Great White Hunters
Stalking Big Game in Maine
By: Charles Giuliano - Dec 16, 2006
According to Mom it wasn't much of a honeymoon. She was an intern, riding the ambulance at Coney Island Hospital, where he was a resident in surgery. On their first date they delivered a baby on a kitchen table in Brooklyn. It was the Great Depression. He got a fee and split it with her then they went to the movies. On the second date he told her that he had his wedding suit in the back seat of the car. She was flabbergasted but called her Mom and sister Mary who took the train up from Boston and they got married.
After spaghetti and cannolis with Dad's extended clan they took off for a weekend in the Catskills at a little Inn. The highpoint of the adventure was target practice. Dad had bought them both 22 caliber rifles; his a bolt action Remington and for her a Winchester with pump action. Turns out Mom was the better shot. We called her Annie Oakley later when us kids came along and we used to sink bottles off the rocks at the summer cottage in Rockport, Mass.
When the Honeymoon ended Dad dropped Mom off in the dorm and went back to live with his Mother. It went on like that for another year or so until Mom demanded that they live together. So they rented a place on Clinton Street in Brooklyn which they called "Doctor's Row." Then my sister came along and after several more years Mom held him to a deal that she would get to move back to Boston. It was War by then and she took over the home, office and practice of her old boyfriend from Middlesex College of Medicine and Surgery, now Brandeis University, Dr. Robert Fulton Carmody. He was an ancestor of the inventor of the paddle boat but with Mom it seems he just ran out of steam. For a while Dad commuted but eventually gave up all kinds of opportunities and relocated. Had to take the State Boards and start all over where he had been on the fast track as a hot young Sicilian surgeon. There weren't many of those and the Mafia tried to recruit him but he wouldn't let them in the house.
No, Dad's interest in guns was strictly for target practice. That got into me and all I wanted for Christmas was my own holster and six shooters. Alice Moran, a friend of Mom's, took me to F.A.O. Schwartz & Company where I got outfitted with a Gene Autry double holster, cap shooter special. Bang. Bang. I shot everyone in sight and ran out of caps by Christmas afternoon. At a rodeo I met Gene Autry at the snack bar and got his autograph on a menu. Still have it. Boy it was great watching him and Champion doing tricks. Gosh willikers how I loved the Rodeo. All that ropin, bull ridin and buckin broncos. And we always got turtles and chameleons as pets but they died fast. The turtle shells got real soft when you poked your finger in them.
Later when TV came along, on Saturdays when they had Cowboy movies on, I would get the guns down from the hall closet and shoot the villains. But you had to be careful that nobody was looking. You weren't supposed to play with real guns but rifles were way better than cap pistols even when you couldn't find any bullets.
Then Dad bought a fancy double barrel shot gun. It broke down into pieces which slipped into sheep skin holders. It was terrific. He wanted to go hunting and get some ducks for Sunday dinner. Which we ate a couple of times but you had to be careful to pick the shot out and not swallow it. We had pheasant and quail that people gave us. Because Mom and Dad were doctors lots of people gave us things for saving their lives. There was one family that always came at Christmas and gave Dad this huge box of really awful candy. After a while nobody wanted to eat it and we laughed when it came the next year and the next and the next. Then it stopped. Guess she died. Mom and Dad always talked about their patients at dinner. The man with the stomach. The woman with the arm. And Mrs. So and So who died.
Doctor Ferranti, a friend of Dad's offered to take us all hunting up in Maine. What an adventure. He had a Hunter who was going to come along. And a son Anthony who was real neat. To get us into the spirit of things Dr. Ferranti made sling shots for us squirts. There was me, my sister Jo, and Anthony. We sat in the back seat with the three adults up front as we drove to Maine. It took a long time to get there but we didn't mind. Dr. Ferranti gave us a big glass jar full of rocks. They were washed all nice and clean and just the right size for our sling shots which were really well made with leather and strong elastic bands. Had mine for years. We rolled down the windows and practiced taking turns trying to hit cars as we drove by. It was great fun but got us in trouble.
Dad was in a bad mood when we arrived at the Inn. Kind of a dump I guess. Not like when Mom took us to New York and we stayed in the Waldorf Astoria and saw plays on Broadway. This was Dad's first, and last, weekend with us kids. Our room had just one old fashioned iron post bed. Dad, Jo and me managed somehow to get to sleep all in that one bed. There was a wash basin in the room and an outhouse which was real smelly. Not at all like a hotel room.
The breakfast was huge and hearty; eggs with muffins and jam. After which Dr. Ferranti and his friend announced that they were going to scout the lay of the land. They came back some time after lunch. By then Dad was kind of fed up looking after us particularly as there wasn't much to do other than try to feed tin cans to the goat. Seems, according to Dad, that we got worse and worse. Behavior wise. Anthony was a little devil but his Dad didn't seem to mind. Anthony was great. I really liked Anthony. But we never saw him again after that weekend. And I don't think Dad saw a lot of Dr. Ferranti. Guess Dad wasn't used to taking care of kids. But he was good at other stuff like cutting people open and keeping them alive for years and years and years. Which is why we got all that terrible candy. Somebody once wrote a poem about his wonderful hands. It wasn't a great poem.
That afternoon we all trekked into the woods which Dr. Ferranti and his hunter friend had staked out. We were supposed to be real quiet. The three men had their rifles loaded while we had pockets full of carefully selected rocks. If anything moved out there we were gonnah let them have it. But nothing happened. We just waited and waited and waited. Then the Hunter tried some bird and animal calls. Still nothing happened. Eventually we gave up went back to the Inn and enjoyed a good old country dinner. The bed the second night wasn't any better than the first. But breakfast sure was great.
On the ride home Dad wouldn't talk to us. He was real mad. When we got home he said something like "Here are your children" to Mom and stormed off to be by himself until supper. Mom and Grandma put Jo and me into the tub and scrubbed us up good. Mom was kind of upset that Dad brought us home all scruffy. But he really didn't want to talk about it. Mom and Grandma were nice and gave us hot chocolate and cookies. That night we slept like angels in our own beds. But I had dreams of growing up to be a Great White Hunter. Bang. Bang.