Yellow Pig

(Special thanks to my mom, Candace Greco, for supplying many of the stories and pictures for this piece on my grandmother, Annabelle Costello)

PROLOGUE

During Parents’ Weekend at Brown University, students traditionally took their families to see the famous Newport Mansions, wealthy Gilded Age estates just a 40 minute drive south of the Providence, Rhode Island campus.  A wealthy seaside city at the tip of Aquidneck Island, Newport had once been “America’s Society Capitol”, where the Industrialists of the late 1800’s built opulent summer resorts with their untold fortunes: The Astors and Belmonts of the New York financial world, Philadelphia Coal Baron Julius Berwind, the Duke tobacco family of North Carolina, and of course the Vanderbilts, the “First Family” of Newport, who built several historic mansions in including the granddaddy of them all, “The Breakers.”  

When Nana Costello, my maternal grandmother, made the 6 ½ hour trek to Brown with my mom and younger brother to parents weekend from Mt. Carmel during my freshman year in 1990, I wanted to show off the Newport mansions.  Proud of making it to an Ivy League school, where I played Freshman football and majored in Economics, I wanted to show my family a part of New England much different from the Coal Region of Pennsylvania we hailed from.  With guidebook in hand, I drove them past each estate, narrating the tour with bits and pieces about the lives of the different Robber Barons responsible for building each.   But something strange was happening with my grandmother.   . 

Nana, though short and slight in stature, normally held court in every conversation. But now she was unusually silent.  In fact she didn’t say a word during the entire tour.  No awe-inspired gasps, no historical commentary, which as an avid buff of history and politics she loved to supply.   Normally she would have been a spark plug in the conversation.  But today: nothing.   During the only guided tour we took inside one of the mansions, she decided to wait in the car.   With a grim face, she totally tuned out.

Nonetheless, at the end of the day we made one final stop at The Breakers, the signature mansion of Newport and epitome of Gilded Age decadence.  Built by Cornelius Vanderbilt II in 1895, The Breakers breathtaking size and stately beauty is drawn in sharp relief against an impeccably manicured, football-field sized front lawn which faced the brackish Easton Bay.  The famous Newport Cliff Walk ran the course of the water’s edge, overlooking the crashing ocean down below the lineup of mansions.   We took the winding driveway to the edge of the Cliff Walk to capture the iconic ocean view of The Breakers.  

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My mom, my brother and I jumped out of the car and walked towards the viewing area at the edge of the lawn, when I turned back to Nana:

“Why don’t you just come out of the car and see this one?”

“No, I’m ok,” she said curtly. 

After seeing the disappointment on my face, she relented.

“Ok, One. Just this one,” she said. 

We walked to the chest-height stone wall where my mom and brother were gazing at The Breakers’ splendor.   Nana looked at the estate for barely a few seconds, and declared:

“Ok let’s go,” and turned back to the car.  We followed.

Once inside, I aired my frustration.

“What’s wrong? You’ve been silent all day.  You’ve been grouchy.  You wouldn’t go on the tour or get out of the car.  Why get out now?  If you weren’t going to enjoy it, why bother?” I was irritated. 

She took a long pause, then answered, barely holding back her rage.  With two fierce and cutting sentences, she put me in my place:

“Your grandfather worked in those coal mines his whole entire life, and died a poor man.  I just wanted to see where all that money went.”

No other Economics lesson in my four years at Brown stuck with me like that one. 

GROWING UP

Richard and Lena Dellago, both immigrants from the poor Abruzzo region of Central Italy, raised their two daughters, Rosemary and Annabelle, on Girard Street in Atlas, Pennsylvania.  Formerly known as “Exchange” for its railroad depot, Atlas was a coal patch town populated mostly by Italian immigrants like those on my mom’s side (Dallago’s) and dad’s side (Greco’s – see my blogpost about Papap Greco here).

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Nana once told me that in elementary she and her sister Rosemary were called “Greenies” by their own teachers, a reference to immigration Green Cards.   Teachers also grabbed them by the ears and made fun of their earrings; at that time it was customary for Italian mothers to pierce their little girls’ ears at the time.  

The Dallago sisters, though best of friends, could also fight like the fierce sibling enemies. The close bond between the two firecrackers would last a lifetime.   Nana had bright red hair, which she was proud of her whole life.  She and her sister worked in the local cigar factory, which, along with garment factories, was a major employer of women in the area.  The men worked in the mines.  

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Nana married my grandfather, Joe Costello, when they both were 17.  (See my blog post on Papap Costello here). The two eloped to Maryland because Papap Costello’s Irish mom didn’t approve of him marrying an Italian girl.  Soon after they married he enlisted in the Navy and was shipped over to the Pacific theater to fight in WW2.  I once asked my grandmother why she decided to marry Papap Costello.  She shot back “we just got married.  That’s what you did in those days.”

RAISING A FAMILY

After Papap Costello returned from WWII, he and Nana bought a house on Saylor Street in Atlas where they raised their three children: my mom, and her two younger brothers Joseph and Larry.  My great grandmother, “Granny Dellago”, also lived with them, helped raise the kids, and ran the kitchen featuring her homemade Italian cooking.  My mom was very close to Granny Dellago, and because the house was full, they shared a bedroom until the day my mom was married. 

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The Saylor Street home, like most homes in the Coal Region, was initially a 12 ½ ft wide “half-a –double”.  Eventually they bought the other half-a-double, and knocked down interior walls.  My mom remembers my Papap Costello working on the renovations for several years, pounding in every nail himself.  For a long time the house always felt under construction, room by room.   Eventually there was a cozy living room and nice dining room on one side, and a homey kitchen and family room on the other.  The dining room was the site of the famous confrontation between Italian syndicate enforcer Felix “Screendoorface” Mangialetto and a dishwasher salesman who tried to talk Granny Dellago out of her money. 

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I knew this house well, spending countless hours there while growing up.   It had a huge grassy yard, the spot of an empty double lot, with a picket fence wrapping around the corner.  A signature pear tree sat smack in the middle and bore fruit every year.   Across the alley and up a steep incline there was a playground and even little league field, where I once hit a game winning home run over the fence towards Nana’s backyard.

Nana took great pride in this house.  I’ll never forget the first time my other grandparents got to see it, when picking me up at Nana’s one winter evening.  Doc and Eleanor Greco themselves owned one of the nicest houses in nearby Mt. Carmel, a huge, four story corner home on Hickory Street with a basement “rumpus room” created by the famous designer Ruben Bogenhorn.  When they came to the back door, Nana Costello insisted Nana and Papap Greco come inside to see her warm, well-kept with abode with antique furniture passed along from Granny Dallago.  I remember there was an electric space-heater turned on that night, and we had been watching TV under a few of the many afghans Nana had knitted herself.  “Don’t you like my house, its very cozy”? It was important to her that Doc and Eleanor Greco see that she had nice home too. 

While raising their family on Saylor Street, Nana worked at the Selinsgrove State Hospital and Papap Costello worked in the mines, first underground, and then eventually working heavy machinery above-ground.  They also owned a bar across the street for a while, and with the help of Granny Dellago, ran a pizza delivery business out of their kitchen.  Granny Dellagos’ homemade Italian food was famous in the neighborhood, and my mom remembers her always having enough pasta, bean soup, or homemade bread for any local kids who hadn’t eaten that day.   Nana managed the finances of the house, and as my mom said “somehow made it work”, even when the family had debt. 

These were my Papap Costello’s prime years as civic leader when he was a Grand Knight in the Knights of Columbus, member of the American Legion and the Atlas Fire Company, and was elected to the Mt. Carmel Area School Board. 

This time was also marked by Papap Costello’s battle with Rheumatoid Arthritis, which onset in his early 30’s during a time where there was very little effective treatment.  His arthritis led to a series of related illness and the spiraling of his health until he passed away at age 43, when my mom was pregnant with me.  She remembers Papap crying when she brought my older brother Gary, his first grandchild, to visit him in the hospital. 

Having a husband stricken with a debilitating disease at such an early age must have been incredibly painful for Nana and the whole family.  My mom was a young teenager when he first got sick, and she said that her childhood ended at that point and she was thrust into adulthood, having to help take care of the family.  Up until the time my mom was married, she handed over her paycheck to Nana.  Granny Dellago did the same with her monthly $66 Social Security check, which she endorsed with an “X” on the back.

Nana was widowed with three children at age 43 in 1970.  My mom was married with two kids.  My Uncle Joe, a high school football standout, was playing football in college.  And though my Uncle Larry was still in high school, Papap’s death ushered in the next, more independent phase of Nana’s life. 

INDEPENDENCE

For the rest her life Nana would receive a “Black Lung” check, the U.S. Department of Labor’s compensation to miners and their dependents from the debilitating effects of pneumoconiosis, which Papap Costello developed after years of working in the mines.  This payment alone couldn’t support her, but provided a base income from which to build from.  After a period of mourning, Nana secured work with the Mt. Carmel School District, and by the mid-70’s became the Library Assistant in the Jr./Sr. High School library.   From this position Nana would begin flourish, vastly broadening her social network and investing in her intellectual growth. 

While before this point Nana’s life centered around family, her neighborhood, and related civic organizations, but now she had access to a wide range of professional and social relationships with teachers and staff members at the school, which in a coal mining town with a dying economy, increasingly became the center of the community.  She made the most of the opportunity, developing relationships with a lively bunch of colleagues who gave her a new nickname: “Bellsy”.   She could be both one of the girls and one of the guys.  Nana was still working in the library when I entered 7^th grade, and well after she retired teachers spoke fondly of her.   

But working in the library provided her with something else though: access to a wealth of literature.  Though she had been a casual reader before, Nana became a voracious one now, systematically devouring everything in the library.  A self-taught student of history, politics, religion, as well as some fiction, she especially loved reading about pivotal 20^th Century political figures and historical moments of great gravity.  Her own weighty temperament and sense of purpose led her to these subjects.  As a 7^th grade student I can remember seeing her read in a room off of the main library during her break.

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Nana’s reading appetite continued well after retirement when she became one of the most prolific clients of the Mt. Carmel Public Library, again checking out everything she could get her hands on.  Scattered about her house would be a book on Kissinger atop of an end table, a biography of John Paul II on the coffee table, and history of the Great Depression next to her morning coffee in the kitchen.  “I make a GOOD pot of coffee,” she would sometimes brag. 

Nana debated politics rabidly, and was the definition of a Pennsylvania conservative Democrat.  She loved Chris Mathews, whom she called “Chrissy”, and cable news was always on in her house.  Nana always stood with the “little guy” economically, but a daughter of the Church socially.  Nana used to say that for generations our economy had been “rigged against the little guy”, and that despite the American Dream, it was nearly impossible for the poor to become rich.

When it came to Presidential elections, Nana supported whom she felt was best for the job, regardless of party. She voted for George W Bush in 2004, mostly due to a letter on abortion that Pope Benedict issued.   But in 2008, after I showed her another letter Benedict wrote giving Catholics some flexibility despite a candidates position on abortion, she voted for Obama. 

Nana always felt an affinity for Jewish people, so much that she believed she might have Jewish blood.  She kept a Mezuzah in her doorway, just above a small holy water cistern.  I once  brought a friend home from college, who happened to be Jewish.  My grandmother loved her.  Years later my friend, Amy Sohn, made a name for herself by publishing a weekly racy dating column in the New York Daily News: sort of a “Sex in the City” but a few notches more risqué.  On a visit home to Mt. Carmel several months later I saw a stack of Daily News editions on a magazine rack table.  It turned out her neighbor was a subscriber, and gave Nana his copy every week, which she read with fervor. 

Starting in the early 1980’s Nana began to spend time with a companion named Leonard.  Leonard was always nice to us: he took us fishing, wrestled with us, told us jokes and old stories of his time as an undergrad at during the heyday of college football in the 1950’s.   At one point he and Nana moved to Levittown, PA where he worked in a steel mill. 

Every summer we also trekked to New Brunswick, New Jersey, where my Aunt Rosemary and her family had moved several years earlier.  It was fun to get out of the small town for a week and spend time with family in a city environment.   After mining was in decline, lots of young men from the Coal Region would look for industrial work outside Philly and in New Jersey.  Some travelled back and forth every week and some moved for good.  My Aunt Rosemary and Uncle Vic moved to New Brunswick, Leonard to Levittown, and my mom says her own family had moved to New Jersey for a year when she was a young girl to be closer to Papap’s Costello’s job at the time.  Not wanting to move, my mom stayed behind with relatives, and after a year her family returned.   I’m glad they did, because I wouldn’t trade growing up in a town like Mt. Carmel. 

During this part of Nana’s life my mom was raising 3 kids and sometimes felt Nana wasn’t as available to help as my mom would have liked.  Granted, my mom shared my Granny Dellago’s nurturing instinct, while Nana was a bit tougher around the edges.  And having raised 3 kids of her own, and needing to build her independence in a way Granny Dellago never had to, Nana channeled a bit of Mary Tyler Moore.  But I always felt her a strong and constant presence in my life.

(Below are Pictures of Nana with my family, including my parents at center, and at the New Jersey shore with my mom, my older brother Gary, myself, and younger brother Joey)

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On the other hand, there was the story of Spunky.  We kept Spunky, a lively white hamster, in a cage replete with exercise wheel and colored tubes, next our television for about a year when I was 10 years old.  While babysitting one night Nana slept on the couch, as she normally did after we went to sleep.  We woke up the next morning to find Spunky gone: he evidently bent the wire top to the cage in one corner and escaped.  Nana and my mom helped us look for Spunky all day to no avail.  We looked for him every morning for a week, but eventually accepted he escaped for good. 

But years later, while reminiscing with Nana about growing up on Hickory Street, the conversation turned to Spunky’s great escape.  Nana started laughing and asked “didn’t I ever tell you what I did?”.  Evidently, that fateful night, Spunky wouldn’t stop spinning in his wheel and kept Nana awake for hours.  Not one to tolerate extravagancies such as nighttime exercise, Nana got so frustrated that she tore through the wire cage top, grabbed the rodent, opened the cellar door, and jettisoned Spunky down a deep flight of stairs towards the cold cement floor.  Unless he had learned to fly, it seems Spunky met something short of a positive outcome. 

MATRIARCH YEARS

The matriarch phase of Nana Costello’s life started after she had moved back to Mt. Carmel from Levittown and eventually bought a house on 3^rd street.  It was a well-kept, half-a-double with beautiful wood molding and a wooden archway separating the family room from the living room.  The kitchen also had well-finished light wood cabinetry.  There were two nerve centers in the house: the first was the living room TV which was built into the wall under the staircase.  It always played cable news.   And the second was the kitchen table, where Nana ruled the roost.  

Think of the kitchen of Nana’s “Situation Room”, where a president or head of state would receive information, debate strategy, and issue commands.  Nana chaired all conversations from the head of the table, a can of Coke placed on a napkin to her right, a pad and pen to jot down notes, and a pack of cigarettes before she quit smoking.

On our visits home from college we visited Nana individually, where she would indulge us in long conversations ranging from family updates, to town gossip, and national politics.  She gave each of us our own individual time and had a personal relationship with each of her grandchildren.  This was also an opportunity for Nana to absorb information about the outside world, the places where we went to school and eventually lived: Washington DC, Providence RI, New York, Los Angeles, Austin, Philadelphia.  This kitchen table was also the place where she sometimes sat alone to think, worry, and strategize about her family. 

The ultimate family celebration each year would be Nana’s Christmas Eve dinner, executed with the precision of a Swiss Watchmaker.   Born over years of practice at the Saylor Street house, under the tutelage of her Granny Dallago, Nana combined authentic Italian cooking skills with the discipline of a drill sergeant.  Now in her 70’s, Nana’s feast normally fed 15-20 people, including 3 grown children, 7 grandchildren, spouses, significant others, and eventually great-grandchildren. 

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The family would gather Christmas eve around 4pm, place gifts under the tree, drink high-balls, and shoot the shit.  There were a lot of comedians in the house so nobody went away unscathed.  Nana was to be left alone cooking unless she asked for help lifting a pot or grabbing something from the basement.

At precisely 5:30pm she summoned us to the kitchen table.  First was Italian Wedding Soup, a recipe passed down from Italy through my great-grandmother.  A savory potion of chicken, meatballs, eggs, and signature “bubbles” or tiny dough dumplings.  No sooner had you spooned up the last bit of delicious broth then your bowl was scooped away by Nana or one of her bodyguards, my Uncle Joe or Uncle Larry.  It wasn’t that second-servings weren’t allowed: it’s just that the main course was on its way, and the forward trajectory of the meal didn’t allow for pauses in the action.  

Then came the “home-maders”.   These were handmade ravioli assembled weeks earlier at my Aunt Donna’s house, the home-made pasta shell was filled with the same small meatballs that were in the wedding soup.  After topping it with Granny Dellago’s signature pasta sauce, you would spoon on liberal portions of “shaky cheese” as Nana called it.  Shaky cheese was fresh grated parmesan, also sometimes called “Hazelton Cheese” if Nana procure it from a particular Italian deli in the nearby Pennsylvania city of the same name. 

Rounding out the meal were breaded chicken cutlets, a nice salad, olives, and fresh made bread from Barkers Bakery or Hollywood Pizza.    The meal was in constant motion, with dirty plates swept away to make way for clean ones.  Seconds were welcomed but you needed to grab them fast or they would be snagged by the competition.   The meal was served and devoured in less than 45 minutes, and if you left the table hungry it was your own fault.  Genuine Italian cooking at American-pace eating. Fast, efficient, and delicious. 

After dinner we retired to the living room to exchange gifts, a logistical ordeal involving three generations, several nuclear families, etc.  After most of the gifts were torn open, the main event arrived.  Everyone paid tribute to Nana with their presents, and with each one Nana bellowed her trademark “Ohhh…..Ohhh my God!” a dramatic representation of her appreciation, delivered with exactly the same exuberance each time, not wanting to favor anyone.

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Then came the envelopes.  Sitting on a rocking chair seldom used but for this occasion, Nana doled out her largess to the family in the form of a packet of Christmas money-envelopes, bound in a rubber band like the Academy Awards.  Each bore the name of one of her minions, with exactly the same cash amount in it.  The only variety was the occasional raise we got.  But all employees, no matter their station or degree, got the same amount.  Nana played no favorites.

The biggest loss of Nana Costello’s life was the early passing of her grandson, Joey Costello.  Joey was the younger son of my Uncle Joe and Aunt Jan Costello, and was several years younger than me.  Joey had won two State Football Championships, was named All-State two years in a row, and held the career record for tackles at Mt. Carmel, the winningest team in Pennsylvania High School history.  Joey represented the heart and soul of our family.  He was a leader and tireless worker on the field, and also had a big personality that lit up the room off the field. 

Joey died in a construction accident in 2004.  He left behind a widow and young son.  His passing devastated the entire family, and in a very deep way, Nana Costello, who grappled with it for a long time.  Though she had lost her own husband at 43, nothing prepared her for this.  As we sat at her kitchen table months after Joey’s passing, Nana used a metaphor to help her understand her loss: “God never gave me any real diamonds.  My only diamonds were my seven grandchildren.  I guess God felt I had too many diamonds, so he took one back from me.” 

One of the biggest joys in my grandmother’s life was her trip to Italy in their early 70’s with her sister and my younger brother Joey.  Granny Dellago was from Castelvecchio, a small town in the impoverished Abruzzo region of Central Italy.  This was their first and only trip to Italy, and they paid Joey’s way to be tour guide and translator (he had learned Italian in college).  The origins of the trip started a year earlier, though, when my brother Joey and cousin Jeff Greco went backpacking across Europe. 

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According to Joey, “I originally found the town while backpacking with Jeff the year before taking Nana and Aunt Rosemary.  We took a random train in the direction of Castelvecchio and the conductor found us a fellow passenger to drive us there from the nearest stop.”

When they arrived in the small town nestled in the Central Appennine mountains, they made their way to the medieval stone piazza which seemed asleep except for a few restaurants and bars.   Newer houses surrounded old part of the city.  Armed only with the name Lena (Granny) Dellago, and her maiden name, Tresca, they entered a bar filled just with the owner-bartender and a few patrons.

“We told them our story.” Joey recounts.  “He then shut down the bar and walked us to the town hall while along the way other townspeople joined us as he told them he had a couple Americans looking for info on the Dellagos.  At the townhall they found the birth certificates of Granny, her parents and brothers.  At that point the bartender jumped to the phone to call Leno (Tresca) once he put two and two together.”

Leno flew down in his car and swooped Joey and Jeff back to his ranch style home where they spent the night.  They called Nana Costello in Mt. Carmel later that night to let her know they found her relatives.  She broke down in tears. 

After Joey returned home, Nana and Aunt Rosemary resolved to make the pilgrimage themselves to Castelvecchio if they could manage it financially.  Fortune struck when my Aunt Rosemary, and avid Atlantic City gambler, hit at $10,000 jackpot at a slot machines.  This “dirty money” funded the trip to the Italian homeland for the two sisters, with Joey as their chaperone, the following year. 

Once they made it to Castelvecchio, cousin Leno and his family met the three at the train station and drove them back to his house where they spent a few nights.  They ate, drank, told stories with their cousin Leno and the whole family, including their own “Nona”, a thin and wrinkled women in her 80’s who just rocked in her chair, listened, and said nothing but “Mangia”.   During the stay they also visited the run-down stone home that Granny Dallago was born in and raised until she travelled to the U.S. with her father at age 14. 

(Nana, Aunt Rosemary, and Joey meet our relatives the Trescas in Castelvecchio below)

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The culmination of their trip to Italy was a visit to the Vatican, where they hoped for a glimpse of the Pope waiving from his balcony where he often emerged on Sunday afternoons.  They arrived in the morning, so to pass the time they endeavored to gain entrance to a service in St. Peter’s Basilica.   There were long lines, but my brother pulled the two the pilgrim sisters towards the front of the crowd.  The security man must have sensed Nana and Aunt Rosemary were devout Catholics with their Rosaries in hand, and he pulled them and Joey into the entrance like a New York nightclub bouncer would pull a couple of sexy young women out of a long line and into the club ahead of others.     

Seated in chairs near the back of the church they began speaking with a nearby group of nuns from America.  After telling the nuns of their desire to catch a glimpse of the pontiff at his balcony later, the nuns, stunned, asked “Don’t you realize the Pope will be saying this Mass? We had to apply for tickets to this over a year ago!” 

They were stunned, and were mesmerized the entire service, including his final procession down the center aisle to bless worshipers.   When he neared the back, Nana and Aunt Rosemary bullied their way to the aisle and climbed on top of two chairs.  They caught a divine break when JPII stopped right in front of them and gave a blessing directly at them with the sign of the cross.  Aunt Rosemary, who had been battling cancer for the past few years, later claimed that all the pain in her body vanished at that moment.  It seemed all those years of attending Masses and saying Rosaries paid off for the sisters from Atlas. 

You might sense a contradiction in Nana’s distain for the Robber Barons who built The Breakers and the other Newport mansions on one hand, and her utter adoration of the Pope and rich Vatican splendors like the ornate St. Peter’s Cathedral.   Even during the toughest economic times, Nana gave religiously to collection plates at Mass.  And she always made sure we as kids had a few dollars to give in the pews: “I have ones! I have ones!” she said as she gave us the bills.   The difference to a working class Catholic like Nana was that she believed the Church belonged her and the other parishioners.  This included Vatican City which had a special relish because it was located in our family’s homeland.  As one of my favorite theologians, Stanley Hauerwas, once said about Cathedrals: “Poor people deserve to own something beautiful too”.

EPILOGUE

My cousin Jeff Costello recently comment that given Nana’s intellect, moral compass, and personality, she would have achieved great things professionally in business, politics, or another profession had she been able to college rather or lived in an area with more opportunity.  This echoed the message in the eulogy my brother Gary gave at her funeral a decade ago. While no one in our family doubts this, there actually is an interesting “test case” which lends strong support to Jeff’s statement: our Aunt Rosemary. 

Rosemary Sufalko, Nana’s elder sister and best friend, moved to New Brunswick New Jersey after getting married.  To help support her family she cleaned offices, including one which housed a market research firm.  Austin Rosemary once told me that, because of her dependability, the office manager asked her if she would do doing some clerical work in addition to her cleaning.  Not wanting to spend more time away from her family, she agreed only if she could bring the work home with her.  She excelled and was rewarded with a full-time secretarial job.  It became clear over time that her talent and hard work warranted more opportunities and promotions, and Aunt Rosemary eventually became an executive at that firm, working directly with TV networks and media companies. 

Given the opportunity, I have no doubt Nana would have reached similar heights.  Her field would have been politics though.  She could have been a mayor, a school board member as her husband had been, or even a legislator. Nevertheless, she always built strong relationships locally with those with power and influence. 

Her close relationship with my paternal grandfather, also a school board member, gave her an ear to bend on important decisions in the district.  Throughout her career she also had a close friendship with the school district Superintendent, whom she knew from Atlas.  He was a Lou Grant type, for whom she often acted as a sounding board, unofficial advisor, and advocate on behalf staff members, where she had deep relationships and credibility.   

Nana told me stories, the specific details of which I’m sworn to secrecy, about lobbying Papap Greco at his kitchen table for hours, or calling the superintendent at home to do the same.   Once when trying to reach the superintendent by phone, his wife answered and said he was taking a shower and therefore unavailable. Nonetheless Nana demanded he take her call.  Minutes later he was standing, dripping wet on the other end of the line, all ears, as Nana pressed him on one issue or another.    

Nana has had a huge impact, politically and otherwise, through her children, grandchildren, and everyone else she touched.  She exerted a dominant moral influences in all of our lives, and we can hear her clear voice advising us when facing the toughest decisions about family, work, or life in general.  The line she delivered at The Breakers sticks with me to this day. 

She was my mom’s best friend, and their relationship deepened after my parents’ divorce, and was marked by a mutual dependence on each other.  During Nana’s last days, when it was clear she would pass, my mom put her on the phone so we could talk with her one last time.  She was still aware and attempted to speak, even though she went in and out of consciousness.   And according to my mom, Nana’s last words were “There’s Crissy”, as she pointed to the hospital TV playing the Chris Mathews show. 

Nana passed away in an ambulance, with my mom by her side, as it took her home where she wanted to spend her final days.  A few years ago, at a time when my mom was especially missing Nana, my brother Joe and his wife Vicky named their first daughter Annabelle, as a tribute to the matriarch who set a high standard for us all.  But through her life and her love, she gave us the ability to meet it. 

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IF YOU HAVE ANY PICTURES OF NANA YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADD TO THE GALLERY, PLEASE SEND THEM TO ME

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(Special thanks to my dad, Joseph Greco, for sharing many of the stories and background that helped shaped this piece about my grandfather, Dr. Joseph Greco. While there could be numerous posts written about the different aspects of my grandfather’s life (community leadership, family, business ventures), this post focuses primarily on his life as a doctor.)

My paternal great-grandparents immigrated from Southern Italy and gave birth to ten children in Atlas Pennsylvania.    My grandfather, Joe Greco, was the second youngest of five boys.   His older brothers worked in the mines and helped put him through college and medical school.   He became a town doctor and eventually bought a coal mine, the Diamond Coal Company near Atlas, with his brothers.  The family went from poverty to middle-class in one generation.

My grandfather, or “Papap” as we called him, was a “Little All-American” football player at Susquehanna University about 35 minutes from Mt. Carmel.  It was at Susquehanna that Papap Greco met my grandmother, who worked as a secretary in the President’s office.  (See my blogpost on “Nana Greco” here) This “little school” actually had a big football reputation, drawing players from towns in Eastern and Central Pennsylvania with a rich football history. 

Papap Greco was a “Staggie” which is the name for Susquehanna players who played under head coach Amos Alonzo Stagg Jr., and his legendary father, Associate Head Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg Sr. from 1947-1952. In the twilight of his storied career, Stagg Sr. joined his son at Susquehanna to help coach.  To call Stagg Sr. a football legend was an understatement: he was one of the early innovators of the game in the late 1800’s.

Among Stagg’s inventions in the game of football were the reverse play, the huddle, the place kick, the lateral pass, the Statue of Liberty play, uniform numbers, the man in motion, hip pads, and both the lateral and forward passes.  Transcending football, Stagg was responsible for developing basketball as a 5 player sport (which allowed his then 10 member football team to compete and keep in shape during the winter months).  And although Stagg turned down offers from 5 professional baseball teams, he was also credited with inventing the batting cage. 

By 1947 the “Grand Old Man of Football” had joined his son at Susquehanna. My grandmother, who had started dating my Papap by this time, remembered Stagg Sr. shouting plays down from the press box to his son on the field.   One of my own football mentors and longtime Susquehanna Assistant Coach Bob Pitello had also been a “Staggie”.   We were lucky to have him as our offensive line coach at Mt. Carmel during my Junior and Senior years of High School. 

After college my grandfather enrolled in Medical School at Hahnemann Hospital in Pennsylvania (where both his youngest son, my Uncle Jon, and my brother Joey would also attend medical school years later).  In order to help pay for medical school, my grandfather enlisted in the army, where he owed some years of service back as an army doctor. 

He worked at Marine hospital in Staten Island under one of the pioneers in thoracic surgery, Dr. Charley Bailey. Dr. Bailey created numerous new techniques for heart surgery, according to my dad was the first surgeon to conduct a thoracotomy, the operation to open the chest cavity for heart procedures.

Because my grandmother wanted to have their first child, they moved back to Mt. Carmel where Papap completed his military service in the Public Health Service in the federal prison system.   The first was the United States Penitentiary in Lewisburg, PA, about an hour away from Mt. Carmel.  

Papap’s days at Lewisburg came to an end when he exposed a scheme whereby the prison staff bilked prisoners out of money for getting seen in the infirmary.  He became persona non grata with the staff, and was cast out and eventually sent to new assignments at the U.S. Penitentiary, Leavenworth in Kansas and U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri.  But exposing the grafting scheme helped make him very popular with the  prisoners.

Years later in the 1970s, when my dad was a high school teacher in Mt. Carmel, he and other faculty members won a basketball game at Lewisburg Penitentiary against the prisoners’ team.  Evidently the prisoners’ team, as part of their recreation, would play teams of faculty members from area high schools, but had never lost before.  My dad remembers there was a prison riot following the loss to the Mt. Carmel teachers. 

One of the prisoners, a mobster named Charlie Allen took my dad around and introduced him as Doc Greco’s son to the prisoners.  He said my grandfather was fondly remembered by the inmates.  Allen was President of the Holy Name society in prison, and also had been an enforcer in someone’s crime family.

One day Allen took my dad to the cell of former Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa.  Hoffa had been famously sentenced to Lewisburg for jury tampering, bribery, and fraud in 1967. My dad looked in the cell and saw Hoffa standing, facing the other direction with his hands crossed behind his back.  When Allen introduced Hoffa to my dad, Hoffa turned around to look at them and simply scoffed. 

A few years later a black limousine pulled up to my dad’s Hickory Street house in Mt. Carmel, and someone came to the door.  When my dad answered, the man said “Charlie Allen is here for you.”  My dad made up an excuse not to see him…he had to go back to school or some such.  My Papap counted among his patients some members of the local La Cosa Nostra, but he had told my dad never to deal with them himself. 

My grandfather had switched his specialty to ObGyn when he started his private practice out of my grandparents’ house at 300 South Hickory in Mt. Carmel.  He built his practice by delivering over 2,800 babies (including 3 boys to my mom and dad) and taking care of all of their families. He conducted minor surgeries out of his office like tonsillectomies and knee surgery.  (During his own knee surgery as a college football player, my grandfather would only let doctors give him local anesthetics so he could stay awake and watch the procedure through a mirror above the operating table) My Uncle Dr. Jeff Greco now runs his own practice in Papap’s old Hickory St. office today.

My grandfather treated a great deal of his patients free of charge, and sometimes would even hand poor patients cash in the examining room so they could have the dignity of paying their bill in front of the other patients in the waiting room.  

During the early days of Papap’s practice, a young British artist named Peter Ellenshaw came to him with a sick wife who had grown up in nearby Ashland.   My grandfather treated her, and to show his appreciation Ellenshaw painted portraits of both my grandparents.   He captured them at the prime of their lives, handsome and young.  The Ellenshaw’s moved to Santa Barbara and Peter became one of Walt Disney’s top matte artists, and one of the first artists to integrate special effects into films.   He won an Academy Award for “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and “Mary Poppins”.    The pictures still hang in my grandmother’s house.

In 1960 Papap learned to do hair transplant surgery from Dr. Norman Orentriech, the “father of the hair transplant” procedure as well as a Dr. Berger. Papap Greco became one of the early pioneers of hair transplant surgery in the 1960’s and according to my dad conducted over 2,000 procedures, including those on well-known politicians and entertainers. (See article about my grandfathers work in hair transplantation at the end of this post). Years later my dad would learn the technique from my grandfather and become one of the most popular hair transplant providers in the country, himself conducting the procedure on high-profile celebrities and public officials. 

Papap was also on the cancer research board at Hahnemann Hospital.  It was named the Barry Ashby Research Center after the Philadelphia Flyers hockey player who had leukemia.   Ed Snyder, the owner of the Flyers, was also on the board. 

Papap’s office was connected to my grandparents’ house through a door in the kitchen.  Patients would offer gifts of food, sometimes in lieu of payment.   Sometimes my grandfather, sometimes a nurse, and sometimes the patients themselves would walk into the kitchen with these treats.   Pastries, pies, “long johns”, sticky buns, cookies, and if we were lucky, a White Coconut cake.   We called them “goodies”. 

In addition to his practice my grandfather owned coal mines and breakers with his brothers, and he bought three pharmacies, three nursing homes, a 32-lane bowling alley, and the Guarantee Trust Building, a four story granite bank and apartment building which anchored downtown.

My dad bought me penny loafers in middle school.   Classmates teased me.   When my grandfather heard, he grabbed me by the arm and said “You tell them ‘only the rich kids wear these’, and then pinch them in the back of the arm!”   I never thought of myself as a rich kid, and could only imagine what would happen if I did what my grandfather said. But my grandfather grew up in poverty and this was his way of teaching me about pride. 

At some point early in his career Papap had taken a year-long course at University of Pennsylvania in reading EKG’s and became the primary reader of EKG’s at the Shamokin hospital, where he would conduct rounds the rest of his career.    Such a pillar of dignity and class at the hospital, I remember going with him on rounds when was dying of cancer in his 60’s, and the nurses being shocked that it was the first time they ever saw him without a tie on. 

Hundreds of people attended my grandfather’s funeral, and the line of family, friends, and patients at the viewing ran outside the funeral home and around the corner for over 4 hours. My dad tells the story of one man coming up to him saying “Your father saved my life”, to which my dad thanked him but said that as a physician that’s just what Doc Greco did. The man said “no, I got hurt in a mine explosion, and he came down 700 feet below the surface and treated me there and saved my life.” No one in our family had every heard this story from my grandfather himself.

Coming from a family of coal miners, my grandfather was very close to the miners at the Diamond Coal Company, and the Bar-Mac Breaker, which he also owned. One miner was my paternal Grandfather, Joseph Costello (See blog post here about “Papap Costello”). Papap Greco’s workday would start with a pre-dawn visit to the mines to check in with the workers, then to early morning rounds at the Shamokin Hospital, then to coffee with Granny Greco (my great-grandmother) in Atlas, and then to normal office hours back at his practice in Mt. Carmel.

Eleanor “Nana” Greco, my paternal grandmother, grew up on the Isle of Que, a picturesque ½ mile wide and 5 mile long tiny island between the small town of Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania and the Susquehanna River.   Small, beautiful homes from the 1800’s and lots of boating and swimming activities.  In fact both my dad, Joe Greco and Uncle Jeff Greco raced speedboats there in the summer when they were younger. My uncle won the National Championship in his age category, and my dad the Eastern Seaboard Championship. The island had a small pond that froze over in the winter and became an ice-skating venue called “Little Norway.”   

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At the time I began writing stories about my grandparents, Nana Greco had been my only living grandparent, and was well into her 90’s.   She knew I was writing about her and told my dad the story of how she met Papap Greco.    My grandfather had been a student at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, and a football player named to the national “Little All-America” team for small colleges.  He played under Head Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg Jr., and his legendary father and Associate Head Coach, Amos Alonzo Stagg.  Such players were called “Staggies”.   Nana worked as a secretary in the President’s office.

They had spotted each other in an ice-cream shop near campus, and Papap asked if he could walk her home.  Nana concealed the fact that she lived just two blocks away, and led Papap on a two-mile circuit around town despite the fact that he was limping from a recent football injury.   When he asked why she misled him, Nana answered, “I just wanted to get to know you better.”   Sometimes families are born out of cunning.

Nana Greco caught butterflies as a pastime.   She ran through the fields at my grandparents’ cottage called “The Farm” in nearby Snydertown, dressed in a bright yellow blouse and white shorts and shoes, snagging them with a net.   Like capturing lighting in a bottle.   In her house we found books with butterflies pressed neatly between the pages, and others immortalized in tombs of rectangular glass. 

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Nana loved leopard: leopard pants, leopard jackets, leopard scarves.   She also loved brightly colored clothes and expensive shoes and purses.  Her brazen arrangement rendered sublime under the force of her charisma.   She and my grandfather bought a yellow Cadillac convertible with leopard interior, and my dad said he and his siblings had to wear matching leopard berets, much to his chagrin. My dad was the oldest of their four children, along with my Uncle Jeff, Aunt Linda, and Uncle Jon.

Nana cooked concoctions.   Casseroles with cold cuts and stray vegetables.  Soufflés with cheese and fruit.   Whatever she found in the fridge went into the stew.   Sometimes a bit too much: my mom was present when my Aunt Martie pulled one of Nana’s beautiful, fruit-laden Jell-O molds out of the fridge, only to find the mixing spoon inadvertently frozen in the middle.   

A bee stung me in the butt when I was a boy.   I ran crying into Nana Greco’s house.  She instructed me to drop-pant, and she pulled the stinger out.   Ironically, on a separate occasion my right butt-cheek collapsed for several days after my grandfather, the doctor, gave me a shot of medicine there.  It eventually popped back into shape. 

My grandmother was a civic leader: She served on the public library and Womens Club boards, and ran ticket sales for the community theater.   When show time came for any of these groups, she called in all her chips.  Like LBJ pressuring Congress members to vote for his bills, Nana cornered, cajoled, needled, and persuaded people to buy tickets and make donations.  She always worked the ticket table at events in order to know who followed through on their promise or not.

One day while visiting Nana when she was around 85, I put out my arm to help her across the street to church.   She snapped back, “What? Do you need help crossing the street?!”  I dropped my arm and she laughed loudly at me.

At age 88, Nana fell in her bathroom and broke her foot.   She crawled down the steps and hobbled to her car.  She drove to the hairdresser and kept her appointment.   She hobbled back into the car, drove home, hobbled into the kitchen.   A door in the kitchen led into my grandfather’s doctor’s office.  Now it is my uncle’s practice.   Nana knocked.   When the nurse came in Nana said she needed a ride to the emergency room because she broke her foot. 

She read two books a week, well into her 90’s.  She loved medieval and Renaissance court novels, historical fiction on the U.S. and Europe, and non-fiction thrillers like “The Secret Wars of the CIA.”  

A few summers before she passed, I brought Nana Greco a book on grassroots organizing that had a passing mention of me asking a question in a meeting.  I had previously tried to explain to Nana many times what I did for a living, but couldn’t quite get her to connect to it.  But when I showed her this book, she held it for almost an hour, combing through its pages, and for the first time gave me a heartfelt compliment on my work.   “My God.  How many people get written about in a book?” Something about the weight of the book in her hands made my accomplishments real in a way that explaining my work to her never did before.   

  

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My grandmother went shopping at least twice a week.   Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Allentown, and New York.   She dedicated herself to shopping.  It was part of her personality, her self-expression.  As a larger than life personality living in a small town of 5,000, it also gave her a momentary escape to the big city.   She once had the famous designer of the Copacabana Club in New York, Ruben Bogenhorn, redesign their basement into a “Mad Men” era rumpus room, as chronicled in an early post of the Yellow Pig.

When my grandfather developed throat cancer in his 60’s, Nana drove him to Philadelphia twice a week for over a year for treatments.  She was devoted him.  She had spent her life helping manage his affairs, supporting his business ventures and social engagements, and most of all nurturing their family.   This happened often behind the scenes and behind the flourish of her larger-than-life personality.   She pulled off the role of a matriarch like an artist. 

(Thanks to my mom, Candace Greco, for supplying much of the background for this story)

My great-grandfather was a boxer named “Kid Costello”.  His real name was Pastula, but since Irish boxers ruled at the time, he took an Irish name in the family, Costello.   Kid Costello was killed in a mine explosion while his wife was pregnant with their 10^th child.

He named one of his sons, my maternal grandfather, Joe Costello.    Though my grandfather died when he was 43 and I never knew him, I call him Papap Costello.

Papap Costello fought in the South Pacific in World War II.   Before he left, he and my grandmother eloped, each aged 17.     After his tours were done, he just showed up at my grandmother’s house without notice.   I’m told she went berserk and jumped in his arms. They had a girl and two boys together.

Papap Costello, like his father and most men of his generation in the Anthracite Coal Region, worked in the mines at a very young age.  Though work and service prevented him from continuing school, he was very smart, especially in math.  My mom remembers him helping her with homework.   Eventually he ran above-ground mine equipment for my paternal grandfather who owned a coal mine with his brothers.

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My mom shared this recollection by email, with a proud flourish at the end:

“My memories at very early age were of him leaving way before daylight every day and coming home covered with black soot late afternoon!  Actually in morning you could hear the signal from the house like a horn or something signaling miners to head to work and I think later again when it would time to quit for day.  Customary for them to stop at nearby beer garden after work to wet their whistle before coming home!  He worked for Papap Greco (my paternal grandfather) at his mines later as heavy equipment operator until mines closed!  Later on Nana was able to receive black lung benefits from government. I can still remember seeing the black tin lunch bucket he used every day and thermos of coffee!! Hard times…I am a coal miner’s daughter!!!”

Even today, the average life expectancy of a coal miner today is about 53 years old, and I once heard that an Anthracite Coal Miner had the lowest life expectance of any profession, except for an Alaskan fisherman.   Using heavy equipment, Papap Costello also dug out Oscars Pond, a backyard pond we used to fish at when we were little. 

My grandfather became a leader in local institutions: Grand Knight in the Knights of Columbus, member of St. Paul’s Catholic Church, the Atlas Legion, the Atlas Fire Company, and eventually a member of the School Board.  My grandmother once told me a local columnist had it out for him while he was on the school board.    He was well respected, not due to money, but because of a large network of relationships through the civic organizations he belonged to.  

Papap Costello developed Rheumatoid Arthritis in his early 30’s.    RA causes your immune system to attack your joints and organs, causing excruciating pain and tissue damage.   The only treatment in those days were Cortisone and gold salts.  He eventually developed diabetes and died of congestive heart failure in his early 40’s.   My Papap Greco, a doctor, treated him and said that most men would not have let themselves endure the pain he did.  He did get to see my mom marry and his first grandchild born, before he passed away though.

The best story I ever heard about Papap Costello was when he pulled my mom out of Catholic High.  After school one day, she told him a nun locked her in a closet, my mom suspects for talking to boys (she maintains that the nuns would look out the classroom windows to see which girls got the attention of guys, and then once in class find another reason to punish them).  Hearing of the incident, the next day Papap Costello went to Catholic High, pulled her out of class, and walked her down the street to enroll her in the public high school.  

Within a year she had made cheerleader.   One day she stood outside the school when my dad pulled up in his convertible with his best friend Alfie in the passenger’s seat.  Alfie yelled to my mom, “Hey, would you go out with Greco if he asked you?”  She gave a cautious “yeah”.  The rest is history. 

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When I was about 15, my mom and my two brothers moved to the middle of a triplex of row homes on 2^nd Street in Mt. Carmel.  Like many of the row homes built during the years when Mt. Carmel was a coal mining boom-town, each of these three attached homes were 12 ½ feet wide, three stories tall, plus a basement.  The two identical houses to either side were both inhabited by octogenarians.   Maggie, an old Russian woman lived on our left, and swept her front porch and sidewalk every day.   Tufky Andrulewicz, a former pro-football player, lived on our right. 

Tufky’s real name was Theodore Andrulewicz. Tufky was the nickname he must have gotten during his football years, and one story even holds its a shortened version of “tough kid”.  He played professional football with the Newark Tornadoes of the NFL in the 1930’s, and had played half-back at Villanova University before that where he started his senior year and had one receiving touchdown.   So he was a football legend in a legendary football town.  After his playing days, he became the longtime baseball coach at Mt. Carmel High School, my alma-mater.   My mom remembers him as her Drivers’ Ed teacher in High School.

By the time we had moved to 44 West 2^nd Street, he had also gotten the nickname “Pops”, given his age and avuncular personality.  So people my age and my parents age called him “Pops”, people a bit older than that called him “Tufky”, and I only know of one person, a fellow old-timer who walked by our houses a few times a week, who dared call him by his given name.  Never stopping to talk, Pop’s old comrade would simply yell into Pop’s house as he ambled by in a loud voice, “Theodoooore!!!!!”.  

The Pops we knew walked with two canes, wore dark shaded glasses with protective visors on all sides, and throughout all four seasons dressed in dark pants, layers of heavy grey or black flannel shirts, and a cap.  He was always in a friendly, if not mischievous mood.  Pops would pay us a quarter to run to Grayson’s deli to buy a pack of “Elephant Butts” chewing tobacco.  He sat on a chair on the side of his porch with a gold spittoon, which he dumped over the railing into the grass on his right side once he had filled it.   

Though we knew all three of his names, an old-timer like Tufky Andrulewicz is under no obligation to learn the names of teen punks like us.  When he wanted us, he would simply call us “Lightning”, as in “Hey Lighting: Go down to the store and get me some Elephant Butts.”

Pops’ family had written down our number in case of emergencies.  When we answered he would simply address us by the listing on his notepad: “Neighbor? 2533?” referring to the last four digits of our number.  He used it on a few occasions, including the time we heard a loud “Boom” coming from Pop’s house next door.  The walls shook, the phone rang, and my mom picked up: “Neighbor? #2533? Get the hell over here!”.  Me and my younger brother Joey ran next door.  We entered the living room finding Pops sitting on his recliner with singed eyebrows.  He stuck out his thumb and motioned over his head to the kitchen entrance behind him.  We flew back.  The gas stove door was blown open, and a black char covered it and the floor in front, the result of him trying to light it with a match.  Good thing he had our number. 

My brothers and I would always catch football or baseball in the 10 foot wide patch of grass between Pop’s house and the red-brick one story Bell Telephone switching station on the corner.  The strip ran the length of our houses and yard, about 125 feet deep, so there was plenty of room to throw for distance.   The only times Pops got mad was when we hit the side of his house with an errant pass.  After letting some curses fly, Pops would eventually cool off, and offer some sage advice: “If you want to practice football, you have to go down to the old depot, where you can go right, cut left, stop, and go!” He used the same exact words every time.   We didn’t know where the depot was, or if there even still was a depot in town, but his point was made: football was to be played on a field.  Though we kept on catching in the grass strip because our yard was too small. 

Tufky was also capable of great reverence.  On the morning of my grandfather’s funeral, Tufky saw me and my brothers leave our house wearing suits.  He stopped us and asked why we were dressed-up, so we told him where we were going.  My grandfather, though a generation younger than Tufky in his early 60’s, had been a town doctor, patriarch, and respected community leader.  A shocked Tufky responded with all sincerity, in a raspy voice: “Doc Greco’s funeral?  My God!  People are dying that never died before!”.   Me and my brothers still laugh at that story.

He owned a well-kept, bright red car that looked like the Batmobile, replete with fins and a dashboard push-start button.   Pops never drove his car.  It existed solely to be moved to the next street on street sweeper day and back again the next, mostly by me and my brothers which we were glad to do.  No one was permitted to park in the spot directly in front of his house:  the meter had been pulled out and the curb painted red.  Though given the roughness of the job it was unclear if this was done by the authorities or Pops himself.  Either way, no one contested that this was his, and only his spot. 

Pops was sharp and had a sense of humor up as long as we knew him.   Other than needing canes, the only thing that failed him was his eyesight.  One time Pops saw a car pulling into his empty parking spot and started yelling and banging his cane against the wrought iron railing of his porch: “Get the Hell out of my spot!”  It was actually me pulling his car back into his spot the morning after street sweeper day.   After I told him it was his car, he started laughing with his trademark “Hehehe!”.  He almost never stayed angry.  

Another instance where Pop’s eyesight failed him was when I was sitting on the porch and a 60 year old man walked up, said “Hey Dougie”, and then rushed over to Pops’ porch and said “Hey Tufky!”, extending his hand.   Pops took a beat, looked him in the eye, and said, irreverently, “Who the hell are you?”  It could only have been Pops, a football legend, who could say this to another living legend, Joe “Jazz” Diminick, our high school football coach.  In his mid-60’s himself, Jazz was the winningest coach in the history of Pennsylvania high school football and the 4^th winningest in the nation.   “Tufky, it’s me Jazz Diminick!”  Pops, realizing who he was talking with, gave Jazz a hearty handshake and a hearty laugh, “Hehehe!”   

The legend of Tufkey Andrulewicz’s “coming of age” involves a standoff at Philadelphia’s Franklin Field, most likely around 1927.  Franklin Field, which is today the nation’s oldest active football stadium and home of the University of Pennsylvania Quakers, had been built in 1895 and used for by an array of college and professional teams over the years.  In 1927 Tufky would have been playing Varsity football at Villanova where he started as a running back in his senior year.

Tufky and his entourage were attending a football game at Franklin Field.  Also attending a game that day, and seated about 25 or so rows in front of Tufky’s crew was heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney.  Tunney, who held the belt from 1926-1928, would have been the champ at the time of the encounter.  Tufky was an up-and-comer from the Coal Region wanting to make a name for himself.  Tunney was undisputedly the greatest fighter in the world, having twice successfully defended his crown against the great Jack Dempsey, including the famous “Long Count Fight”. 

At a break in the game, most likely at the end of a quarter or halftime, Tufky sensed his moment.  He stepped atop the wooden-benched bleachers, cupped his hands around his mouth, and bellowed for the side of the grandstand to hear:

“HEY TUNNEY!!!!”

The Champ, no doubt dressed in a tailored suit covering his chiseled frame, turned around slowly to see if this holler came from a fan or foe.  Tunney’s own entourage turned around as well.   The Coal Region star and Villanova football standout now had at least 1000 pairs of eyes peeled on him.  He stood toe-to-toe with the champ by barking only one more word:   

“TUFKY!!!!” he yelled, pointing to his chest with both thumbs.   As he did the crowd erupted in cheers and laughter.  Tunney realized he had met his match, smiled and waved to the younger Tufky.  The small town boy had made it to bigtime. 

That’s how a lot of stories from Mt. Carmel go.  Someone from the area, sizzling with energy, dreams, and an outsized personality, sees an opportunity to grab for something big in the world and jumps on it.  These stories get sharpened over the years, and eventually symbolize the spirit of the region.  But the person never loses sight of where they came from, just like Pops never did, telling stories on his porch on 2^nd street.