On Friday I signed papers and sent them on to my brother and sister that will essentially end over 60 years of my family owning a property we refer to as 6 North. My family moved there when I was six months old and we have had it ever since. And I know it sounds silly and sentimental – which usually means my sister will make fun of me for even feeling this way – but it felt odd when I signed the final copy and put it in an express mail envelope for the other signatures to be added. This was my family home. The only home I ever knew. My family didn’t travel much. I think the trip from Italy in steerage did them in. After that, they pretty much stayed put. And now we are selling it because the neighborhood has changed, the school is closed and it’s no longer the Ducktown in which my brother and sister and I passed what seems, in retrospect, to have been an idyllic childhood. Good bye St. Michael’s. Good bye Pannerelli’s. Good by Petrillo’s and Letizia’s and Catanese’s and Calabrese’s. Good bye Surf Theater and little penny candy store next to it. You will live forever in my memories and when I am sad, I will visit you with a smile.
Yeah, I’m being sentimental. But no matter how I look at it, inside me there is a little pool of sadness.