Writer’s Note: This an interview with my papa, whose name is Jack, and my grandmother, Barbara, in order to come back to my family’s Sicilian roots. The interview took place in their home in Kenner which they have now lived in for roughly 20 years. Though the interview is focused on my papa, since he is the Sicilian one, my grandmother is heard throughout the interview as she has know my papa and his family for most of her life, and reflects on the accuracy of the statements my papa makes.
Barbara: You might want to tell her that your parents’ marriage was kinda, sort of arranged.
Jack: I’m gonna get to that! In the meantime, Jacob Paternostro and John Pennino somehow got together when Maw Maw was born and when my daddy was born and they matched them together in order to stay in the Italian family. So, me, your papa, is 100% Sicilian. My daddy and my mama got together, and she was 17 when they got married. I was born one year later when she was 18. And here comes Jackinno! I was the favorite of the family at the time.
Barbara: She wants to know about your parents—
Jack: Awwww, why don’t you go sit in the other room!
Barbara: She wants to know about your grandparents and your parents!
Jack: My bed was up in the big house and I shared a bedroom with my grandfather. I had my own bed and he had his own bed. My grandmother had the big bedroom next to us. He taught me how to say my prayers at night. If I got in bed first, I would just lay there waitin for my grandfather to come to bed. If I fell asleep first, he used to wake me up and make me say my prayers. One night I’m in my own bed and my grandfather is in the bathroom. He is taking a bath and all that and I fell asleep. My grandmother said ‘Jackino! You need to say your prayers!’ I said ‘No, I’m sleepin!’ And she said ‘No! You wait for your grandfather! You gotta say your prayers!’ She was beautiful. Her name was Angelina, and that was my heart. She used to look after me, boy.
Barbara: She raised him.
Jack: My godfather was Uncle Eddy. He lived right down the street; he was like my second dad to me. I didn’t really have a relationship with my dad at all. Back in those days, the godfather in the Italian way was very sacred. If anything happened to your parents, then ya’ godmother and ya’ godfather takes over and would be responsible. My dad was never there when I was growing up. When I had my ballgames, it was my Uncle Ed, my godfather, who would be there for my baseball games, my football games , and took me to fights and everything else. It was just beautiful people. Every time I start talkin’ about it, I just break down just like that.
Barbara and Jack Pasternostro. Photograph courtesy of the Nuebel family.
Lyndsey: So whenever you went to school, did you have a lot of Italian classmates? Were there a lot of Italian kids?
Barbara: No! There was diversity in public schools in New Orleans.
Jack: In fact, my elementary school was only two or three blocks away from Ursulines. It was Benjamin Franklin and William Moore Rogers.
Lyndsey: You went to Benjamin Franklin?
Jack: Not that Benjamin Franklin, it’s downtown. And, in fact, [points to Barbara] her great-aunt taught me in second grade. My name is Jacob Paternostro, and I didn’t know it was Jacob. They used to call the role, and Jackino or Jack was all I knew. What I’m talking about? [Laughs] Well, that was me. And the Frats, they had the crew cuts, and they wore white shoes. We used to wear boots and black shoes. And every time we ran into each other, we would get into fights. My old man said, ‘You not goin’ to Warren Easton.’ He got a brochure in the mail for an academy in Arkansas. I got sent out of town, and was off to a boarding school.
Barbara: It was a boarding school for their religion!
Barbara: There was no division of race, except for blacks in other schools, but there was no division of nationalities when we went to school.
Jack: Everybody was immigrants back then, babe. They all came from Germany, France, Italy, all over. All my buddies were going to Warren Easton. In the meantime, they had Cats and the Frats, and those were the gangs. The Cats had the black leather jackets, and slicked back hair with the curls in the back, you know what I’m talking about? [Laughs] Well, that was me. And the Frats, they had the crew cuts, and they wore white shoes. We used to wear boots and black shoes. And every time we ran into each other, we would get into fights. My old man said, ‘You not goin’ to Warren Easton.’
Barbara: It was a boarding school for their religion!
Jack: Be quiet! My mama was Catholic, and my dad was real Catholic. In fact, he was an altar boy. When my mama and daddy got married, my grandfather Pennino changed over to Seventh Day Adventist, and he got caught up in the religion. Anyway, I thought it was a boy’s boarding school, alright? Well, when we got there, we saw that they had dorms on one side and dorms on the other side, and my daddy said, ‘What’s that dormitory?’ And they said, ‘Well, that’s where the girls stay.’ What!?! [Laughs] We thought it was an all-boys boarding school.
I spent two years there, graduated, and went to Southwestern Junior College in Texas. I played ball and all that kinda stuff. Now we had a football game and it was around Thanksgivin’. I was the quarterback, okay. We beat them 22-13, alright. They had scouts along the sidelines. They tried to pick guys off to go to the big school. There was one from Texas, one from SMU, and one from Arkansas. SMU came up to me and they stayed with me a loooong time: ‘We want you to come and we gonna pay for this and pay for that, you don’t have to worry about nothin, alright; we will call you when we want you to come.’ I stopped at SMU before I went home. I stayed there for three months and played three games as a quarterback on the freshman team. At the end, they said, ‘We will give you a call and let you know if you got a scholarship.’ Boom.
Jack: I came home and worked during the summer at Pan-American Life Insurance Company. I started off as an office boy, and it didn’t pay that much. They said if I worked there, and I went to college, I would be hired. In one month, I got promoted to the second floor in the group insurance office. In the meantime, your granny was on the second floor, too. She was on the other side of the floor, and I was on this side of the floor. She used to walk down the aisle, and I would look up and she would give me a big smile. I would look at her and I would be like, ‘Where y’at, boooy!’ I would be on my calculator going boom, boom, boom, and I would say, ‘Shit! there she is!’ We went on a date to the bowling alley, and she was wearing yellow short-shorts, and all the guys were just lookin’ at her. I was sittin’ there and I felt two arms come around me, and she said, ‘Babe, you want a beer?’
Barbara: I didn’t do all that!
Jack: You did! I said, ‘Damn! yeah I’ll take a beer!’ And that’s how we started. We started dating for four or five months. In June, we were engaged.
Lyndsey: So y’all were engaged for a year?
Jack: Yeah. So the coach at SMU calls me up, alright. ‘Jack! We’re ready for you! You got your scholarship; you are gonna start in two weeks.’ I said, ‘Coach, I don’t know if I wanna play ball anymore. I just met a little girl and we plan on getting married.’ He said, ‘No problem, I’m gonna hold your scholarship till October. When October comes around, if you don’t call me or if you don’t come, that’s it.’ And he called me. I didn’t go back. I had an SMU scholarship in Dallas, Texas.
Barbara: And now he has a wonderful family!
Jack: [Laughs] That’s right! You wouldn’t be here! I left Gentilly Boulevard when I married your grandmother. We were 19 years old, and we got married at St. Joseph’s Church by my cousin, Frank Pennino, who was a priest. When I got back from the war, your uncle was born, January 10th, 1961, which was nine months later. How you like that? Perfect. And then ya mama came along a year and a half later. And then a surprise came along, Miss Kimmy, two and a half years later. I was like, ‘Oh no, you kidding me!’ She was a screamin eagle, boy! And…that’s my life!
Part 4: Coming Back to New Orleans
New Orleans Startups
A brief overview of the growing New Orleans startup scene. This piece highlights the main industries of New Orleans, competing cities, and just how emerging the current entrepreneurial/startup scene is in New Orleans.
A Bin in Every Classroom: Why Tulane Should Lead on Composting
I asked a peer, Isabel, for her thoughts on composting: “Why do...
Tulane
