In 2004, we attended a small independent church in Dunedin, FL, called Holy Apostles Catholic Charismatic Church. It was not a Roman Catholic parish, but was part of a small independent jurisdiction called the Catholic Charismatic Church of Canada, which is made up of former Roman Catholics who wanted to also exercise a Pentecostal spirituality. The group has a handful of parishes in the US, and one of those was about 30 minutes from where we lived at the time. Their bishop, Bill (Bishop Angelo) Nicolaro, was a former Italian-American Roman Catholic deacon and New Jersey native who had graduated from the Cursillo program back when the charismatic movement was strong in the Roman Church, and feeling a calling to shepherd, he was spurned by the powers-that-be in the local Roman Church (something many of us know something about!) and therefore sought Holy Orders from Patriarch Andre Barbeau, who was the spiritual head of the Catholic Charismatic Church at that time. Being the CCC believed in the Ignatian model of ministry, it allowed its clergy to be married, and thus Bishop Angelo was able to eventually be consecrated a bishop, and in true fashion as an Ignatian-model bishop, he remained pastor of the parish as well. "Father Bill," as we called him, was also assisted by another priest, Fr. Larry Upham (a former Episcopalian) and Deacon Mark Bryan, a practicing attorney by trade, and Deacon Donald Staley, who like myself was from a Pentecostal background. A spiritually-expressive group, Holy Apostles Parish would be a church home for us for a couple of years, and it was there we met an eccentric octegenarian Italian lady by the name of Frances Williams, and this is now her story.
The one and only "Mama Fazool," Frances Williams.
Although "Williams" was not a very Italian-sounding name, Frances was widowed, and her late husband was a non-Italian. A native of Binghamton, NY, she was very vocal and proud about her Italian heritage, which she expressed mostly in her cooking, and in particular her homemade pasta e fagioli, which she considered her signature dish. And, that is how she got her nickname, Mama Fazool. In reality, any stereotypes about Italian ladies all being great cooks though was shattered by Mama Fazool - in reality, she was not that great a cook, but we humored her a lot as she was an old lady. For a "foodie" like myself, she was a little too sloppy with her cooking for my taste (canned beans in the pasta e fagioli, for one), and oftentimes she could cook some downright nasty stuff - she bragged, for instance, about putting pigs' feet, beef tripe, and chicken lips, among other things, into her pasta sauce. She also suggested, on one occasion, that we could get creative with our Thanksgiving leftovers - including the turkey trimmings, stuffing, and even the cranberry sauce! - by dumping it all into a pot and making a soup out of it (we graciously declined that suggestion by the way - yuck!). To her credit though, she actually did have a gift for baking, and she created some really delicious cookies, most notably her homemade pizzelles (a type of light waffle-like cookie, usually flavored with vanilla, chocolate, lemon, or aniseseed, that was prepared on a special type of iron heating appliance). I personally wouldn't mind having the recipe for those for my food blog, to be honest! You can buy pizzelles in the store, and while they are good, the homemade ones are much more tasty. Anyway, her cooking was part of the story, as there are so many more things to tell about her.
Let's see - where do we begin?? Ah yes - Mama Fazool was the consummate opportunist, and if she could take advantage of a free car trip, she would. A typical outing with her usually involved hitting practically every thrift store, yard sale, and garbage pile on the side of the road she would encounter, and that led to a couple of amusing situations with her. One day - I think we were coming back from church, and we took her that day as her usual ride, her neighbor Pat Savage, was out of town - we were passing on Alternate 19 in downtown Dunedin, FL, when Mama Fazool just happened to see a yard sale that got her attention. Mind you, if you saw this woman's small apartment, it would be easy to conclude that the last thing she needed was more junk, as she had bric-a-brac all over the place in her house. So, like a little kid seeing the entrance to the Chuckie Cheese, she started hollering "OOH! OOH! OOH!" and of course my dear wife Barb, who is a sucker for this stuff, had to stop. We get out, and Mama Fazool is flitting from table to table of this thing as fast as her walker could take her, until she happens upon this metal container. She is picking this thing up, looking at it, and this look comes in her eyes and then she says it - "This would store a lot of cookies!" However, upon looking at it, I asked her, "You do know what that is, right?" "Well yes - it's a cookie jar!" "Um no..." I respond. "That is an urn for someone's cremains." Being a superstitious old guinea (this is a woman who performs a spell every New Years Eve to exorcise the "evil eye" out of her house, as well as religiously reading horoscopes, etc.) the urn went back on the table and nothing more was pursued concerning it. I don't think the idea of snicker-doodles coated with someone's charred spleen appealed to her either, thank goodness!
Her exploits at Mass were also legendary. Fr. Bill loved to razz her, as she often set herself up for some friendly banter, and he like most of us loved the crazy old bitty. Some of the other church folk though didn't take her exploits as lightly though, including her neighbor and weekly ride, Pat Savage. Pat was a very devout lady, former charismatic Baptist, who was also a retired school teacher and thus she could be pretty straight-laced. However, Pat was also one of the most sincere people I had ever met, and she lived her faith, although if people didn't understand or know here they could easily get the impression she was uppity. Pat was also very intelligent, and she taught a ladies' Bible study that later expanded to include all the adults who wanted to participate, and she did a capable job of it. On one occasion, she wanted the class members to say a few words about some Biblical prophets she assigned to each person. Mama Fazool was assigned Jonah, and of course to "help" her out she came over to our house and we showed her that VeggieTales movie Jonah, which although cute (who doesn't love talking vegetables after all, right?) was not exactly the version Pat was looking for. So, when it came time for Mama to give her little presentation, she told people about how God punished the people of Nineveh by slapping them upside the head with mackerels, and that Jonah was cursed for his disobedience by being turned into an asparagus and getting eaten by a vegan whale. If only my Old Testament professor, Dr. Jerry Lee, were alive, he would be rolling over in his grave over that one! And, Pat almost went to her grave over it, as Mama Fazool almost gave the poor woman a stroke! It was obvious her Bible knowledge was minimal, for although she knew there was somebody named Jonah in the Bible, she didn't know where he was in there or much else beyond that. But, it was a funny story regardless. Plus, I think on the trip home that day she learned a little something, as Pat gave her a talking-to.
Mama Fazool in front of the sanctuary at Holy Apostles in Dunedin, FL.
A third story took place on the weekend of my 35th birthday in November 2004. Anyone who knows me knows that I love Persian and other Middle Eastern food, and Clearwater has a restaurant called the Mirage Grill that serves some of the best. When Barb asked me where I wanted to have my birthday dinner, of course I said the Mirage, and I wanted Mama Fazool to come with me. That turned out to be an experience in more ways than one! For one thing, I got put on the spot by the live entertainment, a belly dancer, and I was a little embarrassed (although I can laugh at it now though!). But, then there was Mama Fazool - she really got into the spirit of things when she was doing a sort of convalescent conga/bunny hop with her walker and the belly dancer, tooting the horn on the walker as she went. That is one of those occasions when a video camera would have come in handy. Then she started waving around her hanky to the beat of the music, which caught the attention of a seventy-something-year-old Coptic man at the next table - I explained to her that by waving that hanky in some Middle Eastern cultures, she was saying she was open for marrying. Upon telling Fr. Bill about it the next day, he asked how many camels we could have traded her for, as he got a big kick out of it too.
All-in-all, I have a lot of fond memories of this old crazy Italian, as she was a lot of fun and also had a giving nature. However, she could also drive you crazy, as she was as mentioned earlier the consummate opportunist. One night at an Albertson's - mind you, this was at 10 at night too! - she spent 45 minutes haggling over a pack of wieners with a bag boy, and she would also make odd requests like asking someone to take her to pick up underdrawers for her son, who was in his 50's, disabled, and lived fairly close to her. However, she was definitely never dull to be around, and she loved life. In time, we lost touch with her, although I learned that she had moved up to North Carolina with her daughter. She is now 92, very much alive, and probably driving her daughter as crazy as she drove everyone else, yet she was someone you couldn't help but love either. May she live to be a hundred and cook enough pasta e fagioli and pizzelles to feed all of North Carolina.
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