What's In a Name

When you look at the picture above, do you see any Brandons, or Kyles, or Rashads, or Treys, or Brads, or Brices, or Myles? Of course not! That's Tony, Frankie, Joey and Sal. Those names stood for something. Tony was for Sant' Antonio, the patron saint of Italy. Frankie was for San Francisco, the patron saint of New jersey who used to watch over Frank Sinatra. Joey for San Giuseppe, the best step father of them all whose feastday on March 19 should be celebrated with more fervor than the Irish do for St. Patrick. Salvatore means saviour, which refers to Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Add these to Vinnie, Mike, Carmine, Jimmy, Louie and Johnny and you have the majority of names in my neighborhood in the 60's. If Vinnie was to ever meet Kyle, he would probably give him a nouggie just for having a name like that. As we got older and ventured out of the North End to go to high school that's when we met kids named Brandon and Myles etc. These kids didn't seem healthy. Their complexion was pale in comparison to Carmines' olive glow from head to toe. They didn't eat the same food that we did and I think that was part of the problem.

When they sat down to lunch they would take their neat little brown bag that had been carefully folded and placed in their book bag. Out of the bag would come one of two sandwiches; it would either be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a slice of bologna between two pieces of Wonder bread. With this their mothers would pack them an apple and a cookie. It would take them no more than 5 minutes to eat their lunch. They would then take their nice and neat little brown bag fold it up and put it back in their book bags to be used again the next day and maybe all week.

As they were almost finishing along came Vinnie, Frankie and company with their number 10 wrinkled brown bags which were used to carry last Saturday fruits and vegetables purchased at the market. The bags were odd shaped sizes and usually had an oil stain on the bottom. Out of the bag Vinnie would pull out a spacchi (a 12'' piece of bread) wrapped in wax paper that was oozing with either olive oil or gravy. His mother would make sure that he had enough to eat just in case the Russians bombed us and he had to stay in school overnight. Sometimes the submarine sandwich would be filled with sausage and broccoli rape, sometimes a nice frittata of potatoes, peppers and eggs and sometimes with meatballs loaded with gravy. The sandwiches were always loaded and were never dry. Even when they made you a cold cut sub, they didn't put mustard or mayonnaise on it - God forbid, you'd ruin the sandwich. Lettuce, tomatoes, onions, peppers (especially the roasted ones) marinated eggplant, or even broccoli rabe would always be a topping for your lunch and that's what created the oil spill in your bag. Even the tuna on Fridays was the imported kind, packed in you guessed it not water but olive oil.

Our mothers were smart. They made sure that we had all the things that were on that food pyramid chart in one sub. And they didn't have to do any extra work because most of the stuff was left over from the previous night's meal. I would always pray that there would be extra veal cutlets left over that way I would have them for lunch one day a week. It's unfortunate that tupperware didn't exist yet because no matter how carefully they wrapped the sandwiches, after five hours in the bag, everything would smell of either olive oil or gravy. There was always fruit and either anise cookies or some other home made dessert. We had twenty five minutes for lunch and we always needed the full amount to finish what was given us.

We generally sat with a group of boys from East Boston and took up probably a third of the cafeteria. The smorgasborg of smells that emanated from that area was a true testament to the work and love that went into Italian cooking. The Oscar Meyer kids would sit there gawking at us as we took the 20 or so bites that it took to finish one of those wonderful subs. It took them all of five bites and they were done. Sometimes I would be full and would give one them a portion of my sub. I think I could have made some good pocket change if I had taken a few extra sandwiches along. As for our brown papers bags, well you guessed it there was no way to recycle these oil stained bags, they were thrown away.

I will always remember the ride out to Longwood Ave. each day as I headed to school. The Arborway trolley was packed like sardines and we had our olive oil stained bags to prove it.