My Father 2

Dad was much older than mom. He met her in Greece. I don't know how exactly but my mother lived in Pireaus, Greece, which is a port town of Athens. From what I have been told they were introduced by a friend of his who was also in the merchant marines. They married in Greece, in the Greek Orthodox Church. My mom claimed she was only 16. My dad was around 40 years old. I guess at that time a May/December marriage was not that uncommon. Nor was an arranged one either. I can only assume that mom and her family, her brothers included, wanted her to get away from post WWII Greece and away from the Nazis. They wanted her to have a better life in America. I suppose she wanted a better life too. This is all theory; I really don't know the true story behind the marriage. Perhaps they fell in love???? I know Mom was a beautiful young woman; there are pictures of her to prove it.

Anyway, getting back to Dad, whose name is Juan Navarro Tigmo, He was born in April, 1905. At the time he met my mother he was already divorced from his first wife, Frances, and had 2 grown and married children. The first one was Evelyn. She married Harold Relucio and they had 3 children, Harold Jr., Roger, and Theresa. The second one was John Tigmo Jr. He married a woman named Frances and they had 3 children also. They are John, Mary Frances and Karen. But I digressed; let me get back to Dad.

Anyway, Dad and Mom married, moved to Brooklyn New York, and had Adrian. Then they moved to Clifton New Jersey and had Juanita, Josephine and myself. We lived in Clifton until I was about a year old. Then we moved to Elizabeth NJ We lived in an apartment on East Jersey Street upstairs from an antique store owned by a Portuguese family whose name I have forgotten. Dad worked at Alexian Brothers Hospital and Elizabeth General Hospital as head cook. He also moonlighted for a caterer named Johnny Bond.

As I mentioned before, Dad loved to dance. He was even on television. He used to be a dancer at Arthur Murray's dance studio and was televised. He danced ballroom. I remember seeing him at hospital gala's in his tuxedo dancing with a beautiful woman who wore a very wide crinolin floofy ball gown. He always wore sunglasses at these events. I think it was to hide his "oriental-looking" eyes. Or maybe he thought he looked more debonair??? He didn't need them; he was handsome just the way he was. It never, ever, dawned on me that my dad was not white. I knew he was Filipino, but I didn't realize the ramifications of having an Asian father instead of a white one. Having an oriental FATHER and a caucasian MOTHER was NOT common. I didn't notice the difference between dad's olive skin and black hair and Filipino accent and my mother's fair skin and medium brown hair and her Greek accent. They were just mommy and daddy to me; Ma and Dad as I got older. \

To be continued............................

My Father

Today is the 40th anniversary of my father's passing away. I remember it like it was yesterday. My dad was in upstate New York working at a resort as a chef for the summer. My mother got a phone call in the late afternoon. I heard the phone ring from upstairs and picked up the receiver. I heard my mom pick up the one downstairs in the kitchen. I listened to the conversation on the extension upstairs. It was someone from his job. He told her that my dad had died suddenly. I immediately ran downstairs. Apparently he had a heart attack at work. I remember the day before he called home and asked my mother to send him his pills because he wasn't feeling well. I never knew exactly what those pills were; I was 13 at the time. I remember my mother yelling "oh my God, No!" My sister came home just then and was told. My mother tried to reach my half sister Evelyn but couldn't. Little did we know that she was on her way to our house just to visit and by coincidence arrived shortly thereafter. Call it fate, coincidence divine intervention, whatever. It was as if she had an intuition about it. I remember that in May, four months earlier, he was pretty sick with pneumonia; or so they said. He probably had heart failure. I remember the death certificate said he died of "hardening of the artieries." I suppose that was a term they used back then.

My dad was a great guy. Although my mom and he did not always get along, he loved us very much. He was an extrovert. Loved to play tennis, and was a ballroom dancer. According to my aunt Patsy (his sister in law) Daddy was a stowaway on a ship from the Phillippines when he was 13. After he helped his brother Manuel come to the states. My dad and Uncle Manuel were merchant marines during WWII. I remember a picture of him in his uniform. He looked very handsome. I don't know where that portrait ended up. He became head chef (or cook) at various local hospitals. He would come home with the scent of food all around him......and I loved it. He taught me how to do the "Cha Cha" and the Fox trot when I was a little girl. He taught me prayers of his childhood. He ate with his hands, not with a fork, because that was the custom of his people. He had many friends and was a "ladies man." I say this with affection; not disdain. There are many other memories I have of him that I will blog at a later date. But for now I just wanted to say , I love you Daddy, I miss you still. I cherish the memories I have of you. I know you and Mom are watching over us and smiling. Keep dancing Daddy! Love, Your Daughter, Georgie. xoxo.

Refrigerator recipe

Now I know it's nothing new to take leftovers from the kitchen and make a new dinner out them; but I have to tell you about my soup. Being that I don't like catfish fillets, I concocted a soup out of the following foods:
1: leftover cooked ground beef
2: leftover spaghetti sauce
3: leftover corn
4: frozen brocolli
5: a can of cannellini beans, drained
5: water
6: fresh baby basil leaves
7: a handful of orzo pasta
8: garlic, onion and adobo seasoning

Throw it all in a pot, bring to a boil. Simmer til orzo is done. Mangia! Brian put tobbasco sauce in his bowl to give it some kick.

If you have a refrigerator recipe you want to share, just blog it to me.

Rennaisance Faire!!!

I love rennaisance music! It started about a year ago when I bought Sting'sSongs From the Labyrinth cd. I was an avid Shakespeare fan when I was in high school. Ok, thou may calleth me a geek. But I truly loved reading Billy Shakes at the time. I even borrowed an LP soundtrack of "Julius Caesar so I could read it and listen to it at the same time. Ok, so I was a geek, but I aced the class!!! ;-) My hs English teacher, Mr. Mohr, was this cute guy with hens on his tie that would play Elizabethan music in class. (Could it be I had this awful school girl crush on the guy??? ;-) ) Anyway, I must have stored this love of Elizabethan music in the back of my brain because as soon as I listened to Sting play the lute and sing "can she excuse my wrongs with virtues cloak" I went nuts! So I've been looking for rennaisance fairs around the area. I want to dress up as the old nursemaid ; like the one that took care of Juliet. I want to speak "Elizabonics." There are a number of websites that teach just that. My coworker told me there is to be one in the City of Milan........(no, not Milan Italy, although I wish that were true), Milan Illinois, at the end of this month! My heart delighteth intensely! Anticipation maketh me joyful so immensely! Ok, I'LL STOP! I'd put the link of the cd in the blog but I don't know how. Do you?

Thoughts On Life

Hmmmmmmm, let's see......now........hmmmmmmmm. What is the meaning of life? Can I sum it up in 200 words or less? Absolutely not. All I can say that from my own experience Life can SUCK. But, on the other hand, when you think beyond what is "sucky" about it, when you know that God has His hand in it, then you can rest assured that no matter what, no matter how devastating, awful, terrible it can be, that your suffering and pain ARE not in vain. You can offer all your painfulness to the ONE WHO SUFFERED FOR ALL OF US. That is redemptive suffering; it is NOT in vain. If you want to know more about redemptive suffering, life, love, spirituality then please go to www.ewtn.com for more information.

Let me back track. About fifteen years ago I went through a rough patch. I won't bore you with the details but if it weren't for my Catholic faith I don't believe I would have been able to cope. Now, I know some of you might think , "oh, she used her faith as a crutch", and you might be right in one respect. But Jesus told his disciples, give me your burdens;for my yoke is not heavy and my burden is light. Don't we all need someone to help us get through this existence called LIFE? And, I like this passage from the Psalms: "I can do all things with God who strengthens me." And didn't He tell us to love one another as I HAVE LOVED YOU? So if we are to love one another as He loved us, in one way that means we do what we have to do in order to do for others; and no matter how boring or tedious it may be, we are blessed. I think Mother Theresa said to do small things with great love is better than to to great things with no love.

But on a more secular note, as parents, as adults, as members of the human race, we work to put food on the table, clothes on our backs, a roof over our heads. Some are more fortunate than others and do it the way they want to. Others don't have that luxury for one reason or another.
But no matter how it's done, it's done out of love. The real deal kind of love. Either way, we are blessed by our Heavenly Father in ways we even aren't aware of. Now I'm gettin' spiritual again............eeeks. My husband is like that. Stayed with a tedious job for 35 years to support his family. But he chose to be a machinist; he was lucky he knew exactly what he wanted to do. Still at it; that's his ethic. He always put others first; me, his children, his family. Now I'm rambling. DO WHAT YA GOTTA DO.