How to Stay Alive for the Rest of Your Life

By Joseph Nocca

This it the historical, humorous and inspiring autobiography
of the legally-blind son of emigrant Italian parents, born and raised in the City of Yonkers during the Great Depression and the outbreak of World War II, who ultimately became a Judge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312796409

Book preview

How to Stay Alive for the Rest of Your Life

HOW TO STAY ALIVE

FOR AS LONG AS YOU LIVE

by

Judge Joseph F. Nocca

The historical, humorous and inspiring autobiography

of the legally-blind son of emigrant Italian

parents, born and raised in the City of

Yonkers during the Great Depression

and the outbreak of World War II,

who ultimately became

a Judge

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to begin by acknowledging and thanking my sweet, darling wife, Barbara, whom I love so much, for tolerating me throughout the entire ordeal of writing this book.  There were many, many times when I would ask for her advice or her ear to review a segment I had just written or was then writing, or, in short, when I just turned to her for inspiration and encouragement which I always found.

Sweetheart, I thank you for all of your understanding and patience, even when I was somewhat overbearing.  You never denied me, you always comforted me and encouraged me to go forward which I will never forget.

I know that you’ve heard me tell the stories contained in the book ad nauseum and, indeed, you lived through many of these stories and thus experienced them first-hand.  I hope that this repetition did not totally blunt your interest in the incidents that I describe or my efforts to communicate those stories to the readers. 

If I succeed in entertaining or amusing the reader, it is primarily because of you, Barbara, for which I am eternally grateful.

Barbara, Mellie, Bobbie, Rockhouse of the August Moon or by whatever other name, I love you a whole bunch!  XXX

I would also like to acknowledge and thank those who made this book a tangible reality, beginning with my grandson, Joseph Porter, who transcribed a portion of the initial draft of this book.  His efforts were complemented by the most able efforts of Linda Cranston D’Amato who began working for me many years ago, before I even considered becoming a Judge.  Then there was Linda Calgi Cerreta who transcribed all of the remaining tapes as well as the later additions, numerous revisions and corrections that followed, bringing the book to its present state.

I thank all of these people for their most Herculean efforts to make this book a reality.  And I would like to further acknowledge and thank my editorial staff who so painstakingly went over the entire text, word by word, searching for misspellings, and grammatical errors and generally to insure its readability. I refer to Darcy Roche, a most able secretary in our office, the indomitable Sandy Shalof, the former owner of the Allerton Press Publishing Company who made a very significant contribution to the editing process, as did Joseph Sciortino, and Linda Calgi Cerreta who not only did most of the transcribing of my dictation but did a yeoman-like job as an Associate Editor. Whatever this book finally became is the result of the combined efforts of these most dedicated and able colleagues.

And, finally, I must acknowledge and thank Peter Diaferia for his extremely able assistance in preparing for the inclusion in this book, the many  sketches and exhibits sprinkled throughout, beginning with his caricature of me which appears on the dust cover of this book.  Incidentally, that caricature was copied from a larger watercolor/painting which Peter composed and presented to me when I retired from the bench.  Peter Diaferia is a long time resident of Scarsdale, NY and a graduate of Cooper Union in New York City and Empire College in Westchester.  He was a dominant figure in the art world of his day and earned credits as the Art Director of Graphics and Design for two International Olympic Games and as an Emmy Awards judge for 17 years.  Before his retirement, Peter was the President of Diamond and Diaferia whose renderings were constantly on all of the major television channels.                                                                  

The reprinted photographs appearing in Chapter 2 of this book concerning the Riverdale Avenue district were taken from a book entitled Landmarks Lost & Found: An Introduction to the Architecture and History of Yonkers, a 1986 publication of the Yonkers Planning Bureau and the Yonkers Environmental Impact Advisory Commission, with the exception of the photograph of the Andrew Carnegie Library which came from a publication entitled, Then & Now Yonkers, copyright 2008 by The Yonkers Historical Society and the Blue Door Artist Association, published by Arcadia Publishing Company.

PROLOGUE

HOW THIS BOOK CAME INTO BEING

Several years ago, my granddaughter, Jacqueline Porter, whom I call Jacqleenee, who was then about 12 years old, said to me, Grandpa, as you know, my brother Joseph and I were born in Brazil, and we continued to live there until I was about 9½ years old.  Except for when my family and I visited the United States during our summer vacation and at Christmas time, and except for the trips that you and Grandma made to visit us in Brazil, my brother and I never got an opportunity to talk with you.  On almost all of those visits, you spent most of your time talking with Mommy and Daddy, so I never got a chance to hear any of the interesting or crazy things I am told you always got involved in or hear any of those funny things that happened to you when you were a Judge.  Mommy says you’re a character and that you would have many funny stories to tell us.  Do you suppose that you could try to remember some of those stories and make some notes about them so that the next time that we meet, you could tell us about those stories?

I agreed to do so, but several days later when I was re-thinking my promise to Jacqleenee, it occurred to me that when Jacqueline becomes a mother or Joseph a father and they are asked by their children to describe their grandfather, Judge Nocca, or his wife, Grandma Nocca, with many years intervening between now and then, they might forget many of the details of a given story which I had recounted if I told them the stories orally rather than in writing, and possibly forget some of the stories entirely.

Therefore, in order to avoid such a result, I decided not to orally relate the so-called funny stories that Jacqueline had requested of me, but instead, to reduce them to writing so that not even a scintilla of any story would be lost due to the passage of time or failure of memory.  Thus, this account of the highlights and lowlights of my life is the tangible result of my decision.  However, I hasten to add, given my legal background, that I reserve unto myself the right and unlimited discretion to either embellish or understate any part of any story which I am about to tell; the purpose of this writing is not a search for the truth but is a conscious effort to maximize the humor and interest value of each story for the enjoyment and entertainment of Jacqueline, her brother Joseph, and, when they are able to read, my younger grandchildren, little Carter and little Gracie, and their twin siblings, Christopher and Lorelai.

My story begins with my birth during the depths of the Great Depression.  I then                   take the reader into my Kindergarten class where I was five years old, unable to speak any English except for the words Yes or No, and then to the Nathaniel Hawthorne Junior High School from which, one year later, I was transferred to P.S. 9, the Opportunity School, and from there back into the so-called mainstream in Yonkers High School, then to my days at Sampson College in Geneva, New York, and from there to Philadelphia where I attended the Wharton School of Finance & Commerce of the University of Pennsylvania, then my attendance at the Harvard Law School, followed by my days of becoming licensed to practice law, then as a fledgling lawyer with all of the fond memories associated with that period, then my tenure as an adjunct Professor of Law at the New York Law School, then my days when I was a mature and productive lawyer, all leading to my election to the bench of the City Court of Yonkers, and much, much more.

While following me along this course of travel, the reader is introduced to any number of significant twists and turns and zigs and zags along the way, such as my meeting, wooing and marrying the beautiful Barbara Romano and bringing forth two beautiful children, Barbara Jo and Nicholas, and most significantly, learning how to read again, not having read the printed word since I had been 9 years old, and my struggles throughout to keep the family ship afloat despite my inability to read for more than ten years following my graduation from Harvard Law School. 

It is my sincere hope that you find this journey with me down memory lane an informative, interesting and amusing adventure.  If you do, I expect to be suitably rewarded.

In order that you might better get to know me and better understand my likes and dislikes, my principles and ethics or lack thereof, I think it important that you be introduced to various members of my family – both past and present, from whenst I, a little acorn, fell and germinated. Toward that end, I retained an organization that specializes in genealogical studies to trace back my family tree.  And, believe it or not, they unearthed an early ancestor of mine, a great uncle to the 125th power traced back to biblical times, Judas Nocca, who actually attended the Last Supper.  You don’t see him in the painting because he was at table number 4.  He was the one who won the centerpiece.  Now, let’s turn to more recent times…

CHAPTER 1

FIRST MEET THE FAMILY

LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO MY FATHER,

NICHOLAS NOCCA, WHOM I CALL POP

Pop, the true pioneer.

Pop did not traverse 2,000 miles of uncharted western territory in a wagon train defending against marauding Indians and braving the elements, but in my opinion, he truly earned the title of Pioneer hands down.

Faced with the immediate prospect of feeding and clothing and otherwise caring for his new bride, and there being no available work in or around Corato, Province of Bari, Italy, Pop decided to come to America where, supposedly, work was plentiful and opportunities unlimited. It was his plan to find some meaningful work or establish himself in business and then call his new wife, then living in Italy, to join him in the United States.

But before he could even get started pursuing this dream, he found a snag ‑ the Italian quota was filled, which meant he could not get a visa to travel to the United States. He met a total stranger in Naples while he was visiting the Italian Consulate who told him that if he were to go to LeHavre, France, he could readily get permission to sail to Montreal, Canada, under the French quota.

Not knowing a word of French and with very little money in his pocket, which, incidentally, he had borrowed from a relative to make the intended trip, he went to LeHavre, France, and somehow, was able to communicate with the appropriate authorities that he wanted to sail to Canada.  He succeeded in booking passage on a boat sailing to Montreal and, about three weeks later, landed on Canadian soil.  From there, and, again, I remind you that he couldn't speak a word of French or a word of English, he somehow managed to travel from Montreal to Manhattan in search of his

brother‑in‑law, Vito Bucci (Uncle Will), who had offered him housing in his apartment on 27th Street should he come to New York.

For the life of me, I just can’t imagine how he communicated the fact that he might need to use the bathroom or where he might find a bathroom, given the fact that he couldn’t speak the language.

Unlike the American pioneers who traveled in groups of several hundred people at a time, most of whom spoke a common language, Pop, a real pioneer, had made this trip alone, beginning in Italy and going through France to Canada and from there to lower Manhattan knowing no one along the way, and unable to speak either French or English.

Pop gets hired for three different jobs

which he is to perform on the same day.

Pop never let grass grow under his feet. On the very first day when he arrived in New York City, Pop began working. He was hired to work as a member of a road construction gang building what is known today as the Adam Clayton Powell Expressway. I remember Pop telling me that not only was the job very demanding and exhausting, but he had to work under a very tough and mean Italian-hating Irish foreman. But Pop stuck it out and, in fact, while working with the road construction gang, he got a second job working as a night watchman with Uncle Will at a factory on the lower East Side.

And, if this wasn't enough, he got yet a third job; he was hired to be a part of a claque by an Italian tenor who was singing at the Metropolitan Opera House. Pop, an opera lover, was required to go to the Met every night that the tenor was singing and to applaud wildly after the tenor finished each aria. The purpose of hiring a claque was to convince the management of the Metropolitan Opera House that this singer had been a resounding success with the New York audience, thereby persuading management to extend the singer's contract by increasing the number of performances. I once asked Pop, When did you sleep? He sheepishly told me that he and Uncle Will took turns sleeping while the other served as night watchman for both of them.

Not too long thereafter, Uncle Will was offered the opportunity to purchase an ice business in Yonkers. He decided to buy that business and, thereafter, moved out of Manhattan and relocated in Yonkers, leaving Pop alone in the apartment on 27th Street until he ultimately found a new roommate.

Shortly thereafter, when Uncle Will decided to go into a different line of work, namely becoming a milkman, delivering milk each morning to homes and to grocery stores, delicatessens and restaurants, he offered to sell the ice business to Pop. Pop readily accepted, using virtually all of the money he had saved, and then he, too, moved to Yonkers, In fact, only months before my birth, Pop moved from the apartment he shared with a group of men on 27th Street in Manhattan to the three-room apartment at 156 Riverdale Avenue in Yonkers which was directly opposite the building where Uncle Will and his wife, Aunt Isabel, were living.  Pop then operated the ice business for the next twenty-plus years.

Pop’s apartment in Yonkers was a three‑room apartment two flights up above Kutcher’s Hungarian Delicatessen, opposite the Silver Lining Laundry, in a building owned by an Assyrian landlord. The apartment was a so‑called cold water flat which required the tenant to provide his own heat and hot water. There was no bathroom in the apartment, but there was an unheated toilet in the hall shared by the tenants in the rear apartment.

In those days, there was no refrigeration, so everybody required ice to keep their food from spoiling, especially during the warm summer months, so business went rather well for Pop until the cold weather set in.

Pop realized that his ice customers would require coal, which was then the heating element of choice to heat their cold-water flats, so he decided to sell coal in the winter, and years later, to sell kerosene when kerosene-heating stoves came into vogue. Although the ice and coal business was profitable, it was extremely demanding. To service all of his customers, Pop was required to work a 12 to 14 hour day, and to carry all of the ice and coal on his back to his customers, all of whom lived in walk‑ups of two to five stories. The poor man never took a vacation but sent Mom and me to the Catskill Mountains for a week each year. The only time Pop was away from his work was evenings, Sundays, and a limited number of national and religious holidays.  

Pop, the ultimate disciplinarian.

So that you may get a complete picture of Pop, let me tell you about Pop being a disciplinarian.  To begin with, any scolding or other disciplinary measure that had to be handled was assigned to Mom to administer; Pop very rarely got angry with me.

However, I do remember one time when, although I do not remember the circumstances, Pop got so angry over something that I had done or said that he pulled out the handkerchief in his jacket lapel pocket, crumpled it up into a ball, and then threw it at me! I still remember that handkerchief opening up as it was in flight and falling harmlessly to the ground like a parachute.  Pop had vented his deep-seated anger!

And, when we moved into our new home on Courter Avenue, I couldn't wait to install a basketball hoop in the backyard as I had always envisioned. However, Pop intervened, and said that there would be no basketball hoop. He would not risk my trampling upon his precious flowers and, yet, years later, when my children, Barbara Jo and Nicky, were little kids, they loved to play in that backyard, and I could still see Pop’s eyes twinkling with a smile on his face as he watched them pluck one flower after another as they played there together. They could do no wrong!

Pop the consummate gourmet.

I could go on telling you story after story about Pop. You heard about Pop, the true

pioneer, Pop the hard worker and family provider, Pop the ultimate disciplinarian, and now, Pop the gourmet.

On his and Mom's 40th anniversary, my wife, Barbara, and I staged a surprise 40th anniversary party at an Italian restaurant on Central Avenue called Venezia de Notte, which no longer exists.  It was so Italian that a number of the waiters spoke only Italian and not a word of English.  When the head waiter asked Pop, the guest of honor, what he wanted for dinner that night, Pop's answer which took the waiter by surprise was You gotta’ma corned beef and cabbage?, and when the Sommelier, with somewhat of a dramatic flourish opened a bottle of wine and poured about a 1/2 inch of that liquid into a glass (which annoyed Pop because he didn't fill the glass) and asked Pop How do you like that, sir?,  Pop's studied reply was, It's not so good like the wine we make at home.

Also, improbable as it sounds, Pop's favorite meat dish was the American hot dog. More often than not, Pop arranged his work day so that we would be near Tiny's Jewish Delicatessen at or about lunch time. Tiny was about 6 foot 3 or 4 inches tall and weighed about 300 pounds and always wore the same dirty apron. His deli featured the most delicious kosher hot dogs. On an average lunch, Pop would eat 9 to 10 frankfurters.

Speaking of frankfurters, years later, one day our entire family went to the Connecticut seashore on a mission to find and collect mussels. At that time, Pop was suffering from Parkinson's Disease so his legs were quite rigid which affected his balance. Accordingly, we asked him to remain away from the shore where the mounds and impressions made the ground uneven and difficult for him to walk. We told him that his job was to remain away from the shore and to guard and protect all our baggage and supplies, including the food we had brought for lunch, the various pots and pans of steak, braciole, pasta and gravy which we would be eating later that day, not cream cheese and jelly or bologna sandwiches, God forbid!

When Pop happened to raise the lid of one of the pots, he discovered, to his amazement and absolute delight, that the pot contained 19 frankfurters. He decided to eat one of them, rationalizing that it would never be missed; a few minutes later, he ate a second and then a third. You guessed it; he ate all 19 hot dogs.  But how was this dirty deed to go undetected? His answer was to wash out the pot, and later, when Mom was looking for the frankfurters, he tried to convince her that she had not put them in the pot and that they were still at home, pointing to the clean pot to prove his case. That story didn't fly; the twinkle in his eye gave him away,

And, speaking further of frankfurters, or hot dogs as he called them, when he was a patient at St. John's Hospital, Pop asked every friend and relative whom he knew would be visiting him to smuggle in a frankfurter when they came but not to mention it to anyone, especially Mom, because hot dogs were off-limits. I don't know how many hot dogs got into the hospital undetected; neither the doctor nor we ever found out. All I can say is that stock in the Hebrew National Packing Company jumped 5 points in one week.

When it involved food, Pop always did things in a big way.

I should add that Pop always did things in a big way. Take the time that fellow student, Larry Heller, came for dinner after driving me home from the Harvard Law School. Mom served her usual very delicious Italian meal which Larry ate with much gusto, making certain not to pass up any course, and washed it all down with Pop’s homemade wine. When dessert time rolled around, Mom brought into the dining room a large apple pie that she had just baked and placed it in front of my father for him to serve. Pop asked Larry and me if we would join him in a piece of pie. I answered No, having gorged myself.  Larry, however, animal that he was, who had eaten twice the volume of food that I had, said he would have a piece of pie. So, there were only two people who wanted some pie: my father and Larry. Therefore, Pop cut that huge pie in half and placed one-half in Larry’s dish and the other half in his own plate. And, believe it or not, each of them wolfed down their respective halves!

To Mom’s delight, Pop finally buys a new car.

I must now tell you the story of Pop and his new Oldsmobile. About ten years earlier than the story I’m about to tell you, Pop and my Uncle Will each purchased a new Rambler automobile, a product of American Motors which has since ceased operations.

Since Mom and Pop seldom took long drives, the car was used primarily to transport Pop locally to and from his job with the City of Yonkers Sanitation Department headquartered near a pier on the Hudson River, and to and from food shopping.  Pop had been forced to retire from his ice and coal business because of the injuries he sustained when he was struck by a drunk driver.

After ten years of use, the odometer showed the remarkable reading of 21,000 miles. According to Pop, the car was still brand-new; the motor may not have been worn yet, but, unfortunately, the body of the car showed definite signs of rust and fatigue as a result of daily exposure to salty sea air because Pop parked his car near the river each morning.

It seems that the salty atmosphere had deteriorated the body of the car, causing the body to rust so extensively that if you pressed hard enough on various portions of the body, your hand would penetrate the metal.

As a consequence, although the engine was still relatively new, because of its rusting and disintegrating body, the car was a definite eyesore. It was a constant source of irritation and embarrassment for my mother who kept insisting that Pop should trade it in for a new one.  Pop’s reply was always that the engine only showed 21,000 miles and therefore, The car is-a still-a new one.

When my mother could not get my father to change his mind about turning in the cancer-ridden car, she began refusing to ride in it as a sign of living protest.

After many heated discussions and her continuing boycott which would have made even Gandhi proud, Pop called me to discuss the entire situation. He was very upset at my mother’s unyielding conduct regarding the car and even more upset at the thought of trading in a car with only 21,000 miles on the odometer. However, he told me that he had decided to give in to her and buy a new car, and, therefore, asked me to accompany him to the various car dealerships to help him negotiate the purchase.

Pop had always argued that the best car on the road was an Oldsmobile, the experimental car for the Cadillac, according to him, but at a far more reasonable price.

Knowing that he loved Oldsmobiles, I steered him to the neighborhood Oldsmobile dealer where we found a car that he said he loved very much until he heard the price. Imagine, Pop they were asking $4,200 for this brand-new car which Pop felt was an outlandishly inflated price.  You see, when he bought his Rambler, he only paid $2,000 for the car, but that was ten years earlier.

In the intervening years, Pop had never made a significant purchase. In fact, the only purchases he made during that time were cigarettes and breakfast and lunch while he was working. My mother made all the other purchases, including all of his clothing. As a result, he could not accept the fact that prices had risen as much as they had in the intervening ten years since he had purchased his Rambler. So, we left the Oldsmobile dealership and visited other dealers.

We saw Chevys, Plymouths, Dodges, and even other cars, but even these cars were priced between $3,500 and $4,000, so Pop decided not to buy any car, pronouncing all of the dealers to be crooks.

That night, I discussed the entire problem with my wife, Barbara, and asked for her permission to practice a deception on Pop, using our money to carry out this deception. What I mean is this: I proposed calling the Oldsmobile dealership and telling a salesman to give us a car for $2,900 without telling Pop that we were doing so, since Pop seemed reluctant to break through the $3,000 barrier, and that we would pay the difference.  After all, Pop had been so generous to us, allowing us to live in an apartment in his house at $75 a month rent, including babysitting and Nonnina’s never-ending home-cooked food.  Barbara agreed, so I called someone I knew at the dealership and, thus, put the plan in operation.

Next, I took Pop back to that dealership despite his protest that they were all crooks, telling him that I had a friend who was a salesman in that shop whom I knew to be very honest and thus a worthy person to deal with. When we got there, Pop, who always prided himself on how well he negotiated purchases, offered to pay $2,500 for the car he had selected, and thus the titanic negotiations began, concluding ultimately with the Oldsmobile salesman telling Pop, $2,900, Take it or leave it, that’s my last price. Pop agreed to pay the $2,900 and two days later, after the car had been prepped, he and I went to pick it up.

I can’t tell you how proud he was as we drove out of the Oldsmobile dealership and prouder still that he had proven to me and the world that car dealers are crooks who ask $4,200 for a product worth no more than $2,900.

Barbara and I were delighted that we were able to please him, after all he had done for us. The following day, Barbara and I and the children left for a week’s vacation on Cape Cod. Two or three days later, I called my mother and asked how Pop was doing with the car to which she replied, He’s as happy as a little kid in a toy store; he spends most of his day polishing the car and admiring it.

When we returned from Cape Cod, I stopped in to see my parents and asked Pop about the car. He completely surprised me when he said, Take the car back; I no want it no more. It’s-a too big.

Why had there been such a turnaround? My mother explained that several days earlier, she and Pop had gone shopping. They had driven in the new car to Celli’s, my mother’s favorite salumeria (Italian delicatessen). There my mother met two sisters she had met several years earlier and, noting that they did not have any means of transportation and that they would therefore have to carry their purchases on foot, she proudly offered them a ride in her new car. The sisters told Pop that they lived in an apartment on Cedar Place, a street well known to Pop, so he began driving to that destination. On Astor Place, a street which leads into Cedar Place, Pop found that there was a moving van double-parked on the narrow street, making it almost impossible to get past the moving van.  When Pop complained to one of the employees of the moving van company and asked him to move his truck so that he could get by, that person protested, saying that they were billing the customer by the hour and that, therefore, could not take time moving their truck every time someone asked them to do so and hope to get paid for that time. He added that there was, in fact, sufficient space to get by and that he would help Pop get through the narrow space.

Let me add at this point that Pop had extraordinary vision, better than the normal 20/20, and that despite driving a truck all of his adult life and a car in the evenings and weekends, he had never had any accidents while driving, not even a minor fender-bender.

However, it seems that the new Oldsmobile was slightly wider than the Rambler he had been driving, so he had not yet achieved the ability to quickly determine if he could get through a narrow space.

With the help and encouragement of the employee of the moving van, Pop began creeping through the space between the moving van, which was double- parked, and a high curb on the opposite side. Pop was creeping through at a rate of maybe one or two miles per hour and had gotten maybe two-thirds of his car through when there suddenly was heard the loud screech of metal rubbing against metal. A metal door edge guard on the back door of Pop’s car on the passenger side made the cars slightly wider than the front half of the vehicle and it had made contact with the metallic running board of the moving van.

Aside from the piercing screech of metal rubbing against metal, no damage had been done either to the moving van or Pop’s car, save a small scratch on the offending door edge guard.

However, unbeknownst to Pop or my mother, one of the sisters apparently had some mental illness, and at the sound of the screeching metal, she began screaming hysterically. Her sister, who apparently had witnessed episodes of this kind in the past, slapped her sister’s face rapidly three or four times until the slapee regained control of herself.

In the meantime, knowing that they were only two blocks away from the Professional Hospital on Ludlow Street, Pop decided that this sister needed immediate emergency room treatment, so sped up his pace and drove into the Emergency Room parking area of the hospital only minutes later. However, as soon as he stopped the car, he suffered a mild heart attack so that it was he, rather than the screaming sister, who required immediate medical attention.

As a result of this very traumatic experience, Pop had decided that it had been the width of the car that had created the problem and that, therefore, the car was too big for him and so he asked me to help him return the car to the dealership and exchange it for something smaller.

When I tried to tell Pop that the car was now considered a second-hand vehicle and that, therefore, the dealer would not take it back and that just driving it out of the dealership brought on that result, he refused to believe me. I decided to drop the subject, hoping that when he calmed down, he would have need to go somewhere, a doctor, a store, etc., and would resume driving the new Oldsmobile.

About two weeks went by and I heard nothing from him or my mother concerning the car until one night when he called me and began with, Whaddya tink of you father now? I found-a somebody who wants to buy the car and he’s gonna pay me $3,100, so I’m-a gonna make a $200 profit! I was forced to burst his bubble and told him how much the car had really cost and that Barbara and I had paid the difference between the $2,900, the price he thought he was paying for the car, and the $4,200, the actual price for the car.  I told him that I would take the car and give him his $2,900, and so I did.  When he realized that he had not, in fact, finagled the salesman into selling him a $4,200 product for $2,900, he was taken aback and felt very foolish, but it could not be helped.

With the $2,900 that I paid him for the Oldsmobile, he went out and bought a small Plymouth, one that was narrower than the Oldsmobile, resembling his Rambler in size. The first drive he took in his new Plymouth after driving it out of the dealership was to Aunt Laura’s and Uncle Charlie’s house on Livingston Avenue. When he got to Aunt Laura’s, he discovered that there was only one parking space available on the entire block, limiting his choice to that space or driving to the next block in the hope of finding another there. He decided to park near Aunt Laura’s, so he began backing into the space. As was his custom, when parking, he would always go in reverse till his back bumper made contact with the front bumper of the car parked behind him and then would go forward until his front bumper made contact with the rear bumper of the car parked in front of him, and then repeat the entire process until his car was properly parked.     

However, on this day, this fateful day, the car parked behind him was a foreign sports car and its bumper was several inches lower than the bumpers on American-made cars. What was the net result, you ask? Pop backed up, awaiting contact with the front bumper of the sports car, but that never happened; instead, his bumper made contact with and caved in the entire grillwork of the sports car.

As I said earlier, Pop had never had an accident before, and this incident, following so closely after the mild heart attack he suffered, caused him to decide, on the spot, that he would no longer drive, that his driving days were over.

Now I had a Plymouth to sell, a Plymouth with sixteen miles on it. Pop had been the owner and driver of two brand new vehicles that he had driven for a total of 42 miles! Fortunately, Mr. McDonald, a tenant in Pop’s house, was in the market for a car so he purchased the Plymouth, not at a profit, but at a loss to Pop. Pop was in his late seventies at the time, so neither Barbara nor I argued with his decision not to drive any longer.

Pop was indirectly responsible for my becoming a biblical scholar.

Pop who loved to play cards found someone who loved to play cards as much as he did.  He was a man who ran the shoeshine shop and hat blocking operation on Riverdale Avenue next door to Finkelstein’s Butter and Egg Emporium, near the corner of Washington Street and who sold Italian ices during the summer months.

Whenever Pop was late coming home for dinner, it meant that either his business had suddenly increased or that he was playing cards with Tony in the back of Tony's store, This is how, as a child, I got my first religious training, listening to Tony reciting the names of all of the saints, both alphabetically and chronologically, whom he cursed every time he lost.

MEET MY MOTHER, MARIA NOCCA, A MOST EXTRAORDINARY LADY

I truly hit the jackpot when I won Mom as my very own mother! That dear lady, as indicated earlier, like Pop, was born in Corato, Province of Bari, Italy.

Because the work required in the family vineyard and olive orchard in Corato was so physically demanding, virtually without letup, Mom, as a female, was exempt from doing such work. Indeed, this made it possible for her to consider other work objectives, chief among which was to become a school teacher.

As far as I know, Mom became the first female in her family to attend and graduate from college. She was also the first female in the family to be permitted to leave home and to move to another city to seek employment ‑ she moved to Milan. While waiting for a teaching position to become available, she took a position as a Clerk‑Secretary in the Fiat automobile factory. She worked there only several months when a teaching position did become available, and Mom became an educator, which background later served me very well. 

After her marriage to Pop, which took place in Corato, she and Pop put their life plan in motion, i.e., Pop left for the United States to establish a beachhead, as it were, and after that was accomplished, she was to join him there. Everything went according to plan except that I was unexpectedly conceived, so when she traveled to the United States, in steerage, what else, she had to fight off both seasickness as well as morning sickness.

When she arrived in the United States about one month prior to my birth, Pop had already found and sparsely furnished the three-room apartment which I have already alluded to located at 156 Riverdale Avenue in Yonkers, which we were to occupy for the next 11 years.

While Pop literally did all of the heavy lifting as he was required to do in his ice business seven days a week with his days beginning at 5:30 in the morning and on Saturdays extending to ten o’clock in the evening, the other days ending about six o’clock in the evening (it was only a half-day on Sundays), Mom was in charge of virtually  everything else. Not only did she do the shopping and the cooking and the laundry, but she also managed all of the family’s finances and served as amanuensis not only for us but also for her three brothers and a number of friends who had migrated from Corato, Italy. Incidentally, from time to time, Mom cooked entire meals which we would then deliver on Sundays to her brother, Tom, who lived in one part of the Bronx and her brother, Charlie, who lived in a different part because she knew that both of them lived alone, worked long hours, and did no cooking.

We had no television at that time, nor did we get our first radio until I was ten or eleven years old. Therefore, almost every night after her work was done, she would read stories to me in Italian. You should know that when I entered kindergarten, I could only speak two words of English, namely, Yes and No. Thanks to my dear teacher, Ms. Napolielo, who despite being Italian herself only spoke to me in English, I was able to learn the language and did so rather quickly.

Although Mom was an educated woman, she did not know how to read or write in English, nor did she know much, if anything, about the American culture or American customs or morés. Accordingly, she joined a group of immigrants who lived in our neighborhood in a newly‑formed class of what we know today to be English as a Second Language. That class was conducted in the Riverdale Chapel, less than a block away from where we lived. She did well enough to receive a diploma which was bestowed upon her at a lovely ceremony held at Rockefeller Center in New York City, an event which made all of us very proud.

Mom continued to study English by purchasing our first radio, one of the original Philco radios, and listening to the announcers as often as she could. Because of her college training, Pop anointed her Family Treasurer, a role which she readily accepted. This meant that she handled all of the banking transactions and maintained whatever rudimentary records they kept in those days.

To further assist the Family Treasury, Mom accepted employment at home, stringing beads to create modestly priced necklaces and handbags and sewing sequins on women’s’ blouses, all on a piecework basis, i.e., she was not paid for the time she expended in performing these tasks, but received compensation based on how many necklaces she produced or how many blouses she completed. 

When Mom discovered that I had a sight disorder and that medical intervention was called for, she first reduced and finally terminated such work in order to take me to every eye doctor she heard of practicing in Yonkers, New York City, and even on Long Island. Because she did not drive, we had to endure the time consuming inconvenience of public transportation to and from all of those doctors who were scattered all over Westchester County, New York City and a portion of Nassau County,

Despite all the time it took to get to and from these doctors, and to perform all  her other wifely and motherly duties, Mom always put a home-cooked, hot meal on the table for Pop and me, and most often, if the dish was pasta, it was not from the box, but homemade.

And speaking of her cooking, after Barbara and I were married, we very often visited her and Pop in their home. She would inevitably ask us to stay for dinner after gently scolding us for not having given her warning that we were planning to stop by, so that she could cook something special for us. Following that scolding, Mom would always add, Now you'll have to take pot luck, you’ll have to settle for whatever I have! She would then proceed to open her freezer, revealing the many dishes she had previously cooked and frozen which we might enjoy for dinner, and what's more, enough other items to wrap up in a package for us to take home.

In addition to being a very good cook, Mom was a compulsive cleaner, constantly cleaning not only her apartment consisting of five rooms and a bath, but all of the sidewalks in front of and encircling the house, as well as the basement and the garage. In addition, when she got tired of waiting for the gardener to arrive, Mom would go around with garden shears pruning dead flowers and removing dead branches. Thanks to her, virtually acting alone, the house at 27 Courter Avenue was always in immaculate condition. You could literally eat off the floor!

How she did it, I don't know. Not only did Mom not sacrifice her cooking or cleaning, but she added a third pursuit which she threw herself into almost 100%.  I am referring to the fact that before Pop died, he received the very best of care from the nurses at St. John's Hospital. In recognition of that fact and to show her gratitude for what they had done for Pop, Mom joined a group of volunteers and worked there two days a week delivering mail and gift packages of flowers and fruit to the patients. She had to take two streetcars to get to St, John's Hospital but, notwithstanding, she loved being a volunteer worker and was rarely absent.

Later, as Mom began to slow down, she found the travel to and from the hospital extremely tedious, so she left the volunteer group at St. John's Hospital and joined the one at St. Joseph's Hospital which she could get to with only one bus ride rather than two. At St. Joseph's Hospital, Mom worked almost exclusively in the nursing home where she became so familiar with her surroundings and the staff, that she ultimately took residence there when she could no longer walk or take care of her own needs.

Barbara and I asked Mom to come and live with us which she refused to do, saying that she did not want to be a burden to anyone. And so it was that she lived at St. Joseph's Nursing Home for the remainder of her lifetime which, believe it or not, came to an end when she was 99¾ years old.

I can still remember visiting Mom at the nursing home where she would inevitably have a gift for us ‑ several cans of Shasta ginger ale which she had been given but not consumed, small boxes of Kleenex, talcum powder, and an occasional apple or orange. This was her way of thanking us for visiting her which was repeated almost every time we saw her. And how proud she was to introduce me to the nurses and the doctors of her fellow patients, when we would meet in the dining room; This is my son; he is a Judge! As you can understand, I think of Mom and thank her often. I miss her a lot.   

MEET MY GRANDFATHER, PEPINO NOCCA, THE CONSUMMATE RACONTEUR

During the years that Grandpa Nocca reigned supreme in Corato, Italy, there existed no television, no radio, nor any movies but only the town musicians to challenge his supremacy as the ultimate entertainer – the ultimate raconteur.  He was truly King of the Hill and richly deserving of his niche in the Pantheon of Raconteurs.  His prowess as a public speaker and his ability to awaken and excite the listener’s every emotion made Grandpa Pepino Nocca truly legendary.

Almost every night, when weather permitted, of course, throngs of townsfolk would congregate on the grassy knoll in front of his house awaiting the appearance of the great man on his balcony. On those occasions when he was somewhat late in making the anticipated appearance, a chant of Papa Pepino, Papa Pepino would soon be heard from the expectant crowd, and when finally, Grandpa came into view, shouts of suggested topics for Grandpa to speak about were urged from every corner of the assembled throng. 

And believe it or not, even if Grandpa had told a certain story the night before, there would be any number of people in the audience clamoring for that story to be repeated once more.  For you see, it mattered not at all to the crowd that they had heard a given story the night before; it was the way in which Grandpa Nocca told the story that made it significant.  It was his manner of telling a story that made the evening so special, that the people came nightly to hear! 

I understand that his repertoire was quite broad, including the comedic and the tragic, the merry and the sad, and the frightening and the frivolous, etc.  I am told that the crowd’s absolute favorite was a story Grandpa Nocca told time and time again about a young couple who wanted to marry who were virtually penniless yet allowed themselves to be scammed into purchasing elephant eggs which they were given to believe would hatch and bring forth baby elephants which they could sell to nearby farmers to assist them with the heavy work.  This story as well as several others that I was told he would often repeat bordered on the risqué.  Adding a little spice to his stories made him an instant and permanent success.

Remember that in those days, there was no television or even radio,  nor any movies; therefore, except for listening to the music played by the town orchestra or band, the spoken word was the preferred entertainment medium.  Let me just add that with respect to the orchestras and bands, if a town was large enough and with sufficient resources, it organized a band of its own paying the musicians to perform, and trading musicians back and forth with other towns, say, for example, trading a drummer for a trumpet player they might need for the band in their town, just as cities and towns trade baseball players today. 

NOW MEET MY GREAT GRANDFATHER, THE FIRST JURIST IN THE FAMILY

Then there was my mother’s grandfather, whose name was Salvatore Scaringella, a Judge in the Appellate Courts, situated in Trani, Province of Bari, Italy. Mom often told the story that when her grandfather was running for re-election, he naturally asked everyone in the family to be sure to get to the polls on Election Day to vote for him. The judge’s sister, my mother’s great aunt, because of a problem with her legs, had difficulty walking so the judge provided transportation for her to and from the polls. That night, when they were all seated at the dinner table, he asked each one if he or she had voted for him that day, to which all except his sister answered Yes.  It seems that one of the judge’s opponents for the Appellate bench was a member of the Christian Democratic Party, one of fifty or more parties appearing on the ballot, and that his party designation, Christian Democrat, abbreviated because of its length, appeared before his name. Thus, the voting machine read, Christ. and then the name of his opponent.  When questioned by the judge as to why she had not voted for her brother, the dear old lady’s answer was a classic, Non potevo votare contra di Cristo (I just couldn’t vote against Christ).

EVERY FAMILY HAS A BLACK SHEEP; MEET OURS, UNCLE ENRICHE

I have quite often heard it said that if you dig deep enough, you’re bound to turn up a black sheep growing under everyone’s family tree. My family is no exception. How about an uncle who made headlines in every newspaper in Italy when he was arrested and accused of trying to assassinate the King? They don’t mean Don King or Larry King; I’m speaking of King Victor Emmanuel of Italy. My mother’s brother, my Uncle Enriche, was an officer in the Carbonari, the elite national police force of Italy.  While stationed in Milan, Uncle Enriche met and fell in love with a Milanese waif.  Unfortunately, that young damsel had already been engaged to another who, incidentally, was extremely jealous. It never occurred to me to ask, nor was it ever disclosed, which of the two suitors the young damsel preferred. What we do know is my Uncle Enriche’s rival, the third corner of this love triangle, was so consumed with jealousy that he would stop at nothing to eliminate any competition for the attentions of his beloved. So what did he do?

That year, Milan was the host city for the World’s Fair which was to formally begin when the King Victor Emmanuel arrived in Milan and cut the ribbon at the gate of the city. While the King and his entourage were in the process of entering the city, an explosion occurred which injured a number of the King’s retinue. An investigation immediately ensued which turned up evidence incriminating Uncle Enriche. Found at the scene of the bomb’s explosion were a number of items and papers bearing his name, placed there by his rival, including Uncle Enriche’s wallet. Uncle Enriche was quickly apprehended, arrested, and jailed. You can’t imagine the distress and embarrassment this caused everyone in the family, and of course, my uncle vehemently denied having anything to do with the bombing.  Defense lawyers had to be retained immediately if the family’s honor and name were to be preserved, so everyone in the family was called upon to contribute to Uncle Enriche’s defense funds. Months of legal maneuvering went on while my uncle languished in jail, there being no system of bail as we know it in the United States. The ever-increasing cost of mounting a defense for my uncle threatened to bankrupt everybody in the family. Finally, almost on the eve of trial, the rival suitor, for reasons never explained, came forward and confessed that he had planted the bomb near the city’s gate, not to harm the King in any way but to stop my uncle. Although the story had a happy ending, it took years for the family to recover from the financial blows and woes that they endured on behalf of Uncle Enriche. While Uncle Enriche never succeeded in winning the hand of the young lady, no one knows if her rival suitor did.

The romantics in our family speculated that the Milanese maid really loved Uncle Enriche, but she promised his rival that she would marry him, were he to exonerate Enriche from the onerous charge of attempted assassination, and that is why he confessed his roll in that ugly affair. 

Regrettably, we do not really know what prompted Uncle Enriche’s rival to make this 12th hour confession just before the scheduled trial.

THEN THERE WAS ZIO DOMENICO, SELF-PROCLAIMED INSURANCE MAVEN

An uncle of mine whom I have never met was an insurance salesman in Corato and its surroundings. He aspired to become the most successful insurance salesman in all of Italy which, apart from the honor it would afford, would undoubtedly mean a promotion in the company.  At the very least, it would bring increased prestige and more income as a result of increased commissions. As a result, I am told, he sold life insurance to everyone in the immediate area who was ambulatory, rich or poor, employed or unemployed, insurable or uninsurable. When anyone refused to buy life insurance because he or she could not afford even the initial premium, my uncle paid the insured’s first premium out of his own pocket, deferring the question of reimbursement to some nebulous future date. As you might expect, not only did the policyholder not repay my uncle, as promised, but also when the second annual premium came due, he also failed to make that payment.  Policies began to lapse and become cancelled.

In a futile attempt to stem the tide of the defaults, my uncle borrowed money from every source possible in order to pay the premiums coming due to save those policies from cancellation. His efforts, however noble, failed miserably. The house of cards tumbled, and with it, every last dollar that my uncle owned, as well as the dollars that members of the family had advanced to him to try to salvage the situation.

Having failed in establishing his national supremacy in the sale of costly life insurance policies, my uncle turned his attention to yet another insurance product – a low-cost dismemberment insurance policy.  That policy provided that if you were to lose an arm or a leg, the company would help you find it. 

NOW LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO MY COUSIN,

LOUIS PIACONE, ENTREPRENEUR WITHOUT EQUAL

I would like to introduce you to cousin Louis Piancone who, together with his brother, Johnny Piancone whom we shall discuss later, are the only two twigs on the Nocca branch of the family tree who are living in the United States.

Cousin Louie, as I like to call him, came to the United States from his home in Corato, Italy to work in a delicatessen owned and operated by his new father‑in-law.  My cousin Louie is one of the most interesting and charming people you will ever meet. He is a human dynamo. Louie was very young and energetic and therefore quickly learned every facet of the business, including how to make mozzarella, ricotta, and sausage.

When Louie felt confident that he really knew the delicatessen business, he decided to establish a delicatessen of his own in Bradley Beach, New Jersey, because he had seen and liked the area.  He asked me to help him with the contracts that he would have to deal with; namely, the lease on the store which he planned to rent, contracts to buy a cash register, a meat slicing machine, a refrigerator, etc.

I was recently out of law school and, thus, was very eager to help him and to display my recently acquired legal talents, but because I was also a graduate of the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, I decided to call upon the skills that I had acquired at Wharton to help my cousin with matters of business, as well.

As a result, I collected a great deal of data about the Bradley Beach area, most important including its demographics which I found to be quite upsetting. If the data was accurate; there was only a handful of Italians for miles around.

The predominant ethnic group in the area was Jewish, Orthodox Jews at that. As a result, I became convinced that Bradley Beach was not the place to open an Italian delicatessen and, therefore, tried to dissuade Louie from going forward with his plans to settle there. He told me that he liked the area and that he had already found an apartment and that his wife had already registered their first child in a local school, and that he felt very confident about the entire venture, even if I didn't.  Well, I was so convinced that I was right, and in order to wake him up, I took the extreme measure of first threatening to and then finally withdrawing as his attorney, telling him that I wanted no part of what I clearly saw as his economic suicide should he go through with those crazy plans of his. 

Nevertheless, Louie went forward with his venture, and we each went our separate way, until one Sunday when Barbara and I were en route to Asbury Park and came upon a road sign announcing that the next exit was for Bradley Beach. I suggested that we go there and see how poor Louie was doing. When we arrived, I couldn't believe what I was seeing! There was already a line outside waiting to get into his store ‑ a line all of Jewish patrons who didn't even know the names of many of the items that Louie had for sale, so they asked for them by color ‑ I’ll take a pound of that white stuff and give me two of those red things, etc., and price was no concern.

Well, from that auspicious beginning, Louie's business kept growing and growing like Topsy until at the present time, he is the owner of an