Radio Free Montone: Fortunato's Fortress Is Gone
By John Montone, 1010 WINS
Fortunato's fortress is gone.
My grandfather or nonno, Fortunato Missaggia, built his house brick-by-brick in the early 1950s. It was a place, he once explained, to keep those he loved away from those he wanted nothing to do with. Friends and certain family members in…undesirables out.
He was almost 50 when he built it. Working off his second nest egg, the first having disappeared in an unfathomable economic crash which was never far from the thoughts of Fortunato and my, nonni, Angela.
Radio Free Montone: Fortunato's Fortress Is Gone
"During the depression," my grandmother would say, "Nat shoveled snow to make money."
My grandfather was a mason here. But back in the northernmost region of Italy his family was educated, upper middle class. Once in America he earned the equivalent of a high school degree and taught himself basic architecture. He constructed buildings throughout North Jersey, including the church in which I was married and his fortress.
In recent weeks, I have returned to the brick house in Ridgefield, New Jersey helping my brother and our wives to clean it out so the family we sold it to could move in. I always left the house on those days with my heart heavy and my mind racing.
Mostly I thought of my childhood in my nonno's basement. "The Italian kitchen," I later heard it called by realtors and other folks. We never called it that. It was simply "nonno's basement."
There was a stove and sink in it, for sure and an ample table with eight or ten chairs. On holidays it was filled with shouting and laughter and the succulent aroma of lamb or veal or capon roasting.
Front and center was the red brick fireplace built so that the burning logs were waist level. And across the room was the bar made of massive rectangular stones behind which my grandfather stood, pouring nearly frozen Manhattans for the adult guests. Just a tiny taste for the kids with a maraschino cherry. And in his booming voice he would toast, "Salut!"
He had blue eyes, broad shoulders and an opinion -- the only one that counted -- on everything. He disliked politicians and priests and let everyone know why. He was a master mixer of not only his Manhattans, but of spices and olive oil, butter and wine all of which flavored his roasts and potatoes.
In recent weeks, every time I walked down into the empty basement, nonno's basement, to clean out another cabinet or box some glasses behind the bar, my mouth watered. I know no one else was there but then I'd look up and the fire was crackling, the meat roasting and I could hear him at the head of the table, "Nixon, that crook…hah, he never ate like this," as he passed a basket of hot, crisp Italian bread.
And now Fortunato's fortress is gone.
