Family of Origin: Swissvale Dagos

For a slow Sunday....from "We're From the Town with the Great Football Team:  A Pittsburgh Steelers Manifesto."

FAMILY OF ORIGIN…SWISSVALE DAGOS

December 15, 1963:  Sitting with my dad, watching a pre-game interview with end (no “wide receivers” in those days), Buddy Dial, just before the Steelers kick off against the New York Giants in the season finale.  Should the Steelers win or tie, they’ll proceed to the NFL Championship Game for the first time in their 30-year history.  Dial, dressed in a suit and tie, standard gentleman’s attire for going on TV in the day, lifts his wing-tip, revealing “Go Steelers” written in chalk.  Dad says, “If I had a hundred bucks, I’d bet it on the Steelers.”  Well, it’s a good thing that Dad was a struggling dago barber, as Ed Brown, the drunkard that played quarterback for the Steelers picked the worst of weeks to go on the wagon.  With a week of sobriety under his belt, Brownie misfired with his passes all day, the Steelers lost to the Giants, 33-17, and the Steelers, went home to once again, watch the Championship Game on TV.

Dad served in Hawaii during WWII, The Big One, wrote to his buddy’s female cousin from the time he entered the Army in January, 1942, until he came home in October, 1945.  He met his pen pal for the first time then, heard her voice for the first time, and married her on December 1st.  He was a Rankin Dago, she an East Liberty Guinea.  His brood hailed from Naples (Neapolitan), hers from Calabria (Calabrese).   Mom’s dad had lost touch with five cousins in New York, one of whom was a priest, the other four were Mafioso.  It turns out that these boys were Murder Incorporated boss Albert Anastasia (Mom’s maiden name) and his brothers.  Mom denied this until the day we saw a picture of Albert (who was shot to death in a barber’s chair in New York in ’58) and anyone could see that Uncle Louie, Mom’s brother, was a spitting image of him.  Mom’s dad passed away when she was 16, whereupon my Nunna wore different shades of black for the remaining 53 years of her time on earth.  Her dad’s passing forced Mom to drop out of school, and go to work to help support the struggling family.   Mom and Dad settled in the Boro of Swissvale, a municipality abutting the City of Pittsburgh.   They moved into Dad’s family home on Woodstock Avenue, right across from the Moose where my uncle, Oney Ferarri, can still drink on Sunday morning.  The home that they lived in, at the time, was inhabited by both of my grandparents, all of Dad’s four siblings, and two additional spouses.  Nine months, 19 days after the wedding day, on a Sunday that the Steelers won their opener against the Chicago Cardinals, 14-7, my brother Tony was born. His shoulders were so big coming out that Mom swore he’d be her first and last.  Mom and Dad lived on the 3rd floor of Woodstock Avenue until the birth of their second son, Ron, named after Death Valley Days, Twenty Mule Time Borax, Ronald Reagan.  After that, my Aunt Tess and Uncle Angelo Iole took up residency on the 3rd floor, and had their two babies, while Mom and Dad bought their first home. 

Uncle Oney lives there by himself now.  Well, he lives there with his westerns (his porn collection; what’s an 88-year old to do?). Oney’s other prize possession is his nickel slot machine, always used by Oney to earn beer money during holidays.  He’d offer all family members a “fast count” of about a dozen nickels to get started, then rig the thing so that nobody would hit whilst emptying their pockets of all other change and singles.  The exception was when I brought the future Mrs. Swiss over to meet Oney, and the first nickel she put in….jackpot!!  This was an accomplishment that I’ve yet to achieve.  Oney was on the phone to Mom, “Get this lover outta here,” he said.  Oney still calls Mom daily; I think he always had a thing for her.  As late as last October ‘07, he was making a pitch to be Mom’s roommate when she stayed overnight for my nephew’s wedding at the Airport Holiday Inn. 

Anyway, Dad went to Barber School on the GI Bill, fathered two more boys, of which I was the youngest, and worked long hours cutting hair at Tony’s Barber Shop in Swissvale, until “the goddamn Beatles ruined my (his) business.”  I didn’t know at the time, and wouldn’t know until I was in my 30s that Dad was actually saying “Doddamn,” as being a good Catholic, he would never take the Lord’s name in vain.  Speaking of Catholicism, I dodged a bullet at birth that may well have plagued me throughout life.  Dad wanted to name me Pius, after the Pope.  Common sense prevailed, and my brother Tony, not quite 9, was assigned the task of naming me.  He chose David, after Davy Crockett, he of the coonskin cap, popular at the time.  It’s a damn good thing that Tony didn’t use the power that had been invested in him with naming rights to mess with his Baby Bro.  On the contrary (and please, get used to the digressions), Tony liked the name so much that he named his son David.  I, in turn, named my boy Anthony.  Dad had this thing with names.  He wanted to name his second son Alfonso, after his dad.  Except no one called my Grandpap Alfonso; he was Mike.  Anyway, my grandma, Alfonso’s wife, said, “Don’t you dare hang that name on that boy.”  And thus, he was Ronald Alfonso.  I have no middle name; there weren’t enough to go around.  Speaking of names, just to tell the whole story, before we get into football.  Dad and his two brothers all spelled their last name differently.   Uncle Joe, the youngest, kept the original spelling, “Vigliotti.”  Dad and Uncle Chuck spelled it “Villiotti” and “Veyliotti” respectively, the varieties being due to the handwritten transcriptions of their last name when they were enrolled in school.

Mom and Dad were very good friends of Johnny Catanzano, original owner of Swissvale’s Triangle Bar & Grill.  In fact, Dad ate the first battleship created by Johnny Catz, the 27-inch hoagie for which the Triangle remains famous.  “Good sandwich, doddamnit,” said Dad.  I would later work in this same Triangle Bar, making these battleships, 6 at a time, and tending bar as a 19-year-old.  Of course, one needn’t have been very conversant with mixed drinks to bartend at the Triangle…not many ingredients in a shot of “Dirty Bird” (Old Crow).

My Steelers fandom didn’t really come from Dad.  He was much more the baseball fan.  My football passion came from my brother, Tony, nearly 9 years my senior.  I’ve only recently learned the trauma to which Tony was subjected in the late ‘50s.  He reported being too sick to go to church one Sunday, but evidenced a remarkable recovery when Uncle Louie called from his East Liberty home, having an extra ticket to the Steelers game, wanting to take young Anthony.  “Nope,” Dad said into the receiver, “Anthony was too sick to go to church; he’s not going to some doddamn football game.”  Tony, ever since, has categorically rejected organized religion.  Tony’s first game was the ’64 opener, right before he went off to his freshman year at Penn State.  He got to go with the bookies that hung out at Uncle Chuck’s gas station.   Somehow, I don’t think that the books had been to church that morning.  Oh, Steelers lost to the Rams, 26-14.

Tony never strapped on the pads, or put on a helmet, but was a studious football fan nonetheless.  He was my first coach, subjecting me to his personal version of “Station Boys” in the summer of ’67, prior to my entering 8th grade.  Tony may not have been well-schooled on technique, but he did convey toughness to his little brother. Tony, a Penn State student, would return home from his summer job, take me out to the backyard with my pads and helmet, and proceed to kick my ass unmercifully for the next two hours.  His favorite drill was to place a dollar bill on the ground, tell me that I could keep it if I could grab it, then use a combination of feet, knees, fists and elbows to knock me down, and keep me down.  I did manage to grab the dollar a few times though.  Dad would come out to the porch, yell at Tony, “Leave that kid alone, doddamnit.”  I would respond, weakly, “Its okay, Dad…..I like it.”  Never one to excel in sports requiring eye-hand coordination, hitting a baseball, raquet sorts, etc.; I was able to hold my own catching a football, due to a Tony Special.  He would have me place my back against the wall, and like a Santa Ana firing squad, stand ten feet away, and fire passes at me with all the strength he could muster.  Rather than be impaled, I learned to catch with my hands.

Brothers 2 and 3, Ralph and Ron, were latecomers, bandwagoneers, as Steelers fans.  When Tony was away at Penn State, they would tease me about the Steelers, make me cry.  Steelers would lose a heartbreaker, as they were wont to do, and they would suggest that we feed the Steelers to Fuzzy, our dog.  Come 1972, Ralph and Ron, along with so much of the local populace, became big-time backers of the Black & Gold.