It’s around here someplace, perhaps. But it’s always in my
memories. Because of tumult in my house caused by the flood of a week-plus ago,
there’s no way I’m going to start digging for old photos of the film and
negative and slide kind.
And it may be gone. But I can picture it now. It’s my Uncle
Sam Ghianni, almost 40 years ago. He and I had stopped to eat a nice plate of
cow tongue at a Basque restaurant in the high desert of California the night before.
He had left a bit early from his job as an engineer on the Space
Shuttle – he was working on Challenger at the time, and I was fortunate enough
to walk through that doomed vehicle while it still was just a skeleton.
I’d driven his big, diesel-powered Oldsmobile down from Palmdale/Lancaster
that day, parking for a while in Hollywood and then heading out to Universal Studios.
It wasn’t a theme park yet, though you could
take a little boat ride through a circular pond where “the shark from ‘Jaws’”
would pop up and growl. I’m not sure it was one of the dummy sharks used in the
movie, but it was a little cool.
And, since it was a weekday, the primarily Japanese folks
who joined me on the ride laughed and snapped pictures of the shark.
The big secret at Universal was, while we could wander among
the sound stages, see demonstrations, visit the sets not being used, no one
could go near the one big hangar-like studio building where Steven Spielberg
was filming something called “ET.” Those letters were painted above the main
door to the hangar, but tourists were not allowed to walk near.
Anyway, it was one of several trips I’ve made to Los Angeles
and California over the years, going all the way back to my wandering hippie
years, which included crashing on the floor of my uncle’s then-residence in
Placentia, down in Orange County, for a few days. It was a needed respite,
because I’d been on the road for a month in my old 1965 Falcon, sleeping on roadsides
and campsites.
In New Mexico, a doctor I’d never met – Dr. Gutierrez – performed
some minor surgery on my left leg. He didn’t charge me. The lobby was filled
with Native Americans and I was apparently in what Huck Finn would call “Injun
Territory.”
After New Mexico came about a month in Arizona, leading up
to a long trip downhill – I turned the gas off in the old Falcon someplace near
Flagstaff and put the Falcon in neutral and coasted downhill for about four
hours. Oh, occasionally, I had to turn
the car on to get up a hill, but mostly, the Falcon was going downhill, finally
running out of downhill slope someplace on the outskirts of a dirty little city
named San Bernardino. Now it’s a big
city, by the way. And it’s still dirty.
Still, that trip was 50 years ago, and Wizard, a college
friend guy who was along for the ride and none of the driving and who slept all
day while the car was moving, and I rolled into Placentia and refreshed a few
days, using my Uncle Sam’s shower, sleeping on the floor of his living room.
“Man, you guys smell,” he almost joked us when we first arrived.
That’s a long story and ends up with me having an Orange
Julius while waiting for the taping to begin for The Johnny Carson Show. The
stand was just across Alameda from the NBC Studios (at Alameda and Olive) in
Burbank. Being in the studio while
Johnny did his schtick gave me almost the same kind of thrill I felt the first
time I saw The Rolling Stones. Well, not really, but it was cool. David
Carradine and Buddy Hackett were among the guests.
Enough on that trip, other than to say I tired of my car
partner someplace near Fisherman’s Wharf, and we began the long drive home. It
took about a week and a half, as we had stops. And since Wizard slept all the
time, we eventually got to my old dorm at Iowa State, where we crashed for a
few days. While Wizard slept.
It was many years later when personal trauma led me to one
night call my Uncle Sam from my apartment in Clarksville, Tennessee. I was
being spiritually suffocated, but no need to go into that here. I needed a break. I asked if he’d mind if I
flew out to California to visit him for a few days while he worked at Edward’s
Air Force Base and the Space Shuttle Program.
It was a great trip, and, usually I’d drive him to work sometime
around 5 a.m. and then have the car for the day. I explored mountains and
beaches and bars, finally picking him up when the workday ended. Most evenings
we stopped at a little Mexican diner where we had massive chimichanga plates
and a beer or maybe more. We laughed. He introduced me to other space engineers
– this was “their joint” – and, well, I had a helluva time.
One night, he decided that instead of the diner, we’d go for
a ride out on the blue highways through the high desert, which found us at near
sunset in the midst of Basque country, where the hills were filled with sheep
and shepherds.
“I was here once before,” he said. “I think you’ll like it.
You ever eat cow tongue?”
That’s where, while Spanish/Basque musicians played, we ate
big plates of cow tongue. Only time I’ve ever feasted on one of those, but it
was good and we washed it down with Basque wine of some suspicious vintage.
Enough on that. The next day, he was off from work during
daylight, going in at night, I think. So we again went out into the desert,
this time to a mountain along the Santa Fe rail line. He thought I’d like to
see this mechanical marvel, which had a train looped several times around and
through the mountain as it rose up from the desert floor. That’s where the picture I’ve not found comes
in that I took of my beloved Uncle Sam – everyone else called him Uncle Johnny,
even though his name was Sam (aka Sabatino or Samuel) -- as he stood in front
of that mountain with the train snaking around it.
The next day we drove through the beach towns outside of
L.A., including Manhattan Beach, where he at one time had a rib joint. He went
broke, but he still bragged about his rib sauce and expertise whenever that
topic came up.
In the years since, Sam finally retired, he and Ginnie
eventually moving to Mountain View, Arkansas. We actually saw him fairly
frequently, as he would come over to visit his big brother, my dad, Em J.
Ghianni, 10 years his senior.
And, for decades now, Sam has been there for every funeral,
wedding (some had more than one, you know) and gathering. He also came over to
nurse his big brother as my dad’s health began what eventually was a long
descent toward death in 2019. He’d stay
with his big brother for a week or two, as the two sipped scotch, ate fruit and
cheese and talked about growing up in Buffalo, New York.
My brother, Eric, and I always figured we’d go over to see
him in Mountain View sometime after my dad died. My wife, Suzanne, and I shared
similar plans for a year ago, scrapped because of the Trump virus.
Joking. COVID-19. I shouldn’t joke about Trump, as my uncle
and I had disagreements about that candidate and president, and we avoided
conflict. To me, Trump was and is a corrupt thief, misogynist, racist, liar and
treason-monger. My Uncle Sam, who had been an activist in Bobby Kennedy’s 1968
campaign (that ended thanks to Sirhan Sirhan in the hotel kitchen), had grown
conservative.
He liked Trump. I despised the asshole of a president. And
we agreed to disagree. I think only once did he object, publicly, to one of my
rare political posts on Facebook.
I did disagree completely with his own, more-frequent,
political posts. But then we’d talk on the phone – I had to remind him he was
the head of the Ghianni family, the last one left of the five children of
Alfina and Sabatino Ghianni. Johnny died
as a kid. Frances, Rita and my dad all lived fuller lives. My Uncle Al Conte,
my own godfather, who was Fran’s husband, also was dead.
So, I told Uncle Sam that since my dad was gone and he was
the last one left, he was sort of “The Godfather” of the Ghianni family. He could issue offers we couldn’t refuse,
though none of us wanted to sleep with the fishes.
He laughed, but he took the role seriously, calling in for
quick checks on everybody. Not long conversations, but they always ended with “I
love you” on both ends of the line. “Talk again soon.”
The last three or four weeks I’d been trying to get in touch
with Uncle Sam, leaving messages on his phone. I told him I was just checking in,
and I’d call again soon.
The last message I left was me wishing him a “Happy Easter. …
I hope you are cooking ribs at church (or something like that),” I said in the voice
mail.
“I’ll call you again in a few days. I love you. We all love
you and Ginnie.”
I always told him in those messages that he could call me
back if he wanted to, but I’d get him soon, regardless.
Well, I don’t know if he heard that Easter message.
Last Thursday, April 1, he went for his first COVID
shot. I don’t know if that had anything
to do with the fact that basically he shut down hours after Moderna went into
his arm.
He had a lot of health difficulties, so there likely is no
correlation to the shot, although he could have had a bad reaction that triggered
some of his other woes with fatal fury.
Ginnie got him to the hospital and he was improving some
until Tuesday. He was on full-on oxygen, but he seemed to be improving.
The techs were
wheeling him down for an X-ray to make sure he didn’t have pneumonia when he
coded. I’m sure he knew the techs, since one of his pastimes was as a hospital
volunteer. He also was like the No. 1 congregant, the head Columbian or head of
Knights of Columbus, or whatever at the small Catholic Church in Mountain View.
There was a “DNR” in his living will. He just had turned 88 years old.
That whole generation of Ghiannis is now gone. My dad, the
oldest, was born shortly after Alfina and Sabatino were processed through Ellis
Island.
It’s odd to me now, after 69 years, to realize that I am the
last generation left. My cousin Robbie Conte (Fran and Al’s kid) and my brother
Eric.
That’s it. Just the three of us who gathered around the
Easter table in the duplex walk-up on Folger Street, just around the corner
from the Como bar, really one of those famed Italian coffeehouses, I believe, where
plans were hatched.
Grandpa Ghianni used to take me there. He’d have whiskey.
Me, ginger ale. I’m sure Rob, his late brother Ronnie and Eric were there, too.
Now as a member of the oldest generation of Ghianni family
members, I’ll have to make sure that my kids know enough to realize that their
family came here seeking the American Dream. They were, literally, the tired,
the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of
the teeming shores of Italy.
They achieved those dreams, of course. All of that
generation achieved far beyond what they could have in the mountain villages over
the Adriatic.
Maybe someday, I’ll go to those villages to see if there are
any Ghianni family members left, some who perhaps have heard stories of
Sabatino and Alfina. Or who were there when my dad, Emilio, and his bride, Dot,
visited maybe 40 years ago.
I could tell them all about my experiences, my family, my
father. Rita. Fran. Uncle Sam. Maybe throw in an anecdote about my Uncle Al
Conte, who was the nicest human being I ever met.
I love my family. I miss all of those people.
Uncle Sam is dead now.
I guess that makes my brother Eric the don, the head of the family.
I’m sure he’ll wear that mantle well, as
long as he can fulfill his duties in sweatpants. Long story, there, but true.
This “column’’ was written, stream-of-consciousness style,
in the hour or so after I had a long conversation with Ginnie. So there may be
errors of style, none of substance. And
none of the heart.
“My uncle was a great guy,” I told Ginnie. And, in unison almost, we said “he was a kind
person.”
What a drag it is gettin’ old, a friend of mine once sang,
as his own childhood pal played the guitar.
