This is my almost favorite story about my Aunt Toni. And yes, like Joe’s, we tend to have a bunch of Toni’s in our family. And while we’re at it, we might as well acknowledge that we also have a lot of Marina’s. As far as I know, Toni got started after Grandmom Terese named her daughter Toni – or its Italian equivalent. Then that Toni named her daughter Toni. And then the daughter she named Marina (and there it is!) named her daughter Toni. I don’t know how much further down this goes but I’m not apologizing because I didn’t do it.
As for Marina, that started with the original Nona Zeccardi who came here from the Old Country. She was named after her mother, Moma Nina, who came from Italy and lived with our original immigrant ancestors until she died. And that’s why we have so many Marina’s.
While I’m at it, you should know that Louis and Doris Cascino named all their children Joseph or Mary as their first name. All ten of them. Then they called them by their middle names. I think this was a religious thing. Or a cult thing.
OK, back to the story. My Aunt Toni (your great-grandmother or great-aunt or great-something) was a wonderful and kind woman. She helped me get through college without doing harm to myself or others… mostly. She was also very well aware of how certain members of our family – like most of the adults – would be horrified to find out that I was involved in the Viet Nam war protests. But I was.
In the fall of my senior year, I snuck out of college early in the morning to get on a bus sponsored by the Quakers to go to DC for a big rally. I don’t remember much about it except when we all sat in front of the Pentagon eating LSD while Timothy Leary swore if we just concentrated hard enough, we could get the building to rise up and shake the evil out. Did I mention the drugs?
Anyhow, by the time I had been tear gassed and almost died from an allergic reaction, I was late getting back to Philly. We all were. And there I was in the middle of downtown Philly at about 2 AM, unable to go back to my college because I was about ten hours late for curfew and it was all locked up.
Yes, I went to a college for female Catholic virgins called Chestnut Hill. I had a 7 PM curfew during the week and an 11 PM on Friday and Saturday. Seniors got a midnight curfew. And the boys who came for you had to sign in at a desk where a nun sat and then the nun called you down. If the boy was not from a Catholic college, of which there were/are many in the Philly area, then you were called in on Monday morning by the Dean of Students to explain why you were dating a non-Catholic.
You can understand why, under these circumstances, going back to my dorm was going to be difficult. So I called my lifeline. I called Aunt Toni who made Uncle Joe get up and go get me and then, the next day, called the college and said I was sick and she should have called the day before but forgot. Yep. She covered for me. And my parents never found out.
Fast forward about 30 years when her Alzheimer’s was starting to take hold. We were all in her dining room eating lunch – including my mother. I don’t remember how the topic arose but somehow it did. And Aunt Toni spoke about how her husband had to get out of bed and drive to DC to pick me up in the middle of the night. Uncle Joe (your great something) looked at her and said, “Toni, I never had to drive to DC. The bus brought her back. I just picked her up in center city.” This turned into quite a discussion between them as I tried to intervene and change the subject. The look on my mother’s face would be hard to describe with any word except horrified. Her response to the argument was that her daughter would never have done anything like that. And Uncle Joe, seeing the look on her face, agreed in order to end the conversation. But my Aunt Toni wasn’t buying it and kept arguing the point. I finally burst out laughing and said that she had kept the secret a long time and now, when it couldn’t hurt anyone, it was out in the open. My mother was not amused.
My Aunt Toni knew when to tell a parent about a problem with one of their kids and when that kid just needed some quiet help, support and love. Those she always had in unlimited amounts. And I drew on them for those long four years at the Chestnut Hill College for Catholic Virgins (helluva entrance exam).
