September 5, 2004
CITY LORE
Workingman's Cantata
By JAMES VESCOVI
Y grandfather, Tony Vescovi, never celebrated Labor Day. He was a man of the clock - up for work in the mosaic and terrazzo trade at 5 a.m. - not of the calendar. In 40 years on the job, he never received a day of paid vacation. But he didn't complain. When he came home after his shift, he stripped to the waist and washed his body of grit and combed concrete chips out of his thick brown hair. Then he sat down to eat at a table that, in his eyes, was bountiful. He relished his work and, as an immigrant, he loved the country that provided it.
At times, his perceptions about modern America were hilariously off the mark, but he went to his grave believing "ho trovato l'America." The expression literally translates into "I have found America" but really means "I've had great fortune." It may have been in Tony's wonder and joy at the job his son landed - the size of the salary, the greatness of the company - that this unshakable conviction found its most emphatic expression.
Tony emigrated from a poor hill town in northern Italy because he was tired of eating onions and bread for dinner and because he refused to envision the same peasant life for his children. He and my grandmother, Desolina, settled in Hell's Kitchen in 1930. He laid terrazzo, from the towers of Wall Street to the massive acreage of the Pentagon. Desolina sewed pompoms for a hat manufacturer in the garment district and looked after my father, who attended Stuyvesant and received his bachelor's degree at William & Mary.
My father's first job was with the Upjohn pharmaceutical company in 1953. As was not uncommon in those days, the company required interviews not only with the applicant but with his parents and, if married, his wife.
Two Upjohn men trudged up four flights of stairs to meet my grandparents in their West 39th Street tenement. Tony offered them whiskey, bourbon, beer and homemade wine. Probably to be polite, the guests signaled for wine. As Tony poured, he praised America for the opportunities it offered the children of immigrants.
His English was not so good, but the wine went down smoothly, and the men asked for more. Desolina served pound cake. Tony continued to pontificate. Back in Italy, he said, each village had a sagra, a yearly festival dedicated to a patron saint. For the entire year, people put away their best cheese, a precious salami and the finest wine and grappa.
"For one day, we ate like the padrone!" he said. "But in America, if a man chooses, he can eat like it is the sagra every day." One of the Upjohn men related his thoughts about the greatness of America. The other concurred with everything that had been said.
More wine was drunk. It was time for another bottle. Tony dispatched my father down to the cellar.
"Porta su du boti!" he yelled. "Bring up two bottles!"
Down the wine went. Desolina served more cake. Everyone was loosening up. It didn't matter anymore that Tony's English wasn't so good or that he kept repeating himself. Or that one of the Upjohn men was slurring a little. Everyone understood what everyone else was trying to say. The young men lit cigarettes. Tony puffed away on a Toscano cigar. Desolina nodded and smiled.
The next afternoon, my father got a call telling him he had gotten the job. Tony was elated.
"And how much will be you making, son?" he asked.
"$4,000 a year," my father replied.
Tony raised his eyes to the ceiling to give thanks to the heavens. He had been a working stiff for decades, and didn't make close to that kind of dough.
"And a company car, too," my father added.
"Una macchina!" my grandfather said with pure pleasure. "A car!" He and Desolina didn't even know how to drive.
A decade later, my father, now transferred to Upjohn's home office in Kalamazoo, Mich., invited his parents for a visit. Tony wanted a tour of the manufacturing plant. As he walked past conveyer belts where thousands of pills were fed into bottles, stuffed with cotton, and sealed, he shook his head in wonder. He also visited a spotless R. & D. lab and poked his head into the executive dining room.
Toward the end of his visit, he and my father crossed paths with the chief executive, who asked Tony how he liked the facilities.
In his broken English, Tony said he was very impressed. Such machinery, such productivity, this was why America was a great nation, making medicine for people around the world. In his day, he had to walk eight miles to see a doctor, who often didn't have pills or extracts.
But what was not so great, Tony continued, was the terrazzo in the building lobby. The craftsmanship was awful. A great company deserved better. Because he was so grateful that Upjohn had given his son such a wonderful career, enabling him to afford a beautiful home, two cars and admission to a fancy country club, my grandfather would return with his tools in a year, after his official retirement, and redo the entire floor, at no charge. The company would have to pay for the materials, but, he repeated, for the labor, there would be no charge. (With difficulty, my father later talked him out of doing the job, which would have required a sizable crew.)
WHEN my grandparents reached their early 90's, my father decided it was time to move them from Astoria, Queens, where they relocated in the 1950's, to an assisted living community near his house in Kalamazoo. Persuading Tony to come was not going to be easy. The old man had friends in these places. He knew they were expensive, and he saw little reason to give up his $342-a-month one-bedroom apartment.
In response, my father did something he rarely did with Tony. He lied through his teeth. "Pa," he said, "you don't have to worry about the expense because the place is free."
" É free?" asked Tony.
"Si."
"Ma, chi paga? Who pays for this?"
"My company. One of the benefits I get as an employee is to live in this beautiful place," my father said, spreading a color brochure before his parents. "But I don't need it now, so my parents can stay there. For free."
Tony couldn't stop shaking his head. Then he banged his fist on the table. "Che compagnia!'' he said. "God bless America!"
Settling these two old peasants into their new surroundings was touch and go at first. But eventually, Tony and Desolina got the routines down.
Tony would sit in the dining room, his plate heaped with food, as aides served all the iced tea he wanted. The chairs were soft, the carpet plush.
On one of my visits, he looked at me with wonder and asked: "Jimmy, chi paga per questa roba? Who pays for all this stuff around here?"
"É free," I said.
