Memoirs of an Italian Geek

R. Santi

Description

Make your own inner-Geek glow with pride, as one boy?s experiences tell a tale through an Italian-influenced, Geek-infused adolescence.
Memoirs of an Italian Geek is a collection of stories that tell the ongoing tale of the childhood and adolescent escapades of a third generation Italian-American Geek as he deals with the tribulations of life, technology, and friendship throughout the last few decades of the twentieth century. Starting with his earliest memories of the golden years, before school began, and on through to his graduation from high school, the endless impact of his friends and family influences continue to keep our Geek in a constant state of change and often confused. Dealing with personal issues and other cataclysmic changes, our Geek learns that not everything can be prepared for, and sometimes the most meaningful changes occur without warning. Confronted with the challenges of academic achievements (or lack there of) and endless extracurricular chaos (usually inspired by girls) our Geek fights a constant battle between trying to stay afloat on the seas of trouble childhood and not drowning in a coming of age riptide. Memoirs of an Italian Geek is the tale of this journey through churning and often unfriendly waters.

Sujets

• Humorous
• Coming of Age
• Memoir
• The Wonder Years
• 1980s
• Italian
• Les Années coup de c?ur
• Fiction
• Geek

Informations

• Publié par: iUniverse
• Date de parution: 11 août 2003
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781462077144
• Langue: English

Extrait

MEMOIRS OF AN ITALIAN GEEK

R. L. Santi
iUniverse, Inc.
 
New York Lincoln Shanghai
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Memoirs of an Italian Geek
 
All Rights Reserved © 2003 by R. L. Santi
 
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.
 
iUniverse, Inc.
 
For information address:
iUniverse, Inc. 2021
Pine Lake Road, Suite 100
Lincoln, NE 68512
 
www.iuniverse.com
 
ISBN: 0-595-28458-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 0-595-65805-9 (cloth)
ISBN: 978-1-4620-7714-4 (ebook)
 
Printed in the United States of America
 
 
 
 
Contents
Acknowledgments  
CHAPTER 1  
CHAPTER 2  
CHAPTER 3  
CHAPTER 4  
CHAPTER 5  
CHAPTER 6  
CHAPTER 7  
CHAPTER 8  
CHAPTER 9  
CHAPTER 10  
CHAPTER 11  
CHAPTER 12  
CHAPTER 13  
CHAPTER 14  
CHAPTER 15  
CHAPTER 16  
CHAPTER 17  
CHAPTER 18  
CHAPTER 19  
CHAPTER 20  
CHAPTER 21  
CHAPTER 22  
CHAPTER 23  
CHAPTER 24  
 
 
 
For my parents, for my creation and sense of family For my sister, for my sense of humor and fighting spirit For my friends, for my endless need to make people laugh
 
 
 
 
 
 
Acknowledgments 

This book would not have been possible without the ongoing support of both my family and friends. I’d like to thank my parents and my sister for reminding me that in this world, anything is possible, if you keep working at it. I’d also like to thank all of my friends for endlessly dogging me to finish the original manuscript for this book; if they left me alone, I might not have ever finished it!
I’d also like to thank Michelle Jeffery, Jennifer Scopaz, and J. Broad for their endless diligence in proofreading and editing skills. Without their eyes, I would have never gotten the original draft ready for anyone else to read and I’m extremely grateful for their help!
A heartfelt thank you also goes out to the crew of the Starbucks in Orange, Connecticut, for putting up with me in their coffee house for hours at a time and for keeping me well marinated in lattes and cappuccinos.
CHAPTER 1  

Childish Warfare
I should have been beaten more as a child. These days, parents seem to think that if they rationalize with their children, then their children will miraculously choose to do the right thing, out of some higher sense of logic and honor. The problem is kids are simply animals; they neither understand honor nor cherish logic. If they had either of these tools, they wouldn’t get into trouble in the first place, but since kids are constantly causing some form of chaos, it’s obvious they aren’t equipped for making rational decisions. They’ve also already learned that being bad is more fun than being good. Rationalizing doesn’t stand a chance with kids, so other options have to be brought into play. From my own experiences, there’s no better teacher than fear.
Fear is a major motivator and it’s something that kids seem to forget about, some time before their fourth birthday. In most cases, it’s the fear of punishment that will educate a child in the values of right and wrong. For my older sister, the fear of a leather strap taught her what was acceptable and what was not in our family. She caught the lesson just one time on her backside, and after that the fear of the strap was more than enough to keep her orderly. For some unknown reason my logical mind lost its inherent fear about six minutes after leaving the womb.
My upbringing was influenced by a “unique” chain of events for about the first ten years; unique, even for a family in the midst of the drug and sexual revolutions of the 70’s. Truth be told, the 70’s rolled past our house without much impact, aside from clothing and color selections. My domicile could be loosely characterized as a 1950’s Italian suburb, with some modern lapses. I am one of the two children born to my parents. My sister, Traci, is six years older than I am; I’ve been told that I was actually born four years later than I should have been. Seems I was late for my own conception, but better late than never, I suppose.
My parents were still married when I was born and remain married well into the 21 st century, which is another unique trait in modern families. In typical Italian fashion, my mother’s father lived with us since before I was born. In typical modern fashion, my mother went back to work shortly after I was born—this was decidedly non-Italian, as most married Italian women didn’t work after they had kids. The higher cost of living in America during the 70’s required two working parents, leaving me in my grandfather’s care during the weekdays. Thus began my upbringing by four parents.
My father worked a lot of odd hours yet I saw him almost every night for dinner and on the Sundays. I know he expected discipline from his children, but I’m not sure how he would have enforced it, aside from having married my mother. My mother was the disciplinarian in the family and she often took the form of judge, jury and executioner. Her job was to deal with the mess my grandfather made of me when she got home from work. My grandfather was never a disciplinary figure, being the most playful of the four, and he had me during the day. Lastly, Traci took her role of older sister quite seriously whenever possible. This is not to say that she was overly bossy, but with a six year lead on me, her Suggestions would carry a lot of weight with me. She would Suggest a lot of things over the years and I took heed of most of them.
The biggest and most constant opponent of my punishments was my grandfather. It’s well documented that grandparents are chronic spoilers of grandkids. Many a wise man and stand up comic alike have noticed this. Some people have even alleged that aliens had substituted a new and happy human in place of their parents when they became grandparents. There is quite a difference between the parents you knew and the grandparents that your children know; they are usually not the same people! Add to this phenomenon the additional spin of a live-in grandfather. It was as if I had my own group of lobbyists to fight for me and enact my every whim in a well-greased Congress. My mother would attempt to punish me in a variety of ways, but would actually end up fighting with her father, as he would try to protect me, which would let me off the hook.
Most people think that a four year old wouldn’t notice such power plays. Maybe most don’t, but I certainly knew what was going on. “Cry to Grandpa” was the biggest weapon in my arsenal and it was nearly perfect. It almost always saved my backside from all types of pain since I usually got caught doing bad things at home where Grandpa could always be found. Oh, I would occasionally miss out on a Tom and Jerry episode, or get sent to my room early, but that was about all my mother could get past my grandfather. My unlearned mind quickly learned that I could get away with a whole lot more than I should have been able to.
And what sort of things would a master criminal of age four hope to accomplish? Little and stupid things, of course! Wanting to stay up later, trying to avoid chores by watching more of the Flintstones, skipping meals due to “lack of hunger” and other such things. My mother would order, I would go “wah” and my grandfather would leap to my aid. It taught me I could get away with things that I usually wouldn’t be able to.
Someone wiser than me has said, “All good things come to those who wait.” I don’t know who said it, but I know my mother had heard it before, because she opted to be patient with me; at least she decided to pick and choose her moments of punishment. One day, when I was four, I was out with my mother and sister in a local mall. This was a normal outing; I’ve spent many a Saturday afternoon shopping, which is another unique trait of my upbringing. I find that I am used to waiting outside of women’s dressing rooms without complaining. While we were shopping in a particular store, we came upon the toy department. Being a kid, this was like dangling…well, a toy in front of a child. Bam! There was one of the coolest toys I had ever seen, right there on the shelf! Wish I could tell you what it was, but I never got it, so I don’t really remember it at all.
One my mother’s cardinal Rules of Life was “never throw a tantrum [in a store].” If someone investigated this Rule, the “in a store” was basically there for effect—no tantrum would ever really be tolerated, but if I had one in a store, it was exponentially worse than one thrown in private. A supporting Amendment to this Rule was a clause stating that I could never play with a toy in a store if we hadn’t paid for it yet. To a four year old kid that was used to getting his way through his grandfather’s intervention, the first Rule doesn’t much matter, but the Amendment acted as the catalyst to this issue.
Whenever we were in a toy department, there were always kids ripping open packages and playing on the floor with the latest game or toy. Their parents were nowhere to be found so they were usually out of control. And this was a form of paradise to other kids like me! An endless supply of toys, just waiting to be abused? Not having to hear “no, you can’t have that” and not having to clean up after myself? Utopia! Standing in the way of playful bliss was this small and simple Amendment of “no playing with toys in a store if we hadn’t paid