I didn't care.
I guess they would be.
That was my idea.
And I never did live out on the hill.
I didn't have no reason to go out that far.
I stayed mostly in North St.
Louis.
See? And I found some very nice people.
You know, we got along.
But when I came on Semple Avenue, they were kind of different.
The people downtown, further where I lived, they were more friendly.
So when we bought that house, I think that lady that lived there must have told him around there, oh, there's a party going to come here with five kids, you know, and all that.
So my next door neighbor didn't talk to me, so I didn't care.
And we lived in the back.
But the husband, when he went in the back, he'd say good morning or good evening.
But they didn't live there long.
They moved.
Because they lived downstairs, and they had birds upstairs.
Birds? Birds, yeah, they were singing birds, yellow birds, whatever you call them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's what they had upstairs.
And all these things, they never had those children.
And then they moved, and somebody else come in, and it was much nicer.
And then the one in the lot on the other side, they moved.
What were your parents like? Can you describe your parents? You know, I can't hear you, friend, so good.
Now you can hear, why don't you answer? I was your parent.
Little talk, you listen.
Come here.
Okay, so now you're asking.
You talk, because he can't hear.
I can hear, but I can't hear.
Hello! So what was your mom like? She was a nice -looking woman.
She sure was.
Tall.
Tall.
She was fair.
She was from the northern part of Italy, nearby them.
Nobody took her for an Italian.
They thought she was German.
My father was a nice -looking man, and he raised two.
I'm going to buy a sherbert, and I want to put that in a plastic bag.
Plastic bags? Yes, so it'll keep so it won't melt.
Oh.
What now? It's warm, and the sherbert will melt in this hot weather.
Ice cream sherbert.
Ice cream sherbert, yeah.
And if you have it in a plastic bag and in another bag, probably it'll keep a little bit.
Don't you see? I'm going to get some oil, and I'm going to get some bread, I'm going to get some eggs, I'm going to get some gallon of milk, thin milk.
I want to get enough so I don't have to come back, you know? I'm going to get some ice cream sherbert, and I want to put that in a plastic bag.
You can take my picture while I'm doing this too, if you want to.
There wasn't nobody around that neighborhood to bother you because there was gangsters in those days.
They watched this case.
They didn't bother nobody.
When they went out, they went out to get somebody that had the money to get it, whatever they done.
Well, I'm going to tell you, when we lived on 18 Division, my father was robbed one night.
By who? Coming home.
See, he had a personality.
When we lived on 18 Division, he had a personality.
So I think he had bought a new pair of shoes, and the old ones were under his arm.
So they thought he had money.
So they gave him a whipping, because they didn't find no money, and they broke his ribs.
Then he had to lay in bed for a while with his ribs, you know, bandaged up before he got better.
Does he know who did it? I guess not.
It was late at night, you know.
So we didn't stay long on 18 Division on the corner.
That's his passport photo.
Yeah.
There's two of them there.
Where's the other one? That one.
It's laying there loose.
Give me that way, honey.
Oh, here it is on the table.
I don't want that one.
This is better for you.
Well, put it right next to the other one.
This, you know, hold on.
Oh, put it out next.
That's a good one, that other one.
Want some light on it? Oh, that's good.
Ha ha ha.
That's good.
Okay.
Mom? He looks like a mom.
Well, there's a room that goes up the stair, I think.
There's a pop -up in there.
So do you miss Grandpa? No.
Oh, yes, I do at times.
But I have to get used to it.
It's pretty lonely around here, I think.
Huh? A little lonely around here? Yeah, it is at times, but when you have a little something to do around the house, the time passes, you know.
Do you have a garden issue? No.
No.
You can just get a...
No? Grandpa used to put the garden in.
Yeah, but I'm not going to go digging at my age and put up a garden.
I'm glad that I could do at 83 what I am doing.
Well, he did it.
He was 90 and he figured it out, didn't he? Yeah.
Well, he let the weeds grow in the garden.
He let them grow? Yeah.
Then I'd have to pull them out myself.
Was Grandpa hard to live with when he was older? Yeah.
Did he have a little trouble? Yeah, he had problems.
He said, if you get over it, you know.
Hi, Noah! Hi, you made it! Mom! Hi there! He's taking pictures of us down the side.
Are you checking me? Hi, guys.
Hi, how are you? I know what you're talking about.
Hi, Noah.
Hi, baby! Hi, how are you? Good to see you.
Hi, how are you? I'm great.
Come on over.
How are you? I don't see you in there.
You've been gone long enough to kiss us.
Yeah.
I don't want you to look too easy.
Look at that.
Everybody has a right to their own mind.
No, I agree with that.
No, but I'm saying he came from a tradition, you know.
And then he expected all the kids to be named after his folks.
See, my oldest one, his father was named Girolamo in Italy.
Okay.
And I thought, well, Girolamo, I don't like that name.
I'd call him James.
Okay.
Yeah.
Now, Tudy is named after his oldest brother, Salvatore.
And he says, of all the names you hang on me is Salvatore.
Oh, he said, that's the Savior's name.
You know, his father told him.
And he cut it down to Sam because when he was in service, they were making fun of his name being Salvatore.
See? Sure.
And that's it.
He said he liked the name of John.
I should have called Gary.
Excuse me.
Maybe they have him over there.
I like the old -fashioned ride.
That's a mild ride, if they have it.
They don't have too many seats.
Do they have the old -fashioned ride here? I wonder.
This is not old -fashioned either.
This is 89.
Listen, if you have any more issues, we'll put a 9 -10 to you over here.
Did he ever hit him? Sure he did.
He sure did.
He sure hit him.
And when anybody hits you when they're mad, boy, they can really hurt you.
Have you hurt him a couple times? Sure.
Sure he did.
Yes, he did.
I remember when he was young, he went to a circus and stayed out all night.
And boy, he was really mad and he really hit him.
And he said, now you go out and help Joe sell paper.
That wasn't right.
He was so tired he slept on the lawn.
Your daddy did.
I'll never forget that either.
And he shouldn't have done that.
He shouldn't have done it.
But the kids all turned out good.
They turned out good and I'm glad too.
He got up in the morning and he went to sell his papers and then from that he went out there and he won it.
Won the race? He won the bicycle race.
And he was so very proud.
He was what, about 32 when he died, wasn't he? About 32.
About 30 or something like that.
And he had dropsy.
There was no cure.
They would tap him? No, they'd tap him and it would weaken him and give him a blood transfusion and he'd swell up, you know.
His face would swell and other parts of his body would swell and everything.
That was bad.
And he knew he was going to die, but he didn't tell me.
Because when the doctor told him, When the doctor told him he had dropsy, he cried.
He sat there on the sidewalk in front of Gates and he told the customer that he was going to die.
That doctor died too right after Joe, too.
Dr.
Pershe.
He was on St.
Louis.
Is dropsy like a form of leukemia or what? No, dropsy is you've got a lot of fluid in your system at some point in time.
It's under your skin, you know.
Your system doesn't dispel the water.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't know too much about dropsy.
Yeah.
And one time they gave him a pill that drained it all out.
And I thank God, I thought he was okay.
And I told the doctor, he said, Well, he's going to fill up again.
He only lived a year with it.
I want to see what their potatoes is.
Are they all the same, I wonder? Without a price on them? I'd have to call produce.
There must be an error.
Produce? Nobody's in there.
I want to see if they've got some loose ones.
The produce ain't in there.
The produce man is not even around to get the tides on the potatoes.
Where did he go? Well, I didn't ask him for a confession.
See? He used to fall down.
He'd try to sleep standing up and he'd fall down.
Well, did you see? At last, the piece gets real swollen.
And it gets heavy.
And he just couldn't, you know, move.
Home.
No, in the day.
I had gone shopping.
And I wasn't home, see? I left him there at the table.
And then grandpa had just come home from a ruptured operation.
And he was laying down in a bed.
And Joe tried to get up while I was shopping.
And he fell to the floor.
When he fell to the floor, the fluid drowned him, you know.
Well, when it was on his lungs, it drowned him.
And then my neighbor, who lived in the front, came looking for me and found me.
He was dead already on the floor.
Going pre -send to? No, no.
Not after he was dead.
That's what I should have done for grandpa, too.
But I didn't think of it.
How much is a potato? Three pounds for a dollar? I didn't want the...
They're more higher because they're new potatoes.
And there's some in the bag over there.
So they're not marked how much that ten pounds is.
See, that's what I like to know.
But there is no...
Toadish man on the...
Way down there? Well, I'm going to ask him.
How much the pound, ten pounds is.
You know, before he died, I smelled the scent of flowers in my house for two weeks, believe it or not.
You know, just like the flowers that they have in these undertaking places.
Did you smell them? Yeah, I could smell that perfume.
You are? Yeah.
Geez, like an old man's psyche.
Yeah, well then I had Dr.
Flood, I mean Father Flood, he came.
And blessed him.
He could eat.
Father Flood? You know that he's out at St.
Kevin's now? Oh, is he? Yes.
Well, he was there, Father Boal was there too.
But then I called Father Flood.
And then Father? And then Joe just ate his breakfast, you know, he'd eat.
All right, that's one good thing.
And then I told him I was going to call the priest.
What for, he said, see.
I said, well, he was going to say some prayers.
That'll help him.
So all he done is just bless him on that.
And that's all.
That's because we just put it out, it's been refrigerated in the back room back there.
It's got some moisture in it.
How about this? See, that's a good one, that's a good one.
That's a good one.
All right, put that back here.
Okay.
What is that telephone? Thank you, ma 'am.
Yeah.
You have to look.
Now I'm going, I'm going to get...
Over here looking for something.
I'll tell you one time when I was, I don't know how old I was, if I was 12 or 13.
And it was a palm reader on Franklin Avenue.
And I was reading that palm reader and I was thinking, So I went in there.
They read your palm, you know.
She sat me up on the table.
And I put touch, her body, boy, she was born.
And she would tell me you're going to have a lot of children, but you're not going to raise them all and you're going to be a widow.
Pepper, get the phone.
Get him outside, Brand.
Get him off of that.
Yeah.
Okay, let him out.
I ain't sad.
Frank, Frank, get the dog, get the phone, and take him out of the bag.
Right here.
Is this grandpa's room? Yeah.
Is this the statue that you...
I bought.
He didn't make that.
Maybe it is plaster, Paris...
That's plaster.
That's plaster.
Yeah, but I bought it from a man that went around.
Oh, I got everything upside down here.
How much did you pay for it? Oh, I don't know.
It was years ago.
I don't know if I paid even a sillon and a half, paid her 50 cents a week, until it was paid up.
So you've had that for...
Oh, a long time since I lived on...
I'm here for about 16 years, and I don't know how long I lived over there.
That's a long time, see, it even needs paying.
Before he did pass, he said he thought he was going to die.
So he went to bed and stayed there all day and got up at night and was okay, and he ate.
He was down there about two times.
But the day that he did pass, he didn't say nothing.
He ate his breakfast, then he'd come in and ate his supper, and he went and looked at TV, at Gunsmoke, from seven to eight.
Then he got up and he went to the bathroom.
I think he went in the bathroom, then he went into the kitchen.
Then he was coming into the dining room, and I seen he was headed to fall.
So I went up in front of him, and I said, you walked over to the dining room table, I said, hold on to there.
And I said, hold on to the dining room table.
With that, he slipped down and he was gone.
The heart gave out.
Yeah, he was gone.
And then I called the police, you know, and then they got an ambulance.
You know, the fire departments have got an ambulance, and that's free.
But that, he slipped down and he was gone.
Died.
Then I called the police, and then they have that ambulance that comes, that's free, you know.
Yeah, and they tried, how they rub you, you know, try to get your heart, but didn't do it.
And they had him in the emergency room, probably trying to bring him to, but they couldn't.
They said, well, he passed.
But when they took him to the osteopathic hospital, they couldn't do nothing.
Wow.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
They give you first aid at home, and then they take you to the hospital.
But when they took him to the hospital, he was dead.
They couldn't bring him to you.
So we had to get the undertakers.
And they always used to say, why does one have to live so long? He was 92 and he couldn't do nothing, you know what I mean, but sit on the porch when it was nice and warm, and he'd eat.
Oh, he ate till last.
Oh, did you? Oh, he ate till last, too.
And that's how it all happened.
Oh, you didn't get the coffee? Huh? There isn't.
You want to make some? You want to have any coffee, Bernardo? Can you make some? I will.
Thank you.
The cake is good.
That's good cake.
I think Marsha made that cake.
It's good.
All right.
Take that.
There you go, Marsha.
Get that stuff out of there.
Thank you.
