simple life – Joe DeGiorgio

On Palm Sunday morning, I did what I’ve done most Sundays during the past year: sat in front of a television, watching a Roman Catholic mass, drinking coffee. The pandemic, having shut down churches previously, now allowed for limited seating if you wanted to attend in person, but I hadn’t taken the leap yet.

I wondered whether my attempt at community contribution (protecting others from an improbable but possible COVID infection) had turned into inaction, based in fear.

Others, some much older than myself, had no problem with live attendance. I still sat in my living room.

Not a good look at all for someone that likes to preach “go for it!”

Pandemic weariness, for me, had reached its peak. With cases in New York, especially upstate, on a steady decline I decided enough was enough. On Easter Sunday, I would make the short drive downtown and set foot in St. Anthony’s Church for the first time in over a year.

Media has beat the drum ad nauseum on pandemic fatigue, and its effect on you psychologically. My fatigue was slightly different. I told my wife early last year I had no problem going into “monk mode” for six months, if necessary. We adapted well to enjoying just spending time with each other with very limited outside interaction.

Much had changed in the past year: my wife was no longer working, I transitioned to working from home, and worked in an office space that I now shared with my son. College campuses were off limits, and Zoom became his lifeline.

Although new rituals were born after March 2020 to preserve sanity for many of us (running outdoors was my lifeline), we were able to maintain some of the ones we loved most.

No, there was no live music. No trips to baseball stadiums. No trips, or travel, period (and in early 2020, we had our bags packed before canceling).

It was a “back to basics” scenario, no question. But having being brought up the way I was, with frequent reminders to enjoy life as it came, I was taught to embrace the simple pleasures.

Although I’m “American made” in the purest sense, my roots run deep in Sicily, and southern Italy. The simple things, the fundamentals, stay with me always and were strengthened during the past year.

Faith, tradition, food & wine, community, gratitude: not necessarily in that order.

Related reading: 8 Happiness Rules (That You Can Use) From My Italian Grandmother

We thought we had nailed the gratitude thing long before COVID-19. But the realization set in that we had new things to be happy about. No more commutes or compressed schedules, more time together.

Our coffee ritual just got better with the increased time. The grinding of the beans, scooping of the grounds into the espresso pot (no Keurig here, kids), the anticipation of the boiling sound, preceded by that steamy hiss. To be poured out, cup with cream and cinnamon, and enjoyed on the back deck even in slightly frigid early spring temperatures.

Yes, I’m very grateful for coffee.

As you might expect, we cooked at home more than ever before. Although I perceive myself as some kind of meatball wizard (nod to the Who’s “Pinball Wizard” here), my wife is the true kitchen maven in this house, seemingly becoming more creative with each passing week.

As before, she is the true glue that holds this family together.

The majority of our meals came from our kitchen. Small businesses, especially restaurants, suffered mightily during this craziness and are just starting now to mount a furious comeback (labor shortage not withstanding). We hope we did enough to support some of our local small businesses even if we couldn’t, or chose not to, sit in their dining rooms.

Related reading: A Former Bartender’s Ask of You

With the three of us in our household choosing to vaccinate, we have sat in those dining rooms recently. Our experiences from these dedicated food service workers were nothing less than extraordinary. Attendance at Easter mass led to more of the same, leading to small dinner parties, to reuniting with my cousins at my favorite coffee hangout on the Sundays after mass.

I hadn’t seen some of them in over a year. I was thankful to have another opportunity.

In the end, I had the feeling we made a narrow escape: coming out the other side with health, life, and the important things within fairly intact. This life is brief, however, so I want more, of course.

I look forward to a concert hall guitar solo, the swelling roar of a baseball stadium, or crossing the Atlantic on a jet plane when those opportunities happen.

It’s the same for all of us: this life ain’t no dress rehearsal.

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hard work ethic — Manning the restaurant meat slicer during one of her chaotic mornings

Like many other young people of my generation, I was taught to go to work at an early age. My indoctrination to the world of work wasn’t really difficult: a very part time gig in my family’s restaurant, manning the dishwasher during a slower period in the mid afternoon.

Not being sure in the beginning as to why I was being put to work in the first place (I had school work to do, you know), I slowly got into a rhythm of what the business was like, even for just a few hours a week in the “back of the house.”

It was here that I learned respect for those that lived and breathed hospitality, and the nature of the chores they had to do. While many of the restaurant’s customers came in from their office jobs in pressed suits and ties, I more identified with the working style of my family, and the restaurant’s other employees: grinding out physical labor, at times on the run, for shifts of varying lengths.

It was an ordinary day for my father to spend 12 hours in a hot kitchen, on his feet, attempting to coordinate dozens of different entrees out to the dining room at the proper time.

Dad was a younger guy back then, and could easily handle the workload. The real respect was formed for my grandparents, especially my grandmother, who continued with this type of physical labor into their seventies and eighties.

Nonna’s schedule, at that age, bordered on the ridiculous. Her typical day went like this:

5:30 AM – awake time.

6:00 AM – hop into a cab, or take the bus (she never drove a car) to the restaurant to prepare for the day.

6:15 AM – fire up the ovens, stove top, grill, etc. When the oven was preheated, in would go a whole turkey. For the purpose of making turkey sandwiches, mostly. She did this just about every day.

6:30 AM – once the turkey was in, prep would start for various soups, sauces, salads. To the right of the stove was a steam table that would hold vats of soup that she prepared every day. Deli meats were readied on a meat slicer, and she would respond to calls from early morning vendors who knew she was there.

8:00 AM – time to unlock the front door, to receive her “fans” – mainly older, retired gentlemen who liked an early morning cocktail or two. Now, she would start tending bar for customers, pivoting back and forth from the bar to the kitchen to make sure all systems were go with the oven and stove.

There were times, when I was the restaurant’s main bartender, I would come in the morning to find an already full bar. I had mixed feelings about that, as now I had to juggle serving customers and prepping my space for the day. But my grandmother’s fan club was always a priority for her: so I had to keep my lip zipped.

11:00 AM – when I came in around 10 o’clock, she was free to focus on just her kitchen duties. The turkey was cooled and ready for slicing, soups just about done, grill clean and ready to go. Sandwich and salad area prepped and pristine, soon to be enveloped by the lunch hour chaos.

At this point, I was to drive her home for job number two: prepping even more food for the restaurant at the house, as well as a different dish or two for dinner for my grandfather, when I dropped him off that night. It wasn’t unusual for her to receive visitors during the day, entertaining them while making a cauldron of lentil soup that I would pick up later on.

From the early morning hours to the evening, she was all about the work: interrupted only by the occasional prayer or counting of rosary beads. She embraced the simplicity of her life, and when all was said and done, the work – the feeding and nurturing of family and customer alike, with the adoration of the “fan club” (men I came to know, respect, and share a few laughs with myself) – was what made her happiest.

I can’t come close to matching the work ethic of these amazing people: but on days when I think of them and attempt to model their way of getting after it, it’s those days where I wind up feeling my best. I believe that, no matter the circumstance, they were proud of their family. Although they’ve departed, I’d like to think I’m doing all I can to make them proud still.

Tag: simple life

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