Lancaster Empty Lot, Community, and Everyday Life

Speaker 1:    

What do you want to know about the priests? 

Speaker 2:    

Yeah, we want the priests. 

Speaker 1:    

Father Lascarey drove Eugene, myself, and Ivan to Western… 

Speaker 2:    

Woa. 

Speaker 1:    

… because… 

Speaker 3:    

To make sure. 

Speaker 1:    

… he, he had wanted the Italian guys, boys, women, whatever, girls, to do well. 

He drove us there… 

Speaker 2:    

[thumped table] Yeah. 

Speaker 4:    

A big day. 

Speaker 3:    

John who were the three guys? 

You. 

Speaker 1:    

…Ivan Becaratti – he died – Eugene is still alive - and myself. 

Speaker 4:    

Holy cow! 

Speaker 1:    

You know the beauty about Brightside is when something happened in Brightside… 

[chatter] 

…I don’t know how many people we had, but everybody found out about it. 

Everybody knew about it… 

[chatter] 

… like you couldn’t go down the next day two streets down and say, “did you see what happened?”… 

… no I saw it. 

Speaker 2:    

It was the same as when anybody died…. 

Speaker 1:    

When they died. 

Speaker 2:    

…everybody was at the funeral, even the little kids. 

[chatter] 

Speaker 1:    

That’s right. 

That was the beauty of Brightside. 

The camaraderie. 

[chatter] 

Speaker 1:    

Where was your family from? The North?... 

Speaker 2:    

From the middle of Italy. 

Speaker 1:    

Marchigiani? 

Speaker 2:    

Marchigiani. 

Yeah. Yes. 

Speaker 1:    

Gloria was Cookie. 

Speaker 2:    

Ohh. 

[laugh] 

And then, I was Pee Wee… 

Speaker 3:    

Peaches. 

Speaker 1:    

… and Peaches. 

Speaker 3:    

Peaches. 

Speaker 1:    

You, no you were not Peaches. You were Oscar. 

Speaker 3:    

I was Oscar. 

Speaker 4:    

Oscar, Gofoscar, to the Alley Goboscar… 

[chatter] 

Speaker 2:    

Who was Peaches? Padagrone? 

Speaker 1:    

No. Pickles was Gloria Perticarini. 

Speaker 4:    

Peaches was from Sherman Avenue. 

Speaker 1:    

Lorraine was Javex.   

Javex, yeah. 

Uh, who else was in our group? 

Speaker 4:    

Moose Andrews. 

Speaker 2:    

Moosey. 

Yeah. 

Speaker 4:    

Crackers Wilgarz. 

Yeah. 

Speaker 2:    

Oh Geez. 

Speaker 4:    

Gazzy Gaspari. 

Speaker 3:    

I never heard any of those names… 

[..]  was Brighteyes. 

This musta been after me, eh. Those guys were after me. 

Speaker 4:    

Jackie Wilgarz’s mother would call… 

…call her Brighteyes. 

Speaker 5:    

Brighteyes from Brightside.  

Speaker 1:    

I have a story; I have a story that’s common to you and me. 

And you’ll remember this. 

Ah, we used to tell stories at dinner time. 

About Brightside, and about the people we knew. 

I won’t mention names. 

But this one man, he said, “when I go home, all I eat is corn on the cob!” 

So, you know, were telling our kids this, well it’s the first time they hear it. 

So anyway, our son goes to Bishop Ryan [School]. 

And he comes home one day and he said, “do you know what ma?”  

He says, “I heard the same story about the corn on the cob because whoever owned this this story told their son.”  

Which was you… 

Speaker 1:    

Was your whole family born on Birch Avenue? 

Speaker 2:    

No. No I was born in Brightside.  

My brother John was born on Birch Avenue.  

And my sister was born in Italy.  

My brother John was born on Birch Avenue.  

And my brother George was born in Italy. 

Speaker 1:    

Oh, I didn’t know that. 

Speaker 2:    

Yeah.