Ripples

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, March 21, 2001

ANNA MONICA

St. Joseph’s Day is still a tradition

It seems we all have our traditions, and we value it. Mr. Webster calls tradition “an inherited pattern or action,” so any recurring event in our lives that we insist on participating in is truly a tradition. The Irish just finished with one, St. Patrick’s Day, and it is a big event each year always enjoyable for the participants. Well, we Italians don’t do any less, but we just do it in a different way – celebrate St. Joseph’s Day, that is. We don’t have green beer, which is pretty neat, but we do have wine and pasta, lots of pasta. We have Italian cookies, too, and lots of different veggies cooked at St. Joseph time like no other. St. Joseph’s Day is the only time my mom, Vita, who just turned 85 years old this month, cooks a pasta gravy with cauliflower. So, when Maria questioned why she didn’t use another vegetable, mom asked, “Like what?” “Like eggplant,” Cookie quickly responded, to which Vita simply added, “I like cauliflower.” This discussion took place this past weekend when our family got together at Carl’s house for our annual St. Joseph’s Day celebration. For 50 years Vita Monica and family worked really hard to honor the Italian patron saint, Joseph, a tradition which came from Italy, Sicily to be exact, and which our family has always held dear and preserved. But a few years ago we discontinued the practice of making a large altar to serve the public. It was always a tradition of love, work and respect for the Italian patron, and I just couldn’t tell you how much work it was! I also couldn’t tell you how many people we fed in all those years, but I can tell you how much we enjoyed and appreciated the fact that we could do it. Our altars were beautiful and seemed to improve each year as we siblings grew older and could take a bigger interest. It’s different now. No longer do we have large crowds coming in all day. We do, however, gather the family (and that alone is quite a mob) and have a big dinner together, complete with Italian bread, cookies, veggies and of course, pasta. Mom always says, “I just feel I have to do something,” and we understand that; we always have. Our “table” or as I call it, “mini-altar,” this year was very satisfying for us. Father Caluda came to bless it, as usual, and we had good company and laughter all day. The preparation had been almost frenzied, though, so Phyllis didn’t want to use her time on the phone to tell me how to stuff artichokes. But, B-I-L, O’Neil, took over and patiently guided me through it. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t going to stuff them; I just wanted to tell a friend about it. Frankie knows how to make Italian bread, and nephew Sammy Jr., did it this year, too. O’Neil still boils the pasta all day, and Sammy Sr. and Wayne still do a bunch of hauling. Sisters-in-law Nancy and Linda are well aware they married into this tradition, and everybody still has their special duties, only on a smaller scale. It’s routine for us, but through the years, in joys and sorrows, we keep this tradition in some way. It was the first for 4-month-old Samuel Accardo III. Like all of our family children, we want him to come to value this tradition, too, even if in a mini-version. Tradition is what identifies us, I believe.