{"id":253,"date":"2013-02-19T15:48:12","date_gmt":"2013-02-19T23:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alfieland.com\/?p=253"},"modified":"2013-08-14T14:55:10","modified_gmt":"2013-08-14T22:55:10","slug":"in-the-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alfieland.com\/?p=253","title":{"rendered":"In the Beginning…"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"IMG_020\"<\/a>

Jimmy, Dad and Al<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2026I was born in South Philadelphia as the second and last son (and child) to Dominick and Marion Marino. I have one older brother, Jimmy, who is two years and eight months my senior. To understand me it is important to understand them\u2026all of them. First is dad. A 5\u2019 2\u201d first generation Italian\/American with a third grade education. \u201cWeasel,\u201d as he was known on the street, was a quiet man with strong feelings about the way of the world. He earned his living illegally for most of his life as a numbers backer in South Philly. This was a \u2018connected\u2019 business which means it was part of something much bigger like\u2026an Italian Club for men. The enterprise was really pretty innocent in that it wasn\u2019t much more than a street lottery. I remember a time as an eight or nine year old when the new DA in Philly was trying to make a name for himself (not unlike Elliot Spitzer of \u201cHookergate\u201d fame) by going after petty gambling crime. Names and pictures were published in the Philadelphia newspapers to not only expose the players, but to embarrass them. While pop was never mentioned, his take on this business was, \u201cit\u2019s all bullshit\u2026just a show.\u201d I remember him telling Jimmy and me that someday this whole numbers game thing was going to become legal and it would be the state of Pennsylvania who would create, approve and administer this business. Now there was a modern day Nostradamus.<\/p>\n

Dad:<\/h3>\n
\"IMG-MOM-DAD\"<\/a>

Mom and Dad<\/p><\/div>\n

Our dad was a man of few words but when spoken, you were quite certain about his intent. He was unintentionally very funny. He butchered the English language with malaprops galore\u2026not unlike Yogi Berra and with as much flair. Oil was \u201cearl,\u201d toilet was \u201ctirlet,\u201d sandwich was \u201csangwich\u201d and so on. He was a devoted family guy\u2026a great dad and husband who was equally committed as a son to his parents whom he visited almost daily. Likewise, he was a loyal sibling to his five brothers and four sisters. I never heard him say a bad word about any one of the blood Marinos\u2026lots about their spouses and kids, but no one who was blood.<\/p>\n

\u00a0He is credited with many little \u2018wisdoms\u2019 that can only come from experience. Example\u2026 \u201cmoney\u2026it makes good people betta and bad people woiser\u201d. Or\u2026 \u201ceventually, everybody knows everything about everybody.\u201d Or\u2026when Jimmy and I did something really dumb (which happened regularly), he might say\u2026 \u201ctrees I shoulda had instead of sons\u2026 at least in the summer I\u2019d o\u2019 had shade.\u201d He had a great sense of humor and loved to chide his boys. Dad loved boxing and he occasionally took us to the fights at the Alhambra in So. Philly. He also liked the Phillies and the As, \u2018the schvitz,\u2019 music, shooting pool (he once beat the famed Willie Mosconi in a set as the story goes), shooting craps and hot sausage and pork sandwiches from Pat\u2019s. But most of all, he loved his family.<\/p>\n

\"Mom<\/a>

My Italian Uncles at Grandparent’s 50th Anniversary<\/p><\/div>\n

Pop really admired and respected educated people. Those who were professionals such as doctors, lawyers and teachers were held in great esteem. You had his respect if he said\u2026\u201d he talks good.\u201d As an undergraduate at Temple University, I was living at home off and on. While taking my first anatomy class I was staying at my parents\u2019 house and was permitted by the lab instructor to bring my \u2018lab cat\u2019 home. I would take it out of a large plastic bag, which smelled brutally from formaldehyde, set it on a workbench in our garage, and begin dissection. My father loved to observe and was fascinated with the process. He\u2019d watch and ask all kinds of questions and could not get over the fact that \u201cthey had the same stuff as us.\u201d Amazing! His standard comment to that which he did not understand was an emphatic, \u201cthis cannot be\u201d while rhythmically tapping his index finger with his thumb extended on a table very much in the style of Vito Corleone before we knew Vito Corleone.<\/p>\n

\"Mom<\/a>

My Italian Aunts at Grandparent’s 50th Anniversary<\/p><\/div>\n

He was very proud of my education. So much so that upon his last days, an attending physician at the hospital where dad was being treated tried to determine the extent to which he had suffered a mild stroke amongst a myriad of other health issues. The doctor leaned in while dad was in the bed and asked a series of simple questions like, \u201cwhat\u2019s your name; where are you; where do you live?\u201d Then came the kicker when the doc asked pop to spell the word \u201ccat\u201d to which there was no response and all of us knew why. He was basically a functional illiterate. Pop could read a little but couldn\u2019t write a lick and his response to this request was classic. He reached up from the bed, grabbed the doc by his tie and pulled him to the bed where they were pressed almost nose to nose and said\u2026 \u201cI don\u2019t spell so good, but I got a kid who\u2019s a university professor\u201d then pushed the doctor away. This is the stuff of movies.<\/p>\n

\"IMG-MOM-DAD1\"<\/a>

Mom and Dad-1971<\/p><\/div>\n

Our dad was in love with our mother. They were married for 49 years until his passing. She could not pass him by without being affectionately groped. They both loved it. It was pop\u2019s way of saying \u2018I love you\u2019 and mom\u2019s acceptance of that affection. She would complain with a smile, \u201cthat little man never leaves me alone.\u201d And if he did, somehow the world just wouldn\u2019t be right. Our father passed on the best a dad could do for his two sons\u2026he loved and respected our mother.<\/p>\n

Mother:<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u2026truly a piece of work! The best way to describe our mom is to say she was Dr. Ruth before Dr. Ruth. Mother was a diminutive lady who was a beauty as young woman and the baby in a family of eight children. Mom was as Jewish as our dad was Italian. Like dad, she too was a first generation American. My grandparents (whom I never knew) were Russian Jews who left the Ukraine like so many others in the early part of the 20th century. They settled in a section of South Philly that was very much a cultural enclave comprised primarily of eastern European Jews\u2026a \u2018shtetl\u2019 of sorts. Mom was considered well educated for that time and place. She graduated from the 8th grade and that concluded her formal education which was considered sufficient by the standard of that day. Minnie, as she was known by family was warm, bright, gracious, wise, funny and engaged. She was well read and conversant in a wide range of topics including but not limited to sports, finance, politics, food, entertainment and pop culture. Conversing with mom was like reading the Sunday edition of the NY Times.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_MOM1\"<\/a>

Mom at the Beach<\/p><\/div>\n

As one might guess, the courtship and eventual marriage of my parents was no easy matter. Both families were opposed to mom and dad dating and each family\u2019s feelings on the matter was quite clear as a four year courtship was inevitably going to result in a marriage. In their day, this was considered a \u2018mixed marriage.\u2019 While both of our parents came from very close families where children did what parents and older siblings told them to do, this event was destined to evolve into something bigger than both of them and they knew it. Mom and dad were intrepid by ignoring conventions of the day (no surprise there) and they were married in 1936 against the wishes of all who loved them. The most vocal objection to this impending \u2018doomed marriage\u2019 emanated from one of our Jewish aunts. Aunt Jean was ten years (or so) mom\u2019s senior and at the same time had recently married a Jewish guy named Fred Bloch, who had a reputation of being a \u2018dandy\u2019 and not paying his debts. The dandy thing was sort of OK, but not paying debts to guys from whom you should not borrow money can be a dicey business in that neighborhood. This set the stage for just how our household would be managed for the rest of our collective lives.<\/p>\n

\"Italian<\/a>

Italian Grandparents and family<\/p><\/div>\n

Aunt Jean came to mom and dad\u2019s newly wed apartment in a frantic state declaring that husband Fred went out for cigarettes hours ago and hadn\u2019t returned. After several harrowing days of no information concerning Fred\u2019s whereabouts, Aunt Jean asked mom if she could stay with mom and dad until this \u2018missing person\u2019 business was resolved. Mom responded to Aunt Jean with, \u201cI\u2019ll have to ask Dom.\u201d In reality, she never really ASKED dad for a blessing on this request but rather TOLD dad that Aunt Jean was coming to stay for a few days and that settled the matter. As adults, Jimmy and I assumed that dad acquiesced to this \u2018instruction\u2019 thinking he would pick and choose his battles with mom and this was one he probably couldn\u2019t win. The short of the story is they never found Fred Bloch. This means one of two things in that world: Either he split for greener pastures or he wound up in the Schuylkill River. That\u2019s how the neighborhood mob guys disposed of delinquent debtors. And the kicker\u2026 Aunt Jean stayed with us for the next 28 years and I do not believe neither dad nor Aunt Jean ever exchanged a complete sentence in all of that time. And as far as I could tell, we were a very happy family of FIVE.<\/p>\n

\"IMG-MOM\"<\/a>

Mom…very Jazzy<\/p><\/div>\n

Mom was the proverbial Jewish mother. She and dad struck a deal prior to their marriage that the children would be raised Jewish, and we were. Our kitchen was ground zero where food (both Italian and Jewish) was king and all matters light and heavy were discussed. No subject was out of bounds and how one felt about an issue was never a guess. Mom was in charge of the house and family; pop was in charge of supplying the cash. Our home was a warm, wonderful, engaging and safe place where everyone met. It was loud with laughter, filled with people and overflowing with love. This was a definite matriarchal society with dad having some veto powers but rarely invoked. Mom influenced much of what we thought, said and almost all of what we did. Small in stature, but our mom was \u201clarge and in charge.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an early teenager, this created some conflict in that I perceived mom to be unyielding to my way of thinking and doing. I was constantly in the \u2018Marino Dog House\u2019\u2026literally. It was an 8″ by 11″ novelty wall plaque with the entrance to a little dog house attached. Each member of the family had his\/her name painted on a cut out wooden dog which hung by hooks on that plaque. As the family grew with spouses and kids, new dogs were added with each new name. Very Cute! I was \u2018never not\u2019 in that dog house. No kidding! I desperately wanted to be taken seriously and our house was clearly not the venue for such. Mom and I would go \u2018round and \u2018round about my activities and rarely did we arrive at an agreeable path, but I unwillingly complied most of the time. Unlike Jimmy, I would rather argue my point and lose where my big brother would just agree to whatever mom said then just do as he pleased\u2026and he never got caught. I however, got caught at everything and nothing has changed even through \u2018geezerville.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cMinnie\u201d was well liked by everyone who knew her. She was generous, witty and really smart with wonderful instincts, especially when it related to people. She could tell who was a good guy and who was not. Jimmy and I regularly brought friends home and our parents always knew with whom we associated and they would render judgment. Mom was right almost all of the time. Example: Jimmy brought a new kid home from Jr. High after a baseball game in which they played and mom said she just didn\u2019t like that boy. When Jimmy asked why not, mom replied with a non specific answer which was unlike her. She then told Jim not to associate with him again. That kid was Ira Einhorn, the self proclaimed Philadelphia Guru of the sixties who murdered his girlfriend then dismantled her body which he kept in a trunk at his home. He fled to France where he lived freely for decades and was later extradited to the US and now serves a life sentence.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_MOM_AND_KIDS\"<\/a>

Al, Mom and Jimmy<\/p><\/div>\n

While our dad wanted his two boys to grow up with some \u201cstreet smarts,\u201d mom wanted her boys to be well educated. Both parents wished to see both elements, but each had their priorities. A line that best describes their favored outcome is: \u201cBe comfortable in a locker room, a bar room and a board room.\u201d Mom and dad moved us from So. Philly when I was six years old to West Oak Lane, a Jewish section of the city that proliferated after WWII. It was a great neighborhood comprised of row homes, great public schools and a million kids. What I didn\u2019t realize until I became an adult was mom had a method to her madness in moving us to this particular area. It was within walking distance to Central High School (all boys at the time). CHS was a very special school catering to any student in the greater Philadelphia area who could qualify for admission. It was and still is an academically charged school with a rigorous college prep curriculum comparable to Bronx School of Science or Brooklyn Tech in NYC. It is the second oldest public high school in America established in 1836 (Boston Latin being the oldest) and I was in the 213th graduating class in January, 1960 (we graduated two classes per year for some years). Everyone went to college and most went on to receive graduate or other professional degrees. Many docs, lawyers, scientists, politicians, academicians and business leaders in the country are Central High grads. This was our mom\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n

As an incoming freshman at Central High, I earned seven As and one B at the semester\u2019s end while running track (low hurdles). I later learned that hurdlers are sprinters who can\u2019t sprint…that would be me. Latin, Algebra, English, Science and History were all pretty easy for me with very little effort. I remembered everything I saw and read, and was able to connect the dots to make meaning of it all. That changed during the summer of \u201956 when at 14, I had a bicycle accident which resulted in some minor cuts and bruises\u2026no biggy. Thinking as a protective parent, mom overreacted and treated these \u2018owies\u2019 as though I might need new prosthetic limbs and my activities were limited for part of the summer. \u2018The boys\u2019 gave me a hard time about that incident. During that summer, my life changed for two very specific but dramatically different reasons. The first and most influential was\u2026a neighborhood girl whom we all knew (and shall remain nameless), grew tits. They came from nowhere and they were mezmerizing. This event was life altering for me. Second, my station with \u2018the boys\u2019 was severely impacted due to mom\u2019s insistence that I remain \u2018inactive\u2019 for a several weeks which resulted in being rendered something far less than a tough guy. I spent a good portion of my high school years rowing my way back with our \u2018crew.\u2019<\/p>\n

Mom opened a retail millenary store in a difficult part of the city after Jimmy and I became adults. All of the business owners along Germantown Ave. knew and protected each other from the vagaries of the neighborhood. A thief came onto the premises, produced a gun and demanded cash to which our mother responded with, \u201cyou better shoot me now \u2018cause you ain\u2019t gettin\u2019 shit.\u201d After a heated exchange of words, the criminal exited without the cash and exclaimed, \u201cYou crazy lady,\u201d whereupon Jimmy and I insisted she close down the store. She did so without argument\u2026a first!<\/p>\n

\"nancy<\/a>

Nancy and Mom-1967<\/p><\/div>\n

The last thing I\u2019ll say about mom (at this time) best describes her acerbic sense of humor. We lost our father in 1983 when mom was in her seventies. After the funeral, we retired back to their apartment. Mom said she was a bit weary and was going to have a nap. Jimmy and I could now have that conversation about where mom will live. I said to Jim, \u201cI\u2019ll take mom back to CA with Nancy, Danielle and me and she’ll stay with us until she is able to adjust to a new environment. Eventually, I\u2019ll get her a place of her own and look in on her daily\u201d\u2026 as our dad did with his parents. Jimmy immediately responded with an emphatic \u201cNO\u201d and said, \u201cI\u2019ll take mom back to VA with me and my family.” After a few minutes of animated discussion with my big brother, mom reappeared in the room and said, \u201cBoys, I couldn\u2019t help overhear your conversation about what to do with mom\u201d\u2026.which means she had a glass to the wall. \u201c I\u2019m really flattered, but I have a confession to make: I never really liked either of you as children and like both of you even less as adults and wouldn\u2019t live with either of you on a bet.\u201d She then exited the room without waiting for comment. Jimmy and I howled with laughter\u2026this was typical of our mother. There may have been a modicum of truth to what she declared since she remained in that apartment by herself, and by design, for the rest of her life. Our mother passed away in 1999 at age 87. It was a sad day.<\/p>\n

\"marino-kids\"<\/a>

Hey…give that back!<\/p><\/div>\n

Mom\u2019s funeral service was held graveside at Har Nebo, an old Hebrew cemetery in Philly where most of her family are interned. Jim and I thought that our two immediate families would be the only ones attending since all of mom\u2019s and dad\u2019s families and friends passed away. The funeral director, a childhood friend of ours, made the arrangements since both Jimmy and I were \u2018out of towners.\u2019 Our friend Merrill said, \u201cI received a call from one of our staff stating that the family of Marion Marino requested internment at Har Nebo.\u201d After Jim and I spoke with him, we wondered how he knew it was our mom. His reply was really quite simple when he said, \u201chow many people with the last name of Marino want to buried at an old Hebrew cemetery, schmendrick?\u201d. I get called that a lot. Much to our surprise, one car after another drove into the cemetery and parked in a line alongside of the grave site. While we did not expect anyone, our friend Merrill put the announcement in the Jewish Exponent (a Philadelphia Jewish weekly paper), made several calls and many of our childhood friends, neighbors and cousins appeared to pay their respects to our family, but especially to our mother. Merrill also pre-arranged for a buffet and open bar at a local hotel since we had no idea that a crowd would come and we had no place to take them being \u2018foreigners.\u2019 It was an amazing day and we shared mom stories into the wee hours. I am grateful for my friend Merrill\u2019s sensitivity and thoughtfulness in planning this goodbye for a woman who was respected and loved by many\u2026especially her two boys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2026I was born in South Philadelphia as the second and last son (and child) to Dominick and Marion Marino. I have one older brother, Jimmy, who is two years and eight months my senior. To understand me it is important … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfieland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfieland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfieland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfieland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfieland.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/alfieland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":272,"href":"https:\/\/alfieland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfieland.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfieland.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfieland.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}