Ten Lives of Dante Pallone (eBook)

A Journey from Childhood to World Travel, a Heart Transplant, and Thirteen Years of Hormone Therapy for Prostate Cancer

Dante Pallone (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
200 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-8423-1 (ISBN)

Infos

Biography of a man's journey through life, health and personal growth

Born in Pueblo, Colorado; Currently lives in Richmond, Virginia. Graduate of the University of Colorado

Textauszug

Chapter 1

From a Babe to a King

It was a beautiful spring day with not a cloud in the sky in 1949 when Dante Pallone was born. Or so his mother told him so very often over the years, especially on that sunny day in May. He was born breech (ass first, if you don’t know). This led him to believe it was why he was a gawky, skinny, red-headed screwball. Well, there are not a lot of people on earth who would be interested in a guy from Pueblo, Colorado. He grew up near the trains of a steel mill and other things associated with it. He was poor but happy, scrawny but scrappy, and intelligent but stupid. He was no Walter Mitty, but life took him on such a journey it’s a tale unlike many others, mostly comedic and sometimes serious. One could probably name thousands of poor Italians or Hispanics and other kids who faced the problems Dante did and maybe wound up a celebrity, but not Dante. Lots of his relatives and friends would like to hear about where he went and what happened to him. Plus, his children and grandchildren might also like to read about his adventures, although the steamier parts might have to be redacted. Oh, what a life! Dante’s life resembled a Mark Twain novel, full of odd friends and relatives and a burning desire to learn and, especially, to love. His parents were in love, and his mother, Teresa, was the most beautiful woman around, or so Dante guessed, because so many men would turn their heads to look at her. Dante would have liked to kick some of them in the nuts, but he was too short. Teresa’s nickname was “Babe,” always called that by Dante’s father and her brothers. He did not know what her father called her because he only spoke Sicilian. Since both sides of his family were Italian, one of Dante’s long-term regrets was never learning the language. Although his parents both spoke their version of Italian, they all wanted their children and grandchildren to only speak English. That way they could speak Italian and the youngsters had no idea what they were saying. His family was dirt poor, but he had no awareness, as it was one of the happiest times in his life.

In the beginning, Dante and his folks lived with his mother’s sister Marie (his godmother), and her husband, Edwin (his godfather). They had two children: son, Lee, and daughter, Lue, who became his closest cousin. He remained close to Lue his whole life. After a few years, Marie (who was also very beautiful) and Edwin and their two kids moved out, but they and Dante all still went to the nearby Catholic school together. Tuition was one dollar per month, and Dante still remembers taking two dollars for tuition, for him and Carlo, his first brother. This was still quite a bit of money for a family living on less than $200 per month. Lee and Lue came to Dante’s house after school and waited for their father to pick them up after work. Sometimes Edwin would take Lee and Dante to the YMCA pool where he taught Lee to swim. He also tried to teach Dante, but he was so damned uncoordinated, it was a futile task. Plus, a lot of the older men that lived at the YMCA swam naked! Scared the bejesus out of Dante. Dante’s brother Carlo was born about the time Edwin and Marie moved out. Later, his brother, Will, and sister, Rose, were born.

How they lived for several years, with and without the other family, in a house with only a one-quarter bath is crazy to him now. That’s right, ONE SHITTER, NO sink, NO vanity, NO tub nor shower! When Dante and his brothers were small, his mother bathed them in the kitchen sink. As they got older, she’d bring in this big old galvanized tub and fill it with pitchers of hot water from the kitchen sink. There were various orders of merit as to who got in first. Usually, it was Dante, but as Carlo got older and since he was very strong, it could be him. It was wonderful to get into that warm water first, but then they froze their ass off getting out. Eventually Dante’s father, Ben, put a shower in a closet once used by Marie and Ed.

How Teresa’s father, Giuseppe Laurencia, was able to buy three houses on that street without speaking a word of English and working as a laborer on the railroad is a mystery to everyone. As lore would have it, Dante’s house was once a store for small neighborhood items. His grandfather would sleep in the front room. The local mafia (called the Black Hand by his grandfather and family) shot through the window one night, and they found the bullet in his pillow the next day. He closed the store because he was not going to pay part of his income to the bastards. He and his wife, Rosaria, moved to the house next door, which he also owned, and lived with his son Ralph and his wife, Franny, for many years. The third house was occupied by Teresa’s oldest sister, Carina, her husband, Raymond, and their three children. Perhaps his grandfather bought these shacks, all three way less than a thousand square feet, before the area was developed. Most of the rest of the houses were much nicer, maybe 50 percent larger and some with full brick siding. Their three were really the slums. Dante’s house in Marien was in an area of about three hundred homes, most owned by Slovenians (Dante and other Italians called ’em Bojons) with a mix of Italians and a few Mexicans.

Dante’s uncle Joe Riccini (Chick) lived directly across the alley from Dante with his wife, Dot, and two boys, Jojo and Rudy. Dante didn’t know where Chick got his name from, but everyone called him that. Chick and Ben were very close, as Chick had his left arm nearly severed near Omaha Beach (but he did make it through). Ben had other issues from the war, but Ben didn’t talk about them until years later. When Ben returned from the war and married Teresa, he worked in the steel mill, replacing asbestos insulation in the furnaces, until a big strike set him idle. He wound up becoming a bartender at a popular tavern, owned by Johnny G. Johnny paid him about 50 percent more than what he earned at the mill. After about twenty-five years, Ben bought his own bar with a couple of partners. Ben’s bar was noted for its green chili and spaghetti Thursday! Dante knew that Ben was a bartender all his life and never made much money. Jojo and Dante were best buds and went to school together at the same nearby Catholic grade school. They always had a great time together and played baseball in the alley between their houses. Dante liked to go to Jojo’s house and watch The Three Stooges or Laurel and Hardy on TV. His Slovenian grandmother lived with them and called Dante “Hoodeech” (that’s Dante’s spelling, and it means devil or little bastard, etc.). Little did she know.

Ben was quite a handsome man, and Uncle Chick tried to talk Ben out of marrying Teresa (to play baseball, for God’s sake!). But at five feet five and 135 pounds, Ben didn’t think he’d go anywhere. Ben was always Dante’s hero, especially in those early years in Marien. His mom would take him to Ben’s softball games where he had such fun and would have the other team laughing. His dad played shortstop. The best team in the area was Sweeney’s Feed Mill, and sometimes they gave Ben’s team five outs or four strikes. They loved playing each other because it was FUN! Ben’s nickname was Dog, which he got back in high school from some crotchety old bus driver. Sometimes the other players called Dante “Little Dog.”

During those years in Marien, Dante couldn’t imagine a more loving environment. Even though he was as scrawny as a toothpick with big ears and freckles, both his parents doted on him with hugs and kisses every day. He got the most because he was an only child for three years. Carlo, when he was born, was perfect and so cute everybody loved him. He was almost snatched by a stranger (a woman in a fur coat) on the street one day because he was so damn cute and cuddly, while Dante didn’t quite make the cut. Everybody loved Will because he was also very cute, but he had a real onery streak. Rose, when she came along, was really beautiful, with lovely auburn hair. She was loved by everyone too, and Dante and all his family would take turns holding her when she was a baby.

Dante played baseball all summer in a little league, called Old Timer’s, at the Bessemer Park field. Toward the end of his last summer in Marien, Dante met his first Black person. He was Eddie Smith and was quite an athlete. He’d pitch, and Dante would catch (Dante was real good at catching but had an arm like a four-year-old girl). Eddie went on to become a star basketball player at Kansas State for Cotton Fitzsimmons.

Dante and his mom would talk a lot because she was so concerned that he would fall in with a bad crowd. Little did she know Dante WAS the bad crowd, because around eleven, he realized girls didn’t have wieners! Now, he just wanted to see that thing, so he formed his own gang, the Black Knights, with a couple of other guys. Their target was a girl down the street, Jackie, who despite being very pretty was a little tomboyish. Dante offered her a membership in his “club” if she would drop her drawers for them to see. She promptly dropped those suckers, but the guys really didn’t see much.

She must have slipped and told her mother about the Black Knights, which of course led to further questioning. This led Jackie’s mother to come raging down the street to talk to Dante and his mother. Yep, the little shit had done it, so he took a tongue-lashing from both and snuck back into his bedroom. Jackie’s mother surely thought how could that horny little bastard could still be an altar boy many days of the week. Jackie still laughs about it today.

Well, now gone was his mother’s dream of Dante becoming a priest. She...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.12.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-8423-1 / 9798350984231