Growing Up in SF on Lisbon Street – Part One

While I spent my first few years on Naples Street in the Excelsior where my mom grew up, I lived on Lisbon Street until I was almost sixteen at the house my Nono had built in the 1920s when he came from Italy.

My neighborhood was primarily made up of Italians, Slavonians, Irish, Spanish, Polish, and English families, but this block had its own cast of characters.

The old Italian lady across the street, Maria, fed the pigeons.  So did my Nona. She used to get chicken feed from the corner grocery store to feed them.  Nona and Maria were not friends.  They swore at each other (lots of hand and arm movements). Pigeons poop a lot and dirty the sidewalks, so maybe that was the bone of contention.  Yet both women fed them so I can’t say for sure what the problem was. Maybe Maria was Sicilian and Nona was Northern Italian.  Who knows? But they definitely did not like each other.

Then there was “Car Crazy” Dave who rented a few doors down from our house. Dave always was fixing his car or that of his friends so my guess was that he was a mechanic. He had several little kids, and none of them were clothed for the cold foggy weather in SF, yet none of them ever got sick.  Some early mornings the kids would escape the house and would be outside wearing only diapers with no adults around.

Del Carlo’s Grocery Store was at the corner of the next block, three houses down from ours and across the street.  Old Mr. Del Carlo and his wife owned several properties, one of which he won in a poker game.  He had a daughter and granddaughter living across the street in one of his properties but they always hung out in the store and there was always screaming.  I remember few times when I went there that there wasn’t some family argument or another, and they were very loud. I don’t think they were a happy family. 

Mr. Del Carlo always wore a fedora hat, rolled up shirt sleeves, suspenders, and had crippled up arthritic fingers.  He was very nice and I think he had a secret crush on my beautiful mother.  He would always ask “Howsa you prettya mama?”  

There were times when we would charge some groceries or scramble for change to complete our purchase, like some eggs for example, prior to Dad’s pay day.  Mr. Del Carlo, with those crippled hands, would cut the dozen egg crate in half and let us buy ½ dozen eggs.  I always looked at those pitiful fingers when he was cutting the crate on the counter and worried that he would cut himself. 

Del Carlo’s store had a neat long reaching grab-it device that my brother and I liked to use to get some cereal boxes down from a high shelf to help Mr. Del Carlo.  The store had a lot of penny candy, Bireley’s grape, orange, and strawberry soda in bottles, and twin popsicles you could share. My older brother and I scrounged for coins to shop at Del Carlo’s by going into our parents’ closet in Dad’s pants and jacket pockets. What we found, we shared, and we always found something.  Pennies went a long way in those days. And we kept the dentist very busy with our cavities.

Dad was somewhat of a coin collector until he died. One night when Dad came home at about 1:30 AM from playing Pedro at the Italian American Social Club (IA), to go into his closet to get a glass jar containing his rare coins including at least two collectible pennies from 1909 with some important letters near the date, there was only one in there that morning. He had a buyer and was going to return to the IA to sell them. Unbeknownst to him, I think Mom had to use some of the pennies for purchases at Del Carlo’s.  She just thought he was putting his change into a jar.  Dad came unglued.  What a commotion at our house at that time in the morning.  Dad was swearing and belittling Mom and she giggled like she always did when she was nervous.  Mom couldn’t understand why he was getting all worked up over a little old penny.  Dad got $70 for that one penny and he knew he had another.  Mom was in trouble. (I still think my brother, Reno, did it.)

That may have been the time Dad took a 1” x 2” wooden board, made it into a paddle, and carved all our initials in it.  He never used it on Mom or me.  But, the boys got it occasionally. I just got slapped and that was bad enough because Dad had huge meaty hands that hurt like hell.

We also had to pick our own switch or long twig from a bush.  It was used on the arms and legs and it really stung, leaving little red welt lines on your skin. We called it a sibaca (pronounced shi-bitz-a in the Croatian dialect). No matter if you got a skinny one or a thick one, they hurt all the same.  You could hear it swish in the wind as you made a “Z for Zorro” with them. No one talked about child abuse back then, it was “spare the rod and spoil the child” and “kids were to be seen and not heard.”

Dad was not one you could argue with either.  It was always his way or no way. One time I was in trouble about a letter my friend in SF wrote to me that Mom read when I went to my room to get some paper with which to write a reply. I tried grabbing it from my Mom which she had behind her back. She told my Dad about it when he got home and he asked me to produce it.  I told him I tore it up and flushed it down the toilet.  He said I had better produce it or else.  Dad had my number; there is not much I throw away.  So, I took it out from under my mattress and let him read it.  There was nothing wrong in it but my girlfriend said she went to Coit Tower with a boy on his motorcycle and Dad said I could not see her again because she was a bad girl. She was far from that.  I tried to explain but he would not let me get a word in.  

Anyway, Dad’s huge hand slapped my arm pretty good because I was trying to talk to him and I didn’t shut up.  I needed him to understand what I was saying but he just would not listen.  My arm was all red, his finger marks were very visible, and it lasted quite a while.  Knowing we were having company over our house very soon, I retraced his finger marks in ink in case the mark faded, and wrote on my arm that Dad hit me, at whatever time it was, for nothing.  I made sure he did not see it until the doorbell rang.  I also made sure I wore a sleeveless blouse when company came over so my ink penned arm could be easily seen. To say he was not too thrilled with me is an understatement, but I thought I could handle whatever punishment he would later bestow, since the damage was done and I was pleased with myself that I at least had some say, even if it was my way.

Then and there I made up my mind that no one would prevent me from ever speaking my peace whenever necessary ever again.  I guess my friends and family know that I am still true to that promise to myself even to this day.  

Part two to come…..