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P.O. Box 330159 San Francisco, CA 94133

THIS INTERVIEW IS THE PROPERTY

OF THE TELEGRAPH HILL DWELLERS.

NO PORTION OF THIS TRANSCRIPTION MAY BE QUOTED OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM:

Office of the President The Telegraph Hill Dwellers

P.O. Box 330159 San Francisco, CA 941 33

Founded in 195-1 lo perpetuate the historic traditions of San Francisco's Telej^raph H; and 10 represent the community interests of its residents and property owners

PROJECT: TELEGRAPH HILL DWELLERS ORAL HISTORY

TRANSCRIPT DATE: May 23, 1 999

INTERVIEW DATE: April 1 9, 1 999

NARRATOR: Joseph Jachetta

INTERVIEWER: Audrey Tomaselli

[ ]: [Transcriber's Comments]

[Joe Jachetta lives in Greenbrae, California, where this interview takes place. However, he is the proprietor of the Parkview Beauty Salon on Union Street in San Francisco - right across the street from Washington Square. Last year he celebrated the 50th anniversary of his business in North Beach.]

AUDREY: Joe, when we talked last week, you told me that not only were you born In North Beach, but your parents were also. Is that right?

JOE: That's absolutely true. A vanishing species.

AUDREY: Yes, you have very deep roots in North Beach. That's very special. We also talked about the fact that you can remember your Grandfather. You were seven when he died, is that correct?

JOE: That's correct.

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AUDREY: Can you tell me about him?

JOE: Well, by the time I came along, you know, he had heart trouble, so he was very, very pampered. My Mother took excellent care of her Father. And he was pretty frail, where he couldn't walk up and down stairs. And all of a sudden he was dead. So I really don't know what I can tell you other than that.

AUDREY: Did he live with you?

JOE: Yes.

AUDREY: So you got to see him on a daily basis?

JOE: Oh yes. We were very close. I remember his funeral.

AUDREY: What do you remember about the funeral?

JOE: There are a couple of things that I remember about that funeral. One of them is leaning over and kissing him for the last time. And I remember how different it felt kissing someone who is dead. That is something I don't think many people experience. And then I remember crying [some tears], you see I'm a pretty emotional person. And having an uncle kind of scold me for it ... "men don't cry". And I cried anyway.

AUDREY: Of course. So you obviously felt very much of a loss ...

JOE: Well, yes. I suppose it takes time to get over not having someone

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around that you're used to.

AUDREY: Did he tell you stories about the old country?

JOE: Well, in the building we lived in we were mostly family. And, you know, they all came from the same town in Genoa. I know a lot about the stories, what I used to call the old days. We were just a very happy close-knit family through the Depression. Everybody got along. I never missed a meal. I didn't even know there was a Depression. Except that everybody was poor. You know, and I thought that we were just as poor as anybody. But I later found out there were other people in the neighborhood who, you know, were not as fortunate as I was.

AUDREY: So let's see. You were born in what year?

JOE: 1924

AUDREY: '24. So you were about 7 when the Depression started?

JOE: Right.

AUDREY: Do you remember a dramatic change in how your life was from, say, when you were 5 and then ...

JOE: No, actually no. You know, things went along easily as I see it. You know we had less money and less money and less money. And it went so gradual that, I don't know, I just became used to it.

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AUDREY: Do you remember ... was your Grandfather so old that he couldn't come to the table?

JOE: No. He had the family curse. Angina. We all inherit that ... thing. And it wasn't like now, you know. He'd still be alive if it were today. No one in my family has ever lived past the age of 67. Except me.

AUDREY: So when he [your Grandfather] came to the table, was he always at the head of the table?

JOE: Yes.

AUDREY: What do you remember about meals with him?

JOE: I really have to search my memory for this one, but I remember my Grandfather having a jug of wine alongside, and instead of putting this big straw-encased jug on the table, if you wanted more wine you just handed your glass down and he filled it. From that one container.

AUDREY: You're gesturing as if the container was on the floor next to him?

JOE: On the floor and sometimes he would put it on his shoulder [and pour] just for fun, you know.

AUDREY: Did he make his own wine?

JOE: Yes. [Chuckle] No matter what, they made 200 gallons of wine every year, every year, every year. I remember in our basement (I guess it was his basement), [there was] never less than maybe a thousand gallons of wine in

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the basement — aging just right. I remember the canning of tomatoes, for instance. I can smell the wine being made downstairs with these gigantic presses. They just went round and round and round and strained until they got every drop.

AUDREY: Were you allowed down there to watch them? JOE: Sure. Absolutely.

AUDREY: I'm trying to imagine what that was like ... was your Grandfather presiding?

JOE: No, no, no. What I'm remembering now comes after my Grandfather passed on. I just know my Grandfather was head of the family, but I don't remember him doing anything physical by the time I came along.

AUDREY: Well, he got the jug of wine over his shoulder ... that was pretty physical! [Laugh]

JOE: Oh yes. I didn't mean he was that incapacitated.

AUDREY: What did he like to eat, do you remember?

JOE: No, I don't. I don't remember. He ate what we all ate, I'm sure. I don't really remember enough to really give you a description. I used to think that he looked like the Pope -- whoever that was at the time. I remember thinking that my Grandfather looked like the Pope [laugh].

AUDREY: What a nice thing! Was he gray, bald?

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Joe's Great Aunt Rosa (Lala Rosa) c. 1910

334 Vailejo Street Home

(Looking East across Sansome Street)

JOE: No, actually, in our family we don't seem to go gray. The men get bald, but they don't go gray.

AUDREY: Was he a big man?

JOE: No. I'm actually surprised that I can remember as much as I am remembering. You kind of have to put yourself back in that time so that you can remember. That wine thing at the table — I don't think I've ever been called on to remember that!

AUDREY: It's a wonderful picture. As children, were you allowed to drink wine?

JOE: Oh, sometimes it would make the water pink. I mean it kind of gave the Idea that we were too young to drink wine, but just don't abuse it, you know.

AUDREY: Can you describe where your house was exactly? When you lived with your Grandfather?

JOE: On Vallejo. Number 334. That's the house that I was born in.

AUDREY: Do you have any memory of walking out the door with him? Going for a stroll? Did he go out with you very much?

JOE: No. I tell you, I don't know why I remember as much as I do. I remember he had a hard candy, called a caramelle, in a drawer in his room. And every once in a while it would be a treat if he would decide to give me one

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I

The Ranch - Sonoma Vineyards Joe's Father (center) c. 1921

of those. Caramelle. I cannot tell you why I remember that! My memory is just about gone. Well, evidently not ...

AUDREY: You said that every year -- Depression or not -- your family made 200 gallons of wine. Is that because that was the allowed [amount]?

JOE: Yes. At the time you could make so much wine for home consumption. And it so happened that my Grandfather and his sister also had vineyards in Sonoma. And we had a railroad track that went right through the vineyard. And they would pick grapes and send them down to the waterfront [here] and sell them by the ton. We always had ... every year they made wine.

AUDREY: You talked about the smell. Was that ... what kind of feeling does that evoke for you when you think about the smell of the wine?

JOE: I just, I get a pleasant feeling. I came to realize I had a wonderful childhood. Nothing there that I would not like to do if I ever became a child again.

AUDREY: I've never seen wine made at home. Can you draw a verbal picture for me of what you can remember about that process. Did you ever stomp [the grapes]?

JOE: Oh yes. Oh yes. We used to take turns. [The container] was huge ... well not as big as a small room. But pretty big. You needed a ladder to get into it. The truck would stop in front of the house and you'd have these lugs of grapes. And the person delivering the grapes sometimes would put a box on the pavement, so the kids could come around and [take some] right to

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begin with. Otherwise we'd be running back and forth stealing grapes from the truck.

AUDREY: So one box was free for the kids?

JOE: That's right.

AUDREY: I guess there were a lot of kids around at that time.

JOE: Oh yes. In fact there would be a ... when a truckload of grapes would come into the neighborhood, there would be like a telegraph system. They would yell "fugi" and someone would pick it up and before you knew it, just like a telegraph, and everybody would meet. That's what the box on the ground was for. If you're gonna do it, do it! There you are. Take what you got free and leave.

AUDREY: What does "fugi" mean?

JOE: I have no idea. I took it to mean a truckload of grapes. It was amazing. It would go from one to the other. And around the block, if there were other kids playing it would go up several blocks and they'd come down to get the grapes.

AUDREY: Was it considered fun for the kids to stomp [the grapes]? Did they want to do it?

JOE: Oh, I only remember that happening once. And [laugh] someone said it was good for varicose veins! I'm searching my memory like I never searched it before. I don't know why I remember these things!

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AUDREY: If the kids didn't do it, did the adults ... I mean was there another way of crushing ...?

JOE: Oh yes, sure. No, what I just described was just one of those things. The grapes would be brought in boxes and then they would have a crusher that crushed them over this press. It was all done from the front of the street to the back of the house -- a box at a time.

AUDREY: Do you remember what the wine tasted like? Was it heavy, or light? Was it all red?

JOE: It was all red. There was one family in the building that was not Italian - - the McGues ~ and they used to make white wine. The Italians kinda made fun of it. First time I ever tasted white wine was in their house.

AUDREY: You said the only family in the house that wasn't Italian - was it a house that accommodated ... how many families?

JOE: There were six flats. Six families.

AUDREY: And you all shared the wine stuff in the basement?

JOE: Oh no, no, no. I guess it came out making two hundred gallons apiece. But it was a cooperative thing. Everybody got together and just made THEIR wine. A barrel for you and a barrel for you and a barrel for you.

AUDREY: But you all shared the same equipment, right?

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JOE: That's right.

AUDREY: So it was truly a cooperative, in that sense.

JOE: Yes, that's right. There was never, [laugh] never a shortage of labor. AUDREY: That is something about that time that is so different from today - - that all the families ...

JOE: Well to say the least ...

AUDREY: Yeah, to say the least. That is a profound change. That five or six families in one house could share equipment and actually have ...

JOE: Well actually, there, it was a working class building and quite often people would come down the back stairs and instead of going down into the basement to get out to the front of the house, they would just walk through my Mother's house [flat]. I remember in the evening sometimes sitting there and we were having dinner around the table, and I just remember people walking through my Mother's house, you know, to get out to the front of the house. And nobody cared. It was just, "Hi, how are you. I'm going out on a date." And what they were saying is, you don't want me to walk down to the basement to go get out to the front of the house. It's just easier to go through your house.

AUDREY: So in order to get out, for some of the people, they had to go all the way down [to the basement} and ...

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JOE: No, no, no. If for some reason you were coming down the back stairs and you wanted to get out to the front of the house. Why go all the way down to the basement? You can just walk through Amelia's house. We were on the first floor. And we had the only telephone in the building. And everybody would use that phone. All six flats. We would be having dinner and quite often there would be somebody, you know, phoning. People didn't phone like they do now. Phoning for a doctor. Not only did they use my Mother's phone in the building. They used her phone in the neighborhood. Nobody had a phone. I told you I was better off than ... [laugh] I never knew that. I was the rich kid on the block!

AUDREY: Did you have any sense of ... was it perfectly OK with her for people to walk through the house?

JOE: Oh, absolutely! Oh, to know my Mother was to be blessed. She had no acquaintances; she just had friends. If you ever came in contact with her [tears] she was your friend. Now, I get talking like that and your interview is gonna go right down the tubes ... I tell you I'm a pretty emotional person. I don't even [remember] what I was saying ...[tape recorder put on pause for a moment]

AUDREY: Well you were saying that to know your Mother was to be blessed. And that you remember being brought up mostly by her ... Now tell me about your Father ... you said he was an amateur boxer?

JOE: He was a boxer and he boxed for the Olympic Club. Bantam weight or feather weight or some such thing.

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Joe's Father, c. 1920 1615 Grant Avenue

AUDREY: That was his hobby?

JOE: Yes. Well he was quite a sportsman before he got married. And I suppose it's no different now ... you're interested in sports and play a lot of sports and finally you get married and you don't have time for the sports. I suppose that is what happened to my Father. He was a basketball player and he was a baseball player. He was a prize fighter, he was everything that's masculine, my Father was.

AUDREY: He was also very handsome ... you showed me that picture of him.

JOE: He was a wonderful man, absolutely wonderful man. I miss him a lot.

AUDREY: By the time you can remember he had stopped with most of the athletics?

JOE: Oh yes. I remember listening to ... You see [laugh] our family also had a radio. It never occurred to me that I had, you know, people next door, people two houses away [came] over to listen to the radio. And it never occurred to me that they had less than I did. Or that they had ... it was just a way of life. I suppose that's what they mean by the good old days, you know.

AUDREY: In the sense that families on the block or families in the building could come over and share ... is that what you mean?

JOE: Yes. You see, there were no ... I would have dinner at night, I would jump the fence through my backyard into the next backyard, run up the stairs and there would be the Dinelli family. And I would walk right into their kitchen and

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then go into another room that we used to play Monopoly ... I'd just go in there and wait till they finished having dinner and then they'd come in and we'd play Monopoly. So you talk about the good old days, I think that's something, that's a wonderful feeling. And I find it pretty hard to believe that it's gonna get anywhere near being like that. Things are changing. At least I have those memories. One of the things about getting old, you know, and I am really fortunate, I have that shop there which means a great deal to me. If I were to retire, what would I do? [Laugh] garden? I just built that thing on the side so that I don't have to stoop, and for the first time I'm gonna grow vegetables. And things like that, and that's very fine. I'm sure I would be dead within a year. Instead I have that shop. I drive in every day and the car just knows exactly where to go. And I come home to here. And quite often it's so windy and cold in the City and Lucy and I will have dinner outdoors here. What more could I possibly ask for? I really mean I am so blessed.

AUDREY: And you have the best of both worlds because you have this wonderful place here to enjoy. Yet you have the action and the contacts in the City, people to talk to ...

JOE: Well, my wife [and I] we've talked about my retiring. And I said, "What would I do?" She said, "You'd find a place to go." And I said, "Lucy, I already have a place to go. Ah, that's what I'll do. I'll make that my volunteer work!" Which is just about what I'm doing ... almost.

AUDREY: So last year was your 50th Anniversary in business on the [Washington] Square?

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JOE: That's right. In September it'll be 51 years.

AUDREY: And this is your third location? You just keep moving around the Square?

JOE: Well, that theater building [what had been the Palace Theater], my first shop was there ... in the theater building ... it was a theater with a little place for a store on one side and a little place for a store on the other side.

AUDREY: What years were you in that building?

JOE: '48 to '58.

AUDREY: That was your first location? That's what you did immediately after ... when did you get out of the service?

JOE: 1945

AUDREY: What did you do in the interim between '45 and '48, when you opened your shop?

JOE: Well, through a series of circumstances I decided to become a hair stylist. I was a pre-dental student before I went into the Army. And I was mostly overseas. And I wanted to get married so badly and I loved this person that I wanted to marry, but I just couldn't see going back to college. Nowadays it's different. They go to college, they get married, they do a modern love in a garret thing. But it was different then. I had never had a job in my life. And I found that I could (I went to the school of cosmetology).

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if I went six days a week, eight hours a day, I could have 1 600 hours as prescribed by California law, and I could take a State board and I would have a profession. And that's what I did. I did not like it at all. It's just that I had or have a gift of gab and I must have done something right. Fifty-one years later [laugh] I'm still here. And still doing ...

AUDREY: So when you say you didn't like it, you didn't like going to school?

JOE: I didn't like the job. It had a stigma attached to it that always kinda hung over my head, you know. I don't know, I can't even tell you why or when, I just never gave it a thought. I wish I'd [unintelligible].

AUDREY: Your motivation, then, to change from dental school to hairdressing was because you could get a job sooner so you could get married.

JOE: So that I could get married, that's right.

AUDREY: Did you and Lucy meet before the War?

JOE: Yes, we went to school together. We went to, it was called San Francisco Junior College at the time. And I was taking a pre-dental course there. It's where San Francisco City College is now. That was San Francisco Junior College. And so Lucy and I were really best friends. You might say buddies. And when I went into the service I really missed this friend. And I just knew that I was love with her. And as it is, here we are. I told her about it by mail. You want to hear that?

AUDREY: I'd love to hear that. Four years you were gone?

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JOE: Well, I had never told Lucy that I loved her. And I wrote to her like you would write to a friend. And she would answer just like that. And so I really never thought of surviving the War. i couldn't see how I could survive. So I wrote to Lucy something called a blue letter. The envelope is blue. And that's the letter that you don't want censored by your own officers because all mail had to be censored. It was really a surprise to her. She claims to this day that she had no idea. She answered and her letter said, "At the termination of the War when we can look at things in their true perspective, we can talk about this. And in the meantime, yes I will wear your fraternity pin." And it just went on from there. And here we are.

AUDREY: So you had to find the fastest way to get married when you came home!

JOE: We were engaged for two years. I had to finish school, I had to get a job. By that time, you see, Lucy and I were truly, truly meant for each other. The fastest way to get married and not sell men's suits or something for a living, was to be a hair stylist. It was not easy becoming a hair stylist in North Beach. It was not easy at all. And as it was it got easier and easier and easier. Now some of the women I do are women I went to school with, some of them are women who I dated, if you can imagine that. And some of them I have actually done and are still doing for fifty years. So I will stay there just until I don't. It isn't work, you know, it's fun.

AUDREY: When you and Lucy were first married you lived in the neighborhood I presume?

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JOE: Yes, we had a wonderful apartment two buildings away from my Mother's house. It was nice. Someone added a floor to this house so it was like a little penthouse. We had four rooms and fourteen windows and they all overlooked the Bay and the bridge and Treasure Island and everything. That was a fun time.

AUDREY: You worked for somebody else before you opened your own business?

JOE: Oh sure. Well, not too many. My first job was at the Canterbury Hotel and they wouldn't give me time to go on a honeymoon so I quit. And the government helped me out on that because there was something called fifty- two twenty club or something, where they gave you twenty dollars a week for fifty-two weeks. I don't remember.

AUDREY: You mean if you worked for somebody for 52 weeks, then ...

JOE: No, I don't remember but when you finished your schooling, while you were looking for a job they gave you a year to find a job or something like that. And they paid you ... I really, I'm not clear on that at all.

AUDREY: Is that because you were a veteran?

JOE: Oh yes. Oh sure, it was all part of the G.I. Bill of Rights. Can you imagine I could have gone through dental college at the [government's] expense and I didn't? And I am so happy that that has happened. I would be dead if I were a dentist instead of a hair stylist. My work is pleasant.

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AUDREY: It took quite a bit of courage to open a business on the Square .. . and I guess some capital.

JOE: Well I borrowed some money from an uncle. He let me have $5,000. And I was working at the Emporium. And this shop became available, or it was for sale. So Lucy and I just decided that we'd go in business for ourselves. I had a lot of friends in North Beach, you know. So I did! And I took a friend with me as a partner. And we paid off the debt in six months. And he and I were partners for 34 years. Until it finally got to him and he had a nervous breakdown. In those days you didn't quit when you were burnt out. The only time you could quit was when it was too late.

AUDREY: How come he got burnt out and you didn't?

JOE: Because I enjoyed center stage and he didn't. That's why. I ended up enjoying what I do. Incidentally, you'd do yourself a favor if you go to that Salesian show.

AUDREY: I know. Well that was my next question. I wanted to get to that ...when you said stage that prompted my next question.

JOE: Well, you will do yourself a disfavor if you don't go to this production.

AUDREY: I will go . For sure. Wild horses wouldn't keep me away! But I wanted to get into your whole, there's so much to talk with you about, and I'm supposed to be focusing on the neighborhood. But your life is so fascinating and it's so entwined with the neighborhood that anything about you includes the neighborhood, in a way, and your descriptions There are

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two questions: I wanted to back up for a minute. One, the first apartment you and Lucy shared — what streets was that on?

JOE: On Valiejo between Sansome and Montgomery.

AUDREY: So that was on the East side of the Hill.

JOE: Yes, the East side of the Hill. And for less than a thousand dollars we outfitted the whole four room apartment including the dining room set, a washing machine, sofas, beds, mattresses, everything, stove, everything for a thousand dollars.

AUDREY: Where'd you get the thousand dollars?

JOE: I don't remember. I think we put it on a payment plan. I really don't

remember where that thousand dollars came from.

AUDREY: How much did you pay in rent?

JOE: Twenty-five dollars. And five dollars under the table because the landlord could get more for it if we weren't there and so we gave him a $25 check and $5 in cash.

AUDREY: Is the building still there?

JOE: Oh yes. Oh yes. It's still there. That's another story. The building is still there. The people who bought it kind of did it over in a pseudo Victorian style with shingles in the front of it and painted it purple. And I drive by it every once in a while and it's interesting ... I don't go by it and say what did

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they do. It's very interesting.

AUDREY: So that's the apartment you had [with Lucy]? The house that had been painted purple?

JOE: Oh no, that's the house that had belonged to my family. That's number 334. Just two houses away from that was our apartment.

AUDREY: And what does it look like today?

JOE: Pretty much the way it did. It looks, in fact, the way it did . They've done nothing to it.

AUDREY: So that few blocks of Vallejo apparently, from your early memory from when you were six or seven, has that block changed very much?

JOE: Oh yes. There were empty lots. Now every space is taken.

AUDREY: So on Telegraph Hill there was a house, then an empty lot; there were spaces?

JOE: Yes there were spaces. A lot of spaces. And now there are no spaces.

AUDREY: When did they start filling up the spaces? After the War?

JOE: Yes. Of course North Beach was pretty dense to begin with. There were a lot of spaces all over the City; but in North Beach maybe there were, as I remember, on this one block a huge lot, a HUGE lot that we used to play

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2- Year Old Joe Feeding the F"amily Goat

in. And there was one empty lot, two empty lots in the entire block where I lived. So there was quite a lot of open space. Two lots doesn't seem a lot to you, but to a little child it's a playground.

AUDREY: Sure. You said that your Father was an athlete and a sportsman and you weren't; but that was OK with him.

JOE: It was perfectly OK with him. He was a lovely man and he never ever gave me the idea that he didn't like it. Once, once he did. I came back from the Army and my Father introduced me to his tailor. And I had been a pre- dental student before. And the tailor, I forget his name, said to me, "Well, now that you're out of the service, what are you going to do?" And I was just gonna say, "I'm gonna be a hair stylist," and my Father got in front of me before I could say that and he said, "He's going to dental school." That's the only, only time that I ever ever got a hint of the idea that my Father didn't think it was so great that I had decided to become a hair stylist.

AUDREY: Now you have a whole other side of your life which is music. When did that start? Was that part of your childhood?

JOE: Yes. I grew up in a very musical house. My uncle, to this day I think he had one of the most beautiful tenor voices that I ever heard. My Mother's brother ... who also lived in the house, in the same house. We were a lot of people there, I'll tell you. We had no living room. I really always wanted a living room. And finally my wealthy aunt decided to get a new living room and so, you know, I talked my Mother into letting me sleep on the couch or something in the dining room so that we could have a living room. And I think I got that living room together like two hours before the night of my senior prom so that I could bring a girl home and go into a living room instead of a

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bedroom and a bedroom and a bedroom. So I got my living room.

AUDREY: So you gave up your bedroom so that you could have a living room.

JOE: So that WE could have a living room.

AUDREY: And she [your Mother] obviously thought that was fine too.

JOE: Oh well, in fact once you get the ball rolling, first comes in a chesterfield which ail of a sudden you have, and then the place doesn't look

good with the rug that you have, so we it looked quite presentable. And

they made draperies. It's like setting a scene, as I remember it now. I think the last time I saw that girl was the night we went to the prom. No, no, we dated a few times.

AUDREY: So this uncle, brother of your Mother, he lived in the same flat or in the same building?

JOE: Well, you know, we get time confused. When we started out my uncle was not married and he lived also with my Grandfather. So there was my Mother and Father, my sister and I and my uncle — we all shared the same flat. And when my uncle got married, he moved into the top flat in the building and took over where the Irish people who only drank white wine lived. My uncle took over that place and then we ended up everybody in the building being related.

AUDREY: Who owned the building?

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JOE: My Grandfather and his sister.

AUDREY: So your musical uncle sang and you loved his voice.

JOE: I loved his voice and I felt that I inherited it. I always liked to sing. Going to high school was, you know, I didn't go to learn. I couldn't fill out the map of the United States If I had to. I went to entertain. I got into any end of the entertainment field that I could. I appeared in rallies and sang and did a lot of things.

AUDREY: What do you remember about music in the home.

JOE: I remember him [my uncle] studying with a rather famous voice teacher. His name was Nino Commel. And anybody who is old enough to [have been] interested in music at that time seems to remember that name.

AUDREY: Was he in the neighborhood?

JOE: No, no he was not. And the thing is I don't think I ever saw the man in my life. But it seems, I don't know, to be associated with someone who had such a reputation. And my uncle did.

AUDREY: Did he perform?

JOE: No. During the Depression, he went to college. That's another thing where I see that I had it better off than a lot of people in my neighborhood. My uncle went off to Santa Clara College. I think my Grandparents were a little bit wealthy. They got rid of it long before I came, which is OK.

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AUDREY: Was there a piano in the house?

JOE: Yes. We had a, by virtue of the fact that it was so tall, it was an upright grand. An upright grand piano has a great tone. It's a funny thing, the piano is still in existence. It's been moved around from place to place as the situation with my children changed. But we still have the piano. One of my sons-in-law has refinished it and it's badly in need of tuning, but it's good for honky tonk. But right now, would you believe I don't know where it is. But it's in the family.

AUDREY: Was it your Grandfather's or your Mom's?

JOE: Well, my Grandfather bought it for my Mother and my uncle. My uncle could accompany himself a little bit. And my Mother played little things.

AUDREY: Did the family sit around and sing together?

JOE: No. That was kind of a Sicilian custom. I think if you were to kind of picture the type of Italian that all get together and sing, my family wasn't that way.

AUDREY: What did your uncle sing? Opera?

JOE: He sang opera, yes. I used to tease him. You know how nowadays rock music can really get to you? Well, in those days they had the type of music that, well it sounds so silly. But it didn't sound so silly then. There was a song called "The Music Goes Down and 'Round". And he couldn't stand it. And the only room that you could go into that had a key was the bathroom.

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So I used to sing, "Oh the music goes down and 'round, oh, oh, oh [singing] and it comes out there." He'd chase me and I'd go in the bathroom and lock the door and I would stay until he went away. There was a little window in the bathroom, and sometimes I would lock the door and then climb out this little window and he would think that I was still in there, and I would be out on the porch somewhere. Now why could I remember that? I can't imagine why that would pop into my memory at this point in time! Yeah, he sang opera. Nowadays, if you want to hear what your voice sounds like, you could speak into a little thing like you have here [points to tape recorder] and you could hear what your voice sounds like. Well, In those days you couldn't do that. So I had been singing in school and a friend brought me down to a professional recording studio and I made a record. And believe it or not, when I heard the record (they were all thrilled) I hated it. That's not my voice, that's not me. I just hated this record. And so it became a keepsake for my Mother. I forgot it existed. And my daughter picked it up after my Mother died and I've preserved it all these years. And we found someone who could put it on a cassette, because it was on an old 78 disk.

TAPE TWO

And then I heard it for the first time [in years] recently and I thought it was so beautiful. I was sixteen. I'll have to let you hear that sometime. I thought it was so beautiful. It was a young voice. It was like a singer of the day ~ Kenny Baker. I was so disappointed in that record that my friend took me down and we duplicated a record album that Kenny Baker had made. That's when I decided that trying to be like my uncle who sang "Vesti La Giuba" and "La Donna E Mobile" was not for me. Those are the things that I had wanted to sing. But I'm a lyric tenor, I'm not a dramatic tenor. And sometimes I say, well I'm a lyric tenor with dramatic qualities.

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AUDREY: Do you remember what song you recorded on your first record?

JOE: Yeah. Love Walks In. White Sails.

AUDREY: If your uncle took you down to make a record ... JOE: No that was not my uncle. No, that was a music teacher in the Junior High School that I was going to who found that I had a voice. I was studying the mellophone — a French horn ~ and he found that I had a voice. And every once in a while I would sing at a rally. Then when 1 went into high school, they had a club called the Footlights Club. You had to be an entertainer. To get into the Footlights Club you had to audition. So I auditioned with a song that 1 really loved called "Summertime" from "Porgy and Bess". And it was just right for my lyric tenor voice. I could really totally become, sing that and be Black. I've sung many things in the years past. And if you miss this weekend you really will have missed it.

AUDREY: The junior high school and the high school, were they in the neighborhood?

JOE: They were walking distance because I walked. The junior high was down on Powell and Francisco [Francisco Middle School] and the high school was Galileo [Bay and Polk].

AUDREY: So the music departments encouraged your musical talents and ...

JOE: Well 1 got so involved in entertaining that 1 forgot to learn. I'm pretty illiterate.

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AUDREY: I don't think so. You're VERY articulate.

JOE: I sang in the Church choir for thirty years here in Marin. When I first came here I was sitting in the front row of the Church and the organist played "Glory Glory Hallelujah" [laugh] and I, in those days, belted that out and, like Uncle Sam, he came over and said, "I want you." And then I got involved in the community choir at the College of Marin . And they think they are very sophisticated. We did Verdi's Requiem with the Marin Symphony. But I did that totally with my ear. I have a very good ear and I was able to learn all that music with the help of a friend from the St. Sebastian choir.

AUDREY: Did you ever take formal music lessons?

JOE: No. But I have always wanted to entertain.

AUDREY: How did you get started [performing] at the Salesians.

JOE: Weil, just about everybody I know goes there. Dealing with my friends, starting in business, I've grown very close to a lot of these women. I sort of feel related, you know. And so, they all belong to different Madonna clubs at Sts. Peter and Paul Church. And I'm Genovese. My Father was Calabrese but I don't know much about his family. I was raised in a Genovese house. So I was approached by Madonna Adolorata. That's the Sicilian Madonna. And the Madonna club that I was supposed to belong to was the Madonna della Guardia. That's the Genovese Madonna, you see. And then there's the Madonna del Lume and so forth - it's the battle between the north and south. I guess i shouldn't have said that! I joined the Sicilian Madonna club --

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Madonna Adolorata. And I joined that because most of my clientele were Sicilian. I guess I was a traitor! And it's the best thing I did. They are so much more fun than the Genovese!

AUDREY: And you married a Sicilian too!

JOE: That's right. And with that smile. . . and those two dimples, I had to have this Sicilian lady!

AUDREY: What did that mean that you joined this particular, this Sicilian Madonna club? What did that mean? Was it a musical club?

JOE: No, no. It's a social ... they have a meeting and they spend a lot of time proposing things. They have a dinner at $1 5.00 per person. And all of the money they collect, at the end of the year they give it to charities. Like The