Growing Up Italian in the Fifties by Dr. Tom DePaoli. Available on Amazon
In our neighborhood almost all of the houses had good-sized lots where we could play baseball. The homes were modest but well kept. Baseball skills take a long time to learn, but just about everyone in our neighborhood mastered the basic skills of catching a pop fly and fielding a grounder. Many people can’t understand how we played baseball for hours and hours in the 1950s. After all, baseball is labeled a boring game. We had a neighborhood team and played in a lot across the street from my house. Our parents could look out the window and see us playing. If we were lucky, we had enough equipment for everyone or at least a glove for everyone. We played literally all day. We chose up sides and got the games started. We stopped playing only for lunch, supper, or rain.
Our brand of baseball was not boring because of the way we modified the rules. There were no coaches, spectators, umpires, or adults to slow down the game. Each batter would get three swings or strikes. There were no called balls or called strikes because there was no umpire. A batter had to swing at a pitch, so there was even less delay. Batters were not allowed to go through a routine in the batter’s box. You got up to the plate, dug in, and got ready to swing. Often when we were in the field, we yelled out to our own pitcher to get the ball over the plate and let the batter hit it.
There was no stealing base, usually because someone from the other team played catcher when they were up. Time outs were not allowed. Disputes over whether a player was out or safe at a base were argued with the skill of a Philadelphia lawyer with much drama and terrific action. If both sides couldn’t come to an agreement, a coin flip settled the call. Innings went by quickly, and so did the games.
“Back in the day.” This saying is a popular one now and could not fit more aptly than with the honest, homespun tradition of sandlot baseball. Before there were PC’s and Apple computers, before Xboxes, Wii’s and satellite TV, before multiplexes and malls, there were pick-up games of baseball, football, basketball—any game that could be played outside, with minimal cash investment, and could last all day or even into the night if all that was required was a garage light to illuminate the playing field. But that was not the only thing whose joys and fulfillment came from simplicity. Life itself flowed from the simple things, from family, friends, and a sense of richness that comes only from the feeling of connection and community.
Today our children are surrounded by video games, iPods, and personal computers, devices that remove them from our world and isolate them from friends and family. For the author, his family, and his friends, the only gadget they really had growing up was their enthusiasm for sports and the limitless terrain of their imagination—and the feeling of family. It was about people and the bonds those relationships formed. From his mother’s gifts for cooking, organizing, and giving, to his Aunt Bert’s gift for arguing (the only one to out-argue his mother), to his father’s extraordinary mechanical abilities to his grandmother’s legendary bingo talents, DePaoli’s memories of growing up in the 1950’s is a loving remembrance of an era where relatives and the neighborhood were the focal points of life. And in our era of disconnection and entitlement, his stories are a reminder that the years of his childhood really did fit the moniker “the good old days” and that there is more to life than material possessions.
A homage to a bygone era, when brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents—everyone lived in the same neighborhood and were indeed a village raising the children, Growing Up Italian in the 50’s or How Most of Us Became Good Wise Guys: A Growing Up Memories Book is an engrossing ode whose life and spirit is nothing short of revelatory. Available on Amazon.
Dr. Tom DePaoli, (Dr. Tom) is currently an independent management consultant, the Principal of Apollo Solutions, which does general business consulting in the human resources, supply chain and lean six sigma areas. His organization was self-founded in 1995. He retired as a Captain from the Navy Reserve. In other civilian careers, he was a supply chain and human resources executive with corporate purchasing turnaround experience and lean six sigma deployments. He has worked for over ten major companies and consulted for over fifty organizations throughout his career. Some of his consulting projects include: information systems projects, re-engineering organizations, transformation, e-procurement, e-commerce, change management, global sourcing and negotiating. His industry experience is in the chemical, paper, pharmaceutical, IT, automotive, government, consumer, equipment, services and consulting industries. He has been published extensively in journals, magazines and books. He is the author of eleven books all available on Amazon. He has instructed at six education facilities in numerous roles. He is active in supporting the YMCA, Wounded Warrior, and the prevention of the bullying of children.
https://www.amazon.com/author/tomdepaoli = Dr. Tom’s Amazon author’s page
http://www.apollosolutions.us = website of Apollo Solutions his business
drtombooks.com = more information on Dr. Tom’s books
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-thomas-depaoli/0/736/6b3/ = LinkedIn home page
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/growing-up-italian-dr-thomas-tom-depaoli
Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com
drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/
My Books link:
https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ
