Goodfellows52: A New Year packed with old memories

Goodfellows52: A New Year packed with old memories: The most beautiful things are not associated with money; they are memories and moments. If you don't celebrate those, they can pass yo...

A New Year packed with old memories

The most beautiful things are not associated with money; they are memories and moments. If you don't celebrate those, they can pass you by.
— Alek Wek

My grandfather stands next to one of the gas pumps at his Texas gas station on  North Shore Road in Revere, Mass., during the 1940s.

This is where Christmas happened in the basement of my grandfather's home in Revere, Mass. Seated at the table are my mother, far left,  cousin Rachel, her dad, Uncle Tony, my grandfather, Anthony Blasi, wearing glasses, and my Uncle Rock.

My father, Al Blasi, and my wife, Terri, enjoy a moment during a memorable Christmas.

My cousins David and Jill stand with a Whiffle Ball bat as their mother, Bernice looks on at McClure Street in Revere.

AUBURN, Maine — I used to spend New Year’s Day acting as my family’s emissary, visiting relatives and friends to welcome the year in on McClure Street.

The dead-end street was an Italian enclave where nearly a dozen of my relatives lived. My dads’ parents lived beside us. There were the Muranos. Uncle B.J. Murano was World War II and a Korean conflict fighter pilot. He flew the B-24 Liberator in the second war and jets in Korea. My uncle Tony Grosso was a “Battle of the Bulge” veteran who lived across the street. Aunt Minnie owned a two-family house next to the Muranos. The Matthews lived next to my aunt.

Our good friends, the Statuto family, lived to our right. They were wonderful people. Louie Statuto also fought in World War II. He would regale me with stories of the war and offer me tips on gardening. We enjoyed endless conversations across that small fence that separated the properties. I shook his hand one day and noticed he was missing half of a finger.

“Louie, I didn’t know you were hurt. Injured in an accident?” I asked. “I never noticed it.”

“No, a German sniper shot it off,” Louie answered.

I was stunned. The wise little man, whose friendly demeanor meant so much to me, treated his war wound like it was another paper cut. I admired him for his courage and gentleness.

My mother came up with this brilliant idea of these holiday visits after discovering this New Year tradition that required the oldest son to spread his family’s goodwill. 

I was reluctant at first to be the Blasi’s Good Humor Man. He was the guy who delivered ice cream in a white truck.

But I ended up humoring her because those visits also included booze and home-cooked Italian food. I would linger for an hour at each home, enjoying a libation or two or three as aunts and uncles kept filling my glass with wine or “who hit John” whiskey.

By the fourth visit, I was feeling light on my feet — and in my head — and shoved off with full belly of the best Italian cooking in the Greater Boston area.

Sure, the booze and food was an added incentive to get myself out of bed and pay my family’s respects, but the conversations with relatives and friends about the past fascinated me and made me proud of my heritage.

McClure street has changed, especially after the deaths of my parents. I still visit my uncle, but there are new faces in those old houses. My grandmother’s house is now occupied by my father’s brother. Those aunts, uncles and friends are gone — swept away by the winds of time — and with them their stories of the past.

Those strong memories never fade. Their stories are told over and over each holiday to my son who listens patiently to a father reveling in the past.

Someday, my son will do the same when his child is seated at the dinner table.