in nearby Cambridge.  The footwear sold there were expensive but the salespeople were longtime employees who knew how to fit shoes.  Slippers and moccasins were an integral part of the inventory.  Customers knew they’d be paying top dollar but the service and customer relations were incomparable.  The slippers cost $90 and Joe didn’t mind the price although he discovered Amazon.com was selling the same shoes for $50.  No matter.  He preferred  buying something the old-fashion way.

After dinner Joe removed one slipper and admired his purchase. These slippers were incredibly comfortable and they looked good, too. But hold on, he saw something was wrong. The stitching inside the left slipper was unraveling and he discovered the lining wasn’t leather. It was vinyl-covered fabric. Fake leather. Curiously, he looked inside the slipper and suddenly it all made sense.

Underneath the manufacturer’s label was a second piece of fabric stating the country of origin. It bore all-too-familiar words: “Made In China”.

“God, everything is made in China, honey,” he bemoaned to Karen. “Look at this. I pay top dollar for a Stoutfoot slipper and it isn’t well made. It’s vinyl, not leather and is crap. That’s what it is!”

On Saturday, Joe traveled to the store and showed the defect to a salesman.

“I’m terribly sorry about this, Mr. Di Nobili,” he said. “I’ll just exchange this for a new pair.”

A new pair was inspected. There was no stitching defect. He left the shop followed by a storeful of apologies.

He returned home and went his usual weekend chores. Fall was fast approaching and he busied himself with grabbing some rakes that would be used after the leaves turned color and fell, leaving a carpet of red, yellow and orange.

He visited a local garden center and began purchasing the tulip bulbs that would be planted by mid-November. The days were still warm, the nights cool. Good planting weather, good sleeping weather.

That night, Joe opened the box containing his new slippers. He put them on but, wait a second, something felt funny in the left slipper. Removing it he was in disbelief. The insole pad covering the slipper bottom was loose and flapped open near the heel area. What is going on here? Yet another example of shoddy workmanship.

“Can you believe this, Karen?” he yelled. “These shoes are so damned comfortable but they’re merda!”

He’d been searching for good looking slippers that also provided comfort. He decided he’d give these suckers another chance and instead of returning yet another pair, he drove Monday to his cobbler John Gillooly who applied glue to the insert.

“Boy, the footwear they’re selling to us Americans is shitty,” John said. “Like they say, things ain’t the way they used to be. Don’t use the slippers until nighttime. Glue should be dry by then.”

Three months passed and Joe was indeed enjoying his slippers. They were very comfortable and he laughed because the style was very similar to the slippers old Italian men, his father included, wore around the house or working in their gardens. He remembered his paternal grandfather Joseph, “Nonnu” who’d emigrated from Messina, Sicily in the early 20^th Century. Joe always joked about Nonnus being from central casting. A proud man, the father was short in stature but retained the Sicilian preoccupation with “respect”. That also accompanied the legendary Sicilian temper. Joe possessed a diluted version of Nonnu’s quick trigger. Things such as the office imbroglio would quickly summon the family trait.

Vinny De Vito, Joe’s best friend and college classmate, was a first generation American whose parents were born in Italy’s Abruzzo region. Vinny jokingly referred to the slipper style as “Scampies”, a name used by Italian men from Abruzzi. Vinny described the stereotypical appearance.

“You’d have these old Italian guys wearing their uniforms,” Vinny said. “The wife-beater t-shirts, the pot belly, the Italian cigars, and the Scampies. They’d shuffle around looking for that last glass of red wine before supper.”

Vinny spoke the truth. He recalled Grampa Joe sitting in the living room and the image was a photocopy of what Vinny had just described. Of course the sofa was typical Italian: clear plastic covers and arm rests draped with white doily antimacassars. During the winter, his grandparent’s house reeked of moth balls, a common scent in immigrant homes.

The nostalgic daydream had wafted over him on a fall weekend. One day in October, Joe was noodling around the house. He was wearing the slippers and suddenly his left ankle buckled. No pain, no injury but the incident was odd. Until he inspected the slipper and gasped.

“I don’t goddamn believe this!” he bellowed.

       What Joe had observed was the left heel.  After three months it was worn down and the cheap fabric was exposed.  The heel and sole were completely worn away.  Joe was livid.  After a mere three months, the slippers were coming apart.  Jeez, you pay good money for  products that used to be made in the United States and the companies now manufacture them in some hellhole factory in China or other Asian countries.

       The following day Joe made a beeline to the shoe store and once again approached the manager.

       “I’ve had these slippers for three months and look at them,” he said while suppressing his volatile Sicilian anger. “Selling a product that is substandard and poorly made is not a good look for the business.”

The manager sheepishly looked at the disintegrating left heel and was embarrassed. His facial expression was a Jackie Gleason hamana, hamana, hamana.

“Gee I apologize again, Mr. Di Nobili,” he said. “I can give you a new pair. Is that okay?”

“No, it’s not,” De Nobili replied. “Because you know what’s going to happen? I’ll be back in another three months with the same problem. I tell you what I’ll do. I’m going back to my cobbler and, I’ll have them re-heel this poor excuse for ‘well-made’ slippers. If the work is too expensive, I’ll ask for my money back.

“Well, I got to be honest with you,” the manager replied. “All of our slippers, regardless of the company, are Chinese manufactured. My boss says there’s nothing we can do. The ones made in Europe, for example, are too expensive. Retailers are between a rock and a hard place.”

Once again, Joe returned to John the cobbler who assured he could replace the heels with rubber and the cost would be minimal. Five days and $35 later the slippers had been repaired. John was a craftsman. Hopefully, they would now last. Joe was angry. A $90 product had now cost him more than $130. What a rip off he said to himself.

That evening, he started searching the internet regarding the China/United States trade deficit. Many people talked about it but it was an exercise in frustration. The statistics were frightening. He traced the trade patterns from 1985 to 2022. In 1985 China exported goods – electronics, cell phones and clothing – totaled $3.86 billion. In 2022, the total exports were $535 billion while the United States exports to China was a measly $110 billion – a three-to-one drag on American economy. Joe’s slippers were part of that.

He grew up during the death throes of the 20^th Century’s Cold War. Russia’s Soviet Union had imploded and the Western World sighed with relief. Through his education and experiences running a business, Joe realized one monster was replaced with another. From 1990 to 2000 the world had experienced a brief respite from turmoil. Then came 9/11, an event that continued to fester.

Concurrent with that event was a different Cold War and the new bogeyman, Red China. Joe long realized this. He worried over his children. What type of world will they lived through? It was a depressing question.

February, 2024

Joe and Karen decided they would approach life with the eat, drink and be merry attitude. The Serenity Prayer’s, One Day At A Time, became their mantra. Joe’s Sicilian blood made that decision easy. Italians usually find a glass half full.

As for the disintegrating Scampies, the soles began to split. He unceremoniously tossed them in the trash can. The same day he drove into Boston’s financial district and purchased a pair $400 genuine leather Bally slippers made in Switzerland. There’d be no more ersatz footwear. He smiled while driving home. Salut!