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Health & Fitness

The Apartment

Renting out an apartment is not easy

When my Nono died, Nona decided she did not want to live alone on Lisbon Street so she hired an Italian contractor named Emilio to construct a very functional apartment for her in the back of the basement of her house so that we could move in upstairs.

Prior to the apartment being built, she had the back of the basement fixed up with a kitchen where she always entertained a crowd.  It was very functional and clean. On the walls were paintings from her nephew in Italy, Alberto Guerri, who I later found out when I went to Italy that he sold paintings to Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison, and other famous people from his studio in Portofino, Italy.

When one of us kids had to use the bathroom at Nona’s, we had to go upstairs and we went in pairs because it was scary going upstairs alone.  There were stuffed birds on the fireplace mantle and it was pretty quiet up there.  Nona only went up there to sleep or use the bathroom.  We were afraid of our own shadows. 

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The one thing that I loved was the painting hanging above the fireplace of a girl having tea with her little dogs, a painting that I now have at my home in our guest bedroom that I love today more than I did as a child. I remember looking at it and wishing I was the girl in the painting. It still brings back some wonderful memories for me.

Nona’s apartment had a kitchen and living room combo, a bedroom, and a bathroom.  She had Emilio take out the front door and put in two front doors, one of which went down a little corridor to the apartment and the other to the stairs for the second story.  When it was completed, Dad moved our family from our place in the Excelsior District to Nona’s house in the Crocker Amazon, an upstairs two bedroom one bath house. 

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It was good to live with our Nona that way with each having some privacy.  However, Mom and Nona did not always see eye-to-eye about many things and I was caught in the middle with loyalty to my Mom and love for my Nona.

Mom sometimes would leave for a hair appointment or dental appointment and Nona was left to babysit.  Mom did not understand Nona, or her ways. Nona enjoyed her coffee royals in the morning and Mom did not like that at all.  She wondered if the kids were safe in Nona’s care after having a shot of whiskey in her coffee.  Mom’s mother, my Baba, did not drink at all, so Mom was not used to seeing this.

My brother, Reno Jr., and I Ioved that we got our own coffee at Nona’s.  We did not know that she was making us café lattes, however.  She would practically scald the milk and then load the mixture of milk and coffee with sugar.  To this day, we cannot drink our coffee any other way. Nona also made homemade biscotti to compliment the lattes and they were fantastic and flavored with anise.

Once when Mom left for her appointment, I was instructed to make sure my brothers did not go outside in the front of the house because Mom worried they would go in the street and get hit by a car or something.  As I look back on this I laugh. I was the protector and Nona was the bad guy.

She opened the basement door and wanted us to go outside and play in the sunshine.  I remember struggling with her over the basement door.  She would open it and I would close it.  This went on for a little while and she finally gave up.  She was pretty mad.  We played inside in the basement instead where it was safe.  When Mom got home, nothing was said by Nona but I gave Mom an earful.  Then Nona marched upstairs and where there was a little break in the stairs, kind of a landing where we had a three foot tall St. Francis of Assisi statue with baby Jesus on the bible in his hand, she stopped and had some choice words for my Mom and called me, her first and most wonderful grandchild a name that meant I had no father.  Mom was shocked.  And to think this was said in front of the statue of St. Francis and baby Jesus!!  Nona was totally out of line, but understandably angry about the whole trust issue and my refusal to break a promise to my Mom.  It was not pretty. 

We lived there with Nona for a few years until she passed away and when she did, Dad decided to rent out the apartment.  He was thrilled to find this nice Italian merchant seaman who wanted to move in immediately.  Dad knew the man was married and assumed he had an Italian wife. The look on my Dad’s face when he saw the wife was priceless.  What Dad did not know was that this man had a young Japanese wife. 

Dad’s friend and neighbor, Bruno Pavini, was killed at Pearl Harbor and buried aboard the Arizona.  Resentment and hate ran pretty deep in those days in the late 50s.  Dad was not happy about this at all.  He was very very angry.

Chieko, the Japanese lady was very sweet and spoke very little English.  I kept company with her and taught her some English and she taught me some Japanese and told me about Japanese culture.  She gave me and my Mom beautiful kimonos.  She and her sister were dancers in Japan and she showed me photos of them with their fancy kimonos, wigs, and make-up on.  They were beautiful. As I look back on that, I believe they were Geishas.  She taught me how to use the fan in dance and gave me some beautiful mother of pearl chopsticks.  They lived in the apartment for a period of time I cannot remember, but Dad was really relieved when they moved away.

We then rented to a single woman.  This too did not work out because she had lots of gentlemen visitors and Dad thought she was what you would call a “working girl.” I am not sure how he finally got rid of her but he did.  He felt that he rented to a single woman, not two people.  Besides, he did not believe in people sleeping together who were not married.

Next came the Menesini’s, a three unit family, older parents with a teenage son named Michael.  Although no relation to Mike Menesini in Martinez, Michael was a very nice boy who fit in with our neighborhood kids fairly well.  He was cute and polite and Italian.  What more can you ask for?  His parents spoke Italian and not much English. The apartment was not meant for three people, but apparently the price was right and they stayed for a while.

When the Menesini’s moved out, Dad was finished with renting out the apartment and, since I was getting older and still in a bedroom I shared with two of my brothers, he asked if I wanted to sleep downstairs.  I loved the idea of having my own apartment and fixed it up including an old oak desk Dad had made in woodshop. I remember putting a pink skirt on it to make it look more girly.  I moved my Audie Murphy photos to my new wall as well as the drawings I made of pretty girls all made up with big hair and lots of make-up.  It was nice…at first. 

The movie Psycho came out and it scared the daylights out of us.  All I could think about when I took a shower in the apartment’s bathroom was the scene from the movie.  I tried not to be a big baby about it, but believe me when I tell you, those showers were fast.  I watched the shower curtain the whole time, thinking someone with a knife would cut through there at any time. Every day I was scared to death just taking my shower.

Outside the bedroom window was the roof of the shed where my Nono made his vinegar and stored his homemade vino.  The boys across the street, Eddie and Raymond, liked to come over and get up on the roof of the shed outside my bedroom at night and tap on the window which scared me too.  If they thought I would ever let them in, they had no idea what my Dad would have in store for me if I did.  I was a wreck and sleeping down there all alone was not something I wanted to do anymore. 

I had my first co-ed teen birthday party when I was 15 there in the apartment.  We had music and danced and we had lots of fun.  Little did I know then that this would be my last birthday in SF. Frankly, I was shocked Dad let me have such a party, considering how strict he was.  A year prior to that, his godchild in San Jose had a birthday party where boys and girls were invited along with adults and we had dancing there, so maybe he thought it would be okay.  Fortunately, Dad trusted me and no adults were in the apartment with us kids, they were upstairs in their own little party of sorts.  We could “dirty dance” and smooch without any adults looking on.  Maybe he should not have been so trusting after all. 

Dad got a slew of 45s (records) from his customer’s juke boxes so I had some pretty good music.  Usually we had to listen to Jerry Vale, Perry Como, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, the Gaylords, Mario Lanza, and Caruso so this was kid music -- finally.  It was a great party and we all had fun.

I told my Dad after the party that I wanted to go back upstairs.  I was afraid to tell him that, but weighing the fact that I could not sleep and was so scared, I figured I would chance that Dad would understand.  So, Reno Jr. and Gino got to move into the apartment. If I remember correctly, they were out of the bunk beds into a double bed so they each had company.  I was relieved.  There were two of them so there should not have been a problem and there wasn’t, that I knew of. 

Shortly after that, we purchased a new home in Newark, CA, that had four bedrooms and three baths, and more fitting home for a growing family. Goodbye to Lisbon Street and SF. Hello Newark.

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