The Night He'll Never Forget

Bobby Rydell had arrived at the small house on Tenth Street, South Philadelphia, earlier that day. He'd been away on a long tour and he'd come home for a few quiet days and some rest. He'd parked his suitcases in his room upstairs, first thing. And then he'd parked the name Rydell for his real name -- Ridarelli. And he'd had supper with his folks and some relatives and then had gone out with some of the boys, the old gang.
It was a little before midnight now, when he returned.

His folks, in the kitchen, heard him come in. His mother, Jennie Ridarelli, was just fixing herself a cup of tear. His dad, Adrio "Ott" Ridarelli -- one of Bobby's managers now, and himself just home from the tour -- was looking through the sports pages of a local newspaper.

"Bobby?" Jennie Ridarelli called.

"Yeah, Mom."

"We're in here."

"Okay."

Bobby walked into the kitchen, said hi, and sat down at the table.

"Can I fix you some tea, too?" his mother asked. "or a nice glass of milk?"

"Sure, Mom -- some tea," Bobby said. He smiled a little.

"Did you have a nice time tonight?" his mother asked, as she got a cup.

"Fine."

"Did you have a date?"
Bobby shook his head. "No. It was a bachelor party. For Johnny Montagna. He's getting married tomorrow. To Mary Fortuna."

"Little Johnny?" Jennie Ridarelli asked. She placed a cup of tea in front of Bobby, and sat beside him. "He's getting married already?"

"Sure," Bobby said. "he's twenty-one." He thought for a moment. "It was a nice party," he said. "There must have been ten of us fellows there. And then, all of a sudden, as a surprise, Mary walked in with all the other guys' girlfriends...They started to dance...It was fun."

Ott Ridarelli looked up from his newspaper. "And there was no one for you, Bobby?"

"No, Pop."

"Well," said Jennie Ridarelli, "Bobby didn't know it was going to be a party with dates--"

"Let's face it, Mom," Bobby said, softly, interrupting, "I didn't have a date because I don't have a girl friend. I'm not home enough. I'm never in one place long enough to have a girl."

"You should have telephoned Connie, Bobby," his mother said. "You took her to a prom a couple of years ago."

"It was too late to phone," Bobby said. "Besides, she probably had another date."

"How about Mary Rose down the street?" Jennie said. "You should see how nice she's gotten, Bobby. She's lost a lot of weight."

'I know, Mom. I saw her when I came in this afternoon. She waved to me. I waved back. She looked as if she was afraid to talk to me -- as if I might snub her or something."

"Mary Rose should know better than that," Jennie Ridarelli said. "One thing about you, Bobby -- all this success you've been having, it hasn't gone to your head. I'll tell that to anybody, because it's true."

Bobby shrugged.

"Here," his mother said. She reached to one end of the table for a dish of fancy Italian pastry.

"Eat one of these with your tea. Grandma made them this morning and I forgot to put them out in all the excitement before. Well," she said then, "a wedding. Johnny Montagna.That's nice. You're going of course, Bobby?"

"Sure, Mom."
"I love weddings, "Jennie Ridarelli said. She smiled. Then suddenly she said, "You know what I can't wait for, Bobby?"

"What, Mom?"

"Your wedding. I don't mean next week. Or even next year. You're only nineteen now. But I mean when the time comes."

"Ha," Bobby laughed hollowly. "That'll be the day."

"What do you mean, ha?" his mother asked. "You'll be getting married some day, God willing."

"Yeah," Bobby said, "but I've got to know a girl first."

"And you will know one." his mother said. "Don't worry. Someday you're going to meet the right girl. And you're going to fall in love with her, and marry her. Huh, Bobby?"

He shrugged.

"Why're you shrugging?" his mother asked. "That's the way it happens. A nice girl," she went on. "From the neighborhood, maybe. Not one of those show business girls. To me they're too flighty, most of them. But a sweet girl who'll give you a home. Not even a beautiful girl. But a girl who loves you, who you love."

Bobby was silent for a moment. "But what's love? he asked then. "How does a guy know? I sing about it. I think about it -- but I don't know."

His father put down his newspaper now. "I knew right off with your mother, Bobby," he said. He looked over at his wife and he winked. "I was eight years old."

"Eight?" Bobby asked.

"That's true," Jennie Ridarelli said.

"True as I'm sitting here," Ott Ridarelli said. "In fact, I was sitting on a stoop first time I saw your mother. Over on Eleventh Street, where I lived. I was sitting with a friend and as she walked boy, I said to my friend, 'You see that pretty girl -- well, that's who I'm gonna marry'!"

"Love at first sight," Bobby said, smiling.

"Yep," his father said.

"Love at first sight on your father's part," Jennie Ridarelli said. "But not on mine. You see, Bobby -- to be honest -- I couldn't take to your father at the beginning. Not for a long time."

"Jennie!" Ott Ridarelli objected.

"Well," his wife asked, "are we telling the truth here, or aren't we?"

Bobby laughed. "Go ahead, Mom. Tell it."

"I'm only saying this," his mother explained, "so you won't think if it isn't love at first sight with some girl you meet -- you'll have to give up."

"All right, Jennie," Ott Ridarelli said, hiding his smile. "Go ahead and tell."

"Well, Bobby," she said, "Maybe it's because the other kids in the neighborhood made it embarrassing for me. I don't know. But anyway, your dad's father -- he used to own a candy store in the neighborhood. And every time I'd go in there -- boy, how the other kids used to tease me. 'Ott!' they'd call out -- your father would usually be in the back of the store practicing his violin. 'Hey, Ott,' they'd call, 'here she is -- Jennie Sapienza -- the one you're in love with!' And your father used to put down the violin and come running out to the front of the store, and just stare at me. Well, it was embarrassing. And how I used to blush."

"Yeah?" Bobby asked. "And what happened?"

"So nothing much happened for the first couple of years," Jennie Ridarelli said. "I mean, we started to grow up. We went to the same school. We started going out together once in awhile. But I never thought it was anything serious. It was just a puppy kind of thing, I thought. I mean, I thought your father was nice-looking and all that. But I just didn't feel anything about him."

"Tell Bobby about the night you insulted me, Jennie," Ott Ridarelli said.

"You mean the night I told you no-going-steady?"

Ott Ridarelli nodded.
"The way he pulled it on me, Bobby -- it was so sudden. We were at a dance. Just kids, really -- sixteen years old I think I was. And your father says to me, in the middle of one dance, 'Jennie, will you go steady with me?' I said, 'You know what that means in this neighborhood, Ott? That means like being engaged.' So he said to me, 'That's what I mean, Jennie.' And I said to him, 'No. Truthfully, in fact, Ott,' I said, 'I think it's better if be start to go our separate ways. Then if it's God's will we should be together some day, we will be. So for now you take me out sometimes and take other girls out sometimes, and I'll do likewise with you and some other fellows -- and we'll see what happens.'"

"How'd you take that, Pop?" Bobby asked, turning to his father.
"I said to your mother to forget it," Ott Ridarelli said. "I said, 'If I can't have you for a sweetheart, Jennie, then I think we should just forget each other.' We didn't see each other for a long time after that."

"Over a year," Jennie Ridarelli said, "It was New Year's Eve -- when I was eighteen. Remember, Ott?"

He nodded.
"What happened?" Bobby asked.
"I was at a party," his mother explained, "at the house of a family over on Fourteenth Street. And at about 11:30 on that night, I left. You know how it was in those days -- you had to be home with your family, girls especially, for the New Year's part. So I left. And when I got outside it was so beautiful. It had been snowing that night. And now it stopped. And the streets looked like a post card. So beautiful it was. I began to walk. And then I began to cry. I don't know why. I wasn't cold. I was thinking how beautiful everything looked. And yet I was walking and crying -- with tears this big coming down my cheeks. And then, for some reason, I turned down Eleventh Street. And standing on a stoop outside, all by himself, I saw your father. He didn't know I was coming. I didn't know I was going to walk down Eleventh Street. But there he was. As if he was waiting for me. And I stopped. And we looked at each other and smiled. And he said to me, 'Why are crying, Jennie?' I said, 'I don't know.' He said, "Do you mind if I walk you the rest of the way home?' And I said, 'I'd like it if you did.' And he walked me. And all of a sudden I knew I was in love with him. Imagine me, Bobby? Crying like that? On such a beautiful night like that?"

"You've got a few tears in your eyes right now, Mom," Bobby said softly.
"Have I?" She wiped them. "Then she said, "These are memory tears, Bobby. They're the nicest kind. You asked before, 'What's love?' Well, half of it, maybe, is not knowing what it is -- like I didn't know that New Year's Eve. But just feeling it. And the other half -- they're the memories."

"The happy ones?" Bobby asked.
"The happy ones. The sad ones. All of them," his mother said.
Bobby pushed his tea cup, empty now, aside. "Tell me some," he said.
Jennie Ridarelli laughed. "What is this -- confession night?" she asked. "Bobby, aren't you going to eat any pastries?"

"I'm not hungry, Mom."
"Ott" -- she turned to her husband -- "can I make you some coffee, or tea?"
"No, Jennie."

She wiped her eyes again. "Well, our wedding, for instance--" she started.

"That," Bobby said, 'Was one ball I missed."
His mother nodded. "Yes. But that was a happy day. And a happy memory."

"Did you have a lot of people?" Bobby asked.

"Who didn't in those days?" his mother answered. "A couple of hundred at lest."

"In a restaurant?"

"In a hall. They used to have what they called 'hall weddings' back in those days. Not catered, like today, because there were too many people to invite. But with lots of food, all the same -- all kinds of sandwiches and cookie trays, soda. wine. Very nice affairs."

Bobby turned to his dad. "And did you take Mom on a honeymoon, Pop?"

"Sure I did," Ott Ridarelli said.

"Where to?"

"To New York City."

Jennie Ridarelli was smiling again now. "Ninety miles from Philadelphia," she said, "and we thought it was like going to Europe. We were some greenhorns. Remember, Ott?"

He nodded.

"All the way up on the train, Bobby," Jennie Ridarelli said, "your father kept telling me, 'Jennie -- in New York, once we're there, we're going to go to all the biggest night clubs and have ourselves a time.' But when we got there, what a couple of greenhorns we were like. We couldn't spot a night club from an orangeade stand."

"You should have gone to the Copa," Bobby said.

"Who'd heard of it back then?" his mother asked.

"Besides," his father said, "you weren't born and singing there yet."

"So what'd you do?" Bobby asked.

"We kept going to the movies," Jennie Ridarelli said. "The same movies we could have seen in Philadelphia. And I'll tell you -- if the movie house was more than three blocks from our hotel, we wouldn't go for fear we'd get lost. A good thing the hotel was on Times Square."

Bobby turned to his father. "Which hotel, Pop?" he asked.

"I bet he doesn't remember," Jennie Ridarelli cut in.

"The Taft Hotel," Ott Ridarelli said. "And I even remember the room."

"Ho. I bet you don't," his wife said. "It's been twenty-two years. Women remember that kind of thing, not men."

Ott Ridarelli cleared his throat. "Room 943," he said.

Bobby turned back to his mother. "Right, Mom?"

She smiled. "He's right. I've got to admit." She got up from her chair and walked back to the stove. "For that," she said, "I'm going to pour us all another nice hot cup of tea. You too, Ott. It's already made. It's getting colder out. It'll feel nice."

Bobby turned his chair a little "What are some other memories, Mom?" he asked. "You said there were the happy kind -- and the other kind. What about the other kind?"

"Tell Bobby," his father said, "about the time you were carrying him, Jennie. When I was at Fort Mifflin."

"You tell him, Ott. I want to rinse out these cups."

"That was a rough time, all right, Bobby," Ott Ridarelli said. "Your mother was carrying you. In her sixth month."

"Eighth, Ott."

"Eighth. And I had a job-- sixteen dollars a week, good money in those days -- over at Fort Mifflin, the U. S. Army Depot. I was working in ammunition, shells. There were big signs all over the place: No Smoking. But everybody smoked -- in the men's room. And I happened to be the fall guy. I went in this day to sneak a cigarette. I barely got it lit when four Marines rushed in and grabbed me. They took me to the Commander. Within two minutes, I was canned. So there I was, you on the way, Bobby -- and no job. And jobs hard to get. I came home that night. I didn't say anything at first. I couldn't. We ate, your mother and I. We listened to the radio for awhile. Then your mother said, 'What should I make you for lunch tomorrow?' I broke down. I told her I got canned."

"Did you put your arms around him, Mom," Bobby asked, "and console him?"

Jennie Ridarelli was back at the table now. She and her two men were drinking their tea. "Console him?" she asked. "I did not. I started to cry."

"Your mother, Bobby," Ott Ridarelli said. "She's the greatest girl in the world, but she panics easy."

Bobby laughed. "Yeah," he said. "Remember, Mom? Only a few years ago, when I used to go to the Boys' Club, and you used to say, 'Be home at 9:30 -- or else!' ? And if it was 9:31 and I wasn't here yet, you'd go running out to the stoop and cream 'Bobbeeeeeee! Bobbeeeeeee!'?"
Jennie Ridarelli shrugged. "That's the way I am," she said. "How about the time when you were three or four years old and Goomba Vecchio, the old man, came over to visit us. Well, God rest his soul, he wasn't one to part with money so easy. But on this day he gave you a nickel. And when he left I thought you'd swallowed it, because you said you didn't know where it was. And we had the ambulance here ready to take you to the hospital, before you finally showed us that it was in your fist!"

They all laughed.

"That was all your mother needed that night, way back -- to hear I'd been fired," Ott Ridarelli went on then. "Because it turned out that that was the same day she'd gone to the doctor for an examination, and he'd told her she was going to have a boy. And she was so disappointed. What was the doctor's name, Jennie?"

"Doctor Stamm. A fine doctor."

"Never mind the doctor," Bobby said. "Didn't you want me, Mom?"

"Of course I did, Bobby," Jennie Ridarelli said. "But, truthfully, at the time I was carrying, I would have preferred a girl. At least I thought so. I'll never forget. Dr. Stamm, he put the stethoscope against where I was carrying and he said, 'Good news, Mrs. Ridarelli -- I think it's going to be a boy.' I started to bawl. When I got home, Grandma said to me, 'What's the matter?' I told her. She looked at me very cross then, and she said, 'Don't cry, my daughter. You'd just better pray to God you have a normal, healthy baby.'"

"And all these years," Bobby said to her, teasing, "you've really wanted a little girl."

"Don't tease, Bobby," his mother said. "That's not true. The day you were born, the first time I saw you, looked down at you -- that's when I knew how lucky I was. And how happy. And the day a week later when we brought you home, your father and me, we brought you to this house and put you down on that couch in the living room and you opened that little mouth of yours and began to cry -- so tiny and helpless -- I knew then that there was nothing in the world I wanted more than you." She turned to her husband. "You remember him lying on the old couch, Ott? The one with the print cover? How he cried that first day?"

Her husband nodded.

"Memories like that, Bobby," Jennie Ridarelli said, "they're the nicest things two people can have. The good memories. The not-so-good ones. That, to me, is love -- a big part of it. The feeling for two young people at the beginning, or after awhile. And then the things they share as they go through life together."

Bobby turned back to his father. "How about you, Pop?" he asked. "How would you describe love?"

"I don't know," Ott Ridarelli said, smiling a little. "I'm not a poet."

"Neither am I," his wife sad. "But I said something on the subject, at least."

"Come on, Pop," Bobby said. "You saw Mom the first time when you were eight. You've been married twenty-two years. That's thirty-eight years in all. How would you describe what you feel for her?"

Jennie Ridarelli laughed. "Leave him alone, Bobby," she said. "Maybe he's getting shy all of a sudden."

"Okay," Bobby said.

"No," his father said, "it's not shy all of a sudden. It's just that--" He stopped.

"What, Pop?" Bobby asked.

"Well," the answer came, "maybe it'll sound foolish. But for me to describe the love I feel for your mother, I'd have to tell you something that's been bugging me this last couple of weeks."

"What's that, Ott?" his wife asked.

"What, Pop?" Bobby asked.

"Well" -- he turned to Bobby -- "you know this big tour we've got coming up, starting next week? Vegas first, then Hollywood, then Manila end Japan, then Europe -- all the way 'round the world? Twelve weeks?"

Bobby nodded. "Yes, Pop."

"Well," his father continued, "I was thinking the other day -- I was thinking that I'm not going to make the tour all the way around. I was figuring that I've got to leave it in Manila, say -- after five weeks, say -- and get back home."

"Why, Pop?" Bobby asked.

"Because" -- Ott Ridarelli spoke very slowly now, and softly, and shyly -- "I know that it might sound corny, but for any more than five weeks away, I know I'll miss your mother too much. That's all. Thirty-eight years. And I still miss her when I'm away for a few weeks -- a few days!"

Bobby looked over at his mother now. He watched as the big tears began to come to her eyes again. He watched as she put her hand across the table now and laid it on her husband's.
Bobby watched. And he smiled. And as he did, he wished, more than anything in life, that he could be a man like his dad some day, and meet a girl like his mom some day -- and have it this good, too, some day.


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