HIS NAME WAS MODESTO

HE CARRIED US

Writing about the  way Jack White II rescued our family from  despair at my father's departure when I was nine, made me bring to mind  so many of the events that surrounded us in those chaotic  days.
One of the principal people in our life was our grocer Modesto Lunadelli.  He ran a grocery store at the corner of Meadow St and Brewster St a few blocks from our house. Even now when I drive by that corner I can see the signs that there once was a storefront there. In my childhood going to the  store was almost a daily event.  My mother took me there when I was a toddler, and after I was four and my younger sister was born, she  trusted me to take a note and bring the groceries home.   I remember how Mike (Modesto's nickname) would pack the bag and make sure I could handle it.
On Wednesday I would leave our written order and on Thursday  Mike would deliver the large order to our front hallway.  That is how  people without cars or telephones shopped in those days before super markets ended the family store. On Saturday my mother sent me  to pay Mike and to pick up a few small things we needed for Sunday dinner.  Every week, no matter what the bill was, she sent me to the store to hand Mike  twenty dollars.  So we had a balance. 

     Since my father's gambling made our ability to pay uncertain, Mike was used to not getting the full amount, but he usually got that twenty dollars.  But when my father left, there was no income.  My mother always said that MIKE CARRIES US.  And I would picture  him putting all of us on his  shoulders. Now he really would  be carrying a full load. 

I don't know  what my mother told Mike, but I do know that  his manner  never altered.  He was still funny and full of advice and offering me samples of the exotic foods--fruits and cheeses that he ordered from Italy  to please his Italian mother. So he taught  me how to eat a ripe fig, all about the varieties of olives, and the fact  that a  great cheese could be alive with maggots.  Some shocks but all welcome and exciting experiences.  

Mike and his wife loved opera and would  listen in the back of the store to the radio operas from the Met. He understood the Italian operas and would tell me the plots of  the works of Puccini and Verdi. One day he even taught me how to pronounce my own name. Having a Pawtucket accent, I guess that I offended  his ears when I said my own name.
"Your name is not "Normer"-- you have a whole opera named after  you --say it this way  No-r-r-ma--" as he rolled his  r's and made it wonderful.  "Always remember you are a Celtic Queen."