My Grandfathers… Oddly, Both Named After John the Baptist

In my previous blog, I wrote about my two grandmothers. To give equal time, love, and respect, today is about my grandfathers: Giovanni Battiste Marsala from Ficarazzi, Sicily and Johann Baptist Ryffel from Tyrol, which is now considered a part of Southern Italy. It was once considered to be in Switzerland in the Reschensee area where a man-made lake, (Lake Reschen) was created and flooded the entire area, covering homes and a church. Today, the church steeple is one of the few signs left from this area.

Some of my most cherished memories were when I spent time with my father’s dad whom we called Poppi. Poppi was one of the best cooks in the history of Italians! I kid you not! To this day, no one makes meatballs as tasty and as soft as my grandfather. He used so many fresh herbs and ingredients, that they were scrumptious, but his true meatball aficionado talent was somehow putting a ton of breadcrumbs. Somehow, the meatballs never broke before you cut them with the side of a fork.

Poppi also made all kinds of artichokes, from flash steamed, to stuffed, to battered, bread-crumbed, and deep fried. In fact, I can recall a time when we came into the house through the back porch and could smell the artichokes cooking. Poppi was at the stove with a mesh sieve (strainer) and was scooping some quartered artichokes he had just scooped out of the olive oil. Without asking, we all began grabbing for them. He shrieked as he was worried that we’d burn ourselves.

I have written previously about Poppi’s garden and the hammock . One of the first things I would do as a kid is to run into the back yard and play on the hammock that was hung between two trees if I recall correctly and was positioned in the middle of my grandparent’s vegetable garden. My siblings would rock it back and forth, like a sideways swing, and sometimes, they did not know their own strength (or perhaps they did!) and the hammock would end up inverted and dumped me out on the hard dirt ground below.

My next favorite thing to do with my Poppi was to spend time in the garden. I would love to look at the squash that he grew. Sometimes they are as tall as a baseball bat! I could never understand how the vines held them up! My Poppi was a superb gardener, and we always had the freshest meals.

As for my maternal grandfather, sadly, I never got to know him. Apparently, as a little baby, he held me on his lap and always said that I had a smile for him.. I believe he died when I was just over one year of age. He was an electrician but had inventing in his DNA.

In a very early post, I mentioned that as a kid, I used to get old sheets and clothespins, and make tents in the summer. Most often, I would do this in our front yard, and I would bring the record player (my grandmother called it a victrola), and we would plug it into the tree. I never really gave much thought to the fact that my other friends were unable to do this, but my grandfather knew that wood was a ground and wired the electrical cables into the dirt.

We were also the only house on the block or anywhere for that matter, that had both hot and cold running water outside.

My grandfather also had installed a fan in the side of the house under the back porch where there was a crawlspace. When the weather got to be too warm, you could flip a switch, open a window, and within 10 seconds, feel a cool breeze as the fan efficiently used a principle or aerodynamics to take in air from around the house and circulate it. Within minutes, most of the basement was sufficiently cooled off. It was genius.

Years later my mom told me that when my grandfather was feeling a little weak or under the weather, he’d put a nail in waiter, and then as it began to oxidize, would drink it to give him an iron supplement. He also would give himself a jolt from the electrical outlet. Today, chiropractors and others use electrical stimulation to cure many types of back and other pain. He was ahead of his time.

Grandpa did not like taking out the garbage. There was always a small can located towards the back of the house in the corner of the kitchen. We also had a long, thick pipe running almost the full length of the basement. On rainy days and in the winter, we would hang our clothes on the clothesline that also ran across it. Many years later, I was told that at one time, there were little tracks on the floor and that at a certain time each day, the garbage pail would take a ride along the tracks by virtue of some type of pulley system, as I understand it, and my grandfather would only need to carry it a few steps to just outside the front door to the trash can.

At one point, grandpa’s tools were stolen off his truck. After that time, he rigged up a make-shift alarm system that I believe utilized some noisy pots and pans to alert him if someone was trying to steel his tools.

One of the best stories is about to my grandfather, the protector. This relates to our backyard. In the very left-hand corner of the backyard, the back and side fence intersected, and there was a lovely lilac bush in that corner. For whatever reason, the squirrels would frequent that area and climb across the fence throughout the day, but especially in the summer. Apparently, Maria was in the backyard and my mom was in the kitchen at the sink. There was a kitchen window that was ground level and my mom could see and hear what was going on outside. At one point, she heard my grandpa say, “Look Maria! Look at the cute squirrels!” My mother yelled out to my grandfather, “What are you doing walking her closer to the squirrels? Don’t you know that squirrels carry rabies and other diseases and can bite Maria?” Well after that, grandpa never brought Maria to see the squirrels.

Days later, my grandfather began spending a lot of time in the back porch in his workspace. He would also spend a lot of time in the middle window which had a clothesline outside on a pulley system that attached to a pole at the edge of our property in the backyard. Frequently, he would emerge from his office, come downstairs, and after walking out the back door to the yard, he would come back in through the house, head out the front door, and come right back in. But my mother noticed that each time, he came in, he’d have a brown paper bag.

One day, my mother’s curiosity got the best of her, and after her father came in the front door and she knew he was off doing other things, she went out the front door and decided to investigate. Much to her horror, when she opened one of the two large garbage cans and opened one of the brown paper bags, she found one or more dead squirrels! Apparently, after learning that squirrels could be rabid, he rigged some wires across the area where the back and side fence met, and wove it in between the lilac branches. Each day, he would hang out the window in the back porch armed with a trigger device and when he saw a squirrel, would press down and electrocute it! He was determined to keep Maria safe!

For so many reasons, I would have loved to have known him. What a character! He had a dry wit, stoic looks, and was such an interesting man!!!

(If any of my siblings, cousins, parents, or neighbors with whom I grew up have any adjustments to any of these stories, let me know and I will be sure to edit this story!)