Page 12 - Italian American Herald - September 2021

12 ITALIANAMERICANHERALD.COM | SEPTEMBER2021 ITALIAN-AMERICANHERALD REFLECTIONS
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usually is not too happy with what I bring home. However, this day, I felt a strange need to stop. The windshield wipers seemed to sing: “pull over ... pull over ... pull
over!” I did, grabbed my umbrella from the back seat, and scurried up the driveway, trying, unsuccessfully, to stay dry. When I entered the garage, I immediately noticed this was no ordinary garage sale. A pleasant young man, wearing a Temple University basketball sweatshirt, greeted me and told me everything in the garage and in the house was for sale. His elderly, single and childless uncle, Mr. Sakura, had lived there alone, and, against the nephew’s advice, took a reverse mortgage. His uncle died recently, and the nephew, being sole beneficiary and executor of the estate, with no desire to inherit any
of the shoddy personal effects, was selling everything. The reverse mortgage people wanted the house empty within 30 days.
He invited me into the house, and I immediately noticed a strong but pleasant aroma of years of embedded cherry pipe tobacco smoke. I saw what I surmised was the old man’s comfortable, cushioned brown leather smoking chair, by the streaked, grimy front window, and next to it an antique oak circular table holding an old pipe and a pouch of Captain Black cherry pipe tobacco. A handsome, polished cherry wood ashtray, with a large, magnificent oyster shell the
size of my fist implanted right in the center
At that moment, we heard a deafening thunderclap, and a few second later, a blinding bolt of lightning struck the cherry tree’s top.
of the wood, seemed to radiate in the living room light. I walked around the table. I ogled the shell from all angles of my 360-degree inspection. At some angles, it shimmered pink; at others, light blue; at others purple; and finally white as pearl. I knew I had to have it.
Not to seem too desirous of the ashtray,
I milled about the kitchen and feigned interest in a few other items, some wooden spoons, a couple cookbooks and an old coffee percolator. Shrewdly, as I retrieved my umbrella from the corner and was pretending to leave, empty-handed, I nonchalantly asked the nephew, “How much for the ashtray?” “Oh, I don’t know, give me $5?” he said,
as he shrugged his shoulders and turned both palms upward. In a few seconds, the currency bearing Abe Lincoln’s portrait was out of my wallet and in his upturned palm.
Even though I do not smoke, never have, the ashtray found a place of honor on our bedroom nightstand. After I washed it well with warm soapy water, and polished the oyster shell and cherry wood with some WD-40, it looked like new. Surprisingly, my wife did not mind it being in our bedroom. I thought it would be a handy place to keep loose change and keys. She even laughed about the terrific bargain price.
That evening, avoiding travel in the worsening storm, we had a nice, quiet dinner at home; sipped some Chianti, and then I called the girls. I mentioned how melancholy I was to have taken down the swing. The girls each comforted me, and sincerely expressed how they treasured the memories of the cherry tree and the swing. The storm was getting violent, affecting the cell phone reception. Our oldest daughter told me she had some good news to share. However, the service was so bad that we could hardly hear each other. My wife finished the call while I poured the last of the wine.
We ventured upstairs to bed, and fell asleep. The next thing I knew, my wife was in a panic, shaking my shoulder. “Honey, do you smell smoke?” she queried. Confused and groggy, I sprung up, and inhaled through my nose. It was not her imagination. Smoke and the pungent odor of cherry pipe tobacco filled the bedroom. She started to cough uncontrollably. I turned on the light, and was shocked to see the ashtray glowing, quivering and smoking hauntingly on the nightstand. At that moment, our smoke alarms began to shriek, with piercing blasts. We jumped out
of bed, and rushed downstairs, out of the house, into the front yard, in the drenching rain, thunder and lightning storm. Now, I do not wear pajamas to bed, just gym shorts and a T shirt. That saved me some embarrassment as the neighbors poured out of their homes, after hearing our smoke alarms, and the sirens. My wife, in her checkered flannel nightgown, was not so fortunate. At that moment, we heard a deafening thunderclap, and a few second later, a blinding bolt of lightning struck the cherry tree’s top. We heard a scream of splitting wood, and smelled the sickening odor of burnt cherry wood. The lightning sheared off the large, thick limb closest to our bedroom window, sending it twisting and smashing through the window like a javelin, sharp end first. The eight-foot projectile deeply impaled the mattress where I had been sleeping a moment earlier.
When the firefighters arrived, they disarmed the smoke detectors, and after dutifully inspecting the entire house, could find no fire or source of smoke. They escorted us in, and we told them about our experience in the bedroom. They listened politely, but no one (including us) could smell any smoke. The ashtray, previously phosphorescent, looked perfectly inert. The
firefighters removed the tree limb from the mattress, screwed a large piece of plywood over the shattered bedroom window with a power tool, and bid us goodnight.
As the sun rose, my wife and I embraced. The storm had stopped. We dressed and walked out to the side yard, under the cherry tree. Other than the damage to the top branch, it looked just fine. “It’s going to be a busy Sunday, dear,” I said. “I have to buy a new mattress and repair a window!” My wife smiled wryly and looked at me with those beautiful, piercing deep blue eyes. “When you are finished with the mattress and the window, I need you to hang the swing back on the cherry tree,” she whispered. “Our daughter wanted to wait to tell you today over Sunday dinner ... We’re going to be grandparents!” IAH
Richard A. DiLiberto, Jr., Esq., a partner
with the Wilmington, Delaware law firm Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP, practices plaintiffs’ personal injury law. He is chairman of the Delaware Commission on Italian Heritage and Culture. This article originally appeared in the May 2021 issue of The Journal of the Delaware State Bar Association, a publication of the Dela- ware State Bar Association. Copyright © Delaware State Bar Association 2021. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
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Vol. 8 / No. 7
By Jeanne Outlaw-Cannavo
to make Tuscan the official language of the country. When “standard Italian” was adopted as the only official language, several adaptations had to be made in grammar, lexicon and pronunciation. It was also compulsory in all acts of public administration and taught in schools, when no “standard Italian” existed, although it had been somewhat used prior to the unification in official acts, in schools and in universities.
However, this in no way changed the
fact that outside of schools and government agencies the people of Italy continued to speak a variety of dialects across the regions as well as from province to province.
As a non-Italian by birth and a retired teacher of Italian, I have often been asked
if Italian dialects were just a subset of the official language or separate languages derived from Latin. Research and personal views of linguists often differ on this question.From my own personal experience, having both traveled throughout Italy and lived in Lazio and Sicily, I believe that no local language or dialect of Italy can be considered a dialect of “standard Italian.” Moreover, having to learn the local jargon of these two regions and other areas where I traveled, proved to me that the various dialects were being used as living languages.
Just imagine how absurd it would be
to consider the Florentine dialect, from which standard Italian derives, a dialect of standard Italian, when it was spoken before standard Italian even existed. One might even argue that standard Italian is a dialect of Florentine. While I studied the “standard”
“That’s not real Italian!” and “My nonna doesn’t say it like that” are protests that Italian teachers have heard from students studying the “official” language of Italy. Personally,
I never disputed their claims but simply explained there was a difference between standard Italian and what they heard at
home from their Italian-American relatives. For centuries, Italy was divided into many states, usually under foreign rule which led to a great diversity of languages spoken on the peninsula. When the country unified in 1861, the new government leaders decided
ollege, it wasn’t long
THE CHEF'S PERSPECTIVE Summertime, and the grilling is easy
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after I first visited Italy that I was learning a whole different language. In fact, the first two Sicilian words I learned were iddu and idda, (lui and lei), meaning he and she in standard Italian. It wasn’t long before I began a whole
JULY 2021
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