Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White Days
With the sudden loss of my father two years ago, it is just now that memories are starting to surface, which brings clarity and understanding to my childhood. My father was a first generation Italian of Sicilian descent who was rooted in the old country even though he was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. My father Phil’s body might have been in Brooklyn, but he was firmly planted in nature in Lecara Friddi, Sicily. No one spoke English in his home, and in those days, when sent to public school, if you couldn’t speak English you were sent home until you learned. He was sent home and allowed back when he had a grasp on the language a year later.
As I age, I understand the conflicts that I had with my father were mainly based in basic geography. Here was a man who was steeped in old world tradition and culture surrounded by a modern Italian American wife and five daughters and a son. He lived in perpetual culture shock. His background was such that the male was the head of the house, so he exercised his authority with an iron fist and strong determination to control what was oftentimes out of his control.
Nowadays I spend some of my leisure time thinking back on some of the memories that can help me better understand a man whose good intentions, pride, hard work and definition of honor and respect went oftentimes severely misunderstood.
I can see his face now; when upset, angry or in a stern disciplinarian role, his expression was something I would rather avoid because it displayed emotions that caused angst in my young impressionable heart. However, when pleased or proud of us, his face lit up like a twelve year old boy on Christmas morning. My father was famous for laughing in all the wrong spots like he was enjoying a private joke. He would look around the room for reaction to whatever we were doing and smile so wide that the genetic identity space between his two front teeth, which five out of six of his children sported, is what took over his countenance and could be seen by everyone within a ten mile radius.
He worked very hard, and it was rare that you would find him in a playful mood. He wasn’t one who would be found on the playground coordinating an afternoon fun fest. He never coached a team or assisted in pin the tail on the donkey at a birthday party. He shouldered massive responsibility providing for and supporting a family of eight. He climbed masts in 20 degree weather to repair radar on boats, and I believe he did it to insure our security and well-being regardless of the cost.
The few times that I can say I have a memory of “playing” with my father oftentimes included play which was couched in instruction. For instance, on the night about fifty-years ago when my father taught my sister and I to Cha-Cha Cha’. This lesson served two purposes, the first being that we could see how superior he was at the Cha-Cha Cha’, which was a prerequisite to everything from vacuuming to carving roast beef. Or, in this instance we could learn a skill that could be used at family gatherings to participate in the entertainment portion of the festivities.
My father was well aware we couldn’t sing, but I guess he didn’t have the heart to tell us. We found out on our own when my sister and I were given the proverbial hook while auditioning for a talent show at St. Patrick’s Elementary show. Although we mentally designed our matching outfits for the show and we fearlessly sang, “Adeste Fideles” in Latin, before getting to the “Venite, venite” portion of the Christmas carol, Sister Bartola, replete with a strange half smile on her face, cleared her throat and politely asked us to stop to make way for the Irish Step Dancing Boland sisters. So singing was out, but I guess my father thought the Cha-Cha Cha’ held a lot of latent potential.
My father had built a home-made hi-fi system and put it in our living room. It was a rectangular box with slatted, shutter- like sliding doors. The piece was finished in a lovely, 1950’s, antique gold finish, which was painted white and sprayed unevenly with metallic gold spray paint. Inside the cabinet was a turn table for 33-rpm he had built himself, in which to play a small collection of RCA Victor vinyl records like Ella Fitzgerald singing Lullaby of Bird Land, or Johnny Mathis crooning Wonderful, Wonderful, or for this particular event, Perez Prado’s Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White. Perez Prado was the Cuban King of Mambo, so I’m not entirely sure the music matched the dance, but that didn’t really matter, we were about to learn how to Cha-Cha Cha’.
Being light hearted and excited about teaching us, our father was relaxed and upbeat. He gave us a solo demonstration including some fancy footwork that included side-to-side Cha-Cha Cha’ moves and turning around while doing the Cha-Cha Cha’. Those efforts were met with “oohs” and ”ahhh’s,” which catapulted my father to the heights of being considered a Cha-Cha Cha’ expert we could both look up to. My sister and I were instructed to stand facing one and other and to lightly grasp one and other’s finger tips. It was hard not to giggle, because this was serious business for my father. We were initially instructed to bounce in time to the music and to wait patiently for the precise beat to begin.
My sister would start by pulling her right foot back while I would step forward with the same foot on the same side: back, step in place 1,2 and 3, Cha-Cha Cha’, other side, pull back, step forward, back step in place 1,2, 3 Cha-Cha Cha’. We were dancing. We were stiff, determined, and concentrating with all our might. Prado’s brass was soaring to Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White, and my sister and I were slowly being transformed into Cuban Cha-Cha Cha’ experts, and my father was watching us with such focused concentration, he was biting his bottom lip. He was so tense that you would think we were learning how to drive a stick shift.
Once we got the general idea of the Cha-Cha Cha’; it was time to interject the side-to-side portion of the lesson. This was done with trepidation and insecurity; the 1, 2 and 3 Cha-Cha Cha’ was getting jumbled, but we kept at it. After a while, we were turning to the side and swinging our exterior arms like old pros. We wove in the turn around and with our backs facing one and other our measured steps surprisingly continued to coordinate with each other. My father was thrilled. If we erred, he would let us know. Watching us, he was faintly bouncing in place, not enough to say he was truly dancing, but every 1, 2, and 3 we executed he also was counting with his feet along with us. To hell with Sister Bartola, we were prime for Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour and felt we could follow Wayne Newton in the contestant line up.
The Cha-Cha Cha’ became our favorite dance. We never excelled at it, but no one would ever know it. As far as we were concerned, we could Cha-Cha Cha’. Even as adults we dance with the same measured counting that mimicked two little girls learning. At weddings and functions with music even ‘til today, we own the Cha-Cha Cha’. If Latin music is in the house, my sister and I make eye contact, jump up and meet in the middle of the dance floor. We face one another, hold hands, and bounce-count before beginning just like my father taught us. We include the side-to-side, and my sister turns around in the opposite direction, because even if she doesn’t dance better than I do she has the self-confidence that exudes ability.
One of the last times we got to dance the Cha-Cha Cha’ together was at my daughter’s wedding. It was one of the last big events that he attended before his death. What could be cooler than my sister and I jumping up to do the Cha-Cha Cha’ to Santana’s Smooth? My father was so full of pride; he even scurried to the edge of the dance floor to monitor his protégé. As we began to dance, I was transported back to 1958 in an aqua living room with an antique gold hi-fi where I learned to Cha-Cha Cha’. My father was fixated on our every step, the vague bounce was still there and I could see his lips softly moving counting 1, 2, 3. As we danced to Rob Thomas and Carlo Santana’s Latin beat, he scanned the room with a huge smile on his face to make sure the wedding guests were admiring his now middle aged charges’ exceptional dancing abilities. We might as well have been reciting our ABC’s for dinner guests in 1955.
Teaching us to dance and the memory of that night was a gift from my father. Reflecting on that memory I believe the greater gift is that for the rest of our lives, when we hear a Cuban rhythm or dance to the Cha-Cha Cha,’ we will reminisce and our father will be there with us too, and his face and his presence will live on for us in those treasured moments.
Tags: 1950's, 50s, father, learning to dance, Memories
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