AUR LitPut III Spring 2023 - From Now To Then
"When I found out about my father’s diagnosis, my first impulse was to light up,” Nalu Gruschkus writes in the opening line of Abnormal Whites and Excessive Blues, her striking piece about her father’s cancer and her own addiction to smoking. In A Bit of Extra Fun, Delaida Rodriguez is having an unpleasant lunch at a restaurant with her boozy mother. Over a chicken sandwich she has barely touched, she peers into her mother’s jade eyes only to realize with dread that she is more like her than she would care to be. Sam Geida looks back in Friday Night Dinners to the glorious family get-togethers at his grandmother’s house – now it’s only a few of them around the same table, with paper plates and the flat blue and white cardboard boxes of Gino’s Pizzeria. The stories in last year’s issue of Lit/Pub were mostly about making sense of things as we emerged from our Covid isolation. The mood is more assertive this year. Isabela Alongi’s vibrant cover design brilliantly evokes a world in movement and young people going places. It is a thread we pick up again in Josephine Dlugosz’s delicate musings (Work of Art), and in the short fiction of Scott Cameron and Raegan Peluso (A Song for Mr Solomon and Two-Faced). The poetry section is especially strong with Gina Carlo’s compassionate trilogy about love and loss and Scott Cameron’s haunting poem about his return to the bleak post-Katrina wasteland. On the lighter side, Lit/Pub spoke to Professor Bruno Montefusco about campus fashion. In the new memoir section, D.P. gives us a tender account of a childhood road trip with her father to Arizona (Snow). And students are traveling again! Emily Chow takes us with her on her intrepid solo trip to Malta. Rome, May 2023
"When I found out about my father’s diagnosis, my first impulse was to light up,” Nalu Gruschkus writes in the opening line of Abnormal Whites and Excessive Blues, her striking piece about her father’s cancer and her own addiction to smoking. In A Bit of Extra Fun, Delaida Rodriguez is
having an unpleasant lunch at a restaurant with her boozy mother. Over a chicken sandwich she has barely touched, she peers into her mother’s jade eyes only to realize with dread that she is more like her than she would care to be. Sam Geida looks back in Friday Night Dinners to the glorious family get-togethers at his grandmother’s house – now it’s only a few of them around the same table, with paper plates and the flat blue and white cardboard boxes of Gino’s Pizzeria.
The stories in last year’s issue of Lit/Pub were mostly about making sense of things as we emerged from our Covid isolation. The mood is more assertive this year. Isabela Alongi’s vibrant cover design brilliantly evokes a world in movement and young people going places. It is a thread we pick up again in Josephine Dlugosz’s delicate musings (Work of Art), and in the short fiction of Scott Cameron and Raegan Peluso (A Song for Mr Solomon and Two-Faced).
The poetry section is especially strong with Gina Carlo’s compassionate trilogy about love and loss and Scott Cameron’s haunting poem about his return to the bleak post-Katrina wasteland. On the lighter side, Lit/Pub spoke to Professor Bruno Montefusco about campus fashion. In the new memoir section, D.P. gives us a tender account of a childhood road trip with her father to Arizona (Snow). And students are traveling again! Emily Chow takes us with her on her intrepid solo trip to Malta.
Rome, May 2023
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Prose<br />
Grandma Jo Ann. Apart from the lean hallway that concealed the bedrooms, it was a very open space<br />
where everything converged: family discussions, laughter, play, and most importantly, dinner.<br />
Eight more family members were present in addition to the seven members who already lived<br />
there. After the usual round of greetings and catch up, we all eased into our respective seats around<br />
the table — there was never enough elbow room. We were never on the same page, and conversations<br />
overlapped, news and sports often colliding with good old neighborhood gossip.<br />
The home cooked meals lacked a consistent theme, often reflecting the mood a particular<br />
family member was in when he or she cooked it. The lazy ones prepared a meatloaf and threw it in the<br />
middle of the table for the family to devour. The more creative ones might bring a seafood plate – a<br />
family favorite – and serve it themselves. The only time the room stood still was when jaws were too<br />
busy chewing. There were never any leftovers, a rule of the household. Looking at the pile of empty<br />
dishes and dirty plates, half the family smiled with satisfaction, the other half made quiet promises to<br />
go to the gym the next day.<br />
Dessert was a rarity; coffee, chatter, and laughs worked as a substitute. While parents took on<br />
clean up duty, my cousins and I would run over to our grandparents and great-grandparents and listen<br />
to their stories about how Grandma and Grandpa met or about getting in trouble with their friends as<br />
teenagers. All those stories were filled with life lessons — ones that we all still hold close to heart. This<br />
good cheer continued to echo throughout the first floor until cars started and we were on our way<br />
home, already discussing contributions for the following week’s gathering.<br />
Great Grandma Rose and Great Grandma Milly left the first gaps at the dinner table. But<br />
meals continued to be home cooked, conversation was still lively, often revolving back to our great<br />
grandmas as a way to remember them. “Look at what Milly was able to do for us!” cried out aunts and<br />
uncles as glasses were raised and toasts were made. “Rose was a great lady, always knew how to make<br />
us happy. Let’s live every day like it’s our last!” The power of family and love created a silver lining<br />
through the dark cloud that lurked over the long, oval table. And so the table moved from fifteen to<br />
thirteen.<br />
<strong>Then</strong>, one day, my father gathered my sister and me in the living room of our house.<br />
“Sam, sit down, I gotta tell you something. Grandpa suffered a brain aneurysm last night; he is<br />
13
Change language