From Louis

………………………….The Dell’Olio Boys….My parents had three sons……Starting at the right…..my oldest brother Mauro…..in the middle, rightly placed, my brother John…..and at the extreme left, the baby of the family…me……..My father’s father basically picked out our names. My brother Mauro was named after him, my father’s father, my brother John was named after my Mom’s Dad…..My mother wanted to name me James after my Dad….but….my grandfather said I should be named after my Dad’s only brother…..Louis……In all honesty I always disliked my name, and wished I was named James, but my Mom acquiesced to my grandfather and Louis it was to be…..There is quite a large age gap between my brothers and me…It may not seem all that large to some, but to me it was gigantic…..My mother had another pregnancy between John and me…..It was a full term pregnancy but the baby, a girl, was stillborn…..My mom named her Grace…My Mom told me she had red hair like her….I know my mother was heartbroken…..My mother always wanted a girl. She always told me…”boys leave their mothers, but girls always stay close”….I guess in many ways that is true….It certainly was true with Jac and her mom….Maybe that’s one of the reasons I was close to my mother…..not that I could replace the sister I never knew, but because I knew there was a void in my mom’s heart that I tried to fill…..It just wasn’t meant to be……My parents waited a long time before getting pregnant again, and then I was born……My mother was already in her 40s so they decided no more children……..We lived in an a very nice two bedroom apartment on the top floor in my grandfather’s house in Brooklyn. The three of us shared a bedroom…We lived across from my grandparents…..The doors to our apartments was always open, and I would just walk across and visit…My mom always knew where I was…..When I was three we moved from Brooklyn to Long Island to a three bedroom house. My brother John and I still shared a bedroom, and Mauro had the corner bedroom….Years later it became my bedroom…..The three of us are so very different…..Mauro is incredibly smart, and has a mathematical brain. He’s great with computers, gadgets, and just figuring all kinds of problems out….He never gives up until the problem is solved…..He can fix anything!!! I always call him when I have a problem which is often….sometime daily! That side of my brain was never well developed, but then he’s not terribly artistic! so it all evened out….I remember some nights, when I was three or four I would crawl into bed with my brother, because he would tell me stories…but I had to tickle his arm…..On this past Father’s Day we reminisced about those times. He used to draw me these very simple pictures of elephants that I loved!…..and I have loved elephants ever since!!….He was studying to be an aeronautical engineer. If I remember correctly he had 4 or 6 months to go before graduating, but he decided to leave school and go into my father’s business…..My mother was livid! I remember her arguing with my dad about him taking my brother into his business……The Vietnam War was heating up, and since he was no longer in school he was drafted…..The day that he went to the draft board in Brooklyn my first cousin was there also. His name too was Mauro Dell’Olio. When they realized there were two men named Mauro Dell’Olio they asked them if they were related. They said yes, first cousins. They split them up, and my brother was sent to Berlin, Germany, and my cousin to Vietnam….Thankfully, they both came home…….When my brother came home from his tour in Germany he met Kathy….They married and had four beautiful children. Tragically, my brother’s oldest 21 year old son John, was killed in a freak accident on the Throgs Neck Bridge…..He would have been 53 on June 27th. He died when he was 21….That is a loss, no matter how many years go by, you never get over……….My brother John took a different route with his life. Though both of my brothers were very athletic, John excelled…..He went to Hofstra College, and became a physical education teacher. He married his childhood sweetheart, and they too had four children……three boys and one girl…… My brother John kept getting postponed from serving in the army, because first he was in college, then he was married, and then because he had children…….My brother John was a happy go lucky guy, and had the best smile….he had dimples too!….When I was in 7th grade at Elmont Memorial Junior and Senior High School he was a senior….We would sometimes pass each other in the hall, but he was always with his jock friends, and basically ignore me and my friends….The age gap really showed…He was on every team and was a star!…..He was also a great dressier!! He always went to school before me, because he had some sort of practice…..I would sneak in his dressier and “barrow” one of his sweaters…I always got home before him, and would put it back…..He never knew until years later when I confessed!…..My brother always led a physical life, ate well, and took great care of himself…..but that didn’t stop cancer from knocking on his door…..He discovered he had lymphoma. While in the hospital for tests he had a heart attack and never recovered…..It was all very quick and very shocking…..He left behind 12 grandchildren…..As for me….I wasn’t at all like my brothers…..I wasn’t athletic, and couldn’t compete with them. At an early age I loved to draw and found my outlet. I also got compliments on my artistic abilities, and when I child gets positive reinforcement they continue on that path…I would spend hours drawing and coloring in my coloring books. I had a huge collection and when the set of 64 color crayons came out I was so happy……No one was allowed to touch my books or crayons!…My Mom was always very encouraging, and it was my mom who showed her older brother, my Uncle Paul, my early fashion sketches….He was an officer in the Ladies Garment Union…..He told her I had a definite talent, and years later he g the elevator onto his floor in 550 7th Ave the fragrance of Norell Perfume hit me. All of my senses were overwhelmed, and I knew I had found my calling….. At Parsons school  I got the Norman Norell Scholarship and many awards…….It all came very easy to me….I remember a line in the movie “The Way We Were” that really struck a cord with me….Hubble Gardner, Robert Redford’s character, said it “all came too easy”, and he was waiting for the shoe to drop….which it did….For years it all came too easily for me……Sooner or later the shoe drops for all of us, and no one goes through life unscathed….I got my first job in the Fashion Industry while I was still in school. It was in 550 7th Ave…..the same building Norell was still in!….The rest is history!!……I can’t say my brothers understood me very much, and I’m sure they wondered how art was going to help me make a living. We weren’t very close when I was young. They were much older, and off doing their thing….It was only when I got older, and our age gap got smaller, that we became very close. They came to respect my success……..and of course they all loved JAC!!!…….. I’m the Godfather to two my my brothers sons, so I’m the Godfather of four……..I have enjoyed being the Big Uncle!…..I consider myself to be very lucky to have had the life that was given to me….Some might even say it was charmed…..though I did have bumps in the road along the way…..I overcame all of them…………….I had the best parents….the best family……the best friends……I found in Jac the LOVE OF MY LIFE…………who could ask for more………charmed for sure.

………………………..On June 28th, 54 years ago today……My brother Mauro married Kathy Ronan………Happy Anniversary Bro and to a wonderful SIL!

……………………I just checked and ALL OF THE LINEA JEWELRY IS STILL ON SALE!……Every NECKLACE…..every EARRING…..every BRACELET….and…….every RING are at reduced prices……If you haven’t looked, now is the time to check it out!

………………………Jim, Joe and I went off to Secretarial School…….Bill, who was Regular Army went to Advanced Infantry Training. I never knew what happened to him….In the days that followed the three of us spoke of Bill often and hoped he was Okay…..There was one other guy who went on to Secretarial School with us from our company, but he wasn’t a friend. His uncle was a lieutenant in our Basic Training company, and he always gave him special privileges. He would take him off of the base and out to dinner many times. I remember he was a good looking, arrogant, southern boy, and was very disliked by almost everyone. He always got away with everything. He never got kitchen clean up duty [KP] or guard duty like the rest of us or any duties for that matter….He was one to stay clear of…….When we reached our new barracks at a whole different area of the fort….he disappeared, and never went to school. We were sure his uncle was covering for him……….The current “graduating class” from secretarial school gave us new comers some advise. They said the sergeant who was in charge of us was a drunk, and was busted many times. This was one of the lowest jobs he could get….babysitting for us. They said to go to the PX, buy a case of scotch and give it to him, and we would never see him or be bothered by him….. After we found out our daily routine that is exactly what we did! We said “Sarg we have a present for you”. He was expecting it. We never saw him come out of his room!!! Every morning we would take ourselves over to the building [the school] where we learned how to be army secretaries, and librarians! The army was always publishing hundreds of manuals that constantly need updating [the secretaries job]. I was still on my crutches, but soon I wouldn’t need them anymore….Classes were about 1  to 1 1/2 hours long. After each class we had a multiple  choice answer test on what the class was about. It was a long test, but it only took about 20 minutes to complete. It was very very easy. After we finished we could go outside and sit in the shade, but we had to wait for everyone to be done before we could leave. It was now the end of May and HOT and HUMID in Louisiana!…..Most of the times it took these other guys well over an hour and a half to finish the test. They weren’t the brightest light bulbs in the chandelier!…. They would slowly emerge from the classroom soaking wet from sweat, because these rooms had no air conditioning….only windows! Then, as a group, we would go back to our barrack. We were done, and free for the rest of the day…..We had the weekends off and could do what we wanted….not that there was too much to do. It was really to hot to do much outside, and with my fracture I couldn’t do much anyway… On Sunday we would go to the church on the base nearest to us and go to the auditorium. Women volunteered to serve the soldiers coffee and donuts…..After we had our fill we would leave and go to the PX or to a movie on the base…..At least the PX and the movie theater were airconditioned!…..One weekend a few of us decided we would take the bus over the border into Texas. We were told there was a great place to hear music, dance, drink and have a good time. So off we went. Others who had been there told us of a motel close by the bus terminal, and that it was clean. So we rented two rooms for the six of us that took this trip. Jim, Joe and i shared a room….Clean was just about all it was! There were two double beds, a bathroom and a TV. It was airconditioned with noisy wall units, but we weren’t planning on spending too much time in the room anyway. We got into our civilian clothes, and off we went. Our short hair cuts, and the fact that we weren’t wearing cowboy boots or wearing cowboy hats was a sure giveaway that we were soldiers…..The place was huge like an airplane hanger, and it was packed to the rafters…..The country music was loud!!! We had a few drinks at what seemed to be a mile long bar. We found some girls who would dance with us, but we really didn’t know how to do the line dance. They tried to teach us, and we had a few laughs….We stayed for quite a while, and then left. I have never in my life seen so many guys carrying guns!!!!We didn’t even stay for the weekend! We checked out the next day, and caught the bus back to Louisiana. We took excursions into Shreveport which was the closest town…..Who did we bump into…none other than the Lieutenant’s nephew! He was visiting all of the houses of ill repute that were supposed to be off limits! They were near the army base, and in Shreveport there were plenty of them! We later found out that he was being treated for syphilis…….Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy!…..Finally we all graduated from school! Our tour was coming to a close, and we would be on our way home!!!! Hallelujah, we made it through and survived…I learned a lot about myself during the time I spent in the army. I hated much of it, but never regretted the time I spent…I grew up…..We told the new class coming in about the Sergeant in charge, and to just keep him supplied with scotch and they would never see him…..We felt it was our duty to keep the tradition going, and to tell the new guys the lay of the land…..If I remember correctly, Jim lived in PA, and we got together a few times with Joe who I believe lived in New Jersey, but as time passed we drifted apart…..We led such different lives, and didn’t have the common ground of the army to keep us together……I went on to serve in the National Guard for six years……….Over the years I couldn’t help but wonder about the friends I had made, and of all the guys I met, and the many who I have forgotten. How many made it?……How many of them survived?…Was their sacrifice worth it?…..Is war ever worth it?………….Only the young soldiers loose out in the end.

………………….Before I go on with my story….I want to introduce you to my three best friends that I made in the army……The insert picture with the two of us smoking on the stairs of the barracks is my BEST FRIEND Jim Nicoletti, and me….The three friends on the ‘monkey bars” are Joe Montalbano on the right, Jim at the top center and Bill O’Brien at the left……Making good friends is imperative to survive and keep your sanity! We were the best of friends and went everywhere together…….We were the only three that stayed together after basic training……….Back to my story…..My friends convinced me that I was in legitimate pain, and it wasn’t in my head, and that I had to go on sick call…..The building I had to report to was another single floor building that looked like a barrack, but was the Officers and Drill Sergeants office. There was a window, and a box in front of it that you had to stand on and report in. There was a sign that said “SICK CALL”, and I had to get on line. There were only two other guys on line with me. When they opened the window the first guy got up on the box, and said what was wrong with him. I was to frightened to listen to what they screamed at him. He left and it was my turn to get up on “the box”! My DS immediately saw me standing there and immediately started screaming at me…..”Dell’Olio you had better be dying to get on this sick call line!” I explained that my leg and hip was in terrible pain, and they gave me a slip of paper to go to the hospital and get an x-ray. After being given directions to the hospital I walked the few miles….very slowly……When I finally got there I was given more directions to the x-ray building. The x-ray was taken and I was told to report back to my barrack for the result. After that long walk to the hospital I was in pain again. A very nice nurse asked me how I got to the hospital, and did I have a ride. I told her I walked. She was shocked and repeated, “you walked all the way here?!! didn’t anyone tell you there was a bus that stopped right by your company that you could have taken?” I said no. So she told me where to go and pick up the bus back to my company. By now the pain had subsided, and again I started to wonder if I imagined it!?? When I got back to my company everyone was gone on the seven day excursion. I was told to wait in my barrack….It was empty….The beds were stripped, and the mattresses were rolled up. I never felt so alone…….Then I heard my name being called. I made my way down the stairs and was told I was put on laundry detail. There were three of us who had to go into each barrack and get the huge bags of laundry and put them in the jeep. We were driven to the laundry which was huge airplane hanger made in a huge laundry. We had to get the bags off of the jeep, have them signed in and wait for them to be done, which I figured would take all day! I lost tract of time. I could only guess an hour or two went by when a jeep came to the entrance and STARTED YELLING MY NAME…..I thought, crap what now! They told me to get into the jeep and I was being taken to the hospital with a FRACTURED HIP! How could this be….I wasn’t even in any pain anymore!!! When I got to the hospital I was assigned to a single floor wooden barrack type building with rows of beds on either side. Each barrack had patients with similar problems. Mine was the broken bone and fracture barrack. Almost everyone was on crutches if they were allowed. I remember it was Easter, and the nurses came around with tiny plastic baskets with chocolate candy in them. On the TV was “The Wizard of Oz”, and many guys were watching it. I got bored. I had seen it so many times! I decided to take a walk on my crutches…..I realized there were many barracks lined up all connected with a common hall way at the end of each one…..Each barrack specialized in a different problem……Not too far in front of me I saw another patient walking down the hall with his back to me. He was from another barrack. Two offices were walking toward us. They stopped him and reprimanded him for not saluting. I wasn’t expected to because I was on crutches, but he had his hands in his robe pockets. All of a sudden he pulled his hands out of his pockets, but instead of hands he had TWO STUMPS. He said to them “what do you want me to salute you with….THESE!”…..He lost his hands in Vietnam. The officers were very embarrassed and apologized, but the man said nothing and walked off. I realized this hospital was one of the main hospitals for returning solders from Vietnam……It is something that is as vivid in my mind as the moment it happened over fifty years ago!…..Eventually, I was returned back to my company on crutches for graduation [picture extreme left]. When I arrived the place was empty, and once again the mattresses were rolled up. I was to wait in the barrack…It was pouring rain and very bleak….Then a jeep came up to my barrack, and guys got out in full gear and rain ponchos. They  came barreling up to the second floor. There were some of my friends!, and looked at me in astonishment! “Where the hell have you been?!!” They said to me. All they knew was I went on sick call so many weeks ago and disappeared! They were never told what had happened to me, but the Drill Sergeants used  me to threaten the other solders saying if they went on sick call they would end up like me, and they would have to do basic training all over again which they said I had to do….That was a big lie. I told them everything that happened to me… going to the hospital for x-rays….the laundry detail, the fractured hip, and the solder with out hands. After I told them the story about the guy without hands I thought I really shouldn’t have told them that part, because some of them were going to Vietnam. My company had a mix of men….some were drafted into the Regular Army, some were drafted into the Army Reserve, and some, like me were in the National Guard. It was very sure the Regular Army guys and the Army Reserve guys would be sent overseas, and most to Vietnam,….On graduation day from Basic Training we all got out new assignments. Most went off to Advanced Infantry Training…the fast route to Vietnam. some went to Appropriations, and would probably be going to Vietnam too, but they wouldn’t be fighting, and a few others like me went to Secretarial School….Jim and Joe went on with me to Secretarial School. It was sheer luck that we were together…even though they were both in the National Guard….For me Graduation was a sad day. I had to say goodbye to close friends I had made….never to know what their fate would be. I was sure many would perish in the war….We gave each other tight hugs and wished each other good luck. To a special few I gave my home address hoping to hear from them…..but I never did…….Over the years I have often wondered what happen to these incredible men……………….To be continued