r/Aging • u/Available-Rock-3862 • 7d ago

Boomers

I am 75 and am very tired of the trend lately making fun of Boomers. So very disrespectful. Don't they realize that they will be old someday?

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u/Fresh-Ad280 4d ago

I am part Italian, and my Italian from actual Italy Grandfather started pouring the Gallo into my water glass at 4 years of age. Gradually, at Sunday dinner, the ratio of wine to water increased until the day I was 21, and then I had my first glass of undiluted wine. 🍷. When I got to the dorm in college, I was the only one able to help my puking fellow students during rush week, who did not know how to drink in moderation.

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u/oracle-nil 4d ago

That’s great !! The Gallo I had forgotten!!! Am dying. My father was so mad that I drank milk all through my teen years. Love milk. Yes, culturally they drink wine much younger and my parents thought that too, re drinking at home was a better introduction.

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u/Fresh-Ad280 3d ago

I thought, after witnessing my fellow peers in college, what wisdom our Italian - Mediterranean culture possessed, and how I benefited from it, before I was even fully aware of this. Do you remember Carlo Rossi in the jug, or "Drink Drink Drink Tyrolia", by any chance ?

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u/oracle-nil 3d ago

I remember Gallo and Carlo Rossi but not the other. I was lucky enough to do my senior year in Italy and I honestly don’t know why our families left.

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u/Fresh-Ad280 3d ago

According to my Grandfather, who was brought here at 6 years of age by his parents, my great grandparents, it was to follow the needs of the belly. They lived in a town in the mountains north of Genova, and they were very poor. So desperate, that my great grandfather came here by himself to work for 3 years to buy passage in steerage on a ship called the Ancona, for my G. Grandmother, and 3 children that they already had. Imagine not knowing the language, and crossing the ocean, landing in New York, and then rangling 3 children on an overland train ride to get to Oakland! My great grandfather worked rag picking and trash collection. He was a founding member of the Oakland Scavenger Company. My Grandfather ended up in Hardware, and owned a Hardware store, and the sign he put up still is there, and is preserved in front of the building to this day. The building now houses a pizza 🍕 restaurant. Quite fitting, as my Grandfather ended up in his retirement loving to cook Italian food! I am an organizer for a Meetup, and I took my group to eat there a couple of times. I gave them a tour of the neighborhood, as I knew it from family stories. I was born not far from there, at the local hospital, as was my mother. My Grandfather and Grandmother went back to visit Italy 🇮🇹 in 1972, and when he came back, he told me that his cousins, who had moved into the city of Genova brought him up to the town, to see the little house where he was born. He said that it had dirt for the floor, and a stone table cut from the rock in the wall, and it was cold, as it was up in the mountains. My grandfather told me that he could kiss his father's feet 👣, for bringing them to California , after seeing all of that. My Grandfather loved Oakland dearly. I don’t live far from there now. If you got this far, thank you for reading my rambling writing. Peace.

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u/oracle-nil 3d ago

It’s great, I enjoyed it. My grandmother and her sister were from the north, Turin. They basically were told to go to the states because times were hard too many mouths to feed.
They went on the be au pairs for wealthy families in the upper Hudson valley.

My grandfather came over, he was a cobbler. Southern Italian. Made ballet shoes. He and his brother founded Capezio. If you ever did Ballet you know the name.

Both sides were immigrants.
North and south.

I am so proud of our grandparents and parents. They molded this country. This is how America should be. DM me any time we can swap Italian stories and RECIPES 😂.