Survive

“I was once a ballroom dancer…

…and I was always one of the first dance girls picked…”

“…met my Sal dancing, boy we used to dance, my Sal, boy he could dance you know.”

Her name is Madolina, “My grandmother’s name you know,” and we are sitting at her yellow and white enamel kitchen table. Madolina has an old refrigerator that drips a little stream of water down her crooked kitchen linoleum floor, her kitchen sink sits above red and white curtains pulled closed so as to not show guests the pots and pans underneath.

It is a cold March in Buffalo, NY, the 3rd week of a bitter cold spell, by the calendar there are 9 days left in the month and Madolina’s “check” is spent and her monthly food stamps ran out 3 days prior.

I am there to do “an assessment” of her “living and welfare condition” and once I complete that I’m supposed to put a checkmark in one of the 4 boxes on the official form in front of me that best describes her present state.

“Sal, my Sal he always wore shoes with spats and he would always polish the brass clips on his suspenders you know.”

Most of Madolina’s heat comes seeping up from the two flats below her’s, the kitchen is the warmest place in her 3rd floor walk up, she has on two sweaters and 3 pairs of socks that she knits when one gets a hole from a snag caused by a nail head popping up in a floor board in the living room, “or hall.”

I’m looking at her and smiling, listening some, remembering my instructions to “find out if she is cognizant of where she is and use that in her 401cv assessment.”

Right now Madolina, in her mind, is a Ballroom Dance Girl dancing in 1949 with “my Sal you know,” and she is smiling as she tells me this in her triple stacked walk up flat on the mostly Italian West Side neighborhood in Buffalo, NY.

I look at the assessment form in front of me, look at the 4 boxes, look up a Madolina who is smiling as she is twirled by “My Sal you know,” and I with my NYS government issue pencil draw a 5th box and label it “SCREWED,” and then check it.

I also write (crossing out the word client and writing in her NAME) Madolina knows where she is and what she is facing but prefers to spend most of her time Ballroom Dancing with her husband Sal because “that is a better goddam place for her to be than where she is sitting in the real world…”

…and I end it down at the bottom of the assessment form with this “…and so I recommend we let her dance because that is a better place for her to be.

I got a “D” in the course, was told “Maybe a degree in Social Services and Gerontology isn’t for you if you get emotional about your clients.”

I told her she was right, and as I was leaving I looked back to see her frown as she looked at my Government issued assessment form only to see every reference to “client” was crossed out and replaced with the word, “person.”

Madolina’s Story

Poor Folks 101: 4 Credits Independent Study

Currently almost 40 million folks in America live below the poverty line which is now set as $24,563 for a family of four.

Worldwide, worldwide it is almost unbelievable…735 million men, women and children are considered deep poor, with 1/3 of these folks living in slums around the world.

Right now, as you read this, worldwide 39 of every 1,000 children born DIE before they make it to 5 years old.

Think about this and our “modern” society, in this day and age making it to being five years old IS STILL A CHALLENGE.

And it doesn’t matter whether that is true in your neighborhood or not because in truth there aren’t any neighborhoods on the only planet with life in our Solar System…Earth.

We all live in the same damn neighborhood.

“Madolina you know I’m really allergic to cats.”

“Oh yes, oh yes of course so was my Sal you know.”

It was my final year of, as Madolina called it, “University,” and I was there not for a person assessment but now to take photos of “West Side Seniors Portraits” for some local Senior Service group.

And there she stood at the top of the stairs after buzzing me in, cane in one hand the other hand swung out in the universal gesture of “so what do you think look at me,” all decked up in her 1940’s Ballroom Dance Girl best.

Somewhere, Sal was smiling, you know.

“Do you like my brooch,” I said I did even though I wasn’t sure what it was until, “It’s a poodle in a dress and she’s dancing, my Sal gave it to me you know.”

“You know where we used to live, we used to live in this big fancy apartment, it had turrets with windows and you could look out at…

…the Peace Bridge. We honeymooned over there at the other end of it in Canada, went all the way up to Toronto, saw a real play on stage, had some fancy steak dinners, my Sal had a convertible then you know, we drove back over that bridge with the top down…”

As we sit at her kitchen table she is looking at the Peace Bridge which is in reality about 4 miles away from where we sit. I get up to pick up the kettle on the stove that is whistling, move a can of cat food out of the way on the counter top next to the stove and pour both of us a tea.

“…we would sit in our apartment at night and we would look at that bridge and all the lights on it and we’d talk and giggle about our time over there in Toronto in Canada you know…”

And then she would drift off, the lights of the bridge she was seeing would dim…

“…two years later he left for Korea my Sal did you know…”

…the bridge named after peace…

“…my Sal, he never came back, you know, not alive, you know my Sal.”

…cruelly always brought back memories of war.

“But you know, my Sal he did leave me my lil’ Sal you know, Sal Junior.”

“Would your wife mind if you took me on a lunch date…”

I laughed and said, “I think it will be fine but you know she is the jealous type of beautiful Dance Hall Girls. Where would you like to go.”

“Your Host for a ‘The Wow’ burger and a slice of Strawberry Creme Pie.”

“No dancing right.”

“Yep but if you have a quarter I’ll play the juke box.”

“Elvis huh.”

“Nope, ‘Ol Blue Eyes, Sinatra was my Sal’s favorite you know.”

I did, “I’ve got a couple of quarters,” to which Madolina, smiled.

A little ways from Madolina’s house was a Your Host that was affectionately know as “The Animal Host,” mainly because of all the fights there at night after last call at all the bars nearby, which at that time was 4am.

During the day it was fine and was the closest one to her house so that’s where we went, after ordering and her popping in 2 quarters for 4 Sinatra and 1 Beatle song she looked at me and said, “Straight up Don, let’s talk.”

Huh, what, it was said eye to eye, in a deep straight level voice, “I want you to do something for me with those pictures you take…”

Gin Mill Economics

“This world, this world they took from me my Sal you know, then a few years later they took from me my ‘lil Sal you know, both killed in combat you know, Korea and Vietnam, I got me two American flags folded up nice in oak boxes, no wife no mother should hear that bugle play once let alone twice.

“Your ‘Wow’ Ma’am would you like ketchup for your fries.”

“Please.”

“My Sal you know worked in a Gin Mill, a Shot & Beer joint over on Niagara Street, I used to boil the eggs for him, the boss would boil a dozen or so and I would boil a dozen, once the bosses eggs were gone my Sal would sell the eggs I pickled and we keep that money for ourselves…”

“Huh, cool…”

“Same with the pickles, my Sal would go to the Broadway Market and buy the good big pickles and put them in the same jar as the bosses pickles and would ask the customer if they wanted the small or big pickle and when the person said the big pickle my Sal would give him one of the good ones from the Broadway Market and put that pickle money in a coffee cup by the register until at night when he took the nickels home with him.”

I smiled and watched her put her Your Host pickle to the side to take home.

"My Sal you know would call the pickled egg and the Broadway Market good pickles money ‘survival dough,” he would, my Sal would say ‘pickles and eggs will get us through when the plants lay off or close,’ and he said he learned that from “bar stool scholars,” who came in at shift change and ordered a Genny Boilermaker before heading home.”

“Please don’t forget the Pickled Eggs and Pickles people…”

…when you graduate from the University. I’m old now and not much time left so this ain’t for me, but don’t forget all the folks out here who aren’t trying to live but just trying to survive. Ain’t no one living when all you trying to do is to be surviving. You going to be writing about news and taking pictures of news, you promise me, you promise me mister University Don Barone that you don’t forget about all the folks out here who survive on pickle and egg dough.”

We got 2 slices of Strawberry Cream Pie to go, in just one bag, along with the saved pickle rolled up in wax paper.

I gave her a hug at the top of the stairs and left to develop the film of her and several other “West Side Seniors Portraits.”

Madolina passed away in her sleep in her 3rd floor walk-up, I’m sure dreaming of Ballroom Dancing with Sal, you know.

When I turned the negatives over to the social service people I asked if they knew what happened to her cat and was told she didn’t have a cat and that, “they do that when they run out of money towards the end of the month they buy cat food and eat that to survive, that’s what they do 6 cans for a couple of bucks, that works for them.”

And yeah sure there are other ways to get by except when the world seems to close in on you there isn’t a focus group study you can look up that will tell you what to do when you are upside down in a right side up world.

Stand in a grocery store 9 days short of food with only $2-bucks of pickled eggs and Broadway Market good pickle coins and give me an economics lesson why don’t you, but only do so if you’ve ever been 9-days food short with only a pocket of nickel and dimes.

“Her name was Madolina, his name was Sal, you know…”

“No I didn’t, didn’t know she was married.”

“I know.”

“Had a son too…”

“Really…”

“Yep both big Sal and ‘lil Sal, 1st line infantry guys…”

“Huh.”

“Both killed in battle, both buried side by side 21 years apart.”

“Uh huh, shame she lost you know, um, her husband and kid.”

I wanted to tell the “social” folks to have compassion, to spend as much time with people as they do with paper, instead though I just told her to kiss my ass…and left.

You get what you give: Bitch 101. And I apologize, not.

As I drove home I drove by Madolina’s house, stopped and park, was going to take a photo when her first floor neighbor opened her front door and yelled out to me to come see her.

“Madolina told me that if you ever showed up to give you this envelop but I’m sorry there is only change in it, just two nickels and a note, here. Sorry.”

“Me too,” was all I said, and left. Sorry not about the change in the envelop but the fact I couldn’t change Madolina’s life.

Simply…Survive

Throughout the years I’ve written more about those people who LIVE than I have about those people who just SURVIVE, and for that I apologize to Madolina, and Sal, you know. It is something I am not proud of, ashamed actually.

I hope all of us who write about “them” never see human beings as “them” but as people just trying to get by, just trying to do the right thing in spite of it all.

It is our job to cover more than just the Kings and Queens, to cover more than just the Rich & Famous, but to also write the stories of all those in-between.

Survive is not some social abstract theory, the 24/7 quest to survive is a daily struggle for many people on this planet and THEY ARE THE ONES WE SHOULD BE FOCUSED ON, seek out the silent ones, leave alone those who shout.

There’s also this, Madolina did leave me two nickels, both of them Buffalo/Indian Head Nickels…they are both still together some 40 years later in the bottom of our fire safe box at home.

There was this as well, a handwritten note (now long gone lost in old college papers tossed out) stuck in the bottom of that envelop and it simply said this:

“Your Pickle & Egg Dough Love Madolina & Sal”

You Know,

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