Direct Dial

I was in the garden when I spotted Father Onisie in a blue Nike T-shirt walking down East School Street. "Onisie!" I shouted. He came over to say hello. His van had broken down and he was on the way to pick it up from the mechanic. "Now I am walking, like you!" he said in his Romanian accent. I invited him into the yard and showed him my tiny garden of four plants. "A friend down the street gave these to me so I could have a vegetable garden. I have two tomato and two squash plants and they are flowering, I'm so excited."

I walked him over to the big side yard. "Welcome to our amazing jungle," I said. "We have a mulberry tree and blackberry bushes and raspberry bushes . . ."
"And a Japanese Maple," he chimed in.
"Yes, a friend rescued it, and gave to us. He's a landscaper from our old band."
"Whats she eating?" he asked, watching Lily.
"Lily loves the mulberries."
"We have a tree like this in Romania," he said. Then he took out his smartphone and played a video of a famous Romanian band from his home town on tour performing in Italy. In the video they were outside in a courtyard and it was night-time in the summer. The music was lilting Eastern European folk music with three fiddles, a keyboard accordion, and a clarinet.
"I love it," I said. "And the singer is like Pavarotti!"
"Yes, he is very good. Maybe you and Bill can learn to play this for our festival," he suggested.
"I would love that." I thought about how lucky I was to grow up with my step-father playing folk music from all over the world.

"Yesterday when I walked down our street I smelled curry, and I got so excited. Someone new has moved in, maybe from India, or Pakistan, and maybe they love to cook too! We got to eat with the Southeast Asian Monks a few times at the Elks Hall. We walked by and they invited us in to eat with them, it was amazing." I paused and smiled. "I know you have direct dial to God. What I believe is this, if we could share food and music we'd have no wars."
"Yes it's true!" he said.
"We have people from everywhere in this little neighborhood."
"I love when the Asian family next door has a big party every summer and they sing and dance all night!" he said.
"Yes, I've heard them."
"Maybe you can come to cook with us and the ladies at the church," Onisie suggested.
"I would love it," I said. "But what about the older ladies in the congregation who were against the idea the last time?"
"We have a new group of people, a new generation. They are all younger than you," he said smiling.
"That's perfect. The new generation seems to like me. I'm the old lady now!" I laughed.
"How old are you? I am 62," he said. "My wife is 60, my son is 36."
"I'm 54, and Bill is 60," I said. "I remember your 50th birthday party, was that really 12 years ago?"

"Look at our peaceful parking lot," I said, waving my arms as we walked back to the gate. "Thanks to the help of our fabulous mayor and wonderful police chief and all of the departments of the city we now have kids playing together, riding bicycles, parents talking to each other. Instead of all that trouble we had with the crack-house and the chop-shop, it's like a park now, a real neighborhood community. I want to make home made ice-cream with the old fashioned hand-cranked machine using ice and rock salt, for the kids out here, and maybe make the pizzelle ice cream cones too. We did it 20 years ago when we first moved in and the neighborhood kids loved it, they still talk about it."