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Peter

San Filippo

Born in North Beach in 1931, Peter was a well-known neighborhood personality throughout his life. As a boy, he gained local celebrity status for his musical talents, playing the clappers on local radio shows, and he was a well-regarded baseball player and boxer as a young man.

Recording:

Transcript

Transcript: Peter San Filippo (1931-2010)


Preface

The following oral history transcript is the result of a tape-recorded interview with Peter San Filippo on October 17, 1996. The interview took place at Judith Robinson’s home in San Francisco, California. The interview was conducted by Judith Robinson, an author, historian and member of the Telegraph Hill Dwellers, a community organization. This interview is part of the Italian-Americans of North Beach series of interviews that were conducted in 1996 by Judith Robinson with funding from U.C. Berkeley’s Bancroft Library. The interview was transcribed by Termeh Yeghiazarian and edited by John Doxey in 2022. Note that this transcript has no accompanying photographs.


Format: Originally recorded on one audio cassette tape. Duration is one hour, four minutes.


Attribution: This interview is property of the Telegraph Hill Dwellers. Quotes, reproductions and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Peter San Filippo, October 17, 1996. Telegraph Hill Dwellers Oral History Project.


Summary: Born in North Beach in 1931, Peter San Filippo was a well-known neighborhood personality throughout his life. His parents were cousins from a small town near Palermo, Sicily, who emigrated first to Milwaukee and then San Francisco. Peter’s father was a fisherman, and his mother was a housewife and a kind of lay doctor for neighborhood residents with health concerns. As a boy, Peter gained local celebrity status for his musical talents, playing the clappers on local radio shows, and he was a well-regarded baseball player and boxer as a young man. Peter dropped out of Galileo High School to help his father’s fishing business, then served in the Navy and later worked for 28 years at a Best Foods plant on Potrero Hill. Peter married another North Beach native, Antoinette, and raised three children. Peter died in 2010.


Peter was 65 years old when Judith Robinson interviewed him. In this interview, Peter speaks about growing up in North Beach in the 1930s and ‘40s, including the schools he attended; his father’s work as a fisherman based at Fisherman’s Wharf; his mother’s talent as a source of medical knowledge for people with young children or health concerns; playing baseball on empty lots, including the horses’ lot off of Bay Street; the neighborhood hall of fame award he  won for his prowess as an outfielder; the colorful nicknames of neighborhood ballplayers; playing the clappers as a child on local radio shows, at Fisherman’s Wharf and the 1939 World’s Fair at Treasure Island and later with the Salesian Boys’ Club; his days as a boxer and his stint in the Navy during the Korean War; the various jobs he had as a young man, including driving a taxi and working at the Bethlehem Shipyard; his nostalgia for the picnics of his youth at Marin County beaches; working for 28 years at a Best Foods plant on Potrero Hill, where he specialized in producing margarine; the wild celebrations in San Francisco on V-J Day in 1945; singing with an Army big band in the late 1940s and his brush with a Hollywood talent scout; selling flowers at DiMaggio’s restaurant during World War Two; the smells of Fisherman’s Wharf and the Crab Wars in the 1940s and ‘50s; and the proliferation of ice cream parlors and theatres in North Beach when he was growing up.


Judith Robinson has reviewed the transcript and corrections and emendations have been made. The reader should keep in mind that he or she is reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose.


Interview

JUDITH: This should be Peter San Filippo interviewed for the Regional Oral History Program for Bancroft, on October 17th, 1996, by Judith Robinson at her house in North Beach, San Francisco.


JUDITH: ...suggested you [unintelligible name here].


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: And, uh, it was nice of you to respond.


PETER: Right moove! [laughter] That’s my nickname, Moo.


JUDITH: Moo? … Um, so what I kind of like to start out with is a little something about your family and, uh, where your family came from and something about…


PETER: [clears throat] Well, my family came from a place called Porticello. [Transcriber’s note: Porticello is a located in the province of Palermo in Sicily. In following lines, Judith asked Peter about the spelling of Porticello.]


JUDITH: Port de Cello or Porta?


PETER: No, it’s Port de Shelo.


JUDITH: Spelling … D…


PETER: It’s port, like a port…


JUDITH: Yeah...


PETER: It’s Port de Shello ... it’s like a C, I guess. Cello, you know…


JUDITH: Oh … C-E-L-L-O?


PETER: Yeah, something like that. Port de Cello, yeah.


JUDITH: And what part of Italy is that?


PETER: It’s about, uh, I don’t know, 50 miles ... from Palermo.


JUDITH: Oh, OK.


PETER: Sicily.


JUDITH: Sicily, right. And, uh, did your parents come over or…?


PETER: Yes, they came over around, I don’t know, maybe I guess maybe around 1900.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: You know, from…?


JUDITH: Both parents?


PETER: Yes. My father and my mother were first cousins.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: That’s unusual … but back in them days, you know… my mother had the same name as my father.


JUDITH: Ah-ha.


PETER: Last name.


JUDITH: And what was your father’s and mother’s full names?


PETER: Uh, Joseph. And my mother’s name was Pauline. San Filippo.


JUDITH: San Filippo.


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: And is that S-A-N…?


PETER: Yeah. Just like San Francisco. Capital F-I-L-I-double P-O.


JUDITH: One L, two Ps?


PETER: Right. And two I’s. And one Moo…


JUDITH: Alright. And your mother’s name again was what?


PETER: Pauline.


JUDITH: Pauline. Paolina?


PETER: Paolina, right. Paolina.


JUDITH: And they came in about 1900 you think?


PETER: Right. Oh, yeah.


JUDITH: To San Francisco proper?


PETER: Oh no, no, no. They migrated to Milwaukee … Milwaukee. See my sister’s what, 80? So you figure when they came what? … 80. yeah, they must have … she was born … my sister was born in what?


JUDITH: Well, 1916...


PETER: 1916. So, it had to be, uh, maybe a little later than 1900. I guess, I don’t know.


JUDITH: Mm-hmm. What’s your sister’s name?


PETER: Pauline.


JUDITH: Oh.


PETER: Oh, no. I’m sorry, Josephine.


JUDITH: Josephine.


PETER: [clear’s throat] She’s the oldest.


JUDITH: Oldest now.


PETER: The youngest is Aida. She’s still alive. The other three sisters are gone. I have a brother named Joe. He’s two years older than me.


JUDITH: Mm-hmm. And so, where do you fit into the…?


PETER: I was born in San Francisco.


JUDITH: Yeah?


PETER: My father came here because he came here on vacation by himself, to see his brother. Two brothers: one was here, and one was in San Diego. But they … came here, you know, to meet him. And they told him there was a job fishing here. ‘Cause he was a fisherman. So then he took the family and brought ‘em out here. And I was born in ‘31. That was in 1930 he came out here, and I was born in ‘31.


JUDITH: Ah-ha. So you sent for your mother and...?


PETER: I guess he did, you know. And all the kids.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: And I was born right up the street down there … I was born on Francisco and Grant.


JUDITH: Really?


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: Is your house still there?


PETER: That house, I guess, is still there, yeah. [clears throat] I don’t know how much the rent was in them days. I have no idea.


JUDITH: Yeah. And so your father went into fishing?


PETER: Yes.


JUDITH: Here in the city?


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: And did he, uh, did he start out with feluccas? Sailing feluccas? [Transcriber’s note: per the Fishermanswharf.org website, From the days of the Gold Rush until the turn of the Century, the San Francisco fishing fleet was composed of lateen-rigged sailboats, called feluccas. They were built in the same style as the boats the local Italian fishermen knew in their native land. Green was the prevailing color of the tiny boats, and the name of a patron saint usually appeared on the hull … the “second-generation” of fishing boats – Monterey Hull boats — came with the introduction of gasoline engines; small but dependable “putt-putts.” The gas engine made it possible to fish more days of the year, gave a wider range for their operation in the ocean water, and provided power to haul in the nets or lines.]


PETER: I have no idea. That was before me, you know.


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: I don’t know.


JUDITH: And then, um, graduated maybe to Montereys?


PETER: No, no, no.


JUDITH: Monterey boats…?


PETER: No, he fished on the big boats. For sardines.


JUDITH: OK.


PETER: The pursingers. They call ‘em pursingers. [Transcriber’s note: correct spelling of pursinger is unknown; internet research by transcriber found no reference to this type of fishing boat.]


JUDITH: Pursingers, yeah.


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: And he did that all his life?


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: Uh-huh. And how, uh … and then what about your mother? Was she a typical Italian mother? A housewife?


PETER: Yeah, so she did a lot in the house. Sewing and so forth. She was like a midwife.


JUDITH: Oh, really?


PETER: Yeah, she knew everything about bones. This and that. [unintelligible words here] if you had your baby and you wanted to take it to some lady, you’d take it to her. She was well known in North Beach at that time. So she’d tell you what was wrong with the baby. If you needed … got worms and such. She was a ... she knew everything about everything, I’m not joking. She was one of them types. [clears throat]


JUDITH: Wow.


PETER: She did everything. Fix ya. You got a sprained wrist, she’d fix it for you, you know.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: Oh, yeah.


JUDITH: She was a real, uh, lay doctor?


PETER: Oh, yes. She’d say “hey, the baby, take it to the doctor because there’s something wrong,” you know. She knew, she just … when I had pneumonia in 1948, I came home from Sonoma, 8 o’clock in the morning, I opened the door, she opened the door, she knew right away what I had. Just by looking at me. She said, “Aspetta” in Italian. “I’ll go call a doctor and you’ll come down.” And he come down and he says “you got pneumonia.” She says “I knew right away.”


JUDITH: Wow.


PETER: Gifted. Real gifted lady.


JUDITH: Yes. Uh, and how, what year … how long did she live?


PETER: She died about 10 years ago. She was about 90.


JUDITH: Really?


PETER: My father died 1963. He died of a broken heart. Or whatever.


JUDITH: Mm-hmm. Uh ... well, then did you go into fishing yourself?


PETER: A little. But I did a very little fishing, when I was a boy.


JUDITH: OK. Well now tell me a little bit about growing up here in North Beach. Because, uh, did your family … was the life around the church? And then what schools did you go…?


PETER: Yeah, my mother was very, very religious, my mother.


JUDITH: Mm-hmm.


PETER: Very religious.


JUDITH: Active in Sts. Peter and Paul? [Transcriber’s note: Located at 666 Filbert Street, Saints Peter and Paul Church, administered by the Salesians of Don Bosco, has served as the home church and cultural center for San Francisco's Italian-American community since its consecration in 1884. Construction of the current building was completed in 1924.]


PETER: Oh, yeah. She did a lot of collecting money for the organization she belonged to. You know when they bless the boats every year? She was the oldest member. I don’t mean in age, I mean in membership. She started in Sicily when she was a little girl.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: You know. Then they had the parades. When she came here from Milwaukee [clears throat] … in fact they still do. See, we have it one day, they have them for a week. That Madonna … meaning the mother of light. [Transcriber’s note: Peter appears to be referring here to parades that celebrate the Madonna dell’Addolorata di Sant’Elia. For more information on this tradition, see the oral history of Frances Farruggia that appears on the THD website at https://www.thd.org/oral-history.]


JUDITH: Right.


PETER: Just had … it just ended. October the 6th they had the parade.


JUDITH: Right.


PETER: My godmother was the vice president. My godmother.


JUDITH: This year?


PETER: Oh, a long time. Well, she retired. She’s … she’ll be… wait, she just had a birthday, she was 98.


JUDITH: Wow.


PETER: Ninety-eight. That ain’t chopped liver either [laughter]


JUDITH: [laughter] What’s her name?


PETER: Rose Castelloni.


JUDITH: Oh, yes, I’ve heard of her. C-A-S-T-E-L-L-O-N-I? [Transcriber’s note: correct spelling of Castelloni is unconfirmed.]


PETER: Me I was a bum speller in school when they threw me out, so I don’t know.


JUDITH: [laughter] They threw you out of school?


PETER: [laughter] Yeah, get it?


JUDITH: So you grew up here in the neighborhood…?


PETER: Yes, I’m well known in here.


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: Well, I guess I still am. But I mean the old timers. Not these kids today here.


JUDITH: Did you go to school in the neighborhood?


PETER: Yes, I went to Francisco and Galileo. And I went to Sarah B. Cooper. Then Hancock, and then Francisco. Sarah B. Cooper was a school.  You know that school out there on … it’s a Chinese school now. Chinese name. That was Sarah B. Cooper… [Transcriber’s note: it appears from internet research that the Sarah B. Cooper school at 2245 Jones Street later became Yick Wo Alternative Elementary School.]


JUDITH: Wick Lo. That was it? The Wick Lo on Jones and, uh, Lombard?


PETER: It was Sarah B. Cooper School.


JUDITH: Ah-ha! I didn’t know that.


PETER: Now they got a little small thing. In the Hancock School for the little kids now. But that was a little grammar school.


JUDITH: I’ll be darned. Well, she was a famous, um, woman who created kindergartens here. And Phoebe Apperson Hearst sponsored a kindergarten here in North Beach, that Sarah B. Cooper managed. Called the San Francisco Kindergartens. Golden Gate Kindergartens. [Transcriber’s note: per the Phoebe Hearst Preschool’s website, the Golden Gate Kindergarten Association has been educating San Francisco children since 1879, when Sarah B. Cooper gathered 12 young children off the Barbary Coast streets into two small classrooms at 116 Jackson Street. Mrs. Cooper was internationally known as a pioneer in kindergarten education. The Golden Gate Kindergarten Association was supported by prominent San Franciscans including Phoebe Apperson Hearst, the mother of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst.]


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: So you went there, and you went down to Francisco Middle School, and then you went to Vallejo? Or Galileo?


PETER: Yeah. But it wasn’t middle school, it was junior high school then.


JUDITH: Ah.


PETER: Now they call it middle school. Middle for what?


JUDITH: Really. Right. Did you play sports at school?


PETER: No. No, I did not. But I was very active in sports. Yeah, I belonged to the old timer’s baseball. I did a lot of ball playing after school. You know, the Funston or at the playground here.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: You know, down here. Played a lot of night league baseball here. A lot of it.


JUDITH: Did you play with the DiMaggio boys?


PETER: Oh, no, they were ahead of me. Much ahead of me.


JUDITH: Oh, right.


PETER: Joe’s gotta be what, 82? I’m 65. Figure that one out.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: I wasn’t even born when he was playing.


JUDITH: Right. [laughter]


PETER: And I also played down there where he played, too. We all, all the kids played at … they called it the horses’ lot.


JUDITH: The horses’ lot?


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: Tell me about that. I don’t know about that.


PETER: Well, that was all rocks and dirt. And then on the side, on Bay Street, there was a night club called the “La Fiesta.” And they used to keep the horses in the back. You know bring ‘em up on the stage and everybody with the big sombreros and … That’s why it was called the horses’ lot. Well, that’s what I figured. But I think it was a milk dairy there. To keep the horses, you know, for the wagons.


JUDITH: Originally?


PETER: Right.


JUDITH: And so it was a lot that’s behind … Mason and above Bay?


PETER: No. You know where the project is? [Transcriber’s note: Peter is referring here to a public housing development.]


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: The first one, not this one. The first one. That’s the horses’ lot.


JUDITH: Oh.


PETER: And it was a lot up until … when they completed it was 1952, when they finished the projects. So before that it was still an empty lot.


JUDITH: Ah-ha.


PETER: Then the next one, the cannery, that was in a cannery, the Del Monte Cannery. You know the next project, on Francisco? That was a cannery there.


JUDITH: That was a Del Monte cannery?


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: And, uh, that’s why we call it the Cannery today?


PETER: No, the Cannery is up about four blocks. This was another one. The same company, but there was the one here and one over there. [Transcriber’s note: Peter is explaining here that there was a second Del Monte cannery building about four blocks east of the Del Monte cannery at 2801 Leavenworth Street, which was developed into a shopping center in the 1960s and is now known as the Cannery.]


JUDITH: Uh-huh. And so you played night baseball on teams and…?


PETER: Oh, yeah.


JUDITH: …stuff like ... what, uh, position…?


PETER: We played on Saturdays in the afternoon. You know, we used to bet 50 cents a man. You know, in them days it was a lot of money you know, 50 cents.


JUDITH: Right.


PETER: I was a right … I was a center fielder and a right fielder. Mostly right field.


JUDITH: And what is this award you recently got?


PETER: I guess for being a good guy. That’s the truth. ‘Cause I never graduated from school. You know, this is mostly for sports. You know, All City and all that baloney. But I guess I’m a nice guy, so they gave me two trophies, one for [unintelligible word here] and one with a baseball.


JUDITH: Uh-huh. And it was from the old timers...?


PETER: No, no, it was from the Marina Peretti … no, excuse me, it was from the North Beach Marina Hall of Fame. [Transcriber’s note: internet research found no reference to the North Beach Marina Hall of Fame]


JUDITH: Really?


PETER: Mm-hmm.


JUDITH: I didn’t know we had such a thing. How wonderful.


PETER: Yeah. It’s been going on 10 years now.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: One guy started it all. Richie Baptista. Spelled last name with a B. [Transcriber’s note: per internet research, Richard Baptista was inducted into the Galileo Hall of Fame and the USF Hall of Fame for soccer, and was a member of the Marina Peretti Group, Old Timers Baseball Association of San Francisco, and the Prep Hall of Fame.]


JUDITH: Uh-huh. And, uh, is this … and you got it at the Italian American Athletic Club...?


PETER: Athletic Club.


JUDITH: And you got it, what, in October?


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: OK. Uh … and...


PETER: No, wait. It was … I remember the date. No, that’s September 27th.


JUDITH: OK. At a ceremony, or a dinner they had, right?


PETER: Yeah. Now, if you want to ask me about some of the old timers that are much older than me, some of them I couldn’t spell their names believe me. But just a nickname, you know. Just give ’em a nickname and they stuck with it, you know.


JUDITH: Well, I understand that’s how you all identify yourselves often, is by nicknames.


PETER: Yeah. Right.


JUDITH: Well, what are some of the nicknames?


PETER: Well, if I explain it to you, I mean, you’ll die laughing, too.


JUDITH: [chuckles]


PETER: One guy was called B-alls. B with a B, B-alls. He’s gone. Then there was another one named Ginckles. He’s gone. Then Buffalo. That’s an easy name. And then, uh, Clumsy Louis. And then Niah-Niah, spelled like Na-Na. Niah-Niah. And then there was, uh, Niggy. Niggy Morino. And he’s still alive today. In fact, he’s the president of the Northern California Boxers, you know. And then there was, uh, Faccia da culo. [Transcriber’s note: telephone rings here in background; note: the correct spelling of these ballplayer nicknames is unknown.] And I’ll explain what that means in a translation.


JUDITH: Makes something?


PETER: Face of the butt.


JUDITH: Ah! [laughter]


PETER: [laughter]


JUDITH: Faccia da culo?


PETER: Yeah, faccia … face of the butt ...then there was, uh, Appy. Then there was, uh … I gotta think with all these names like, uh … Finneh. F with an F, Finneh. Coochi … And there was, uh, One-Eyed Tom. An d then there was, uh, Niggy Fo … and, uh … Surf. My brother-in-law Surf. With an S. He’s gone. God bless him, what a good guy he was. He died … without a bad habit in his life. [unintelligible words here] ... died in the water. They never found him.


JUDITH: Oh, really?


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: Fishing?


PETER: They had a big funeral for him, out in the ocean.


JUDITH: Ah.


PETER: That’s 1963.


JUDITH: Wow. Did they, was he … was the boat lost, too?


PETER: No, no, no. They found the boat, but they didn’t find him. He must have fell overboard with the boots. Lifting the trap up and he couldn’t swim. Fishing all his life but he couldn’t swim. Then there was me of course, Petey Brown. That’s my nickname. And then there was, uh … I gotta think of all these old timers’ names. Whitey Sobela. That’s another one.  Then there was, uh, Haggie…


JUDITH: [giggles]


PETER: Geez. Jocko.


JUDITH: How would you come up with these?


PETER: Jocko. That’s Jocko Montalbano.


JUDITH: Mm-hmm.


PETER: And, uh, Giggy … with a G. Giggy. He was a bartender. Martin Brown, there’s another one. Then Stinky Davis. I’m serious. I know [chuckles] it makes a … [laughter]. Uh, Stacy Balostreri. And, uh, Edison. You know, everybody had a nickname. [clears throat] I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Carlo the Gobbler. [chuckles] That was another one.


JUDITH: What?


PETER: He was a fisherman. Yeah, he’s still alive…


JUDITH: Carlo the Gobbler?


PETER: Yeah. And, uh, who else? Sam Budahballs. I’m serious! Sam Budahballs. And, uh … there were some of the girls had nicknames, too, you know?


JUDITH: Ah-ha.


PETER: Jenny the Moose. Then there was the Duchess. That’s the only two who had nicknames.


JUDITH: Jane the Moose?


PETER: Jenny. Jenny the Moose.

JUDITH: Jenny the Moose?


PETER: Right. And, uh … oh, Pretty Boy … There was Galore. With a G, Galore. He’s gone. Trying to think of the other … it comes to me, you know, sometimes, you know. And sometimes your mind doesn’t function right. Uh … Hobo. There was Hands.


JUDITH: [chuckles]


PETER: I’m serious, I played ball with them kids … Hands. Uh, K-O.


JUDITH: K-O?


PETER: Yeah, K-O. He’s gone too. Old and Stupid.


JUDITH: [chuckles]


PETER: That was Matteo. Moonie. Dodo. There were so many. It just keeps going on and on and on. These were kids that I … some of them are still alive. Uh, Charlie the Weasel. You know who Charlie the Weasel is? He doesn’t like that anymore. His name is Charlie Farruggia. He’s the photographer of North Beach. They call him Charlie Fa. [Transcriber’s note: Charles Farruggia is the son of Frances Farruggia, whose oral history appears on the THD website at https://www.thd.org/oral-history]


JUDITH: I interviewed his mother.


PETER: Right. Then there was a Charlie Red. He lived right over here. On, uh, off of Lombard. Right by the old barber shop there. [clears throat] Then there was Andy Gumps. He owned a pool room. Uh, Edo McGee. That’s … his real name was Frank Garofalo. Edo McGee. Uh, gee, there were so many … and, uh, if I can think of one more … you know, you can’t name them all at one time...


JUDITH: I know.


PETER: …your mind doesn’t function, you know.


JUDITH: Well, it sounds as though you had a good time in your youth.


PETER: Oh yeah. I made a lot of money. A lot of money. Never saved any. I made more money than the guys were making during the war. I was making big bucks.


JUDITH: How did you do that. Or can you say?


PETER: Well, I was here. I’m not … no, this is legitimate!


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: I was playing the clappers. That’s how I got started on the radio.


JUDITH: Well, that’s what I wanted to ask you. Now, tell us about that.


PETER: Well, I started in 1938. Then I met this … one of the guys, there was a waiter named Ignacias Balistreri. He’s gone. He just died about two years ago. And we became like a little partnership. But he was older than me. I was eight, he was 20, 21 already. [Transcriber’s note: the correct spelling of Ignacias Balistreri is unknown.]


JUDITH: What was his name again?


PETER: Ignacias Balistreri. They called him Nace. N-A-C-E. Nace. And we got started. We won the amateur hour … three times. I think it was three times. Then we opened the broadcast of Fisherman’s Grotto in 1939. In fact, if you want to see the picture, it’s at the museum upstairs from the Eureka Bank. You walk around, you’ll see it. Me playing the clappers with the sideburns and a mustache. And Nace in his little old hat, in back, and he’s there playing the accordion. And it’s got the writing underneath.


JUDITH: So you won a national amateur hour twice?


PETER: Yeah, a major one, three times. It was called Uncle Benny Walker’s Program. KGO. I mean, KPO which is KCBS News today. 1939 we opened at Fisherman’s Grotto, remodeled. Coast to coast. You’ll see it … when you see the pic, you’ll see it says NBC. [clears throat] So I did a lotta, I made a lotta money. Every Sunday and Saturdays I used to go down to the lighthouse, number five, and put a nickel in the jukebox and play a few fast songs and people used to throw money for me. And then we did a show with Eddie Cantor. 1939, with the opening of the, uh, Treasure Island. [Transcriber’s note: per Wikipedia, Eddie Cantor (1892-1964) was a comedian, actor, dancer, singer, songwriter and film producer familiar to Broadway, radio, movie, and early television audiences.]


JUDITH: Really? That’s right, it was Treasure Island.


PETER: They gave us 50 bucks. And you know 50 dollars was like a million dollars...


JUDITH: Oh, yeah.


PETER: ...50 bucks in ‘39.


JUDITH: And you played these…?


PETER: Clappers.


JUDITH: Now tell us what the clappers are.


PETER: They’re two pieces of wood.


JUDITH: Uh-huh. You didn’t bring any, did you?


PETER: No, I’d … they were in my car.


JUDITH: OK. And if you started doing it in ’38, then you were only seven years old.


PETER: Well, ‘38, yes.


JUDITH: Thirty-nine you were … eight years old?


PETER: That’s right.


JUDITH: And you were playing with Eddie Cantor?


PETER: No, no, no. In the same building.


JUDITH: OK.


PETER: In the same building … you know, in the card. As a … fill-in, you know.


JUDITH: Oh, I see. OK.


PETER: So I sang “Roll Out the Barrel,” “Beer Barrel Poker.” And I would say I was very talented when I was a kid … I used to imitate an actor called Joe E. Brown. [Transcriber’s note: Per Wikipedia, Joe E. Brown (1891 – 1973) was an actor and comedian, remembered for his friendly screen persona, comic timing and enormous elastic-mouth smile.]


JUDITH: Who?


PETER: That’s how I got the nickname.


JUDITH: Ah, Petey Brown.


PETER: Yeah. I used to imitate … Joe E. Brown. You know, part my hair in the middle, you know, and talk like him and wave like him. And I was only 10, 12 years old. That’s how I got the nickname. A lot of ‘em still call me Joe E. Brown. But now it’s Petey, you know.


JUDITH: Uh-huh. Well, how did you … learn how to do this? You taught yourself or did somebody teach you?


PETER: No. There was a kid that taught me. His name was Vince [snaps fingers] what’s his last name? … what was his…?


JUDITH: He was a little older?


PETER: Oh, yes. In fact, I think he saved my life. He saved my life. I fell overboard, he grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me up. I was only six, seven years old … what was his last name? Corerri! Vince Corerri. With a C. And he’s still alive. He’s still alive today. I think he lives in South City or San Bruno or someplace. [clears throat] Yeah, he’s the one who taught me. I lived on Chestnut Street. Chestnut and, uh, between Jones and Taylor. [Transcriber’s note: correct spelling of Vince Corerri is unknown.]


JUDITH: Mm-hmm.


PETER: And I used to do performing. I sang in front of the park with all full of people, 1940, ‘41.


JUDITH: At Washington Square?


PETER: Yeah. And then I put on a minstrel show in 1942 for the Salesian Boys’ Club. And I had to teach a few how to play these things. And I was the star of the show. And we traveled all over, all over the Bay Area, performing. It was over a hundred of us in the show.


JUDITH: Wow!


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: Were they mostly North Beachers?


PETER: Oh, yes. All North Beach kids from Salesians.


JUDITH: Oh! Salesian Boys’ Club?


PETER: Right. I’m still … then I was the member of the, which is right … over here, Telegraph Hill Boys’ Club. I did boxing, I boxed for ‘em. I boxed when I came out of the service. I did everything.


JUDITH: Wow.


PETER: Yeah, Telegraph Hill. They were on Stockton Street.


JUDITH: Right.


PETER: Those were the best years of my life. Dances every night. We used to dance like crazy. [chuckles]


JUDITH: Did they have dances at the Telegraph Hill Center?


PETER: Yeah. You know, the jukebox every single night.


JUDITH: Wow. So that was in the middle of the war?


PETER: No. After the war.


JUDITH: After the war.


PETER: That was in like, ‘47, ‘48, ’49, you know.


JUDITH: OK. But … you even served in the military?


PETER: Yes, I was in the Navy, yeah. 1952.


JUDITH: Oh, after. OK. I was going to say you were awful young.


PETER: Yeah, Korean War.


JUDITH: Korean, right. But, uh, that’s what you came up really making your living as, as a youngster? Your music and your entertaining. And, how large are these pieces of stick? Boards?


PETER: They’re about seven inches. This big.


JUDITH: Like a shingle? A large shingle?


PETER: No! They’re two pieces of wood, separate. You know, you get two pieces of wood here…


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: …cut two pieces of wood, and I used to put them in between my fingers and play.


JUDITH: Wow. Well, I want to be sure to see you do this…


PETER: Have you got two spoons?


JUDITH: Yeah, I was gonna say is it like the spoons?


PETER: Yes! [Transcriber’s note: Peter and Judith both talk her as they walk away to get spoons]


JUDITH: Because my boyfriend here could play the spoons.


PETER: Yeah, but not like me.


JUDITH: No. Maybe not. Here, you want big ones?


PETER: No, no, this is fine. Now listen.


JUDITH: You want round ones?


PETER: No, no, these will do … well … here I’ll show you, look. [Plays as he sings] “I’m a Yankee doodle dandy, a Yankee doodle doodle dah!” OK? You got that?


JUDITH: OK. I could do that. But you can really do it. And he also did it on his knees.


PETER: Yeah. I also used to polkas. But with these, the sound travels. These spoons don’t have…


JUDITH: No.


PETER: But don’t forget when you’re six years old, seven, eight years old, it’s a little different thing then, you know.


JUDITH: Absolutely. Your hands aren’t very big.


PETER: No.


JUDITH: I mean when you’re that little.


PETER: Yeah. But I played ‘em. They were this big, this long. Look.


JUDITH: That’s six, seven inches.


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: And, uh, are they sticks about an inch long?


PETER: No, no, This wide. This wide.


JUDITH: About a half an inch wide.


PETER: That’s it. And this wide.


JUDITH: Oh, OK, about two inches wide.


PETER: Well, not quite. About an inch and a half.


JUDITH: About an inch and a half. And about half an inch thick.


PETER: Yeah. I’m still … I still do ’em once in a while for a get together, you know. Oh, yeah.


JUDITH: I bet you’re in great demand.


PETER: Well, yeah. They still remember me, you know, playing the clappers.


JUDITH: [laughter]


PETER: You know.


JUDITH: Well, uh, so you made a lotta money in entertaining as a youngster?


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: And a name for yourself as well. Is this something that was traditional in your, in the Italian community or…? Now, Bud learned it from kind of Gold Rush days. ‘Cause he thought it was something they did a lot in the Gold Rush to entertain themselves. [Transcriber’s note: “Bud” (Gary R. Smith) was a friend of Judith’s.]


PETER: That comes from the old minstrel shows.


JUDITH: Ah, OK.


PETER: They used to play the bones.


JUDITH: Right.


PETER: But instead of using bones, I had bones, but they were too heavy for me, so I went to wood. I used to use that wood called Philippine mahogany that had that sound, you know, that tone.


JUDITH: So the kind of wood is important?


PETER: Oh, yeah. Hardwood is good. That’s what I have now, the hardwood. But it doesn’t have that sound, like a … you know when they play the drums in the Philippine islands, they make that sound?


JUDITH: Well, um, so you did that, and made a name for yourself. And then you went into the Navy. And when you came out of the Navy what was your work…?


PETER: Well, I, uh … I’ve been working on and off all of my life, you know. I had different jobs. I worked in the shipyards.


JUDITH: OK.


PETER: And then I worked, uh, I had a lot of jobs. Driving a cab. I did everything, you know.


JUDITH: In the shipyards at, uh…?


PETER: …Bethlehem.


JUDITH: Bethlehem, Mm-hmm. OK. But you kept up your interest in … the sports then? [Transcriber’s note: Per internet research, the Bethlehem Steel Corporation Shipbuilding Division was created in 1905 when Bethlehem Steel Corporation acquired the San Francisco shipyard Union Iron Works. The site (at Pier 70) is now home to the San Francisco Dry Dock.]


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: Did you sponsor teams as your, or train youngsters as you went along?


PETER: No, no, no. I just played for, uh, whoever all wanted me to play like right field ... well, whatever, you know. And then I went into boxing for about two years.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: And I quit in 1953. From ‘52 to ‘53. But I started in ’49 … at Tel-Hi. Sure, boxing for teams at Tel-Hi. We had all the fighter’s names. We used to box against different clubs. You know, boys’ clubs.


JUDITH: Do they still have still have something at the Tel-Hi about that?


PETER: No. No. It’s all gone. It’s past. What is past is prologue. Did you ever hear that?


JUDITH: I certainly did. It’s on the Department of Commerce in Washington, DC. [Transcriber’s note: Per Wikipedia, "What's past is prologue" is a quotation by William Shakespeare from his play The Tempest. The quotation is engraved on the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C.]


PETER: Uh, archives, right?


JUDITH: Yeah. Actually, that’s on archives, you’re right.


PETER: Am I wrong? See? The old man memory. [laughter]


JUDITH: Good for you. Right.


PETER: I got very good memory.


JUDITH: Well, uh, [coughs] could I just go back a little bit to your parents and why … do you know why they came to America? Was it for a better life or…?


PETER: I guess so, yeah.


JUDITH: Did you every keep contact with family in Italy?


PETER: No.


JUDITH: Cousins, aunts, uncles, relatives, friends?


PETER: No. My … They still have a lot of relations.


JUDITH: Ah-ha.


PETER: See I come from, my folks came from, my God, they’re all related. All the Crovellos, the Lococos, Tarantinos, the Aliotos… [Transcriber’s note: the correct spelling of the names Crovello and Lococo is unconfirmed.]


JUDITH: Right.


PETER: You know Alioto’s down on Fisherman’s Wharf?


JUDITH: Right.


PETER: Well, they’re from the same town my folks come from.


JUDITH: OK.


PETER: Porticello. That’s where the Madonna del Lume started.


JUDITH: Well, that’s what Mrs. Farruggia was telling me about. [Transcriber’s note: It appears that Peter is referring to the Madonna dell’Addolorata di Sant’Elia organization, whose San Francisco branch was founded by Frances Farruggia’s mother, Rosa Machi Garofalo.]


PETER: Yeah, Frances.


JUDITH: Her … mother, I guess, was also involved in that.


PETER: Yeah, Frances.


JUDITH: Frances.


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: And so, San Filippo, and all of you are … from that same area?


PETER: Most of them, yeah. Most [unintelligible words here].


JUDITH: …village in Sicily?


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: OK.


PETER: Yeah. When you see the parade, they’re all from that village, Porticello. That’s where it started, so they’re all, you know.


JUDITH: Well, now, I want to ask you something about the neighborhood when you were growing up. Was it, uh, did you associate … families associate only with people from your region? Like Sicilianos. Or was it all mixed up by the time you’d…?


PETER: All mixed. All mixed.


JUDITH: OK.


PETER: You know, and in them days, and I’m going back…


JUDITH: Irish?


PETER: No, well, no. No, mostly all Italians here. There wasn’t lot, many Chinese. They didn’t come across Broadway Street.


JUDITH: Right.


PETER: And, uh, I mean there was no prejudice in them days. As far as I’m concerned.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: But there wasn’t very many Black people here at all. They came when the war broke out. But you could on a night, a nice night, you could leave your doors open and go out, come home late in the night and nobody’d bother you, you know what I mean. [phone rings in background here] And then, I had the accordion and so forth, you know. We’d sing, we’d dance.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: It was so much fun. Had picnics with the boat. Go on the bay and have a picnic with all the families who cooked this. It was just so much fun. Now it’s nothing.


JUDITH: Really? You don’t do any of that anymore?


PETER: No, the old timers are all gone.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: All of ‘em.


JUDITH: Would you go across to Sausalito sometimes and have picnics and take the train up…?


PETER: No.


JUDITH: It was on boats…?


PETER: On the boats. In other words, you’d get on a big boat. I’m talking about boats 75 feet, 80 feet.


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: Get all the families, put ‘em down, you know. Used to [unintelligible words here] Gangplank. You know what the Red & White Fleet is? [Transcriber’s note: Gangplank Tavern was a waterfront restaurant. The San Francisco Public Library’s San Francisco History Center has a 1934 photograph of the restaurant’s interior.]


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: The gang plank? That used to be that Coast Guard building in them days.


JUDITH: Right.


PETER: You’d get on there. And then go out to Red Rock over here by, uh, Tiburon…


JUDITH: Right.


PETER: And then row in to the beach with the families, and then get on the beach and then start cooking.


JUDITH: Oh.


PETER: [unintelligible words here] back to the wharf again.


JUDITH: To Tiburon?


PETER: Yeah. It was so much fun.


JUDITH: Ah-ha.


PETER: So much fun. My mother was a … we all say this about our mom, but hey, she was a saint, too. She was a great cook.


JUDITH: That’s true. All of you say that your mother was the best cook in North Beach. [laughter]


PETER: I do the same identical thing, but it doesn’t taste the same. I mean it’s good but…


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: There’s something missing. I don’t know what it is.


JUDITH: Right. Um, so did you play largely, and associate largely with Italian families then…


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: …not very much with the Irish boys and girls?


PETER: No.


JUDITH: OK.


PETER: There were mostly Italians and then Chinese. That’s all it was here.


JUDITH: Right.


PETER: I mean, when I went to school like Francisco? Mostly Chinese and … Galileo. [clears throat] When I went to school, it was only about four Blacks.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: Four Blacks.


JUDITH: In this area?


PETER: When I went to school, there was one. I think there was about one Black family I think there was. They’re nice people, too.


JUDITH: Uh-huh. Sure. Everybody worked hard and then you had…


PETER: You know, I’m gonna tell ya something. I worked in a company, and there was about 40 percent Black. And believe me, every single one was a nice person. And I’m talking about everyone. Not a few [unintelligible word]. They were all, we all worked like brothers and sisters. I worked in a big plant.


JUDITH: Mm-hmm.


PETER: And when I see the plant now, I kinda have little tears in my eyes. I spent 28 years there. Before they moved away.


JUDITH: Which plant was that?


PETER: It was called Best Foods.


JUDITH: Oh, right.


PETER: You know, Best Foods Mayonnaise and such?


JUDITH: Sure. Right.


PETER: And they’re located in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. That’s where their main plant is.


JUDITH: Right.


PETER: I mean their main office.


JUDITH: Where was their plant here? Over in…?


PETER: Bryant.


JUDITH: Oh.


PETER: Bryant and Mariposa. Between 17th and 18th. The plant… [Transcriber’s note: internet research by transcriber did not confirm the location of the Best Foods plant that Peter mentions.]


JUDITH: Sure.


PETER: The building is still there.


JUDITH: Ah-ha. So it was a food packing…?


PETER: Right, we made margarine. I did all … I made all New Gold. That’s what my job was, making New Gold margarine. Then they had the dressing. Then they had the refinery. Then they had the shipping, the office. [Transcriber’s note: it’s unclear whether Peter says New Gold here. Internet research by transcriber finds no reference to this margarine brand.]


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: But as far as the old history that I had, that’s probably about it, you know.


JUDITH: Um, did they… then you had your celebrations, too, here. You always had the Columbus…


[Transcriber’s note: there is a break in the recording here]


PETER: …bless the boats like they do today.


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: And there was more people in the parade marching in them days. Oh, god, yes, there must have been over a hundred people marching. Today it’s … but I think they still do it very big in Milwaukee. Very, very big.


JUDITH: Um, did you play the spoons in parades and celebrations and…?


PETER: No.


JUDITH: … I mean the clappers?


PETER: Uh, after. You know, like a … you know, like a wedding or something. They’d call me to go play. My father used to carry ‘em all the time for me.


JUDITH: Oh.


PETER: It’s something I used to hate that. [laughter] You know.


JUDITH: Now of course you appreciate it.


PETER: Yeah, I miss the old man. He was a … he was a character. He was a funny guy. My god [unintelligible words here]


JUDITH: Was he, uh, did you say he was a fisherman on the…?


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: On the pursingers all his life? Good for him. Um, what else was I…?


PETER: Is this all gonna be typed?


JUDITH: Yeah. That’s the idea. And then we want to get it … we have to raise a little money to transcribe it. That is take it from the tape, type it up and then…


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: We want to make it available to you and your families and things like that.


PETER: Well, that’s nice.


JUDITH: Uh...


PETER: Put in a museum.


JUDITH: Well, it’s in the archives at the University of California’s Bancroft Library, which is a public university.


PETER: What about over here? At the museum of the North Beach? [Transcriber’s note: the North Beach Museum is located at 1435 Stockton Street on the second floor]


JUDITH: Well, that would be good. If they’d like to help transcribe ‘em, we can certainly make copies available to them.


PETER: You go … you should go up there, and you see North Beach.


JUDITH: I have … I enjoy that little museum. It’s a nice thing that he’s done that.


PETER: Sure.


JUDITH: Let me get some facts here. What is your full name?


PETER: Peter.


JUDITH: Any middle name?


PETER: Anthony.


JUDITH: Anthony.


PETER: San Filippo.


JUDITH: That reminds me of what I was gonna ask you. Did you grow up speaking Italian…


PETER: Yes.


JUDITH: …in your family?


PETER: Sicilian, yeah.


JUDITH: Sicilian.


PETER: I had to. Because when I went fishing I had to learn, you know? Because they couldn’t speak English. None of them.


JUDITH: So you’re totally bilingual?


PETER: I can still speak Sicilian very well, yeah.


JUDITH: Uh-huh. What about your children? Did you…?


PETER: They understand it. They could speak very little.


JUDITH: Mm-hmm.


PETER: My wife is the same thing, very little.


JUDITH: And, uh, is your wife also Sicilian?


PETER: Yeah, she was born … you know where she was born at?


JUDITH: She was telling me.


PETER: Right down the corner.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: Upstairs from the store.


JUDITH: Right next door to where … Ed Moose and Mary Etta live. [Transcriber’s note: Ed Moose owned, with partner, the Washington Square Bar & Grill and Moose's, two storied San Francisco restaurants facing Washington Square Park. Both restaurants are now closed. Mary Etta Moose was Ed’s wife. The Mooses owned and occupied (from 1980) a multi-flat building near the corner of Powell and Lombard Streets facing DiMaggio Playground.]


PETER: Upstairs, yeah.


JUDITH: But your children do understand some Italian…?


PETER: Yes.


JUDITH: Uh, but they didn’t come up speaking it in your family the way you all did?


PETER: No.


JUDITH: Right. Did most youngsters when you were growing up speak Italian?


PETER: Yes.


JUDITH: Did you speak it together?


PETER: No.


JUDITH: You spoke English? ‘Cause at school you spoke English?


PETER: Oh, yeah. Even among ourselves. We never spoke Italian until we were home.


JUDITH: I see.


PETER: You know.


JUDITH: But when you were home…?


PETER: My mother … my father understood just a very little English. My mother understood very good English. She could speak five different languages in Italian.


JUDITH: Ah-ha.


PETER: She knew all different types, mostly anyway. Like I said, she was a midwife. She had to learn all that stuff. [clears throat]


JUDITH: So she spoke five Italian dialects?


PETER: Yeah. Very good.


JUDITH: Are they that … I speak a little Italian, but I didn’t realize how different…


PETER: We are the toughest to understand. ‘Cause we speak with a slang, you know.


JUDITH: The Sicilianos?


PETER: Instead of saying refrigerator we say icyboxy. [laughter] You know, comical.


JUDITH: Yeah. [chuckles] Uh, well, what a…?


PETER: You know, my daddy, god bless his soul, when he had the TV on, I’d put it on a little loud he’d go “no, no, no! Too fast, too fast!” [laughter] You know.


JUDITH: ‘Cause he couldn’t understand.


PETER: No, he didn’t say too loud. He’d say too fast.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: What a character.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: Plus, when he got his citizenship papers when the war broke out, ‘cause he was an alien. And he had a job to work for the Madison Navigation. So they asked him a question at the City Hall, my sister told us. “Just one question, who was the first president of the United States?” He says, “George-an-a-Washington.” OK, next! [laughter]


JUDITH: [laughter] Oh, that’s wonderful. So he got his citizenship during the war?


PETER: [coughs] Yes. And my mother got hers later on. In fact, I still have her citizenship papers at home. My mother was a very pretty lady.


JUDITH: Uh-huh. Uh, they were not affected by any interning during the war, I assume?


PETER: No, no.


JUDITH: OK. Did you have any friends who were interned…


PETER: No, no.


JUDITH: …during the war?


PETER: No, they didn’t bother the Italians or the Germans in them days. Because the Italians … you know why? Because they were good for the economy. They were fishermen. Who could have bothered a fisherman?


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: [clears throat] You know, my brother-in-law? In 1941 he got drafted. And they sent him to Washington, and within a period of six months they sent him back home. Honorable discharge. They told him “You’re more important on the home front than in the service.” Being that you’re a self-employed fisherman. We need the fish. It’s true. And he got out. If he didn’t have his own boat, it would’ve been a different story. [clears throat] God bless him.


JUDITH: That’s wonderful. Uh-huh. What is your, uh … date of birth?


PETER: My … I was born August the 14th, 1931. And that’s a remembrance day. 1945.


JUDITH: August 14th, 1945.


PETER: The war ended.


JUDITH: That’s right.


PETER: The Japanese war ended and…


JUDITH: V-J Day.


PETER: That’s right. August 14th, 1945.


JUDITH: Right. And were you here on that day?


PETER: That’s right. This city was going bananas, man.


JUDITH: I was here that day, too.


PETER: We were going crazy. Jesus.


JUDITH: My father was a surgeon, uh, had just come off The Intrepid, the carrier … now a museum in New York.


PETER: That’s right, The Intrepid. [unintelligible words here] ships in them days.


JUDITH: And, uh, he was at the Naval Marine Hospital that day. And then my father and mother were at a gathering celebrating the end of the war, and Daddy got a call saying you’ve got to get down to the hospital ‘cause all these soldiers and sailors on Market Street are … [chuckles] beating each other up. [Transcriber’s note: Judith is referring to the U.S. Naval Receiving Hospital, located at Geneva Avenue and Moscow Street in San Francisco, that was commissioned in December 1944 and decommissioned in December 1945. The site returned to recreational usage, as Crocker Amazon Park, in 1957.]


PETER: That’s right.


JUDITH: So he spent the whole night repairing the poor guys as they brought ‘em in from Market Street. That was some day, wasn’t it? Um, and your father’s full name was Joseph San Filippo, and he was a fisherman?


PETER: Right.


JUDITH: And your mother was a…


PETER: Housewife, yeah.


JUDITH: …housewife and midwife?


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: And, uh, what about your wife now, what’s her name?


PETER: Antoinette.


JUDITH: Antoinette. And what was her maiden name?


PETER: Buselachi. Don’t ask me how to spell it ‘cause still to this day I don’t know how to spell it. B-U-S-C-C-H I don’t know, something like that. Buselachi. [Transcriber’s note: correct spelling of this name is unknown.]


JUDITH: Uh-huh. C-H … Boos uh…


PETER: L-A-C-A. I don’t know. L-A…


JUDITH: C-C-H-I?


PETER: Yeah. Two Cs and yeah.


JUDITH: Buselachi.


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: Or Buselacchi?


PETER: That’s how we pronounce it, Buselachi. You leave that C-C out.


JUDITH: And is … and she’s Italian as well?


PETER: Yeah, she’s another Sicilian.


JUDITH: I mean a Siciliano. OK. And she was born right here at the corner of, uh, Powell and Lombard?


PETER: Powell and…


JUDITH: And the building is still there?


PETER: Oh, yeah.


JUDITH: She was telling me. And, uh, did she do work as well, or has she been a housewife pretty much…?


PETER: No, she worked. She worked for the Hibernia Bank for about nine years.


JUDITH: Oh, right.


PETER: Then she worked for, uh, Crocker-Anglo. [Transcriber’s note: Peter is referring to Crocker-Anglo Bank. Per Wikipedia, Crocker First National Bank merged with the Anglo California National Bank in 1956 to form Crocker-Anglo Bank. In 1963, Crocker-Anglo Bank merged with Los Angeles' Citizens National Bank to become Crocker-Citizens Bank, and later Crocker Bank. Crocker Bank was acquired by Wells Fargo Bank in 1986.]


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: She was a proof operator. Check proof operator, yeah.


JUDITH: OK. And she was born here in the city, and you were born here in the city. OK. But your father was born in Porticello…

PETER: Right.


JUDITH: …Sicily? OK. And, uh, how, uh … and he died in 1963 you said?


PETER: Mm-hmm.


JUDITH: And you have how many children? And now you’ve got several grandchildren, I think?


PETER: No, no, not that many. I have three grown children. Ages 41, ages 39 and ages 36. And I have a granddaughter 20, a granddaughter 17, a grandson eight, uh, 15. And a grandson about a month.


JUDITH: [Laughter] Well that’s right. It was on the day we were gonna have our interview that

the birth occurred, I guess, yeah…


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: About a month ago. Um, and…


PETER: You do a lot of reading, huh, Judy? [Transcriber’s note: Peter is apparently looking at Judith’s home library here.]


JUDITH: Yeah, I do. That’s my non-fiction, and this is my fiction. [chuckles]


PETER: Jesus, wow.


JUDITH: I have to keep ’em moving though. As you see the pile over here is getting … uh, well, tell me a little bit more, just to wrap up about what your sporting life and your award was for. I didn’t quite understand it. Were you like Dante Benedetti, did you manage teams?


PETER: No, no.


JUDITH: You were a player?


PETER: I was a player. But I just happened to be a, uh, good guy, you know. ‘Cause I’m well-known in this area.


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: You know, in my time, you know, well-known.


JUDITH: Uh-huh. Well, that’s great.


PETER: That’s why they gave me the award.


JUDITH: So you’re in the Hall of Fame?


PETER: Yes. They didn’t give it to me because I was All City. ‘Cause I was never, I never graduated from school. Just that I played a lot of ball down the playground. And they made a little comedy thing about it, too. And everybody laughed at the thing, you know. Saying “my God, look at this. Galileo High School and 10 colleges!”


JUDITH: [laughter]


PETER: You know, “then he was a champion crab picker down the Wharf?”


JUDITH: [laughter]


PETER: You know, people laughed, you know.


JUDITH: [laughter] So you never graduated from high school?


PETER: No.


JUDITH: OK.


PETER: I went to work for my father. You know, my father fishing.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: It was pretty bad in them days. [clears throat] Tough, you know. My father was sick, you know, and he couldn’t fish. Then he got a little well. But then as he got well, then the fishing kind of went down the tubes.


JUDITH: Oh, that’s too bad. So there were how many children in your … siblings again? How many brothers and sisters did you have?


PETER: Well, seven [unintelligible word here.] But there were seven.


JUDITH: Seven children?


PETER: Right. Five girls, two boys.


JUDITH: OK. Wow. And did … what about your own children? Were they … did they go on to college or … did they graduate from high school?


PETER: Yeah. Just two of ‘em. One didn’t. Two of ‘em graduated … one graduated from college. Two years, hotel restaurant managing.


JUDITH: OK.


PETER: And the other one is, uh, she’s an underwriter for an insurance company now.


JUDITH: OK.


PETER: That’s the one who just had the baby.


JUDITH: Oh, really? OK.


PETER: Very smart.


JUDITH: Mm-hmm.


PETER: They’re smart. The other two are the dumb ones.


JUDITH: Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Alright, uh, is there … are there any other things that were extracurricular activities that you have enjoyed and participated in in your life? Were you … are you and your wife active in the church…


PETER: No.


JUDITH: …or the Salesian Boys’ Club or Athletic Club or…?


PETER: No. Nothing at all, no.

JUDITH: OK. But you still retain an interest in and participate in…?


PETER: Oh, yeah. If they need me to play … like last year at the Salesian Boys’ Club reunion they asked me to play the clappers, I said “sure.”


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: I went up on the stage and played the clappers, with accordion.


JUDITH: Oh, in their variety show?


PETER: Yeah. Well, that was alright, you know. I don’t mind doing that for the guys, you know.


JUDITH: Right. OK. Uh, can you suggest any other, uh, people who might be interesting for us to add to this, uh, account of the city? If you do let me know because I’m happy to…


PETER: Oh, yeah.


JUDITH: …to do that.


PETER: If I can get anybody …  I’ll think. Let me think and then I’ll … I’ll get your phone number and have them call you, Judy. [Transcriber’s note: here Peter is offering to help Judith find other people who might be interested in doing oral history interviews.]


JUDITH: If you have any copies or … of your, uh, that you’d like to put in with this history about your years playing with the clappers as a … you know, any pictures of you in the newspaper or articles about you.


PETER: Yeah, I do. I have a few at home.


JUDITH: If … you’d like at some point to either lend them to me to copy, or copy them and just send them to me, we’d put them with the story. Uh, because I think it adds more to the…


PETER: Well, I have a writing it’s about this long…


JUDITH: Yeah?


PETER: And it’s in a magazine that’s no longer existent. It’s called the Hollywood Nightlife.


JUDITH: Ah-ha.


PETER: And in the front of it it’s a guy named Marion Morrison. John Wayne. And in the back is a picture of Frankie Laine. Some guy from Hollywood came up, you know, on vacation and I … happened to be singing down at the Wharf. I was an entertainer, you know. Singing! That’s what I did, too, you know? Singing with a big band… [Transcriber’s note: The actor John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in 1907. Frankie Laine, born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio, was an American singer and songwriter whose career spanned nearly 75 years, ending in 2005.]


JUDITH: Oh?


PETER: And he happened to spot me, and I sang a few songs, you know. And he put me down. He says “Maybe he’ll get a break.” But it never happened, you know. 1947.


JUDITH: Wow. So you … you were a vocalist as well?


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: You’re a natural…


PETER: I have a very good voice. [there is a break in the recording her] No baloney, I’m not kidding. I sang them modern standards. But never got a break. I don’t sing anymore, you know.


JUDITH: Uh-huh. And you sang with bands and…?


PETER: I sang with the Army Presidio dance band. They had about 14, 15 pieces. 1947.


JUDITH: Wow.


PETER: They gave me 30 bucks for that. That was a lot of money then.


JUDITH: Sure. Well, good for you. You’ve got some kind of natural, musical…


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: Do any of your children carry on these, uh, clappers or traditions?


PETER: No.


JUDITH: They didn’t learn them, huh?


PETER: Nah.


JUDITH: Well, you better start teaching one of those grandchildren.


PETER: Nah. I think that’s past history.


JUDITH: [laughter] Well, I certainly would like to see you play them next time. I’ll have to keep an eye out for when you’re…


PETER: Oh, yeah. I don’t play ’em good like I used to because hey [unintelligible word here]. You know what that means? The old … you know, my arm. I could play … when I was a kid, I could play all night and … never got tired. Today, if I play a couple songs my arm gets, like it’s gonna’ fall off.


JUDITH: What’s that Italian expression you used?


PETER: Vecchio?


JUDITH: Oh, the life, or the way? Kayo? V … via kayo? [Transcriber’s note: Peter appears to be using a Sicilian expression that includes the words vecchio (old) and brutto (ugly/nasty).]


PETER: Vecchio. That means old. The vecchio brutto. Brutto. [laughter] That’s an expression. See we speak with a slang, you know?


JUDITH: Yeah. That’s wonderful. Alright. Do you know Mr. Tom Cara across the street? He owns the blue building right across the street. [Transcriber’s note: Together with his wife, Mary, Thomas Cara opened a shop in 1946 that sold espresso machines, coffee bean grinders, kitchen equipment and other items. The first location of Thomas Cara Ltd. was at the intersection of Grant and Green streets in North Beach, and the business eventually relocated to 517 Pacific Avenue in Jackson Square. The business is now closed.]


PETER: No, I don’t think so.


JUDITH: He’s been around for many years. He’s often using things like … Italian expressions like “pick up your feet” in Italian.


PETER: Yeah. Well, you see I wouldn’t understand him … his language too much.


JUDITH: Oh, that’s right, he’s Piemontese. [Transcriber’s note: Judith seems to be explaining that Thomas Cara is from Piedmont, a region of northwest Italy.]


PETER: Yeah, they don’t understand us, for sure.


JUDITH: [laughter]


PETER: The Sicilians, you know. The mafiosi.


JUDITH: Oh…


PETER: The Cosa Nostra.


JUDITH: Was there any mafiosi here in the city that you knew?


PETER: I don’t think so.


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: In fact, there isn’t any today that I know of.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: I haven’t seen any. I don’t think there was any in this area alone. Maybe in San Jose. Or maybe, uh, San Diego. I don’t know. But … not up here.


JUDITH: Did you know the DiMaggio family, uh, even though Joe was older?


PETER: I knew Joe. I knew Tom, the businessman. I knew Mike the fisherman, he drowned. He drowned. I didn’t know Vince. I knew Dom, I met Dominic a few times. But I knew Tom more. ‘Cause I used to go to his restaurant, you know. ‘Cause I sold flowers, too, during the war. [Transcriber’s note: Dominic DiMaggio, nicknamed "The Little Professor," was a Major League Baseball player who played his entire 11-year baseball career for the Boston Red Sox. Dom was the younger brother of Joe DiMaggio and Vince DiMaggio, who were also major league center fielders.]


JUDITH: Tom owned the restaurant down on the Wharf?


PETER: Yeah, he was the manager of the restaurant.


JUDITH: Manager?


PETER: Yeah, Tom DiMaggio’s. Uh, it was DiMaggio’s then. [Transcriber’s note: In 1937, the DiMaggio family opened a restaurant at Fisherman’s Wharf called Joe DiMaggio’s Grotto. Joe’s older brother Tom managed the restaurant.]


JUDITH: DiMaggio’s?


PETER: It was called Joe DiMaggio’s … then he changed the name to DiMaggio’s. [coughs] Then during the war it became a night club. Chorus girls and everything. [clears throat] Yeah, I used to go in there and sell my flowers.


JUDITH: Ah-ha!


PETER: Fisherman’s Wharf. Was Fisherman’s Wharf. Now … now they use it to sell T-shirts. It doesn’t smell like fish.


JUDITH: No, it’s not a wharf anymore.


PETER: It’s business. It’s no more tradition like there used to be when I was a kid. You could be two blocks away and smell … just the smell … the cooking the shrimp and everything…


JUDITH: Ah…


PETER: Well, in them days they cooked, the boilers had … they used to call ’em boilers. They had the wood in them most of ‘em, you know, from the lumberyard. There was a lumberyard right across the street from the restaurants.


JUDITH: Ah-ha!


PETER: Do you know where the Longshore Hall was? Is? [Transcriber’s note: Peter appears to be referring to the Longshoremen’s Hall located at 400 North Point Street. The building was constructed in 1959. Peter appears to be saying there was a lumberyard on this site before the current Longshoremen’s Hall building was constructed.]


JUDITH: Yeah, right.


PETER: Well, that was the big lumberyard.


JUDITH: Ah!


PETER: And then the small lumberyard. If they needed a certain wood, they’d ship it over, you know, on a wagon. Right down where the, uh, right across the street where the parking lot is at Fisherman’s Wharf. Right there.


JUDITH: Ah-ha.


PETER: You know where that big wheel is? Guy and the boat. The big, big one? Says Fisherman’s Wharf on it?


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: Well, that was the … that was the old, uh, lumberyard. The small one.


JUDITH: I’ll be darned.


PETER: We used to pick up all them knots and put ‘em in the boiler, you know, underneath the fire them to make them cook.


JUDITH: Ah-ha! And, so, they … were steaming the, uh, the shrimp and the crab and the…


PETER: Right.


JUDITH: …selling them for the restaurants and stuff? Or to people?


PETER: Sell ’em to the public.


JUDITH: Ah-ha.


PETER: See down there … were fish markets.


JUDITH: Right.


PETER: Like the first one, Guardino’s, were the Excelsior Fish Market. I know that was my brother-in-law’s place. [Transcriber’s note: Peter is explaining that a fish market named Excelsior Fish Market existed at what is now the location of Guardino’s restaurant at 2815 Taylor Street.]


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: And then next store they sold fish. Then, uh, Alioto’s had fish counters where they sold fresh fish. With the ice on ’em. Crabs. They had the crab wars. Four for a dollar, five for a dollar.


JUDITH: [Laughter]


PETER: They didn’t sell ’em by the pound, they sold them by the size. You could buy a jumbo crab … a jumbo crab this big, you could buy it for 25 cents in them days. Now they cost you about 18 dollars.


JUDITH: Right.


PETER: Eighteen bananas.


JUDITH: That’s amazing. Uh, and so they sold to the public and the restaurants and so … and literally when the boats came in, they had fish…?


PETER: They used to have cars for dining, you know, for train service? You could buy a cocktail and a clam chowder for less than a dollar. And if they left you 15 cents tip that was big.


JUDITH: Wow.


PETER: And sometimes in a day, if you say you parked here, right, you parked here, like diagonal, and you went over there to buy something, they used to put spikes in your tires. [laughter] They were bad, you know. They used to cut each other’s throat.


JUDITH: They, the, uh … the competitors…


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: …the competition?


PETER: Oh, they were bad.


JUDITH: Oh. So if you parked in front of one market and went and patronized the other one, you might come back and find a flat tire.


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: [laughter] I love it. Well, you’re right, it’s not the same now. But that’s why it’s so good to hear and get the flavor of what it was like then.


PETER: So much fun. You know, the thing is, see the kids today … not in my time. We had things to do, we used to go the playground. Or go to the club. Or go to the creameries. We used to have an ice cream that … they had five creameries in the radius of six blocks. Five of ’em! There’s one over there, right on top of … there was three up on Stockton. Wait, one, two, three. One, two, three, there was four! From Stockton and Broadway up all the way up to Lombard. No, not Lombard. Was it Greenwich? Yeah, Greenwich. There was four! There was the Cream Cup, there was Hogan’s, there was, uh, Athens and Splendid’s.


JUDITH: [laughter]


PETER: There was Rosalie’s over here.


JUDITH: Cream Cup, Hogan’s, something and Splendid’s?


PETER: Splendid’s and, uh, Athens.


JUDITH: Athens, right.


PETER: Splendid’s and Athens were, excuse me, were two Greek places. You know, they were run by the Greeks. But they were creameries, you know. We used to call ’em creameries ‘cause, you know, ice cream…


JUDITH: Right.


PETER: …Banana split, you know? Sundaes.


JUDITH: And what was the last one, Rosie’s?


PETER: Rosalie’s.


JUDITH: Rosalie’s.

PETER: On Grant. You know that place called Buca?


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: Giovanni?


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: That was Rosalie’s.


JUDITH: Really?


PETER: [clears throat] That was an old jukebox. They had a jukebox in there, play all the songs, kids used to dance in there.


JUDITH: Wow. So you…?


PETER: You know that … you know on Lombard…?


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: Right here, on this street here. You know those apartments, you know where that Jack’s … what do they call it? Fred’s, Freddie’s? [Transcriber’s note: Peter is referring to Freddie’s Sandwiches at 300 Francisco Street.]


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: Well, across the street there’s those apartments there where the garage is?


JUDITH: Right.


PETER: That was the Crystal Palace Swimming Pool. [Transcriber’s note: Per Wikipedia, the Crystal Palace Salt Water Baths, located at 775 Lombard Street, opened in 1924. The name was changed to the Crystal Plunge in 1933. The Crystal pool held about 300,000 gallons of salt water which was pumped in from a pier near Fisherman's Wharf. The facility closed in 1956.]


JUDITH: Oh! Tell me more about that. I’d love hearing about that.


PETER: And then upstairs there was a dance hall, North Beach Teenage Center. Then right next door was a grocery store, on the corner. And then there was, uh, a pharmacy that became into a restaurant. They made a restaurant out of it.


JUDITH: Ah-ha.


PETER: That’s where Ann Curtis … she learned to swim. She won four gold medals in 1948. [Transcriber’s note: Ann Curtis was born in San Francisco and trained under legendary swimming coach Charlie Sava at the San Francisco Crystal Plunge swimming club. At the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, Curtis won two gold medals and one silver medal.]


JUDITH: Wow.


PETER: Ann Curtis, I knew her. I used to watch her swim every day. Of course, being a good swimmer myself, learned down the Wharf.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: There were so many things…


JUDITH: You were a good swimmer. You swam in the water in the pool?


PETER: Oh, yeah, sure! I used to fall overboard all the time, so I had to learn how to swim. [laughter]


JUDITH: [laughter]


PETER: But the Fisherman’s Wharf of yesterday was so much fun. Not like it is today, all business.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: They had dances out in the street, you’d get drunk.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: Fun. [unintelligible word here] who’s playing the accordion. A lot of fun, my god … You know what the fun was? Messing with the kids, their fathers were all fishermen. They’d be down the pier, down the pier where Scoma’s restaurant is, and watch all the boats go out at night and wave to your father. “Bye, Papa. See you tomorrow morning.” And they used to come in the next day, you know, with their loads, and go to the cannery, and unload. That was a lot of fun.


JUDITH: Wow. Where was the cannery then? Right down here.


PETER: There was one here. And then they moved to Third Street. F.E. Booth, that was the name of the cannery. F.E. Booth.


JUDITH: F.E. Booth?


PETER: Yeah, F.E. Booth, yeah. [Transcriber’s note: per Wikipedia, F. E. Booth was a canning company started by Frank E. Booth in 1895. The company had fish, fruit and vegetable canneries in California. The company initially canned sardines in Monterey. Booth was the first to mechanize the canning project, and the first to hire Sicilian fishermen.]


JUDITH: And so you’d go to the cannery and watch … your dad’s boat come in and unload?


PETER: Yeah, yeah, he comes right over and give us a ride back with the boat, you know.


JUDITH: Oh!


PETER: And they’d cook on the boat, and then who’d sing and who’d played the … I’d play the clappers, who’d play the accordion … even then … the Slavonians would come down the sardine season. And I got to know a lot of ‘em. Cause I used to sell a lot of ’em some of the papers. They all…


JUDITH: Slavonians?


PETER: Slavonians, yeah. They were good fishermen, boy I tell ya.


JUDITH: They came down from where?


PETER: Tacoma, Washington. Or San Pedro, you know. Or Ketchikan, Alaska. All the way down here, to fish the Sardine season.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: There’d be about four, five hundred boats all around the docks. Big boats, 85, 86 feet, 90 feet. Big boats!


JUDITH: Oh, I have goose bumps.


PETER: Yep, biggy boats.


JUDITH: So … you’d hop on the boat, get a ride from the Wharf to the cannery and…?


PETER: Yeah and back. Just take a ride, you know.


JUDITH: With your dad or…?


PETER: In them days they used to pay cash, you know. They used to get money on the table and they’d go “five to you. Five.” 12 guys! And there’s change left here, “give it to the kid.” [laughter] I got a quarter or 35 cents. But that’s money! You could go to a show for god’s sake for 15 cents!


JUDITH: So the cannery would pay the, uh, fishing boat owner in cash.


PETER: Yeah. I think it was cash. No, wait, it was … it was check. But they cashed it and then they gave … they spread it all out.


JUDITH: I see. Then the fisherman would pay out their crew and their…?


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: That wasn’t much money, you know. They were only getting 10 dollars a ton. So what can they get, you know? Ten dollars a ton. Then when the war was … during the war, the middle of the war, they were giving the fishermen a hundred dollars a ton. But there was no fish. They couldn’t find any no more, you know...


JUDITH: Really?


PETER: Yeah, they were all gone.


JUDITH: It was already fished out?


PETER: No, it just … they just disappeared. Look at Francisco School. Jesus, I haven’t seen that in years.


JUDITH: [laughter] Yeah, I can hear the children at … coming up to the playground. And then at three o’clock they’re let out. All… [Transcriber’s note: Peter and Judith are referring here to students on the playground at Francisco Middle School, which is located at 2190 Powell Street and within view of Judith’s home.]


PETER: Yeah. Jesus, what a nice view you got.


JUDITH: Yeah, it is. But I surely wish there were more boats in it. So … but other things you did as a kid, you went to the … there was a movie theater up there, right? You went to the movies for a nickel or…?


PETER: A dime. Right here. You know they’re tearing down that show there, the Pagoda?


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: That was the Palace Theater. First it was the Milano. Then on Broadway, you know the Bank of America in the corner? That before my … that was the old Fly Theater. But the greatest show of ‘em all was the Acame. The free house, all the guys, all he fishermen, everybody used to go there. For a dime. [Transcriber’s note: Internet research by transcriber found no reference to the Fly or Acame theaters in North Beach. Correct spelling of Acame is unknown]


JUDITH: What was that?


PETER: The Acame. They used to call it, the Italians, they … but it was called the Acame Theater. A little free house, you know?


JUDITH: Girls?


PETER: No, no, no, no! Nothing. Just a show, you know. The cartoons and the cowboys…


JUDITH: OK.


PETER: …and the serials. You pay a dime to get in and you open a back door, and about 20 guys were in. [laughter]


JUDITH: Snuck in?


PETER: Yeah, you pay 10 cents and come out with a dollar’s worth of fleas. Whoa!


JUDITH: [laughter]


PETER: [laughter] Those were good days. Yeah. Threw bottles at the screen. [laughter] The Acame.


JUDITH: Came out with a dollar’s worth of fleas. [laughter]


PETER: [laughter] Oh, we had so much fun in that show. And the Verdi Theater across the street. I won the amateur hour about three times.


JUDITH: What was the name of that?


PETER: The Verdi Theater.


JUDITH: Verdi. V-E-R-D-I? Verdi.


PETER: Right. They had the, uh, the amateur hour. Then they had … so they had the bingo with a big wheel and called it Screeno. And they had the stars on the wall, and you picked a star, it could be a dollar, could be five, could be 10. Fun. Oh, and then the old Palace Theater? Every Monday night they’d have Dishes Night. They’d give out dishes on a coupon, you know. They give things away. In fact, I won the amateur night up there, too, on a … in their show. One guy beat me out. He played the saw. You know the saw with the…?


JUDITH: Oh, the saw, yeah.


PETER: [laughter]


JUDITH: And they’d give a set of dishes or something?


PETER: Yeah, right.


JUDITH: [laughter]


PETER: That was funny, my god...


JUDITH: Oh.


PETER: Guys wanted to kill you for a dollar.


JUDITH: That’s for sure … Well, you’ve got a lot…


PETER: Let me show you something. Come here.


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: Now as you look up there, see where all … all the pink is? All those pink places?


JUDITH: Yeah, those are the new ones, where the Safeway was.


PETER: Right. Now, up there, you see that white house with two windows?


JUDITH: Yes.


PETER: That’s where I lived.


JUDITH: Now?


PETER: No, no, no.


JUDITH: Oh, you lived there?


PETER: 19…


JUDITH: Columbus?


PETER: …during the war. That’s Chestnut.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: Chestnut by Jones.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: At 756 Chestnut. I still remember the address, right there.


JUDITH: Yeah. There are a lot of Italians that live at that corner still.


PETER: Yeah. And up … you see the apartment house on the corner?


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: That was owned by the La Rocca family.


JUDITH: Oh, right. Who owned the restaurant? [Transcriber’s note: La Rocca's Corner has been open at Columbus and Taylor since 1934.]


PETER: They were very good friends of Jimmy Durante ‘cause I’ve seen him one time coming and going up the house. Jimmy Durante. [Transcriber’s note: per Wikipedia, the comedian, actor and singer Jimmy Durante’s “distinctive gravelly speech, comic language-butchery, jazz-influenced songs and prominent nose” helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s. He was born in New York City to immigrant parents from Campania, Italy.]


JUDITH: Really? Jimmy Durante went to the La Rocca house?


PETER: Oh, yeah … Gee, I admire your big kitchen. You cook here, too, huh?


JUDITH: Uh-huh.


PETER: Gee, if I cooked here, you could smell the whole joint, all over the place.


JUDITH: Are you a good cook?


PETER: I think I am.


JUDITH: But not quite as tasty as your mother’s?


PETER: Well, yeah, you know. [laughter] But I’m saying I just did everything, you know?


JUDITH: Did you…?


PETER: I make Cioppino, I make meatballs, I make this, I make that, you know. You’re like me, you’re a wine drinker.


JUDITH: Uh-huh. You cook, uh, meatballs, cioppino? Do you cook, uh, do you make your own pasta?


PETER: No. No.


JUDITH: Uh-huh.

PETER: But I’m a very clean cook. That’s number one that I learned.


JUDITH: From your mom?


PETER: Oh, yes. You gotta be clean when you cook. Especially when you go to these schools. Oh, boy. You see these guys on TV they’ve got the ring. You know, the ring got bacteria on it.


JUDITH: Sure.


PETER: Outski. We say outski. That means … it’s an expression. Out! Wear … wear gloves. They make, mix it with their hands. What are you doing there? Hey, I wash my hands a million times before I start cooking.


JUDITH: Absolutely. You knew. Your mother knew. She taught you well.


PETER: She sure did.


JUDITH: Do you cook traditional Sicilian…?


PETER: Hey, you. Do you pay the rent here? Get out! [Laughter] The fly here. [Laughter]


JUDITH: The fly, yeah. [Transcriber’s note: Judith and Peter are encouraging a fly to leave Judith’s kitchen.]


PETER: Don’t pay rent, then get out. [laughter]


JUDITH: Get him out. Right, open that window and let him out. [chuckles] That one won’t open.


PETER: Which one? This one?


JUDITH: That one might … it might go out there sometimes. [chuckles] Does he pay the rent here?


PETER: Get outta here, ya bum.


JUDITH: Well, now this house was, uh, Tom Cara says it was called the Lombardi House.


PETER: This one here?


JUDITH: Did you know people named Lombardi who lived along…?


PETER: Lombardi?


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: There were a lot of Lombardis...


JUDITH: OK, well they all lived in this house. They built the house after the earthquake.


PETER: Yeah, Lombardis. There’s so many of ‘em. I think they’re kinda Toscanos? … I don’t know what nationality they are. In fact, I had a brother in law named Lombardi, but I don’t know what kind of Italian he was.


JUDITH: Ah-ha. [laughter] … OK. Well, those are good memories, and I’m so glad to have those images. Now when I walk down North Beach streets, I’ll have more to fill my…


PETER: Oh, yes, definitely, you know. Well, I look you’re … reading all these books? I would.


JUDITH: No.


PETER: I used to do a lot of reading.


JUDITH: Yeah? What kind of reading do you like?


PETER: Well, I used to read mostly history.


JUDITH: Yeah.


PETER: History of this country and a lot of countries, you know.


JUDITH: Well, there’s plenty more.


PETER: You sure get the sun in here.


JUDITH: I get a lot of sun, 360 degrees. See that picture up there, Mr. San Filippo? Do you … do you think that’s a real photograph? And it looks like it has a wide haul boat in it. There in the front.


PETER: Right here? [Transcriber’s note: Judith and Peter are looking at pictures on the walls of Judith’s home here.]


JUDITH: Yeah. Or no, the one on the left. Is that a wide haul? That rowboat?


PETER: Yeah, this is a sailing ship here.

JUDITH: Yeah. Did you know guys who … used wide hauls? Did you…?


PETER: No. My father went one time with a … with a ship like this to Alaska.


JUDITH: He did?


PETER: Oh, yeah.


JUDITH: Like the Balclutha. [Transcriber’s note: Balclutha is a three-masted, square-rigged ship that was built in 1886 and is currently preserved at the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park.]


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: She was an Alaska packer fishing boat.


PETER: This is 1932, ‘33 he went.


JUDITH: Right. Might have been on the Balclutha…


PETER: Then it landed on the Pier 17. Took him about … two months to get up there, you know.


JUDITH: Ah-ha.


PETER: When he went in the ‘40s, then it was airplanes. What a difference, huh?


JUDITH: Really. But he did go on a sailing ship?


PETER: Yeah.


JUDITH: A three-master? … Did he ever talk about the days when there was still Shanghaiing around here?


PETER: No. No. That was before my father’s time, you know.


JUDITH: Right. It was pretty much dying out at the turn of the century.


PETER: Oh, yeah.


JUDITH: But it went on until the 1920s, when the sailing ships were still going.


PETER: Oh, yeah.


JUDITH: So your dad must have gone to a lot … well, you said he went in 1931?


PETER: Yeah, he went in ’30. 1930.


JUDITH: 1930. Just before you were born. OK. Alright. Do you have any pictures of him or those days that…?


PETER: No.


JUDITH: That’s too bad.


PETER: Gee, I wish I did. You know there wasn’t many … very many cameras in them days, you know.


JUDITH: That’s right, it was unusual to take photos. Well, this is a great help, um...


PETER: I’d like to see it when it’s finished, Judy, you know?


JUDITH: Well, I would too. You’ll probably get a letter from Bancroft explaining that we’re hoping to raise the funds to transcribe … it takes time to do that, uh.


PETER: Yeah:


JUDITH: But, anyway, that’s what we’re gonna do...


[END OF INTERVIEW]

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