For my grand mother, whom we called Molly, it was time to be strategic if her family was to be fed. It was during WWII that food and other items were rationed so that the government could feed the armed forces. To obtain these basic needs , ration stamps were issued according to the size of your family. So Molly applied to run a small produce store out of her garage. Back then the feds allowed a 15% spoilage rate. even when there was not 15% spoilage, she would take it! At the end of each day. after this make shift store was closed, she would allow other mothers with large families to come into the garage . She would lock the door and they would divide up the spoils of war.
Even before I was born, my father placed boxing gloves over my bedroom door. When I was 4 or 5, he started throw balls to me. Honestly, I had no idea what he was doing. He never put it together that I was left handed, and kept trying to make me a play sports as if I was right handed. For all I know, if played right, I may have become the next Mickey Mantle.
This was not meant to be. Upon realizing I would never be a boxer or basketball player like him, he would go into violent rages and beat me. This insanity was never applied to my brothers and sister. Molly realized there was no way to meet this problem head on, so she asked if she could babysit me every Saturday. My father’s love for Molly was limitless. He ate lunch there almost every day and our family visited Molly every Sunday. My father agreed to the visits.
I loved our Saturdays together. Molly took me shopping in Market Square, a small shopping district in the heart of downtown Pittsburgh. We would shop for fresh meat and produce, staples and bread. Upon arriving home she would cook, and cook and cook. She would dramatically hold up a green pepper and say “Oh VJ,” my nickname, “this pepper is a work of art. How can I bring myself to cut this up.” I was so skinny that she would try to feed me for eight hours each Saturday. Molly would put honey in a double boiler and throw in tufts of pastry dough, then pour out the cooked nuggets and honey onto the cutting board. She would explain saying, “look VJ, this is stroovalee.”
When I finally escaped my embattled home life and went to school at Ohio State University, I missed Molly the most. I would call her each Saturday. Her voice was soothing in such violent times. In the spring of 1970, fourteen seconds of gun fire, four dead and ten wounded, sounded the beginning of the end of the 60’s at Kent State. The campuses went up in flames, with over 250 closed. It would take another five years until the war was slowed down to the point the US lost.
In April 1975, the world’s mighest military was pushed out of a country the size of New Jersey. Over 3.2 million Vietnamese had died in this undeclared war. For Molly it was another war that ended her life. Her sons had formed a construction company, V. Scotti and Sons. The new found wealth for this first generation Italian-American family tore them limb from limb. Divorces, accusations of theft, even the attempt to pass this concrete construction business to the grandsons failed. They say Molly had a soft heart and that is why she died in 1973, but I knew differently. It was the obscenity of her sons fighting over money. It broke her heart.
Molly married my grandfather in a small town outside of Naples, Italy when she was a teenager. She was brought to America one year later pregnant with no knowledge of English or the American way of life. Molly lived in the US until she was 79 years old. She died only knowing a small handful of English phrases and never learning to drive. She had a tremendous fear of outliving her husband. She knew nothing of the world outside of her Italian neighborhood, her grocer and butcher both spoke Italian. Yet this humble woman raised and cared for her husband, four sons and two daughters.
Months before she died, I called her and asked her to share an old family secret.
“Molly,” I asked, “how did you make your chicken soup broth clear?”
“Well VJ,” she said, “let me tell you. I strain the broth through asbestos cheese cloth.”
Well, we can not all be perfect.
…….. Vincent Scotti Eirene’ (spring 2007)
Blastfurnace Radio / TV 
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