Celia Williams

I haven’t posted in a while. Need to. Anybody who reads this probably already knows I was born in 1939 in Houston, Texas. I wouldn’t trade being a Texan for just about anything but that’s another subject. Here’s what you don’t know. When I was 3 my mother got pregnant with my little sister. Complications developed and she died 24 hours after birth. It was something that would not amount to much today with sonograms and modern medicine, but that was then, not now. Mom got to hold her, and name her and later they buried her in a formal grave.  All I remember is all the fuss in the house and Mom and Dad finding a “domestic” to come take care of me. I’ve been lucky all my life and this was some of the first of my luck. A lady showed up who may have changed my life. Her name was Celia Williams, at her request we called her Ciel. Pronunced Seal. Celia was Black, She wasn’t especially pretty  Mom was a College grad, she had a degree in home economics and decided to go to work in one of the many defense plants that found a home in Houston. She became a quality inspector in a factory that made binoculars and gunsights for the Navy. We only had my Dads company car so Mom left the house at about 7AM, took the bus to a collection point where she was bussed to the factory. Celia rode the bus from North Houston coming the opposite way. She arrived about a half hour after Mom left. Dad waited for her to show up and then hustled off to work. Then Celia went to work. She washed and cleaned and cooked and made me walk the straight and narrow. I didn’t know it at the time but her life had been a series of disappointments. She was married young and kicked her husband out in the street when she caught him being unfaithful. She was unable to have children so I became a surrogate son. There’s no nickname for Glenn so because my middle name is Dean I became Denny (gotta have a nickname in Texas). Ciel called me Mars Denny. When I prowled around the wall outlets she’d say “”Mars Denny, you leave them alone, that lectricity be dangerous. When I found out for myself she said “See what Ah tole you, doan be doin that again” Then she would tousle my hair and head for the kitchen to fix lunch. Which was something like ham and beans with cornbread,  She was there when I had my tonsils out and when I toddled off to kindergarten. She was there when Mom got pregnant again and my sister Valerie was born. When we moved to what was then the suburbs Ceil found other work for a while. It was too far to come on the bus. About a year after we moved Mom got a job running the kitchen at one of the big hospitals and called Ciel with a more generous offer and she came back to work for us. Mom worked until 7PM or so and my sister and I were old enough to be on our own so Dad would get home from work, dinner would be ready, we would drive Ciel to a bus stop downtown, go pick up Mom and and head for home. This worked really well until 1953 when we came to California. I’m going to gloss over some stuff, Mom and Dad split up in 1957-58, in 1959 I joined the Coast Guard, while I was in boot camp Mom and my sister went back to Texas. They hired Ciel back to keep house and in 1961 I had a chance to go visit. Drove a car to Texas for friends, got to Houston on Wednesday, slept all day and all night. Ciel was working two days a week, she got to the house about 10AM Thursday.  Hadn’t changed a bit, when she saw me she said “Mars Denny, you is all growed up” I wanted the worst way to have her tousle my hair or hug me like she did when I was 5 but we both understood our place in the system. I came back to California, Mom retired and moved into an apartment. Really didn’t need a maid but kept Ciel coming 2 days a week. When my sister complained about the money Ciel cost Mom said “She was there when we needed her, now she needs us.”  That was Mom. I said I was lucky, a big part of my luck was being surrounded by people with strong work ethics. Dad, Mom, my grandparents and a modest, strong willed hardworking African American lady named Celia Williams. She is responsible for a bunch of what I became. I don’t know if in their morning coffee conversations Mom told her. I hope so.

Drawer Guides

 

Our Italian friend Chicco  Franchini  posted an absolutely hilarious  video on Facebook today. Titled “The Expert” it’s about being the only engineer in a business meeting where a department of an unnamed company has been assigned to draw  vertical red lines with green ink. When the only engineer in theroom  points out that this can’t be done chaos ensues. Hence this post. So my engineer friends won’t think that they are alone.Now I’m a long way from being a real engineer but I know that 2+2=4 so I have an unfair advantage over lots of people.  Including a wonderful but slightly  disorganized group of co-workers.

Along about 1992 the company I worked for had almost completed the change from multi product  wood products to  making exclusively furniture.  Everything else we did was a commodity and the business was well over capacity so margins were small to non existent. So furniture it was. We developed  two lines of furniture based on wide use of common parts and featuring a unique (for us) roller drawer guide.  The guides had become common in kitchen cabinets and were spreading into furniture business so it made good sense to use them. That’s when the fun began. We sold one of the lines to our biggest customer. From the proposed ship date we worked backwards and made a timeline for finalizing the design, producing ,checking and distributing  the production drawings, sizing the boxes and getting everything in house to make shipment on time.  We had regular status meetings on the commitments we were making and everybody was sure they had their area under complete control. The guides became an object of some dispute because of the costs involves so there were endless discussions about who to buy them from and how much to pay. I was the QC guy and I wasn’t normally invited to the meetings but one day I was asked to sit in. We were 9 weeks from making shipment. The endless discussion of the drawer guides began anew. “These cost $1.05 a set, those cost $.95 a set, these have 5 mounting holes, those have 6, they aren’t interchangeable one vendor toanother”.Etc, Etc. I was fast running out of patience so I asked “What’s the lead time?” the purchasing agent consulted his notes and said 8 weeks, so I said “Sounds like we need to quit talking, make a decision, and place an order” Later that afternoon the CFO called and asked me to come to his office. He gave me the whole project and that morphed into running  new product development for about 8 months. Wonderful learning experience and it gave me the opportunity to promote a really fine young man into the department after I had it up and running. I also learned to do the costing, took over keeping the production drawings in order and took the instruction sheets in house. This allowed massive reductions in development time and kept us competitive against the Chinese imports for 10 years.

 

After the successful launch of the new line we decided to replace our economy line of furniture with a completely new design. In the past developing a new line usually took a year to 18 months and the sales guys had become very good at making excuses when we had to postpone shipment. I like to do what I say I’m going to do, so I decided keep to the schedule and deliver on time. We went from designer sketches to packaging product in 6 weeks. There was an unwritten protocol that design changes had to be formally evaluated and put into the system  after the costing process. So we were two days from packaging when UPS delivered a package addressed to me with a note and a pair of incredibly cheap galvanized drawer guides, they had rough edges, sharp corners and were clearly unsuited for use in a product the customer would assemble. Additionally they weren’t available in the volume required for our production. The note from the sales manager said,  “Please include these guides in the first shipment of Etc. scheduled for shipment later this month”  I put the note and the guides back in the box, took it to the operations manager, said “I think this belongs to you” turned around and left. We laughed about it later but this was unfortunately one of the problems you have as a (quasi)engineer.

Philip Seymour Hoffman

The title is Phillip Seymour Hoffman but this could be a post about any number of famous and creative people who have drunk or doped themselves to death in the last 40-50 years.

Around 20 years ago, I’m thinking it was our 30^th wedding anniversary, Marilyn and I spent a long weekend in San Francisco. We stayed in a boutique hotel near Union Square,  had dinner Saturday night at Absinthe, went to North Beach, hit Biordi for some window shopping, and had a wonderful time. I don’t remember where else we ate except that the hotel had a breakfast deal with a café on the corner.  When we finished breakfast I think we had plans to shop Union Square, have lunch and head home.  We walked out the door  of the café and started toward Union Square. About mid-block a small crowd had gathered. They were watching a guy who was lying on the sidewalk in obvious distress. Clearly one of San Francisco’s many homeless and probably addicted to something that served him badly, he was shivering and semi-conscious. Someone in the crowd had gone to phone for help. I advised the other bystanders not to touch him (you never know with druggies and I had some experience at work with people whose chemical balance was unbalanced)

I don’t know who this guy was, I don’t know if he was ever a beloved son or brother or worse a father, He was too young to be a Vietnam Vet and likely too old for any of the Middle East conflicts. I don’t know if he lived or died. The EMT crews in big cities call them frequent flyers because they take them to the emergency rooms so often. In many cases they know them by name or at least by some street name. Fifty years ago they abused alcohol, the police picked them up, judges sent them to work farms and once in a while they got sober and became productive members of society. Now we give “support groups” grants to “help the less fortunate”. Every medium to large city has a population of the “less fortunate”. They don’t have to work, they receive better medical care than the working poor, and their “helpers” make good salaries helping them. It’s a win-win. Except when they are lying on a sidewalk in the center of one of the most beautiful cities on the planet possibly dying of a drug overdose. Surrounded by visitors  to the beautiful city.

How does this relate to a brilliant actor who at the age of 46 with three children put enough Heroin in his arm to kill himself. Except for one thing it’s exactly the same. Millions of people loved Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s work, nobody that we know of loved the homeless guy on Geary Street. And nobody cared enough about either one of them to make them stop, or find out who was selling them the drugs and make that person stop. It’s our loss.  We lost both their work products. We don’t know what those products would have been. We just can’t afford to keep doing this. And it doesn’t have anything to do with helping the “less fortunate”.

I Saw Her and She Saw Me and That Was That

Many years ago I found on the remainder table at Barnes and Noble a book called “The Tuscan Year” by Elizabeth Romer.  The book is a combination cookbook, travelogue and tribute to the Tuscan family who rented Ms.  Romer  and her archaeologist  husband a farmhouse on their property near Cortona in Southern Tuscany while he worked on a dig in Turkey.  The best line in the book is the title of this post.  I can’t tell you the names of the Italian farm family who were Ms. Romers landlords  but the wife described meeting her husband at a country dance as “I saw him and he saw me and that was that”. I like that line.  If you ever see a copy of the book at a used book store or yard sale buy it. Marilyn didn't need the cookbook and never will but every recipe is one of those simple seasonal dishes that Marilyn is legendary for.

Kingdon Drag Strip, February 3^rd, 1963

 

 

 

My buddies and I had a car club called the “Slicks of Stockton”. For those of you who don’t know slicks are a type of untreaded tire used in racing. The Slicks were well represented at racing events all over Northern California but our home track was Kingdon Drag Strip north of Stockton on DeVries Road. Racing started there in 1951 or so and continued until the track was converted to a private airport in 1972. February the 3^rd  1963 Kingdon staged a regular event with the addition of demonstration runs by a jet powered car built by a Bay Area racer named Romeo Palamides. I was walking down the return road checking out all the racers when a gal who was dating one of the club members drove up. Sitting shotgun in her car was a cute brunette with dancing eyes and a mischievous smile. I found out she was Italian-American and her name was Marilyn Bertolli. I didn’t want to admit it but I was smitten. Later that evening I saw her doing the cruise on Pacific Avenue and tried to climb in her car and give her a kiss. Not the best first impression but we got over it. I asked her to marry me about 4 months later and the following year April 25^th 1964 we married. So 50 years ago Feb 3^rd was easily the luckiest day of my life.

 

 See what I mean about the eyes and the smile. I kinda go monochromatic.

 

Marilyn would never tell you this but she's  a special person. She's one of two her age or younger in her Stockton family who speak Italian. And she speaks fluent modern Italian not a dialect. She went to school to learn and made the school a big part of our social life. She was the one who got us involved with exchange students (worth a post or two all by itself).  That made 30+ trips to Europe possible and let us meet the most amazing group of people you could imagine.

 

I was  going to do this post on the third but events and my limited blogging skills conspired to stop me. So Valentines Day it is.  Later I get to take my sweetie to lunch.

The Car That Sang To Me

I always wanted to have a car that was a little special. A hot rod or a sports car or something just a little out of the ordinary. Because I worked in a factory it didn’t make much sense to buy something really expensive so after my management career was pretty well set I started looking around at the possibilities. I dismissed all the British MG’s, Triumphs, and Austin Healy’s. A Jaguar was totally out of the question and I wouldn’t have driven one into the factory anyhow. My Dad had an MG and a Lancia Appia Zagato. The MG was a little pedestrian and broke down a lot. The Lancia was way cool but had something like 63 HP. FIAT’s were still around, by 1986 they had quit selling new ones but I started watching the newspaper and after driving some 1600 and 1800 Spyders I found a 1979 2000cc FIAT Spyder. It was metallic blue with a tan interion, 48,000 original miles from the first owner. She bought it right out of College, drove it for 6 years, got married, got pregnant and had to sell it. I drove it, we made an offer and got a cashiers check from the bank. I think the girls name was Susan, when I handed her the check and started the engine she buried her head in her husbands chest and cried. The car was almost perfect, it had a scratch on the right side door made by the original owners Golden Retriever. Couldn’t wait to get in the car one night. And there were a couple of stone chips on the nose. When I found that the standard fuel pump had been replaced with a Bendix electric I went to the dealer and got an original. I had the timing belt replaced and after a few thousand miles the water pump got noisy. That was it, the car ran like a top until it had 105,600 miles. The engine was designed by Vittorio Jano. He was one of those brilliant Italian engineers who designed everything from the Alfa Romeo 8 cylinder Grand Prix engine for the 158-159 series to a slew of standard production engines. He gave the 2000 a soul. When you shifted from 3^rd to 4^th his engine gave a little bark and really started to pull. The gear ratios were perfectly chosen, you could drive all over town in 2^nd and 4^th but when you hit the road 3000 rpm in 5^th was 70 mph and it would cruise there all day. 30 more hp would have been nice but the engine would pull your head off without getting all stressed. We took it everywhere, it put a smile on the face of everybody who saw it. Pininfarina built the body in their factory and if they hadn’t made the deal to build the ill-fated Atlante for GM they might still be building them. It was classically Italian, it sang when you drove it. The hum from the tires, Pirellis natch, the bark of the 4 cyl engine and the whine from the gearbox in the lower gears. I’ve had some nice cars since the FIAT, the only one that came close to getting me emotionally involved was a Mitsubishi 3000GT but it was a sexy appliance. The FIAT was a car. People designed it, People made it. It had soul and a heart. One of these days I’ll dig out the pictures and scan them so you can see it.

Trains Planes and Automobiles II.

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When I was a kid WW2 was in full swing. The news papers and newsreels were full of stories about the heroic fighter and bomber pilots who carried the war to the Japanese, German and Italian heartland. Guys like Colin Kelly, John Cunningham, Jimmy Doolittle and a host of other brave men fought the Battle of Britain, bombed Tokyo and became the fabled greatest generation. Until the Germans deployed the jet powered Messerschmitt ME-262 near the end of the war the fastest planes barely topped 400 mph. A bunch of forward thinking German scientists created the V weapons and wreaked havoc on Britain until the Allied armies pushed them out of Holland and put London out of range of the launch sites. I followed all the news on the radio, in magazines and newspapers. I was hooked on flying and more particularly rockets. I had model airplanes and when a British company started selling solid fuel rocket engines under the name Jetex I saved my allowance and bought two of them. When I was in 8^th grade there was a space club at the school. There were three of us who wanted to learn about rockets, everybody else wanted to read Sci-Fi stories with Bug-Eyed monsters menacing scantily clad space girls. I built a flying saucer from plans in one of the model magazines and almost got kicked out of school and the space club banned when we flew it on the ball field. Seems it was designed for the smallest Jetex motor and I scaled it up and put the big one on it. Go figure. I actually saw the math for going to the moon, everybody knew what it was going to take, it was the technology that was hard. The metals didn’t exist, the electronics didn’t exist. Most of the stuff that took the Apollo guys to the moon was some engineers dream. People don’t realize that you can go down to the Verizon store or Best Buy and get a phone or a computer with orders of magnitude more computing power than what Apollo had. We moved to California in 1953, the rocket motors and the model airplane engines went in a box in the garage and I got interested in California girls and hot rod cars and drag racing. I had followed Chuck Yeager and Scott Crossfield and the duel between the Bell X-1 and the beautiful Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket but all that pretty much went in the box in the garage till the space program came along. You can see the whole story in the movies “The Right Stuff” and “Apollo 13” The run up to the moon missions was a wonderful time. Even the newscasters were chosen because they knew what was going on, not because of their “Q” factor. Some of them actually had degrees in hard sciences. We got up early or stayed up late and watched the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo launches. Cried when *Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were killed in the Apollo One cabin fire and sweated bullets when one of those flying bombs climbed out on that column of flame and smoke.

Fast forward to July 20^th 1969. Marilyn and I took the kids to the Italian Gardeners Picnic at Micke Grove near Lodi Ca. We went every year, Marilyn’s family all came, everybody cooked and it was a real party. We lived about ten minutes from the park so I went early in the morning with Marilyn’s uncle Ralph and got a prime table just across from entrance to the dance floor and stage. I took my portable radio so I could listen to the progress of the Apollo 11 landing. Lots of people remember Neil Armstrong’s famous words “That’s on small step …. etc” I remember “Houston, Tranquility Base, the Eagle has landed”. Because anyone will tell you takeoffs and landings are when stuff can really go wrong in a hurry. We went home to our modest first house that evening to watch the first moonwalk. One of our guests was an elderly Italian lady who was Marilyn’s surrogate grandmother. Octavia was a great friend and poker partner who treated our kids like her own. She was wonderful. We were explaining what was happening on TV and she pointed up and said “You mean that moon? Marilyn, you think this is real?”

The kids grew up and moved out. We watched as many of the shuttle launches and landings as we could, When Challenger blew up shortly after launch and the crew was lost our plant engineer came to find me and tell me so I wouldn’t hear it on the radio. People knew I was a space junkie. There came a time when the launches became so common that the networks quit carrying them. The reporters that knew what was going on retired and were replaced by talking heads with high “Q” factors The space program was normal if going into earth orbit can be considered normal. I followed the Mars Lander program, watched press conferences on the NASA Channel with reporters trying to “gotcha” scientists and engineers who were maybe twice as smart as the reporters.

That gets me to today. The shuttle fleet has been retired, they’ll be put in museums. Discovery is going to the Smithsonian Annex near Dulles Airport in Washington. She was delivered today. I happened to be at the gym warming up on a stationary bike in front of the big screen TV’s that carry CNN and Fox. Both had the arrival of Discovery at Dulles. I can’t report what the Fox folks were saying but CNN has an on-screen text service. As the 747 which carries the shuttle piggyback was approaching Dulles it was obvious that they were going to do a flyby. They were at about 1500 feet, wheels up, straight and level right over the airport. Panic ensued in the CNN booth, “They don’t have the landing gear down.” “Flying awfully low to not have the gear down” etc. About halfway down the main runway, still at 1500 feet or so Wonderchin and Blondie figured out what was going on. Then they made all sorts of cover remarks but when the 747 tooled off toward the center of Washington they got all excited again. I was laughing so hard I had to stop pedaling.

I think the journey from P-40’s and P-51’s and 400mph to 18,000mph space shuttles and orbiting space stations and all the technology that came from the space program is probably the reverse of the journey from ABC’s Jules Bergman and NBC’s Frank Reynolds to the pretty boys and girls whose only skill is to make palms sweat and read a teleprompter. It all happened in my lifetime and I got to see a whole bunch of it.. Just might be another allegory of America.

*Marilyn’s favorite Astronaut.

Evelyn Harmon Bertolli 1914 - 2006

I’ve been thinking about family stuff for a week or so and while we were shopping today the conversation turned to food. Funny how often that happens. Wound up with Marilyn making the enchiladas her Mom and Grandmother used to make. If you’ve never had them eat your heart out. When Evelyn passed on it was a sad occasion but everybody who knew and loved her kicked in with some kind words. Since we are in the computer age now most of the words are files, and since I have this blog I decided to put them together and make a post. As you will see it’s filled with love not just for Evelyn but her beloved Hank (I'll get to that later) and all the Bertolli’s and Harmon’s who have left us. Put the picture of Evelyn as a young woman in so all of you who only knew her late in life could see what a beauty she was. Marilyn explains the tradition of remembering all the siblings when the last one passes on. She did this with her Uncle Louie Bertolli mostly because when the rest of the Bertolli’s passed on nobody said much and there was a lot that needed to be said. This took a little longer than I anticipated because there were a bunch of different file formats including couple of versions of MS Word and one piece done on a Mac and set up to be printed at a print shop. I love challenges and this was one.

I’m the one in italics

I’ll start with John because, well just because. John wrote and spoke so eloquently that day.

“First off, on behalf of our family, I’d like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of you present here today as we remember our grandmother. It means a great deal to us that you are all here. Thanks too to all those who have offered their condolences and wanted to have been here to pay their respects personally, but regardless of the reason, could not do so.

Thanks too to our parents, Glenn & Marilyn. You know, you hear of so many instances where couples exclude the in-laws. I’m grateful that mom & dad insisted that our grandparents, all 4 of them, be a part of our childhood.

In talking this day over with Mom earlier this week, she had indicated her intention to point out that Nonni’s passing marks the end of an era, in a sense... for Nonni, Aunt Evelyn to so many of you, is the last of the Harmon siblings, to leave us... and she indicated her intention to take the time to recognize each of Evelyn’s brothers and sisters.

It is also true that Nonni’s passing marks that point in which all 4 of our grandparents, mine and Kathleen’s... have now passed on. So, before sharing some thoughts and remembrances of Nonni, I’d like to share just a few things that have crossed my mind in recent days as I looked back and remembered each of my grandparents.

Kathleen and I affectionately knew our Dad’s Mom, Faye, as Grandma in Texas. Now, some of my recollections of Grandma in Texas have diminished over the years, but what I do remember is the love she showered upon Kathleen and I during those times she’d come out from Houston. I also remember the Rosettes. Now for those of you unfamiliar with the virtues of the Rosette, picture this : Egg batter... deep fried in oil over a pastry iron and then smothered in powdered sugar and served hot. Grandma in Texas would labor over the stove making these darn things. But more particularly, I remember how genuinely happy she was when she seemed around Kathleen and I. I look back on her visits with great fondness. She always treated Kathleen and I with great love and kindness.

Glenn Sr, Dad’s dad, was one who was very much a part of our lives as Kathleen and I were kids. He and Margaret, his second wife, would come over to the house, and we would visit theirs, quite frequently. I remember Grandpa’s voice having this subtle, cadence when he spoke. It seemed as though each word had this deliberate, pregnant pause in front of it. Me, being pulled in by his flair for the dramatic, would sit and listen transfixed as he told me some story about Ty Cobb or the greatest tenor in opera. It seemed as though Grandpa wanted Kathleen and I to have experiences in childhood that we would look back upon later in life with great appreciation. I can’t go to an A’s game at the Oakland Coliseum without thinking of him. He did so much for us when we were kids which have become such wonderful memories for us now. I remember, the day he passed on, my mom, saying to me, tearrily, “When you were born, he was so happy”. That really sums it up about him, he loved to be surrounded by his family, and his extended family.

Although Nonni’s beloved Henry, our Nonno, passed away when I was 18 months old, and Kathleen was not yet born, he has maintained a huge influence and presence in our lives. Among those of you that knew him well, so many of you have mentioned to me that he was a gentle giant, a man capable of great love, wit , and kindness. Aside from Mom & Dad, perhaps no one was closer to Nonno & Nonni than Mamie & Italo in Santa Cruz, I am so grateful to Mamie & Italo for taking the time, while they were still with us, and also to Nilda & Teresa, their daughters who are here today, to pass along to me their memories of our Nonno, the time they spent together, the fun they had, for this helped to give those of us who never had the pleasure of knowing him a clearer view of who he really was. Certainly any time Nonni spoke of Nonno to us, her love for him beamed. Any reference she made to him always centered around his love and kindness.

I’m going to interrupt here to say that Marilyn’s Dad, referred to here as Hank or Henry was the first born of the Bertolli’s in California. He was everything John and everybody else said. In addition he was really smart. He left school in the 8^th grade to support the family and as his working life evolved he needed some of the math skills he missed out on in school. So he created them himself. He could solve for all sorts of unknowns with a pencil and the back of an envelope. Taught himself geometry and the rudiments of algebra. Graduate engineers at his last employer came to him for solutions to problems their slide rules wouldn’t give them. And his given name was Erico. His school teachers thought it was Enrico because of Caruso. So he became Henry and then Hank. I’m big on given names. People should learn them and call people by their right name. It’s a sign of respect. Thinking about him inspires me to blog about all the Bertollis so there is another post coming up. Marilyn tells me that her eulogy to all of them wasn’t retained as a file but I‘ll bet I can remember most of it..

Now, some thoughts about the one we are gathered here to remember. Evelyn, our Nonni. First off, Kathleen and I both found Nonni was hysterically funny. Nonni had this knack for maintaining a clear understanding of what she was saying, however, it was also evident that she often times failed to realize just how funny what she just said, actually was... and the best part, when she finally realized the humor in what she just said, usually because every one else in the room was cracking up, she’d begin to crack-up right along with you, and give you a look that said, “I’m so pleased you find this as funny as I do !”

I was sitting in an airport last Friday evening, after receiving the news of Nonni’s passing earlier in the day. As I was sitting there, looking back on the time I was blessed to spend with her, it was funny to me that so many of the little details about her crossed my mind. I sent off an e-mail to Mom & Dad and Kathleen expressing those remembrances, Mom responded by saying that she had been having the same types of thoughts all through the day; and evidently Kathleen was as well, because she responded with a list of some of her own. I’d like to read a few of those now*

It is also important to remember this as we look back on her life today: Anytime any one of us had a need for anything... a ride when our car was in the shop, a plate of food to take to a family gathering, or to borrow anything of hers, from the lawn mower down to a pair of scissors, or a spare bedroom for about 9 months, Nonni would be there to fill that need.

It has been said that death is a silent messenger that reminds us of God’s love.

I hope these words provide you with a reminder of Nonni, Aunt Evelyn’s ... Love

As I look over at our parents, here today, sitting on a little over 42 years of marriage, 2 things become evident... First, that Kathleen and I chose our grandparents wisely, and second, that not only Mom & Dad, but also Faye, Glenn Sr., Henry, and Evelyn must have done a whole lot right.

This quote was passed along to me earlier this week from a very good friend of mine. It sums up so beautifully the gratitude we feel for Nonni, and for that matter for all of our grandparents.

“Thank You for what has been given us, taken from us , and left to us.”

　

Here are the things John sent in his E-Mail

*Just a few things I consider as I sit here waiting for my flight in Seattle:

A pink box full of brownies with sugar on the bottom of 'em.

The way the windows always fogged up when there was a pot of Swiss steak on the stove.

The joy of seeing a brown Nova (Evelyn’s Car) parked in front of the house when I rounded the

corner from the bus stop.

Opening a bag full of Eisenhower dollars and Kennedy halves as the car crossed

the 120 bridge, or Donner Summit.

Waiting in line at Dave Wong's on Pershing.

Changing the pads on a water cooler.

The dogged eared pages of a Scrabble dictionary.

The heavy sigh uttered by all at the poker table as "baseball" is the declared hand.

Stories about Ruth, Gehrig, the depression, the war, (and hangings)

Eats, and one thing another.

There's no place on Earth as happy, and, simultaneously, as sad... as an airport.

And Kathleen added these

A folded crossword on her clipboard on a TV tray next to her recliner

A freshly baked berry pie

Breakfast steaks and waffles anytime Mom and Dad went out of town

Every Time?

A stack of card stock from pantyhose packaging in the drawer of her coffee table


Tootsie Rolls in the candy dish


Until I got there. Then it was just another empty dish.

Laundry on the line every Monday (sheets on the side facing the street so to hide the underwear)

Trips to Spaan's cookie factory in Galt

and, of course, giving someone the thumb

Marilyn‘s tribute to all the Harmon’s.

Thank you for coming today. You have helped us fulfill my mother’s wish to be remembered.

When my Uncle Louie Bertolli passed away, he was the last of the Bertolli siblings and we remembered all of them at that time. With my mom’s passing we have lost all of the Harmon siblings as well. Today we must remember them all.

Our dear Granny and our Grandfather, whom I always referred to as “Honey” had eight children. They lost two in early childhood, Eddie and Marguerite. Six of them survived to adulthood and had families of their own.

First was Uncle Al, my handsome, bon vivant uncle. He was not only handsome but suave and debonair as well. When he had his first single engine airplane he asked Granny if she wanted to fly to Las Vegas with him. He was sure she would decline, but the next thing he knew she was dressed and her suitcase was sitting next to her chair. He was delighted. He showed all of us how to really get the most out of life.

Al was of those guys you never forget. He sold cars. Al worked at Competion Motors in Los Angeles and sold James Dean the Porsche 550 Spyder he got killed in. Then he became a VW Porsche Audi dealer in Woodland Hills in the San Fernando Valley. Al wrote the book on cool.

Aunt Winona was our loving and somewhat ribald aunt. She loved to say outrageous things just to see the response. Do you remember her house in Escalon and the in ground swimming pool? Didn’t you love to visit her and her pool? When my dad passed away she included Granny, my mom, my kids and I (Glenn was working nights) at least once a week for dinner, and oh yes, there was a poker game too. She could bluff the socks off of you.

Winona married a guy named Wayne Orton. Wayne was a Marine (Still is actually, you can be a Marine even if you are dead. U.S. Marines are always present tense) Wayne led several amphibious landings in the Pacific Theater.

Uncle Ed has to be remembered as Ed and Minnie. It seems that there was no Ed without Minnie. He was hard working and very successful in his professional life. The opposite of Al, Ed enjoyed the quiet life. He loved to take his RV to some remote place and have his television, down home food served on demand by Aunt Minnie and no phones.

Marilyn isn’t kidding about Ed and Minnie. When Minnie died very unexpectedly Ed lasted six weeks. They’re together in the little cemetery in rural Escalon. And if you go in any cannery in California you'll find something Ed Harmon invented.

Then there was my darling Uncle Bill. Oh my how I loved him. When I was a little girl he was the manager of the Kress store in downtown Stockton. Every Friday my mom and I would pop in to say hi. They had this wonderful department of miniature kitchen ware. I always left with a new pot or pan or sometimes a record from the children’s dept. My mom has all the mail that he sent during the war which was just at the time that she was expecting me. It was very touching to read these letters because he was so excited that my parents were expecting. It was even ok with him if I turned out to be a girl. Bill and Marion were like our movie star Aunt and Uncle, so cute together. Marion has always been a treasured Aunt with her great sense of humor and her artistic talent. I was probably the closest to Bill because he lived here in Stockton and my dad was crazy for Aunt Marion.

Bill was a WW2 Marine. Enough said. Wonderful man.

What can we say about Uncle George? Wasn’t he about he kindest person you ever wanted to know? He was great with kids and always had quite a few around him. He was generous and giving. He was always ready for a good laugh. He had Granny and Honey sign for him so that he could join the Marines at such a young age. He was severely wounded but he never missed a day’s work. He suffered the effects of that injury all of his life but never wanted to talk about it. The letters that he sent from the war are priceless. He wrote to Granny that they had this wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings. You almost wanted to be there. When he returned home they realized that he barely had K rations that day.

George carried Japanese shrapnel around with him until the day he died. Never complained. Never criticised. And did wonders in the cannery business.

These aunts and uncles were high spirited, proud and had strong egos. Granny had to keep them in line even if it meant faking a fainting spell or two.

By word of explanation when all the Harmon brothers were with us the family used to gather for dinner at our first house, everyone loved Marilyn’s cooking and it was neutral territory so all those big egos could exercise themselves freely. My job was to get up the next morning and re-tighten all the screws in the 60’s style wood grain Formica and steel tube dining table. With the six high back naugahyde chairs. $49.95 for the whole set at the discount outlet. The poker game was loud and active.

Here's Marilyn about her mother

Now I have to come to the hardest part for me. I want to talk to you about my mom.

As you know I was cherished child, given to my parents later in their lives when they could really enjoy me. They had special nieces before me, Geri and Jacqui for my mom and Nilda for my dad, but finally they had their own. Everyone knew how special I was to them and so I was loved by everyone that loved them. No child was ever loved more than I.

Mom always made sure that I got to do everything that a child would want to do. My dad made sure that I got to many bars and Italian ranches of his customers and friends but my mom made sure I got to Disneyland the year after it opened. I got to the beach and to the zoo. I got to Mel’s drive in with my girl friends and I got to Teresa’s every summer.

I know what you all remember most about my mom was her cooking. Jacqueline had brought a cookbook that we developed to celebrate mom’s 80^th birthday. Please make sure that you get a copy if you didn’t get one then.

I guess she is best remembered for her spaghetti gravy. It wasn’t known as pasta sauce then, just gravy. I can’t tell you how many people asked for that recipe. Her stuffed zucchini, soup, stew, and Swiss steak are among our family favorites. My favorite was her pineapple upside down cake. Not because I liked it so much but because of how much fun my dad had when she would make it. He always tormented her that it was going to stick to the bottom of the skillet and she would have to throw it away. Thank god, it never did. She would be so proud.

Mom’s love for me dimmed when John and Kathleen came along. Mom really enjoyed John and Kathleen and it was wonderful to see. She got to enjoy John with my Dad for eighteen months. One day I let my dad take John home with him. When my dad got home with John my mom was hot on the phone to me. “You let Dad have him all by himself?” “Sure”, I said. “He used to take me with him everywhere.” She was not convinced that this was such a good idea. It was ok to take me, but not John. She was the kind of mom that you could call at any hour and she would arrive. In two minutes all was in order, food on the table, kids clean, dishes done and everyone feeling much better. When Glenn and I were just starting out and things were a little tight, to say the least, she would say something like: “How about if you take my Chevron card and go to Santa Cruz for the week end?” When I was born she started an annuity for me that would mature when I was eighteen. She didn’t have much to spare in those years but when I was eighteen we had this annuity and it became the down payment for our first house. She was the kind of wife that always took care of everything my dad didn’t want to worry about. He was the love of her life and she didn’t stop mourning his loss until she had complete Alzheimer’s. Even during the time of her decline she thought he was with her. One day I visited her at LaSalette and she said to the air, “Hank, don’t you remember this woman?” I said, “Mom, of course, he remembers me. That’s Dad.” Oh my, I will be in the home next.

I want to thank all of my cousins on the Bertolli side of my family for being so good to my mom. She was as much a part of the Bertolli family as she was a Harmon. You have always treated her as an honored Aunt. One of the last really wonderful nights she had was at the 50^th Wedding Anniversary Party for Chip and Joy. She wasn’t going to go and in the end she had a wonderful time. Irene, you have always been by second mom. I really need you now.

I also want to thank friends like Diane Chincholo who called often and understood what I was experiencing even though she didn’t know my mom. That kind of support really means a lot.

Last and with special love and gratitude we want to thank Don and Karen for always including my mom in their family gathering. You were always wonderful to my mom and she especially loved the special attention Don always paid her. Don’s little cocktails and the escort to her car at the end of a party were really great for her. I don’t know how I would have managed the sale of her house and all that went with that if you hadn’t been there.

You all had a special place in her heart and I hope you keep her in yours.

Our beloved cousin Jackie put this cookbook together for Evelyn’s 80^th birthday. I’m appending it mostly for the forward and Jackie’s remembrances of the dinners they shared at Henry and Evelyn’s. Not long ago cousin Bill Harmon Jr found a bunch of his father Bill’s slides, he scanned them and gave us a treasure chest of wedding pictures, some of Granny and some of Evelyn with Henry. After he died she never had that beaming smile you see in those images. And about the recipes, these are cooks recipes, Evelyn assumed as Marilyn does today that people know enough about cooking to take these recipes and make food that tastes exactly the same as hers. Not necessarily true.

Aunt Evelyn's Secret Recipes

From the kitchen of Evelyn Harmon Bertolli

This little recipe book is a work of love and in celebration of the

80th Birthday of our dear Mother and Aunt Evelyn Harmon Bertolli

Compiled by

Marilyn Bertolli Gallup

Designed by

Jacqueline Harmon Butler

1994

I wrote this little cookbook to celebrate Aunt Evelyn’s 80^th birthday back in 1994. Evelyn died in the early morning of Friday, June 28^th 2006. She would have been 92 on October 26^th.

This is a collection of some of our favorite dishes from the kitchen of Aunt Evelyn. Over the years we have all come to know and love and look forward to certain tastes prepared for us as only she can.

As a child, I can remember the tantalizing smells coming from her kitchen as I arrived at her home with my father and sisters. She would greet us at the door with a big smile and warm greetings. She always called me "Jackolantern", and I wondered if I looked like a pumpkin to her! I loved the nickname although I would never have admitted it when I was young. Now I have tears in my eyes when I remember the laughter in her voice when she called me that. Uncle Hank would dispense bear hugs for the children and drinks for the adults.

Aunt Evelyn was happy to have her brothers and sisters and their families all around her. She was in her element preparing our favorite dishes and urging us to eat a little more.

I remember the hot Stockton sun baking the landscape as we sat on the porch, Uncle Hank reading us the Sunday Comics. The air heavy with the smells of the ripening fields of grain, and Aunt's Evelyn's apple pies.

I have to mention that the ripening field of grain was usually a field of corn or wheat at Henry's brother Ralphs house next door. the field surronunded a shallow lake. The whole thing was in a flyway for game birds, mostly doves. They came to feed on the grain, and drink the water and Henry, Ralph, and Ralphs son Dean shot them. Then Marilyn and Evelyn cleaned them and we ate them.

A gathering of the Harmon's was usually a noisy affair. Lots of laughter, loud voices, eating, drinking, arguing, and finally a rip roaring game of Pinochle, usually lasting nearly all night.

Granny Harmon liked to be in the middle of everything. Sometimes when the arguing got a little out of hand, she would pretend to have one of her fainting spells. It always worked, for all her children were totally devoted to her and worried over her least little problem.

Then Aunt Evelyn would serve another tantalizing tidbit and Uncle Hank would "freshen" the drinks and the card game and riotous sibling rivalry would continue on into the night.

Much later, I would fall asleep listening to the boisterous card game, my tummy full of stuffed zucchini, the voices sounding farther and farther away.

After years of nagging, treats, pleading, begging, black mail and coercion, Marilyn finally found a way to get these treasured recipes from her mother!

I had never had any luck at all in getting the directions on how to make the legendary Stuffed Zucchini from Aunt Evelyn. She would hum and haw and tell me she used "this and that and one thing and another, nothing special". And so I tried to make them myself. I searched through countless cookery books for the secret ingredients or magic spells to no avail. Alas, time after time I tried supposedly fabulous recipes only to be disappointed at my results.

Now I have it! The magic recipe! Yahooo! However, I must point out, that true to form, Aunt Evelyn did not tell exactly the measurements she uses. She claims she doesn't know, that she just uses "this and that and one thing and another" and what "looks right". Hummmmmmm! Has she once again outsmarted me?

Happy cooking and buon appetito!

Jacqueline

Lemon Cake

1 package Lemon Yellow Cake Mix

1 package Lemon Jello

3/4 cup water

4 eggs

Mix cake mix and dry Jello in bowl.

Add oil, water and eggs.

Mix 2 minutes with electric beater.

Pour into lightly greased 9Ó x 13" x 2" pan.

Bake at 350F for 35 to 40 minutes

Topping for Lemon Cake

While cake is baking, make the topping:

Put 2 cups of powered sugar through a sieve.

Add enough lemon juice to make a thick frosting.

As soon as you take the cake out of the oven, punch holes in the top with a large fork and spread on the frosting while the cake is very hot.

Apple Pie

6 large tart apples - peeled and sliced thinly

1 cup sugar

1/8 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. lemon juice

1 Tbs. butter

Fill the pie shell with thinly sliced apples.

Mix sugar and spices, salt and lemon juice.

Sprinkle over apples and dot with butter.

Fit the top crust over apples and seal edges of pie.

Bake in hot oven, 425F for 50 to 60 minutes.

Stuffed Veal Pocket

1 Veal breast with the pocket cut in by the butcher

2 eggs

1/2 onion, minced

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 bunches of spinach, cooked and squeezed dry

1/2 cup bread crumbs

1/2 cup fresh herbs: rosemary, sage, parsley, chopped fine

salt and pepper

In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients except the Veal. If it seems too thin, add a little more bread crumbs. If it seems too thick, add another egg.

Salt and pepper to your own taste.

Stuff the Veal pocket with the mixture.

Sew the open end securely.

Bake for 1 hour at 350F, or until golden brown.

When you remove the Veal from the oven, you can easily remove the small ribs with a pair of pliers.

Let cool and serve at room temperature.

Kathleen's Favorite Swiss Steak

1 large Round Steak, not too thin

1 onion, chopped fine

3 cloves garlic, minced

Oil

2 Tbs. flour

Cut steak into individual servings.

Salt and pepper the meat, then dredge in flour. Pound flour into meat with a mallet. (I use the edge of a saucer.) This tenderizes the meat. Fry the meat in a large frying pan until nicely brown. In a Dutch oven or deep pan, sauté garlic and onions in a little oil. When meat in browned put in the Dutch oven and cover with water, stirring until it’s all mixed together.

Cook on low heat until meat is tender.

Serve over mashed potatoes, steamed rice or noodles.

Serves 4 unless Kathleen is invited, then it serves 3!

Old Fashion Irish Stew

1 large Chuck Roast cut into 2" pieces

6 carrots, in 1" pieces

4 stalks celery, in 1/2" pieces

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 can tomato sauce

6 potatoes, quartered

1 turnip (optional)

Brown meat in heavy skillet or Dutch oven, in oil. When meat is very brown, add onion, garlic, celery and continue to brown. Add tomato sauce and water to cover.

Simmer for 1 hour.

Add potatoes, carrots and turnip (if used).

Reduce heat and simmer for 1/2 hour or until all vegetables are cooked.

Serves four.

Use more carrots if Glenn is invited.

Jacqueline's Favorite Stuffed Zucchini

Choose six zucchini the same size.

Cut in half the long way and par boil until the center is soft, about 5 minutes.

Drain, let cool, then scoop out the centers into a bowl.

Sauté chopped onions, garlic and fresh rosemary.

Add to zucchini centers and mix.

Add 3 eggs, grated Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper and bread crumbs.

Fill zucchini shells and put in an oiled baking pan.

Bake in 350F for 40 minutes or until they are brown on top.

Editor's Note:

For more specific ingredients, use the following:

1/2 onion, chopped very fine

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup grated cheese

1/2 cup bread crumbs, or whatever is necessary to make the filling firm small amount of rosemary leaves, maybe 4 to 6

You can also use this filling to stuff bell peppers.

John's All Time Favorite Enchiladas     John ???? What am I, chopped liver?

Courtesy of Granny Harmon

2 packages of Red Dry Peppers. These should be what's called Anaheim Peppers.

Large can of solid pack tomatoes

1 Tbs Crisco

Water to cover the peppers

2 cloves of garlic, whole

Cut peppers and remove seeds. Bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour, or until the peppers are soft. When peppers are cold, put them through the sieve. Put the pulp back in the water in which you boiled the peppers.

This will be your enchilada sauce.

To assemble Enchiladas:

1 dozen flour tortillas

1 lb hamburger

1 lb cheddar cheese

1 onion, minced

Sauté the hamburger.

Grate the cheese.

Mince the onion and sauté briefly.

Dip the tortilla in the warm sauce, and then fill with meat, cheese and onion.

Roll and put on greased 9" x 13" baking dish.

Put sauce over the top and sprinkle more grated cheese on top.

Bake for 30 minutes at 350F or until bubbling.

This will make one dozen enchiladas.

But it won't be enough if you invite John and Glenn.

One of lifes little mysteries is why when Granny and Evelyn made these all those years ago I could eat six of them and when Marilyn made them recently three was all I could handle.

Pepper Relish

Courtesy of Karen Simonich

2 cups red or green bell peppers (12 small)

(green and red peppers together make it pretty)

7 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups vinegar

1 bottle of Certo (fruit pectin)

6 or 8 chili peppers (not too hot)

Use fine food chopper and grind the peppers.

Drain pulp and sieve.

Measure vinegar and sugar into large pan.

Pack peppers solidly into a cup until juice runs over cup.

Boil over hot fire. Mix and stir and boil hard for 2 minutes.

Take off stove and stir in Certo.

Skim off foam.

Cook for 5 minutes.

Pour into hot sterilized jars and seal with wax.

Makes 6 or more small jars.

To serve, pour jar over a cube of Philadelphia Cream Cheese and put Wheat Thin Crackers around the dish. Makes a great snack.

These small jars wrapped in colorful paper make great little hostess gifts

Uncle Henry's Favorite

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

1/3 cup Spry (Spry was the Crisco of the 1930's)

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/4 cup flour

1/2 cup pineapple juice

5 slices pineapple

1/8 tsp. salt

1 egg, unbeaten

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup brown sugar

Combine Spry and salt, add sugar gradually and cream until light and fluffy.

Add egg and beat thoroughly.

Sift flour and baking power together 3 times.

Add small amounts of flour to creamed mixture, alternating with pineapple juice, beating after each addition until smooth.

Sprinkle brown sugar on bottom of deep 8 x 8 inch pan, greased with Spry.

Arrange pineapple slices on sugar and pour batter over all.

Bake in 350F oven for 50 to 60 minutes.

Serve upside down with whipped cream. Serves 8 - 10.

Note from Marilyn:

"I don't really know if my father liked this cake so much or if he only liked tormenting my mother about her not being able to turn the cake out of the pan and have it come out right. He always waited to see if half of the cake would stick in the pan. Thank heaven for my mom, it always came out perfectly!"

Just so you know the cake coming out every time wasn’t an accident. Evelyn knew exactly what she was doing.

Marilyn's Favorite Pumpkin Pie

1 large can cooked Pumpkin

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. ginger

1/8 tsp. allspice

3 eggs, slightly beaten

1 cup evaporated milk

Combine pumpkin, sugar, salt and spices. Mix well.

Add eggs and milk and mix thoroughly.

Pour mixture into unbaked pie shell.

Bake in hot oven, 425F for 40 to 45 minutes. Pie is done when inserted knife blade comes out clean.

For Marilyn there is no better pumpkin pie. If she can't eat this one she would just as soon have another kind of pie entirely.

Aunt Evelyn & Uncle Henry's

Spaghetti Gravy

2 lbs. chuck roast, cut in small cubes

2 Italian Sausages cut in pieces

1 large onion

6 cloves garlic

1 stalk celery

1 stalk fresh rosemary

10 fresh sage leaves

handful fresh parsley

1 cup dry mushrooms

4 cans tomato sauce

2 tbs. tomato paste

1 can chopped olives

oil

In a large skillet, preferably cast iron, brown meat in oil. When the meat is very brown, add onion, garlic, rosemary, sage, parsley and celery that has been chopped in the food processor.

While you are frying all of this mixture, boil the dry mushrooms in a cup of water for about 10 minutes, then drain, saving the water and chop mushrooms in the food processor. Chop them very fine, as the finer the mushrooms are the thicker the sauce will be.

Now that the meat and seasonings are brown, add the tomato sauce, one can at a time. Stir in each can, letting the meat absorb the sauce.

Add the mushroom water and enough plain water to make four cups.

Add the mushrooms , olives and tomato paste at this time. You may use a cup of wine instead of water. (Uncle Henry used wine whenever he could, if you remember).

Reduce heat to low and simmer for 1 1/2 hours, stirring frequently.

This is enough for four pasta dinners.

Well, that’s about it. If you read all the way to here bless you for your patience. Feel free to try the recipes. And his name is still Erico.


After I posted this I sent a link to our Italian daughter Valentina. When she read it she sent this E-Mail. It's a touching rememberence of her American Nonni so I'm adding it. As much for what it says about Vale as what it says about Evelyn.

I read the post about nonni...I am crying right now, because I know I was part of nonni's life only for one year, but I remember her visiting us, dinner with her, mornings when with Marilyn we went to visit her, John making fun of her, and her watching him with her sparkling smile....Kathleen and John imitating her...And I remember her talking about her Hank, he was always there....

I had the big fortune to experience to have a grandmother for one entire year, and for me, that had lost mine when I was 8 it was really something I can not describe....her pumpkin pie......I will never forget....

And of course a big Thank to you, Mom and Dad, because you made all this, really happen to me....

Love you soooooooo very much.

Vale