knuckler, trying to tack and tape a broken bat, sleeping with Norm’s ball under a muslin pillow stuffed with straw, being hoarse many a Sunday evening in summer, or pretending to knock mud off my cleats (even when I was barefoot). And learning how to spit.
A wise mother rarely tethers an unshod boy whose worst fault is worshiping his earthy August gods.
Mr. Carliotta
C ONSTANTINE WAS HIS FIRST NAME .
However, as I was a little boy and he a mature man with white hair, I called him Mr. Carliotta.
So did everyone. He certainly wasn’t the type of senior gentleman that you would greet with a casual “Hey! Hiya, Constantine. How’s tricks?”
As a summertime-only resident, he owned a modest white cottage on a pond near our family farm. He arrived around the middle of June, stayed alone all summer, and departed in September, after the Labor Day rush.
He was my boss.
For him, I handled little odd jobs, all of which he kindly designed for a willing youngster: weeding, raking leaves, and generally tidying up outside. I never entered his cottage. Not even once. Only two people did such: Mr. Carliotta, and Mrs.Filput, who came to clean house on Wednesdays.
We locals all knew Mr. Carliotta was wealthy.
Everybody swore so.
He drove a long, large automobile, and it wasn’t a Ford like Dr. Turner’s. This was a Cadillac. At the time, during a 1937 rural depression, people who had to travel rode a wagon (usual pulled by a yoke of oxen, mules, or draft horses), a pickup truck, or tractor. Mr. Carliotta’s car was the only Cadillac I saw for the first two decades of my life. His auto was big and black. So were his clothes. Black suit, black hat, black shoes. Inside the baggy suit was a white shirt, buttoned all the way up to his neck. Never a tie.
“He’s a foreigner,” people said. Yet he was a gentleman, and everyone seemed to agree on that.
Our local Italians claimed that he wasn’t one of them. No, he wasn’t. Mr. Carliotta was originally a Greek. He’d come to America, he told me, as a boy about my age, without a penny and not speaking a word of English.
Now he was a citizen.
Every morning he hoisted our American flag to top a white pole. Often I watched him look upward at the red, white, and blue, removing his hat in reverence. At sunset he hauled the flag down, folded it slowly into a triangle—stars on blue—and toted it inside his cottage.
“To be an American,” he told me, “is to feel so far richer than any other person on earth.”
“I don’t feel so rich.”
He shook his head. “Oh, yes you do, Robert, because I sometimes listen as you work, and I can hear you whistle. Or hum. A songbird might be treasured for the same reason.”
Sighing, I asked, “How did you get so rich, Mr. Carliotta? I’d like to learn.”
“Discipline,” he said. As I made a face, he raised his eyebrows. “Robert, do you know what discipline is?”
“Sure do,” I told him. “It’s when a grown-up makes me do what I don’t hanker to. And if I don’t do it, I sure get sudden corrected.”
Mr. Carliotta nodded. “Well,” he said, after a pause for thought, “when you’re a child, discipline is directed at you from several sources. Your mother, father, older sisters and brothers, and your teacher. Perhaps even our town lawman, Constable Noe.”
“That’s right. I catch it from all sides.”
Mr. Carliotta pointed a finger at me. “Someday,” he said, “you will be a grown man. Then you’ll realize that there’s only one discipline that counts. It is self-discipline. You’ll decide for yourself what you ought to do, because you know it’s right.”
“But that’s not how I’ll get rich. Is it?”
After a moment of silence, he said, “Come andlet’s walk to the edge of the lake, sit down on that fallen log, and talk.”
In a hot rush, I ran barefoot. His big black shoes, beneath the thick cuffs of trousers that always appeared too long, scuffed along over the pebbles, and then stopped. We
A wise mother rarely tethers an unshod boy whose worst fault is worshiping his earthy August gods.
Mr. Carliotta
C ONSTANTINE WAS HIS FIRST NAME .
However, as I was a little boy and he a mature man with white hair, I called him Mr. Carliotta.
So did everyone. He certainly wasn’t the type of senior gentleman that you would greet with a casual “Hey! Hiya, Constantine. How’s tricks?”
As a summertime-only resident, he owned a modest white cottage on a pond near our family farm. He arrived around the middle of June, stayed alone all summer, and departed in September, after the Labor Day rush.
He was my boss.
For him, I handled little odd jobs, all of which he kindly designed for a willing youngster: weeding, raking leaves, and generally tidying up outside. I never entered his cottage. Not even once. Only two people did such: Mr. Carliotta, and Mrs.Filput, who came to clean house on Wednesdays.
We locals all knew Mr. Carliotta was wealthy.
Everybody swore so.
He drove a long, large automobile, and it wasn’t a Ford like Dr. Turner’s. This was a Cadillac. At the time, during a 1937 rural depression, people who had to travel rode a wagon (usual pulled by a yoke of oxen, mules, or draft horses), a pickup truck, or tractor. Mr. Carliotta’s car was the only Cadillac I saw for the first two decades of my life. His auto was big and black. So were his clothes. Black suit, black hat, black shoes. Inside the baggy suit was a white shirt, buttoned all the way up to his neck. Never a tie.
“He’s a foreigner,” people said. Yet he was a gentleman, and everyone seemed to agree on that.
Our local Italians claimed that he wasn’t one of them. No, he wasn’t. Mr. Carliotta was originally a Greek. He’d come to America, he told me, as a boy about my age, without a penny and not speaking a word of English.
Now he was a citizen.
Every morning he hoisted our American flag to top a white pole. Often I watched him look upward at the red, white, and blue, removing his hat in reverence. At sunset he hauled the flag down, folded it slowly into a triangle—stars on blue—and toted it inside his cottage.
“To be an American,” he told me, “is to feel so far richer than any other person on earth.”
“I don’t feel so rich.”
He shook his head. “Oh, yes you do, Robert, because I sometimes listen as you work, and I can hear you whistle. Or hum. A songbird might be treasured for the same reason.”
Sighing, I asked, “How did you get so rich, Mr. Carliotta? I’d like to learn.”
“Discipline,” he said. As I made a face, he raised his eyebrows. “Robert, do you know what discipline is?”
“Sure do,” I told him. “It’s when a grown-up makes me do what I don’t hanker to. And if I don’t do it, I sure get sudden corrected.”
Mr. Carliotta nodded. “Well,” he said, after a pause for thought, “when you’re a child, discipline is directed at you from several sources. Your mother, father, older sisters and brothers, and your teacher. Perhaps even our town lawman, Constable Noe.”
“That’s right. I catch it from all sides.”
Mr. Carliotta pointed a finger at me. “Someday,” he said, “you will be a grown man. Then you’ll realize that there’s only one discipline that counts. It is self-discipline. You’ll decide for yourself what you ought to do, because you know it’s right.”
“But that’s not how I’ll get rich. Is it?”
After a moment of silence, he said, “Come andlet’s walk to the edge of the lake, sit down on that fallen log, and talk.”
In a hot rush, I ran barefoot. His big black shoes, beneath the thick cuffs of trousers that always appeared too long, scuffed along over the pebbles, and then stopped. We
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