Clang-Clang-Clang went the Bell

Before my cancer operation, I wrote this to Dr Garcia of Sloan Kettering Hospital.
At the time I didn’t think as funny, But actually it really was. I only just thought of it because I’m going for a Colon cancer operation and felt I had to tell my surgeon about a scar that might be a problem….
I’m writing this to inform you of something that I had completely forgotten about for over 40 years. In a meeting this past week with my General Practitioner, Dr Magliulo, we discussed the up and coming procedure that MSK doctors were going to perform on my cancer. In the discussion we talked about some of the happenings I’ve had over the years, and I recalled an event that happened to me in 1972. My one year old son was just learning to walk, and he was playing with a 6″ handheld Indian brass bell, that was a sample of what I was importing at the time. He left it upright on a chair and it was not visible under a dining room table that was in a corner of the room. I, being very agile, and without seeing it, swung around and sat down on that chair landing directly on that bell. Needless to say, it went straight up into my body between my testicals and my rectum. My natural reaction was Jumping up, and I knocked over the completely set up table and at the same time pulling out the bell which had gone completely in me, all the way up to the bell portion. “Clang-“Clang-“Clang” went the bell as it came out along with a flush of my blood. My oldest son Trey helped me outside, and thereafter I was rushed to a local hospital, trying to hold back the blood with my finger, and by the time I got there the wound swelled shut and my testicle sack began filling up with the blood that could no longer come out the hole created by the bell as it swelled and closed. My Testicle sacks filled to the bursting stage and were almost the size of a basketball. When I arrived at the hospital, the doctors shocked at what they saw, could not decide how to proceed, so they finally agreed that it was best to let nature take it’s course. They actually moved me into a room in the maternity ward and I was put into “Sits baths” daily to re-leave the pain and allow my new basketball to float. I was there for two weeks as the basketball became a softball, then back to normal size at the end of that time, so I was released with no further damage to my body. I was 40 years old and strong, and just forgot about it. However, it brings up a point that there may be scar tissue in that area from the accident that might effect my operation.
I tell you this with a laugh now, but at the time it was not so funny as the movies make it out to be, also, just to make you aware of this incident before you operate on me. I have had no repercussion from that accident nor the one earlier( I was 18), were I fell into a steel shaft cutting my left testicle in half, causing the same affect. Here again no physical affects had changed any of my abilities, especially having children…I had 3 sons. Both incidents happened and disappeared. Just for your knowledge, and maybe a little laugh.
Regards,
Sal Bianco Jr

I will be writing about my Accident when I fell into a shaft

Me and my Uncle Joey

Written-10/13/2013

 

When I was 16, I loved going to one of my father’s 5 places of business, a trucking company founded by his father, and that he now ran with his 4 brothers. It was called “THE FIVE “B” TRUCKING CO. He had 5 brothers, but, but the youngest, Raffie, had married to a beautiful women whose family were kinda connected,( to find out more about this read my Grandfathers story) so he was able to own his trucking company that picked up paper stock rolls for the newspaper industry. His is another story for another time. For now, I’d like to talk about Uncle Joey. Oh, buy the way, when us boys went to work with their fathers, we called the trucking company “The Five “B” Trucking Co with three the “sons of B’s” 

Uncle Joey, a quiet gentle man who had a fuse that blew in a second. I saw him flatten a big truck driver because he had yelled at my father. When I say flatten, I mean one punch, and down for the count of fifty, but he really was a lovable guy, really, and handsome…WOW!!!

Well, all the brothers would meet at 4:00 am each morning at the railroad yards on 37th st and 11th Ave, to load sides of beef that came from Chicago’s stock yards on our 4 trucks , and then delivered them to our customers who were wholesale butchers located on the 14th street meat market. Thereafter, each brother had his particular job to do with his truck, with each having their special way to maintain it. Uncle Mickey’s was perfection and no one was allowed to drive it period! The rest of us jumped from one truck to the next, didn’t even bother to clean the windshield. When there was a problem with a truck, the brothers would call Uncle Joey to fix it, who was called “Kid Screw Driver”. He fixed everything with his trusty screw, even flats! A few times he sent sparks flying when a truck wouldn’t start. He used his trusty screw drive and somehow would create a short and a screeching of sparks would fly. Crazy thing, none of brothers would curse, whereas, cursing was the standard language among the workers throughout the meat market. Maybe it was because us boys were around and they watched what they said.

 It was Uncle Joey’s job to deliver “The Route”, pronounced “raout”. What’s the route you ask? Well, it’s delivering to the local small butcher shops in Manhattan that were our customers, and Uncle Joey had about 25 customers. What was done daily, or weekly, by each of his customers was to arrive at the meat market at about 6 o’clock in the morning and buy whatever they needed for that day, or week. They always bought from their same wholesalers, maybe three or four, each specializing in different meat products. Different butchers had different wholesalers that they favored. After each butcher finished his purchases, he would stop off at our office, give my father what his purchases were, and then have a cup of coffee with buns, be kidded, or teased about one thing or another, but it was fun and we all loved it, My father would be there with a wet DI Noble cigar “a stogy” in his mount always with a little smile on his face. Everyone in the market always wanted to stop by our office, especially the mounted police, who tied their horses to the mirrors of our trucks. Each officer would be part of the fun and each made all of their co-officers throughout Manhattan know enough to leave all  “Bianco Bros Trucks” alone, no matter what might be illegal. So, we could travel anywhere in the city and not worry. We had a lot that we could worry about without the “cops” being on our backs. Most of the trucks were maintained by Uncle Joey. We had maybe 10 trucks and they were all  old and falling apart. Most poorly working brakes and it was a challenge to be able to go anywhere and use only your head to get around without good brakes.  Another reason the Cops liked us was that they shared all the stuff that somehow fell off the truck. Cousin Al, who we all loved and was so special, wanted to become a cop because of the ones that hung around our office. There is another story here, but I’ll save it for when I specially write about him. I still miss him terribly.

 OOPS! Back to the story. Each of our butcher customers would leave the sales slips they received for their purchases at the Bianco office where my father would be collecting them for Uncle Joey take and pick up each order for that day. Uncle Joey would have to cruise the whole market, stopping at each to pick up whatever each of his customer bought. The workers from each wholesaler would set aside the orders for each butcher knowing who were Uncle Joey’s customers, and would have those order ready for Uncle Joey to pick up. Again, please realize that almost all the workers in the market made their way to our office for the comradery that was always there. Uncle Joey’s customers didn’t buy every day, so his truck would be full but not overloaded. After he finished loading, but before starting out he would plan his route accordingly for that day. Making the last stop on his deliveries to be first put on his truck. When it was my turn to go with him, He would have me use a hand truck and pick up all the boxes and things that would be nearby the truck. Some crates had chickens in them loaded with crushed ice to keep them fresh. Some boxes had assorted deli-meats, such as baloney, or salami, and some had flank steaks. We would load the truck backwards so that when we were fully loaded, the orders on the back of the truck were for the first to be delivered.

 After he made all his rounds of wholesalers, it would be about 8:00am, he would then begin to make his deliveries which would take him till about three o’clock. As each of the kids of the brothers were old enough, they would love to come to work with their dads, but always wanted to go with Uncle Joey. My brother Al has his own stories, as does each of the sons who came to work. It usually worked out that only one nephew would have the chance to go with Uncle Joey, and when it was my turn, I reveled in just being close to him. He was a man’s man, with a beautiful mustache, bushy black hair, and very handsome, but usually with a slight smile on his face. No, not because of anything in particular, but that was how he looked, serious! Nobody would ever think of approaching him to threaten him, he was built like a rock. When he smiled, it hit you in the gut…it was beautiful. Our dress for work was a light blue, thin white striped uniform that usually would last one day, as we were working with meat, blood and a lot of greasy fat, not to mention all the oil and guck we got from the trucks. We all had to wear a flat hat, called a “newsboys hat”. Because we had to carry the meat on your shoulder, a part of it would rest on the side of your head covering our ear, which gave us balance.

Sometime it was a hind quarter of meat that weighed two hundred pounds, or maybe a four quarter that could be over two  fifty to three hundred pounds, and very, very, very greasy. The hat was a must, but he looked like a guy who knew who he was, who was not afraid of anything, anyone, except my father, who each brother adored. I’ll write about my father in another story, but for now it’s Uncle Joey.

 At his first stop, the butcher’s name was “Joe De Mino”, a guy who loved to pull jokes on him, and later on, us. He spoke with a strong Italian accent and always looked like he was always laughing. In those days, each retail store would put down sawdust on their floor, fresh every day. It just was the way it was done, no matter what retailer you went to, a restaurant, grocery, bar, butcher, baker, or candle stick maker, all would have a floor of saw dust. Spill something and the sawdust absorbed it. Actually in those days the main the real reason was that people would spit on the floor wherever they went. It was a bigger problem in the subway, cause people would spit on the shiny cement floor and others would slip on the spit, and wind up in the hospital. It got so bad that eventually, starting in the subways, they passed a law “NO SPITTING”. “NO SPITTING” signs were everywhere. Didn’t do much good till heavy fines were handed out. Then people got the idea, fast. But please remember, at that time, it was socially accepted, well, maybe not the “high fluting” people, but they never really went anywhere and had servants to do the daily stuff. Getting back to my story, “Joe De Mino” would ask us to be careful not to disturb the sawdust and he would make a pathway through it and lay down newspapers in our path till we left, as his butcher shop had to be perfect when he opened for the day. His neighborhood was in the center of Greenwich Village, where a lot of the gay people lived. Not that there is anything wrong in that! So, he catered to mostly single customers, small portions, and he bought accordingly, small stuff, and maybe not always the best.

 Uncle Joey would then go to his next stop, go through the same procedures and continue on. Each butcher was character, and each had his own idiosyncrasies. Each had a very  different clientele, as is the case in each area in lower Manhattan, it had either a certain nationality, or class of people, but always with different  tastes. After a while, he would wind up on Mulberry St, the street where our family began, with two customers who were even more unique. (“Make sure you get to read Grandpa’s story, there are things in it no one in the family ever knew about”), The first butcher was “Stingone”, and as it turned out much later, his son was very interested in my oldest sister, Elizabeth. She didn’t like him and tried everything to avoid him. Guess what? She eventually married Dominick, whose mother was “Stingone’s” sister, and both Liz and Dom started their own little empire. (Here again is another story for another day). Stingone’s butcher shop was in the lower part of Mulberry St, whose neighborhood was very ethically Italian where a lot of “sweat” shops were going full force. So you ask “What is a sweat shop?” They were places where small manufacturers made either parts for sweaters or dresses. They paid very little to their workers who just arrived in America and would do anything to send money back home. They really weren’t as bad as they were made out to be, as the comradery was fun. My Grandmother and all her girls would be given work that they produced at home. I would love to watch them sewing dresses, or putting sweater parts together. I loved it so much that I would help…not very good at it till later. A man would come to the third floor of 250 Mulberry St, where our family was based. My Grandfather rented the whole third floor, that had 4 apartments where everyone of the 9 brothers and sisters grew up, all on that floor. Eventually my parents rented an apartment on the fifth floor, were the first four of their children were born and grew up.

 

Back to “Stingone’s! A change was beginning to take place on Mulberry St as Chinatown, which was south of Canal St on Mulberry, the Chinese people there were moving North and eventually, by 2010, moved their border right up to the end of the Street at Houston. I’m sure you’ve heard of the term “SO HO”. Well, everything south of Houston street is “SOuth HOuston”, until Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese founded the area directly below called “Tribeca”. They both grew up one block behind Mulberry called Mott St. They are probable 5 years younger than me, so I didn’t know them, but they went to St Patrick’s Old Cathedral school and church. 

OK, let’s get back to “Stingone”, he was cheap and never offered us anything, but he always asked about my father and mother. The meat he bought was always “Good” grade. And we always made sure stuff fell off the truck before we reached his stop, it was amazing how dead chickens were able to jump off the truck, and even more amazing how those dead chickens got out of their box.

Our next stop was one that always amazed me. The butcher was a skinny guy with wild curly hair who thought we was an artist, acted like an artist and painted like Picasso.  As we arrived at his stop, because the street was narrow, we held up all the local traffic. The place was more like a pig pen than a butcher shop, but he had such a great personality, his customers loved him. He mainly sold goats, very skinny goats a grade lower than good. Every day he would paint a gigantic picture, drawing on a roll of brown paper used to wrap packages. He would display it in his front window which was not too clean. He had other painting on all his walls. He too spoke very broken English, but it always with a wonderful smile, you just had to love him. I’ve forgot to mention here that when we arrived on Mulberry street, I would do some crazy antics. In order in jump on to the back of the truck easily, there was a knotted rope about one inch thick with the knots about a foot apart, so that you could grab a lower knot with one hand and with the other hand grab the next knot up and so forth till you eventually got on board the back of the truck either with your butt or onto your feet. What I loved doing was to hold the bottom knot while on the road and swing out and bound along as the truck moved forward. Each bounce would take me about 8 feet till the next bounce. It was like flying. Some times I would swing out past the side of the truck where Uncle Joey would see me in his side mirror and he’d have a big smile on his face. I did things like that when I was young, and then continued on till now, but more cautiously.

Draw a picture of you flying

Uncle Joey always planned to reach a particular butcher, whose shop was off of Delancy Street, at noon time. Why you ask? Well, to have lunch, not just a little lunch, but a spectacular lunch. I can’t remember his full name, but his first was Carmine and his wife, and Uncle Joey’s wife, were childhood friends. Boy was she beautiful, just like aunt Peewee. Both Carmine and Uncle Joey with their respective wives were terrific dancers. Being they grew up at the end of the 1920’s, they danced the popular dance at that time called “The Peabody”. I would watch them at some party and dreamed of being that good… The dream came through… didn’t it? At any rare, we would have a great fresh piece of meat fried before our eyes with a glass of wine, then black coffee to kill for, topped with anisette. The area where the shop was located had Burlesque theaters, with vaudeville shows on their marquee. I remember seeing names that would eventually become TV stars. Vaudeville was a Jewish event where up and coming comedians would start.

As we worked our way across the tip of Manhattan, well before the Twin towers were built, stopping for different customers along the way till we would eventually arrive at “95East 3rd”. Now here was a butcher, a Prime butcher. What’s a prime butcher? Meat is federally controlled and it has established 3 different grade of meat. Good, then a little better, Choice, then very much better PRIME. Most butchers bought a combination of Good and Choice, but never PRIME. It had 2 inches of fat around each piece, and you could tear a piece off and eat it just like that. Really, we did it all the time (when we could get away with it). So, when we went to “95 EAST 3RD ST”, it was an honor. The butcher was a German Giant and spoke with that German English accent and would laugh so loud that your ears hurt. His two gigantic sons also worked for him and they too spoke with the accent and laughed just like him. His shop was spotless, big, with shiny chrome hooks along the walls, and gigantic mirrors on all walls. His saw dust was twice as thick as anywhere else.

He never bought anything small, so his hinds of beef were 300lbs. Try swinging that on your shoulder, but his sons didn’t bother doing that, they just would grab the hind under their arm and carry it in to the shop, twist it and reach it to a hook on the wall. Uncle Joey, or myself, didn’t have to carry anything into the shop as the boys did it all. Usually there was always a couple of wooden crates of chickens cleaned and ready to sell, a pig, that weighed 250lbs(Got to have pork for sausages) and a two hundred pound prime calf. This stop was the only one that Uncle Joey was careful to make sure that nothing was falling off of the truck. WHAT… did things fall out the truck? Well, they must have or else our family would never have the best of everything that meat could offer. Each uncle was great at one style of falling off the truck. Uncle Tony was the best. Every day when everyone was ready to go home, my father would have a package ready for each of his brothers. It was share and share alike. With always enough for the Patrolmen, garage workers who cared for our trucks, and even our neighbors in the Bronx.

 

We had about 3 more stops, but it was all downhill from here. This didn’t mean we were through for the day, no, no way. Now Uncles Joey had to take another truck that had rail inside along the roof, so that hanging meat could be stacked from back to front. One driver could handle the load, as the rails allowed the driver to bring the meat, usually hinds or forequarters, and roll them to the back of the truck and stack each of the ten perpendicular rails,  Another short rail would be attached later to the “A and P” warehouse loading dock rails. Then all the hanging beef would easily roll from the truck into the warehouse cooler. There were 5 “A and P” warehouses we had to deliver to. They were located as follows: In the Bronx, where Uncle Joey delivered to; Brooklyn where uncle Tony delivered to; Garden City, Long Island where Uncle Mickey delivered to; Newark, NJ where Joe Gag delivered to ( he was married to Aunt Millie), and finally “A and P Maspeth, NJ” delivered by Louis (married to cousin Maryann).  Later, my new brother in law, Dominick, who married to my oldest sister Elizabeth, would now take the load to A and P Bronx. By then Uncle Mickey got a job working for a provision house.

The reason we delivered to the A and P warehouses, was that my father, with his trusting way, was able to land this large account that used our trucks exclusively. It was called Berliner and Marks and they sold only calves and veal. It was owned by two Jewish men, Herb Berliner and William Marks, who were my father friends and who trusted him completely to make sure all their business was handled correctly, and it was. So, now three days a week we had to deliver all the veal to freezers to be sent to our armed forces overseas. Bianco Bros became their new name and all the trucks were painted white with Berliner and Marks logo on all sides. We got more trucks and hired more drivers, as we were growing.

As I finished High school, I wanted to go to College, but still found time to work at Bianco Bros. I never finished College as Bianco Bros was growing and my father wanted me to work with him thinking I would one day take over. In 1954, I bought a new car with the savings my Mother held for me. I was 22 and saw that there was no future at Bianco Bros, as my Uncles weren’t that much older than me, and I realized that if I stayed I would never get to run the business. So, I left to start my own business… Here again will be another story for another day, that affected my parents, my immediate family “to be”, my siblings, and my future. It’s coming soon. Wait for:

“Coming Attractions”

 

How our family started here in America

My Father’s Story

My Life and it’s Wonders

Earning money anyway I could when there was a 2 year crop failure in California

In 1959, my brother, Al, my brother-in-law Dominick Guerriero, who was married to my oldest sister, Elizabeth, and myself owned 4 flat bed trucks hauling fruit for Bianco Packing Company. It was owned by my other brother-in-law, Funzy Bianco, who was married to my other sister, Jeanie. We had been doing it successfully for two years and it was doing very well. A lot of hard work, but it was a future for us all. The crops the next year was very poor and not enough to keep 3 families with income and forced us to find other work. Being there only enough for one of us, my brother and I decided to let Dominick stay with the trucks and we would find other work.

So my brother went back into selling cars, which he had done before we started our little business. I knew washing machines from my little company in the Bronx, NY, so I went looking for work that way. It didn’t pay much and it was only part time, so I looked elsewhere. Being a good talker, I tried selling life Insuranse for John Handcock Life, Inc. I didn’t do well going door to door, so I came up with a new idea, selling group insurance to farmers. I asked my superiors at  John Hancock if I could set up my own group plan, called Farmers group. I using my old 1937 Plymouth I started going to farmers locally, then making a larger circle as I progressed. My idea was great but the timing was bad. Most farmer were going through the bad crop production and had no money or time to think about insurance, so I expanded my area of customers. One that looked very possible was a group that I could try to sell, and so I called it “The Mormon Group”. I met with a young man that headed the local Mormon church in a town called Sanger, Ca. The group had set up a separate area and made it into a combine-like community. My new friend, Ted, allowed me to come into his community to try to convince his followers that insurance would protect each family in time of death. They all listened, but again no takers! I turned out that Ted was actually trying to bring me into his foal. So, my having a very strong sense of being a Catholic, I explained to him that he could no more convert me than I could convert him. Thereafter we were just friends. Not getting anywhere with insurance, I need to earn everyday money to live, so besides working as a washing machine repairman, I found work at the local Drive-In theater in Sanger for $1.00/hour, as a repairman, janitor, and Soda-jerk. I worked 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, and when I was needed to repair machines, I did that as well. In the first two years of of Our trucking company doing well, I purchased a home North of Fresno, Ca. so when things got bad, I looked for work anywhere, doing anything to keep up the payments. using one of the trucks when I wasn’t working, I travelled into the Sierra Nevada Mountains finding dead tree lying about and with the permission of the rangers, I cut them and brought them back as firewood that I sold wherever I could. It was back breaking work, but between my other jobs, I was able to make payment towards our home and the furniture we had purchased fron a family friend. this tells of a tuff time, but there is mre to come in another story.

 

Beginnig of new story:

Our Next door neighbors were very friendly and tried to help. He, Mel Freeman, asked his brother brother who had a local store

My childhood friend… Raffey Papperrella!

HE WAS MY CHILDHOOD FRIEND! … RAFFEY PAPPARELLA
Today I thought of something, and someone that I have not thought of for 75 years. Why now? Well, I was thinking why people go out and kill. Just a rambling thought and then it dawned on me that I knew a killer, but when I knew him he was a 7 year old boy like me. We did everything together as boys will do. Get into trouble in little ways, or, sometimes just because we were  trying something new that looked interesting and fun. He was just like me in that we trusted all that was around us, and sometimes with the fear of knowing we were doing something naughty, and the he, she or they,  around us would let us know we were big trouble. some a kick in the butt, or worse they’ll tell our mothers. So, always there were controls, but controls we knew were out of love and not about spitefulness. My family moved away when I was 10, Raifey and I never saw each other again. His full name was Ralph Papperrella and his family was not large like mine, but he had a baby brother and a mother who was loving like all mothers. The rest of his family I never knew. One time we were playing pitch with a ball we made out of an old baseball that no cover. I had wound string that my Grandfather gave me around it to give it weight and bounce. Well, we always played in the street, as it was the only place that we had. Sometimes I pitched the ball to him or he to me. I remember so clearly one day as we were playing pitch, we noticed a big beautiful car parked just a little way down the street next to our famous “empty lot”. We knew this car didn’t belong there, cause who had such a big beautiful car like that. So we played our usual game hitting the ball down the street along side of where the car was parked. One time I was up and hitting the ball just beautifully…Here come the ball I swing…  Bam! then another Bam! It went straight at the Cadillac windshield. It shatters and the ball bounced high into the air. You never saw two kids run like the wind, me into my building, and straight up 5 flights of stairs and Raifey to his house which was near to where the car was parked. I naturally was curious to find out what was now happening in the street below. I wasn’t big enough to to look out the window unless I stood on a chair. At the time, I was a little peanut and stayed that way till I was 17, then poof! 6.2′. No way was my mother allowing me to look out by opening the window, cause she had them all locked so none of us kids could drop down five floors. I was dying to know if the owner showed up and who he could be. Had to be some rich guy, but what was he doing on our street? maybe he was one the guys with a bent nose. We didn’t need cars, we had trucks that were very smelly from the meat my Uncles delivered. Time for bed without a clue of the results of my great shot. No way could I tell my Mom! She was already mad at me for having a man with a camera take my picture then come up the five flights and told my other she owed him for the picture.  I still got it, somewhere… ? Think my Ex has it with all the stuff I left behind. So, off to bed with my two sisters and brother, all in one bed. Boy, I couldn’t wait! When allowed out after breakfast of oatmeal, down I ran (jumped) to the fourth floor in one jump, then the third floor, second floor and at last the first, but being careful not to step on a drunk sleeping on the steps, and then out into the street. Hey the car was still there like nobody saw it, and there it stayed for days till a police tow truck came and towed it away… Turned out, it was a stolen car left on our street after the joy ride, or some “other” activity. Raffey and me continued to play ball each day after that. Seven years later, I, now living in the Bronx on 205th St and Grand Concourse,  accidentally met Raffey’s mother, only with her other younger son, not Raffey. She said they still lived down on Mulberry Street and Prince St., and only came up to my neighborhood due to the famous local Bronx boy who said he sees the Virgin every day in a little cluster of trees near Villa Ave and Mosholu Park. This event had caused considerable fame, and people were coming from all over to experience it. Raffey’s mom was one of them, and meeting me was just a coincidence, as our street was just across from the supposed sighting in the park.
She was so happy to see me and I her, and then I asked…”Where’s Raffey?”. That is when she sadly told me that Raffey was in prison for killing someone. How could this happen? He was just like me! She was a great Mom, just like my own. What happened to Raifey Papperella? Who knows! Could this have been my fate as well, if we had remained on Mulberry Street? No way, cause a father makes all the difference in a boy’s life, and Raffey didn’t have one living at home. Maybe if I still lived there I could have prevented it, me being so close to Raffie. Hey Raffie what happened???
Addendum:
Since finishing this story, I accidentally went online to find out if Villa Ave still existed. To my surprise, the story of the boy who saw the Virgin came up.  Go online to: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/22/nyregion/the-boy-who-saw-the-virgin.html
 At the time we who lived in the neighborhood believed the boy was a hoax, as his reputation from friends around him said he always lied and was sleazy. He went to the same Catholic school I was going to and that was the general opinion of him. Just by chance, the story explains the time it happened. It was 1945, and WWII just ended with all the excitement it brought, and the returning soldiers. Even with all this happening, the little boy who claimed a vision with the virgin was big news. So much so, a star like Frank Sinatra went to visit the boy and brought him a statue of the Virgin. If you want to learn more about this event, google “Villa Ave”. I never found out anything else about Raifey after that, but it did have an effect on me, even at that age, to make me realize that life can take you on a course of self-destruction, simply because of where you live.

MY WORLD AND HOW I LIVED IT!

 

 

 

My son Trey when he 70

Me, and my World in the background, and I’m writing this blog to tell of my adventures in life, some funny, some serious, but all true! Please realize that in writing each adventure, its coming from my memory which sometimes recalls things from the past , but not in sequence, that I eventually remember. So, things will not be in timely order, but so what! Each is a separate event as I remember it, and it’s the content, not the time of the event that is important! Why not let me know what you think, as it will inspire me either to improve my writing skills, or remember more interesting events in my long, full and exciting life, with more experiences to follow as I now reach into my eighties.

Oh by the way, you might be thinking why I said in the picture caption– “My world in the background”   when it shows only the horizon! Well, My world has always been beyond the horizon!!!