Tonte Gets Her Irish Up!

Antonino Cuccia in Yorkville 1927

March was nuts in my house. Mom began getting her Irish up right after Valentine’s Day.  My father couldn’t stand it.  Even though he was half Irish, he acted like he was born in Florence. Which I later found odd since his Italian grandparents were from outside Palermo, off the boot. Antonino Cuccia was a shepard, his wife, Giovanna, was a milk maid.

Mom & Joan 1957

So first we got the St. Paddy’s thing going ~ my mother’s family were all Ryans.  We had a dozen family birthdays in March, including me, Mom and her sister, Joan, my godmother.  Those three rolled in one week. The 20th, 24th & 27th.  By the day Julius Caesar got it on the Ides we were ready to go.

Throw in the year round passion for our favorite three saints in all households, Saint Jude, Saint Francis and Saint Anthony. I couldn’t pass a wall in any apartment without a statue or painting of one these three miraculous saints smacking me in the head. Why these three?  My family had many hopeless cases, we loved animals and we were always losing something.

Giovanna Cuccia 1929

The only thing I ever saw Dad do that somewhat acknowledged he was Irish was put a green St. Paddy’s hat on Tonte his dog. Tonte instantly got her Irish up.

Tonte Pryor Getting Her Irish Up ~ 1977 

Our March Madness has nothing to do with basketball.

Our next City Stories: Stoops to Nuts show is tomorrow, Tuesday, March 13th @ 6pm at Cornelia Street Café. Our artists are Claudia Chopek, Joe McGinty, John Newell, Rick Patrick, Thomas Pryor, Rivka Widerman & Ward White. Giving away ten drinks. Getting our Irish up, its birthday week, bring your best game. $7 and saying "hoity toity," gets you in the door with a free drink.

Time Out Magazine  picked "Stoops to Nuts" as a darn good thing to do this week.  See link.

Klutz For Life ~ Next Cornelia Street Stoops to Nuts Show ~ March 13th @ 6pm

The National Black Theatre

Two weeks ago, I put up photographs of Harlem. What I left out was my outstanding klutz event in front of The National Black Theatre building.

That morning it was 17 degrees. I decided I needed exercise to offset the previous night’s party I had with a jar of Hellman’s mayonnaise and half a loaf of bakery Rye. Feeling tubby and cold, I walked, ran, walked from 132^nd Street and Lenox Avenue to Yorkville. Taking 145 photos along the way. At the same time, I used my phone to stay in touch with an editor at the New York Times on final changes to a story. Frozen, anxious and distracted, I snapped away until I couldn’t feel my finger tips touching the camera’s buttons.   

Injured camera, bump top right

Near the corner of 125^th Street, I took a picture of The National Black Theatre. Done with that, I fiddled my gadgets towards my pockets and ran for the intersection to make the expiring green light.  My feet tangled, I tripped so fast the only thing I could do to prevent my head from hitting the pavement was to put my arm out and yank up my spine as I hit the ground.  While in the air, I lost the camera, it ended up in the second lane of Fifth Avenue; my glasses flew off my face and bounced into 125^th Street. On the ground, I felt embarrassed and sore. Two people helped me up. But the traffic light was in transition and I had to make a Sophie’s Choice. What item to retrieve first - my glasses or camera. I figured one of them was dead. 

Tom's glasses live another day.

I grabbed the camera first, then ran to get my glasses and nearly got hit by the cross-town bus pulling up to the red light. My specs were now under the bus. Their fate was in the hands of the guy holding the steering wheel. I waited out the light behind the bus. So I could hold up the car behind me if I got lucky. The bus pulled straight out, I picked up my eyeglasses and jumped back on the sidewalk. 

I began my assessment. Coat and dungarees were torn at elbow and knee. Remarkably, my glasses didn’t have a scratch.  The camera had a nasty bump on the top of its head but worked fine. My noggin was okay because I drew my body away from the ground when I went down.  Considering myself lucky, I headed south. Two days later, my neck, mid back and lower back went out. You’re supposed to fall loose; I fell stiff. That was six weeks ago. I’m still not back to my normal level of joint pain.

When I was a kid my family’s nickname for me was “The Klutz.”  I like contact & I’m clumsy, a terrible combo. Throughout my childhood, I was on a first name basis with the Lenox Hill emergency room doctors. When she was 5 years old, my daughter told her mother, “Someone should keep an eye on him,” after she heard me fall off a ladder three rooms away.

A woman asked me yesterday if I had one hour to live what would I do. I told her I’d play tackle football at the Asphalt Green on York Avenue and 90th Street. Then die happy. 

Asphalt Green Football Field 1974

Our next City Stories: Stoops to Nuts show is Tues, March 13th @ 6pm. It's a beaut.  Our artists are Claudia Chopek,Joe McGinty, John Newell, Rick Patrick, Thomas Pryor, Rivka Widerman & Ward White. Getting my Irish up, it's my birthday week, bring your best game. I'm giving away 10 drinks. Admission @ $7 includes one free cocktail.

Tonte getting her Irish up.

Dog on 125th Street stopping to look at me after I fell.