We Can Touch History

Tomas Transtromer, in his collected poem, The Great Enigma, writes:

“My maternal grandfather, Carl Helmer Westerberg, was born in 1860.  He was a ship’s pilot and a very good friend of mine, seventy-one years older than myself.  Oddly enough, the same difference in age existed between him and his own maternal grandfather, who was born in 1789: the storming of the Bastille, the Anjala mutiny, Mozart writing his Clarinet Quintet.  Two equal steps back in time, two long steps, yet not really so very long.  We can touch history.”

I love the words, “We can touch history.”  My own father was 40 years older than me.  He was born on December 27, 1921 (though his birth was recorded as January 6, 1922).  If he were still alive, we would be celebrating his 90th birthday next month!  He was a natural-born storyteller and the stories of his youth “back in the old country” brought to life a Sicily that no longer exists: a time when all farm work was done with a mule and calloused hands, when a shovel, a pick, or an ax were the greatest of tools, a time when food was so scarce that meat was a luxury, to be fat was equal to being rich, to go to” l’America” was the greatest of dreams.

I loved my dad and I loved his stories.  Through descriptions of his youth,  in my mind I could imagine the cobbled streets of the home village, Grotte, the fields of wheat, the olive, fig, and almond orchards, and the vineyards well before I saw them with my eyes for the first time in the spring of 1972.  I never met his mother, Mamma ‘No, nor his paternal grandmother, Mamma Luigia, but I feel as if I knew them.  I carry these  women in my heart. Dad’s stories brought them to life for me.  I could see my Mamma ‘No (his mother) wearing dreary black her whole life because one by one, year after year, her family members died and custom dictated that she had to wear black for each family member for at least one year.  I could see her hungry eyes, her overworked body, her bitter smile, and I could see the fierce, protective love she had for her children.  She was the type of mother who would make mincemeat out of anyone who so much as threatened any of her children!  Everyone knew that fact!  She had fainting spells when she became overly agitated and she was very sensitive to gossip.  She hated gossip and walked away from it.  She had very few friends and lived for her children.

Dad’s stories also brought to life his paternal grandmother, my great-grandmother, Mamma Luigia.  She was sweet as sweet can be.  All I have are two faded photographs of her and some stories.  She had deep pockets full of hard candies which she doled out to my dad and my aunties.  She worked the land and toiled from sunrise to sundown. My dad had never seen a harder worker than his paternal grandmother.  From the well to her stone hut in the countryside, she carried water in a huge ceramic pot balanced on her head.  She occasionally had to take the train to another village to see her relatives and she took this trip quite seriously.  If the train was to depart at 10 a.m., she would be at the train station (la stazio’) by 7 a.m.  She was teased mercilessly about showing up so early for her train, but she would explain again and again, that the worst thing in the world would be to be LATE and MISS the train.

I know how my grandmother and great-grandmother lived, how they embroidered and knit, washed laundry by hand outside in the courtyard in a large basin and hung it up to dry on lines stretched between the houses, across narrow, crooked, lava-stone-cobbled medieval streets.  They cooked, made their own sauces, aged their own cheeses, and rolled out their home made pastas ( li cavatti), baked their own bread, and had baby after baby.  I like to imagine how they pulled out their simple caned chairs in the late afternoon after all the house chores were done, and sat outside their doorways, watching life go on in their little cortile (courtyard).

My Mamma ‘No had my father late in life and she was born way back in 1880! As for my paternal great-grandmother, Mamma Luigia, I am not completely certain of her date of birth.  What I do know is that her son, my Grandpa Gallo (Mamma ‘No’s husband and my dad’s dad), was born in 1877.  That could put Mamma Luigia’s birth around 1847-1857.  That was so long ago and, yet,  I can imagine the old Sicily she grew up in.  It is as if I was there with her at the lantern lit evenings with the red-hot coal-filled brazier keeping our feet warm in the cold stone house of winter.  Yes, we can touch history…and history can touch us!

Transtromer’s “We can touch history” also made me think of what was going on in the world the day I was born, and in 1961, and in the 60’s in general.  Here is what I have found:

What was going on in 1961?

Average Income per year $5,315.00
Cost of a gallon of Gas 27 cents
Average Cost of a new car $2,850.00
Eggs per dozen 30 cents

Major World Political Leaders

France President Charles de Gaulle

India Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru

Russia / Soviet Union
First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev

United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower Till January 20,
United States President John F. Kennedy From January 20

1969

• ARPANET, the Precursor of the Internet, Created
• Charles Manson and “Family” Arrested
• Neil Armstrong Becomes the First Man on the Moon
• Rock-and-Roll Concert at Woodstock
• Senator Edward Kennedy Leaves the Scene of an Accident
• Sesame Street First Airs
• Yasser Arafat Becomes Leader of the PLO

Even if you did not just have a monumental birthday, you should check out what great event/s happened on the day OR the year you were born (unless you are my birthday twin..in which case I have done the homework for you (Kim Johnson and Kathy Ridgely Beal-that would be you!!)!  And share it with me by posting a comment below!