Wednesday, June 14, 2017

The Revenge of the E-I-E-I-Ohs - What's an E-I-E-I-Oh?










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Set near the deceptively serene 150 year old Pleasant Lake General Store on Cape Cod and the bike trail that runs by it, this story is a tale of two young immigrant boys growing up the best they can in an area that has little use for them. Eighty years later, one of the boys tells his great grandsons his true story – a tale of the E-I-E-I-Ohs and their great struggles.

Excerpt from Chapter One:
An old man tells his two great grandsons a story from back in the day:
“The tale starts back there on the porch of the Pleasant Lake General Store.  It hasn’t changed much since that morning some 80 years ago when my pal Rocco Accomando and I were sitting on the benches just like the three of us were today.  And just like we did today, Rock and I were drinking birch beer.
I guess the only real difference between now and that day back in 1935 is the trains.  The bike trail that we ride on used to be the home of the Cape Cod Central Railroad.  Every town in Cape Cod had a railroad station and the trains ran every hour all day long and most of the night.  You could get a train in Harwich and ride the rails all the way to California.  Course you’d have to change trains at Bourne, then again at Boston or New York before you finally got to Los Angeles.


Pleasant Lake/Harwich, Cape Cod RR Crossing in 1935

Rock and I had the bad luck to be kids during the ‘Great Depression’, a period of widespread poverty in the United States. We had it double tough because we were the children of immigrants.  My folks, and Rock’s too, came from Italy around1910 and even during good times we weren’t popular with some of the native Cape Codders.
Rock and I were the regular targets of the other kids at school.  They called us ‘Brillo heads’ because of our dark curly hair.  You guys probably don’t know what ‘Brillo’ is.  It’s a scouring pad for cleaning pots and pans, made from curly strings of shaved steel wool.




We didn’t much like being called Brillo heads, but we really hated it when they called us the ‘Ohs’ or when they starting singing the   “E – I – E – I – O” song.
Every day was pretty much the same.  When we walked in the school yard they’d start on us….
“Look here come the ‘Ohs’ - Accomando and Fortunato.  Hey “Ohs, where are the E boys and the I boys? “
They called us the E – I – E – I - Os and made up a song about it using the melody of ‘Old McDonald had a Farm’.  They changed the words to……
“All Italians should go home
E – I – E – I – O
Cause they smell like fish and garlic
E – I – E – I – O
All Italians please go back to Rome
E – I – E – I – O
And get out of Cape Cod real quick!
E - I - E – I – O!”
They called us the E – I – E – I – Os because almost all Italian names end in E, I, O, or sometimes A; like Amare, Gallanti, Russo, or Coppola.  The native Cape Codders all had names like Crosby, Nickerson, Hatch, or Standish.
Because of this situation the Italian people lived in separate neighborhoods from the Cape Codders.  Most everybody was a fisherman or earned their living selling things to fishermen.  On the boats, our people had the lowest jobs.  There were no rich sea captains among us.  Our dads had to take the riskiest and worst paying jobs on the ships.
In Harwich we didn’t have it quite as bad as people in some of the other towns, but still it was pretty rough.  My only friend was Rock. He and I were the only Italians in our grade.  We were best friends all through school.
Mr. Josiah Nickerson owned the Pleasant Lake General Store at the time and he was always good to Rock and me.  He gave us jobs to do for him and he paid us fair wages for ten year old boys.  We’d stack wood, help him unload stock, and sometimes make deliveries.  He also helped us start a little business that allowed both of us keep our families fed after our fathers were lost at sea during a fierce storm.
We assembled a little stock of novelties and fruit from Mr. Nickerson and sold the items to the passengers on the train.   Boarding at Pleasant Lake, we walked through the passenger cars selling apples, pears, newspapers, and even decks of cards and such.  Luckily for us some of the train conductors were related to the legendary Italian boxing champ Primo Carnera and they allowed us to conduct our business.
At a time when the average man was five foot five inches tall and about 140 pounds, Primo was six foot seven and weighed almost three hundred!  He was one of the most feared boxing champs in history.  Primo spent much of the summer of 1935 rejuvenating himself on Cape Cod after losing a title fight to Joe Louis in June.  During that season when Primo was in mid Cape Cod, there was a lot less ‘E – I – E – I – O bashing’ than usual; and Rock and I did pretty well with our little train vending enterprise.
Like I said, Rock and I were making out pretty good that season, what with all the goodwill created by having the great boxing king staying in our town.   One Friday in July we loaded up our packs with extra supplies because we were pretty sure the Provincetown run was going to be jammed full of tourists.  The train pulled into the Pleasant Lake Station at exactly 4:15 p.m. for a one minute stop. 
“Hey Meo, nobody’s getting off,” worried Rock. He always called me Meo (pronounced Mayo) cause my real name’s a mouthful to say – it’s Bartolomeo.
“Don’t worry Rock.  The train is full of tourists going to Provincetown.  There are some big art shows and such this weekend.  They probably haven’t had anything to eat or drink since leaving Boston.  When we get on the train and tell ‘em there’s 13 more stops and 45 minutes to go before Provincetown, we’ll most likely sell everything we’ve got.”
We boarded Cape Cod Combination One and opened up our packs. I started off our spiel as soon as the train began moving on towards Brewster, the next station…..
“Hey folks try some of our wares, we got apples, bananas and pears. For two cents you can get a pickle, or try a slice of pie for a nickel?”    
Well Carmine and Lucca, let me tell you those tourists couldn’t reach in their pockets fast enough.  They were buying up our stock of goods so fast it looked like we’d be sold out before we got halfway to the end of the line. As the combination steamed into Wellfleet we had no idea that things were about to turn much worse.
Stationmaster Zip Willard was waiting on the platform.  He greeted the conductor who quickly tossed him a few bundles of newspapers.  The conductor hopped down the three steps from the train to the platform.
“Hello Zip, here’s the mail,” he said, handing the station-master a sack full of letters and postcards.”
“Thanks and here’s the Wellfleet outgoing mail,” Zip said, tossing a small parcel to the conductor. “Have you got any seats left on the train?”
“It’s standing room only.  All three passenger cars are fully occupied this run Zip.”
“Well there’s only seven more stops to the end of the line, so I guess the young fella waiting for the train won’t mind standing up for a half hour or so.”
As the conductor yelled “All Aboard. Next stop, South Truro”, a tall, rugged looking teenager emerged from the Wellfleet waiting room and walked casually up the stairs and into the passenger car where Rock and I were selling our goods.
“Look who’s getting on the train Meo!”
“I see him.  It’s Reggie Nickerson, the nephew of the owner of the Pleasant Lake General Store.”
“Just ignore him,” Rock said.  “Business as usual.  There’s only a handful of stops left to Provincetown.”
“Just to be safe,” I suggested, “Let’s go to another car.”
“But we haven’t finished working this one yet Meo.  Let’s do the last few rows.”
We started walking to the half dozen sets of seats at the end of the first passenger car when Nickerson came at us.  We were ten years old with a combined weight of about 150 pounds.  He was 18 and already over five ten and probably 180.  Even Rock, as tough as he was for a ten year old, was intimidated.
“Gimme some of my uncle’s food,” said Nickerson, reaching into my pack and grabbing handfuls of candy and fruit, which he stuffed into his pockets. 
“The price for what you just took is one dollar,” I told him. “Pay up now or I’ll go to the conductor.”
In answer the tall, sandy haired Nickerson unleashed his right hand and smashed a backhander across my face.  I saw stars and barely heard Rock let out a war cry as he leaped on the bigger boy’s back.  Rock managed to get a choke hold on Nickerson.
When my head cleared I realized that Nickerson had bunched his fists together and was smashing them behind him trying to break Rock’s ribs.  Rock was bravely hanging on despite the pounding he was taking.
Dropping my pack, I dove for Nickerson’s ankles.  When I connected he fell forward like a sack of potatoes and both Rock and I started boxing his ears.  We raged on, totally out of control, beating him senseless.  We probably would have killed him if the passengers hadn’t dragged us off.
The conductor soon arrived and questioned us and the passengers.  Everyone who saw what happened agreed that Nickerson started the trouble.  We figured we were in the clear, but when Nickerson got off the train a few stops later, through bloody lips he vowed that he’d pay us back a hundred times over for what we did to him."
Sample from Chapter One of the Revenge of the E-I-E-I-Ohs
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