|
|
 |
|
If you have a best buddy
like mine, treasure him!
By ANDY MURCIA
of TheColumnists.com
My father, a New
York cop, moved our family to Florida when I was 10. For a boy
growing up in North Miami, Florida, in the 1950’s it was
nothing short of great!
North Miami was then a sleepy, small township located just a
few miles west of the scenic Atlantic Ocean. It was all a kid
could want. Along 125th Street and Dixie Highway, there were
mostly single story buildings housing little stores such as Jack’s
Bicycle Shop, Hardy’s drug store and lunch counter. Just
up Dixie Highway a block or so was the North Miami movie show.
Most of us teenage guys who hung around Rex’s Sundries on 139th street worked after school and weekends at the motels in Sunny Isles. We were mostly pool boys, who kept busy laying out chaise lounge mats for the wealthy tourists and lathering suntan oils on the backs of the chicks who flocked there all year long--but mostly in the summer when the rates were less.
We also put on diving shows poolside and hosted wiener roasts at night. I did mostly the clown dives from the high board, while the other guys did the more complicated and dangerous dives. Well, you get the picture.
I was a short, chubby guy who was coming of age and trying to learn about life. There to help me through it all was my best buddy--Robert Joseph Xavier Savario Barbieri. I called him "Bobby" for short.
Bobby was a year or so older than I was so he knew more than I did about this thing called “life.” Bobby’s family had recently moved from New York to North Miami, too. He came from a very modest, lower middle class family but it was evident that his “fortune” was being a member of his very Italian family.
 |
|
outing with two girlfriends on Florida's Haulover Beach. |
Some of the best days of my life were at Bobby’s house on those Sundays when his mother, Anne, would cook her homemade pastas with sauce made from scratch, complete with the sausage, meatballs and braciole bowl. This woman never saw a bottle of Ragu in her life!
Angelo, Bobby’s father, would have the jug of red wine near his chair, and all the family would gather. I had my eye on Joanne, Bobby’s shapely sister, but she liked older men, not a boy like me, so I was content to be like a brother to her. To this day I feel like she’s my blood sister! I always felt like I was a member of their family too, because they treated me as such.
After those delicious meals, out came the guitar, mandolin, violin and the singing would start. Yes, the singing was the best. We had Bobby leading the way with his award winning baritone voice (that some years later earned him a music scholarship to the expensive University of Miami). I even got to sing on the sing-a-longs and everyone had a great time.
I loved Bobby’s home. I felt like it was my second home--so much, in fact, that if there was a “beef” raging at our house, I’d run like hell through the yards, a block or so away, right to Bobby’s house. There I’d find refuge from Mom’s broomstick, which she would swing at me when I'd done something to annoy her.
Bobby would simply ask, “Andy, what
did you do this time?”
I’d tell him my story of woe and he’d declare me wrong
and advise me what the right of it all was. Bobby was like a
big brother to me. He explained lots of things to me, especially
my two favorite subjects-- SEX and GIRLS! Mind you, I was this
chubby, zit-faced boy who didn’t have a clue about “girls”
or how to attract them, let alone any knowledge about SEX! The
subject in the 1950s was pure taboo in my house, and it was long
before sex education hit the schools to any understandable degree.
I recall a typical evening out for Bobby and me started with, “Andy, do you have a dollar for gas?”
I always had a buck or more and I gladly handed it over for what bought us, back then, close to five gallons of gas! Gas was like 19 to 21 cents a gallon.
After we gassed up, Bobby would head over to pick up his girlfriend, Diane Westfall. My secret nickname for her was, “Diane Breast-fall” because her ample boobs sagged when she wore a sweater. “Miss Breast-fall” never liked me because I was the third person in the car and she just wanted to be alone with her Bobby, so I didn’t like her either.
I had a naughty habit of cursing and Bobby did not permit that in his car when he had a girl with him. In fact, once when he was dating another girl named Penny Altman, (I secretly nicknamed her, “Miss Petty Flat Face” because her otherwise beautiful face was “flat,” as if she got hit in the puss with a clothes iron!), she had Bobby put me out of the car at 125th Street because I was cursing. And they were riding on my dollar’s worth of gas yet!
Bobby had a good heart, though. At the sight of my fat body in his rear view mirror, he must have decided it was more than he could take, so he circled the block and came back and gave me “one more chance.” But I still didn’t like “Miss Petty Flat Face” very much.
Bobby had arguably the best physique of all “us guys.” He ate wisely, worked out, and took care of his very hairy Sicilian body. I caught him, more than once, admiring himself in the mirror, posing like the guys did in those body builder magazines. I mean, all he needed was a thong! He came close when he wore his skimpy bathing suit that today would be called a Speedo!
We spent a lot of time at Haulover Beach, singing and playing the guitar, and always looking for girls–for me, that is. The girls would welcome Bobby to lay on their blanket next to one girl, but soon as I plopped on the rag next to the second girl, she’d make it clear that she was not with me by sitting up or, worse yet, she’d leave for the refreshment stand! This kind of girl-action could give a boy a complex! Bobby would always make it clear to me afterwards why the other girl didn’t like my conduct. I mean all I did was ask her if she had sex yet? Bobby said I was a bit too direct.
When Bobby started his recording career, he even let me be one of the “Four Hearts,” his backup singing group. When he made his first record using the name Bobby Dino & The Four Hearts, there I was singing do-wop, or whatever part Bobby would try and teach me. Bobby eventually went on to bigger things when he obtained an MGM recording contract. MGM flew him to NYC and Bobby recorded with a full orchestra and a professional choral group. The Four Hearts, understandably, didn’t get the call to go with him.
Bobby and I had a great time with so many other wonderful friends from this period in our lives, but time never stands still. We went our grown-up, separate ways when Bobby went on to enjoy a terrific singing career in the big time opera world of New York City. You still can purchase some of his recordings with other major opera stars online.
Meanwhile, I became a policeman in Chicago. Sadly, an ear surgery slowed Bobby's promising career. He raised three great kids of his own, and today, semi-retired, he resides in Sebastian, Florida. Bobby is still singing for his church and some other gigs. He and his very lovely wife, Eli, market highly exclusive antiques and artifacts they buy from around the world.
Bobby and I are still in daily contact via e-mail and phone calls after 54 years of friendship, and we continue to enjoy occasional visits to each others’ homes. During these visits we reminisce about the “old days” and enjoy many a good laugh. My wife, Ann Jillian, and Eli get along very well, too, as they both have European backgrounds and are married to guys who are life-long buddies.
 |
pal Bobby's sister--and one can see why! Unfortunately, she thought Andy was a little young for her. |
Bobby is still my big brother to this day and, oh, he’s not explaining sex to me anymore. After all, we’re grown up now and well into our 60s. I learned my lessons well from Bobby on how to attract women; I mean I married Ann Jillian, so he taught me how to behave. On one recent visit to my house Bobby left a page of script on my desk next to my computer, which simply read; “See the good in everything”.
Bobby sends me daily notes regarding our faith in God, our heart attack recoveries, and I in turn send him naughty jokes that he tells at his evening cocktail parties with his neighbors or while sitting on the back of their boats dockside.
He knew all of my family members and I knew his. We are closer than many real brothers, having known the same kids growing up, and having made so many great memories together with those other kids. Bobby still poses in front of a mirror, at least on his birthdays, and flexes his muscles. He sends all of his family a photo of himself doing this–and while I always tell him he looks great–I can see that time has taken its toll, just a little bit, on the “Italian Stallion.”
It surely has on my “bod.” I don’t have the nerve to put my bare-chested photo on line, and I’ll have to ask Bobby if he would mind my putting his on line. If you don’t see it here with this column, you can deduce that he minded.
Having a best buddy in your life is truly
a gift from God. A best buddy is always there for you and will
never turn his back on you. It’s a friendship made in Heaven.
Bobby has been this great friend to me and I love the guy. Ann
and our son Andrew love Bobby, too. If you’re lucky enough
to still have your own best buddy in your life, why not go to
the phone right now and enjoy a visit with him or her?
©2008 by Andy Murcia. The Murcia caricature is ©2003
by Jim Hummel. The photos are the property of the author. All
rights reserved. This column first posted May 12, 2008.
You can comment
on this column online. Please address your message to either
"The Editors" or Andy Murcia. To send an email, click
here and don't forget to mention Andy's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
|
|
|
Archives |
|
|