Column: Thoughts from Dr. Joe: Nona, New Year’s and lentils
Adelina D’Allesandro was a Strega Nona, a grandmother witch. You might say she was a female witch doctor, but a better description was that she was a shaman to the people of Abruzzo, a region in central Italy.
She was my Nona, my mother’s mother. In 1906, she followed her husband Liberato to the “promised land.” There, Liberato found his fortune in the deep crevasses of Monongah, W.Va., where, after a 12-hour shift he could earn as much as $2 digging for coal to fuel the land that we would eventually inherit. On Dec. 6, 1907, the Fairmont Coal Co.’s No. 6 and No. 8 mines, where he worked, exploded.
The night before the explosion, Liberato had an unusual dream and the following morning he asked Adelina for an interpretation. Nona was unable to shed any light on its meaning, but she advised Liberato not to report for work. My grandfather called his two best friends and convinced them to stay home and help him look for a new house to accommodate his growing family. He, along with his two friends, escaped the blast that took the lives of more than 400 men and boys. Liberato and the two men were the first responders and were cited as the men who attempted the rescue.
The chronicles of my family’s history have led me to believe that Nona had an existential power. The older I get, the more I believe that reality is an enigma that is often derailed by attempting to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
I remember Nona. She passed while I was still in Vietnam. Perhaps the best way I could describe her is that she was exactly how an author might depict a grandmother in a feel-good novel. Although she has been gone for almost 50 years, she remains the quintessence of who I was supposed to be. Nona passed some of her secrets on to me and assured me that I would one day be able to affect a fifth dimension.
This New Year’s Eve, I thought of Nona. We were celebrating with our La Cañada friends, and I brought some of her magic to the party. Of the many traditions, superstitions and medicinal remedies that she taught me, there was one I shared with my friends.
Nona insisted that if lentils are the first food consumed at the stroke of midnight of the new year, one would not lack for money. It is a superstition that evolved from ancient Rome. Since lentils have the configuration of small gold coins, the Romans believe their consumption at the advent of the New Year would bring financial fortune. Before the party, Kaitzer prepared lentils so we could take some with us. For 70 years I have followed the tradition of starting the new year by eating lentils and I assure you that — although I’ve come close to it — I have never been broke.
I recall one New Year’s Eve, a dark and starless night in a locale southwest of Da Nang, nicknamed Arizona. My platoon was installing radio-relay equipment that would bring air assets to aid the Marines in the fight to control the area. Using my k-bar, I pried open a can of Progresso lentil soup that my mom had sent, and made my rounds throughout the perimeter. I had already explained Nona’s tradition to my troops. As I passed the can around I said, “All you need to do is eat a few lentils; 1971 will be a prosperous year.”
Everything Nona believed seemed plausible at the moment, but skeptics would say “wait for tomorrow; wait for common sense to set in.” But for me, that tomorrow never came.
We don’t suffer from a lack of belief. If there’s no magic within us, it’s not because it doesn’t exist, it’s because we don’t believe in it.
JOE PUGLIA is a practicing counselor, a retired professor of education and a former officer in the Marines. Reach him at doctorjoe@ymail.com. Visit his website at doctorjoe.us.
