Franzi

By Paul Campanis

Uncle Franzi, or Frank is the baby brother and this means he is spoiled
in a way. When he was sick and dying I spent time with him and most admired
his personal pride, his sense of himself as worthwhile. He is a family man.
Did not drink or run around. He was at his pastry and coffee shop too many
hours a day and it spoiled his health, I feel. He wasn't very happy working
like that but he did it. Maybe he needed to to pay the rent. The shop was
clean, the pastry he made was very good. Some of the time we don't realize
that we are doing ourselves harm when we work too hard. The immigrants have
that problem and it kills off large numbers of them.
He is my mother's brother. His brother, Theodori, was the island's
pharmacist. This man was a delight to me, Niko and Anna's father. I liked
him a lot. Calliope was his sister and never married but lived with
Evangelia who just passed on, another sister. So Frank was one of them.
Heavy-set, very good looking, I recall he had an apartment in Athens when he
left the pastry shop in Astoria. He planned to retire there. I don't
recall what the place was like but he and his wife seemed happy there.
When he first came to our house in Jamaica Plain, upstairs in our two
rooms I recall he tore a cooked chicken apart with his hands and we were
amused at the gusto with which he did it. Funny what you remember. I liked
him a lot and think of him and the time I spent with him at his apartment in
Astoria, at the store there and the time in the hospital.
I shaved him once at the hospital and recall he was fastidious about his
appearance when I didn't shave him close enough.
We really had little in common but he was my uncle and I loved him He
was my blood so to speak and I cared about him and his family as I knew I
should.
Paul, I feel a poem coming on. It is dedicated to the loving memory of
Uncle Frantzi. I was just ruminating up in Laura's room and copied out a
lovely poem I did years ago. I wrote it on bright orange paper to send to
someone I like when I feel the urge so wait a minute and I will get the poem
and finish with this little memory of Uncle Frank.

Gold Kimono

We brought it in our valitsa
We store it behind the icon
in the bedroom

weave it greek
keep it clean
simple, plain.