Our farm got
electricity from PG&E in 1937 and I remember every Sunday morning
at 10:00 a.m. my dad would listen to the Johnny Cardellini show
on our cathedral shaped Philco radio. This was an Italian speaking
show that I think was broadcast from San Francisco featuring journalist
Johnny Cardellini who talked about the news and broke it up with
music. My dad didn't speak any English so this was a show he could
understand even though there was alot he didn't like about Cardellini's
views.
The radio show
was followed by our biggest meal of the week. My mother made her
best spaghetti or beef roast for Sunday's noon-time meal that always
included fresh Italian bread. We would go to the Dos Palos train
station every Saturday night to pick up our week's supply of bread,
five loaves of sourdough bread delivered by train from San Francisco
as my dad didn't think store-bought sliced bread was really bread,
saying simply "that's not bread!"
We got some
supplies from a man who came by our house about once a month and
took orders for anchovies, cheese and other goods. He was a gruff
Italian who had no time for nonsense and would say "make up
your mind, I got to go." When the placed-order was delivered
we would pick it up at the train station. Other sources of goods
were the Montgomery Ward's catalogue, peaches from Merced and the
fish vendor who brought fresh fish from Monterey to Dos Palos every
Friday. And of course mother had her garden which provided fresh
produce for our table and for canning.
I think I was
six when we got a spring-wound phonograph. It was an open, table
top model in a wooden case with no lid. My dad loved Italian opera
and I can remember him cranking up that phonograph and listening
to his opera records. I remember one particular song that he played
because we saw an opera at the moving pictures show in Dos Palos
and I associate one of his opera records with a scene in the movie
where a platter of spaghetti was carried out to a table, the platter
got knocked over and the spaghetti went flying.
My dad mostly
listened to his records on the weekends, particularly on Sunday
after church while mom was fixing Sunday's dinner. I don't remember
any other records being played on our phonograph except Italian
opera. I do remember that when my grandfather died in 1940 and my
mother opened the letter telling of his death (as he lived in Italy)
I heard her scream and we had a week of mourning that included no
radio or phonograph being played.
Since my parents
weren't US citizens when the United States entered World War II
and Italy was an ally of Germany, as Italians they were restricted
to a 25 mile radius from their house and a requirement that they
had to be inside their house by sundown each day. The government
also took away their radio and their single-shot shotgun.
These were
fearful times and the government was much harder on the Japanese
residents in the US than they were on the Italians. So my parents
in some ways were fortunate that they were able to continue to keep
their farm and milk their cows. Nevertheless, the confinement did
present some problems and there was some prejudice even though I
had two older brothers, Joe and Fred, that would serve overseas
during the War.
Joe was a Seabee
in the South Pacific in 1942 and Fred joined the army in 1943, so
that just left me and my twin brother Ace at home. We had 30 dairy
cows in production during the War. I started milking cows when I
was nine years old and milked ten cows in the morning at 5:30 am
and ten after school. I had to wear bib-overalls (which I didn't
like) for school and for work because they cost the same as jeans
and according to my dad were a better value (more denim for the
same price).
We raised alfalfa
for the cows and got five or six cuttings during the summertime.
After each cutting we would request irrigation water from the irrigation
district. They would tell you when you could irrigate and then you
would tell them when you were done and they'd charge you accordingly.
Irrigation was done using ditches that had "checks" and
you could do perhaps 4 or 5 checks at a time. You wanted to stop
the water before it got to the end of the row so timing was important
as you didn't want to waste water.
During the
war my dad went out into the fields after dark to change the irrigation
"checks", lantern in hand. Apparently on one occasion
a neighbor or a "dollar-man" saw him and reported him
for his violation of the sundown curfew. The sheriff came to our
house the next day and my dad received a stern warning. I'm not
sure what would have happened if they would have caught him outside
his house after dark a second time.
When the War
ended we could again have a radio but we didn't get our old one
back, or our shotgun. I don't know what happened to that family
phonograph with its Italian opera records. I'm sure a wind-up phonograph
was eventually considered old and obsolete and thrown out.
When I married
Judy in 1957 we bought a Sears black-and-white television, my first
television, but it didn't have a record player with it. We did buy
a 45 rpm record player a few years later and Judy had quite a few
45's for that machine.
