We all scream for ice cream!

When did it become OK to charge $3.50 for one scoop of ice cream? On the warm summer evenings of my youth, just a few years ago, my Pop would take us kids to the Rakestraw's ice cream plant in my hometown, where one scoop was a mere five cents.  At that price, we tried to see how many scoops could be piled up on a single cone. Taking a family of six out for multiple-scoop cones these days can require a visit to the bank for a home equity loan.

I guess the silver lining to this fiscal inflation is that we'll eat less of that yummy but physically inflating confection.

Delicious homemade ice cream is widely available on Cape Cod in the summer but disappears from Columbus Day to the following April. Why? Are we really expected to survive on Edy's and Turkey Hill through the dismal winter months? Is this why everyone goes to Florida? To search for homemade ice cream? I think the entrepreneur who opened a first class homemade ice cream store here during the winter could make a fortune. I would patronize such a shop--and even stop complaining about having to pay $3.50 for a scoop.

As you can probably tell, I've done a lot of research on this topic, and these are the places where I happily plunk down my money for a scoop of homemade ice cream:

• The Smuggler(Route 6A, Dennis) Handy to Cape Cod Cinema and Dennis Playhouse    
• Four Seas (Main Street, Centerville) Funky, old time charm and long lines   
• Somerset (Route 28A, North Falmouth) My favorite, nice outdoor seating, try cocoanut almond joy.

And if you're stuck on Route 130 in Sandwich and really need a fix, Sweet Caroline's is more than acceptable.

Best outdoor ambiance.

David Kapp, Editor 

In my dream we were sitting at a restaurant

where small round tables

were covered in white linen cloths,

but instead of food

the waiters were bringing out babies,

brand new, fresh from the womb,

babies swaddled in innocence. 

Our waiter approached us,

and my husband said to me,

"Here comes ours,"

and indeed our little football-sized infant

was placed in my arms.

We are in our sixties and well past our baby days

but in dreams there's no telling,

no reasons why.

"Wait!  You've made a mistake! 

He's not mine," I cried. 

My sallow Italian face looked down

on a red-haired,

freckle faced baby with green eyes. 

"He's not mine!"

The waiter responded,

"They never really are." 

I know Norine Piscatelli as a friend, a tour guide and a generous artist who donates work to our Pastabilities raffle each year. But there are many sides to everyone's story and Norine's is no exception.

Norine displays the first painting she ever showed in an art exhibit; she walked away with the prize for second place--out of 99 entrants. It hangs above her mantle now and she's vowed never to sell it.

Born and raised in the Hyde Park section of Boston, Norine and her siblings had a difficult childhood. Her mother died when she was 15. She worked in a laundry to put herself through high school but her father refused to help her go to college. Soon after graduating high school she married and moved to Walpole with her new husband. There were two children, a boy and a girl, and Norine

worked at an elementary school library in town. She vowed to give her children all the love and support she possibly could.

"When you come from a dysfunctional family like mine you have to rise above it," she says. "I had this vision that someday I would live in a house with a little fence and make chocolate chip cookies. That was my goal and every time there was a snow day I would say to my kids, 'Let's make chocolate chip cookies.'" It was not a happy marriage but she waited until her children were in their teens before she divorced. After a turbulent childhood and a rocky marriage she was ready to move on. 

Norine had been living on her own for two-and-a-half years before she met Leo, an accountant. "When I married Leo," she says, "I found a completely different life. His family welcomed me and his mother loved me. They were quiet, easygoing people, not loud, very refined. We married in 1979 and have been together for 33 years. It is so very, very different. I changed my life."  

 Leo had four children from an earlier marriage and Norine's kids were 16 and 18. She speaks about their children and grandchildren with great pride and affection. "My kids are wonderful. My son John has a successful plumbing business and my daughter Jan is a headhunter who travels all over the country. Now we have 17 grandkids and a one-year-old great grandchild." Eventually, the annual Piscatelli family Christmas celebration got so big that it was easier to rent a hall and hire a Santa, DJ and clown for the kids.  

Norine and Leo Piscatelli married in 1979. There are six children in their combined families, 17 grandchildren and one great grandchild.

"We moved to Norwood. I worked at a

GM office in Dedham and before that at a company called Computer Identics. We bought a small ranch house in Hyannis and went down on weekends. The kids, Leo's mother, anybody that wanted to come to the Cape came to Hyannis for the weekend."

Before they married Leo and Norine made a deal: she would retire at 50 and he would continue to work. "One night we're having dinner and Leo reminds me that I'd be 50 in June and that I should give notice that I'll be leaving. So I retired, living at the Cape and the question was, 'Now what?' I remember going to the Hyannis Garden Club for the first time. We sat around and sipped tea and ate tiny sandwiches. Talking to these women, I realized that most of them had never worked a day in their lives and I had worked almost every day of my life."

Norine started to take courses at Cape Cod Community College. One day she saw a want ad for tour guides. She interviewed and was accepted into a training program. "There were 13 of us; they put us on a bus with a senior tour guide. Our job was to take notes. I kept saying to myself, 'I want this job so bad, I know I can do it.' I was the only one of the group without a college degree. They gave us a test and four of us passed.  

"So I became a tour guide. On Sundays, Leo and I would drive around Boston while I read from a manual and gave directions on where to turn and what streets to go down. Boston can be very confusing for a bus driver; you have to know which roads you can take a bus on and which you can't. I'd be reading the manual and Leo would

In June, Norine conducted a tour of Providence, RI for 50 women from Southport. (See the story in this issue of SVV.) Pictured here, having lunch at Pizzilo Restaurante (left to right): Janet Colvin, the bus driver, Norine, Daphne Thompson, Gail Monson and Adrienne Guptill. Photo: Jan Miller

be the 'bus driver' and all of a sudden he'd say, 'Where are we?' and I'd say, 'Oh you should have taken a left.' And he'd say, 'What do I know, I'm from Arizona.' He was tough but he made me a better guide." 

Leo has health issues and Norine doesn't leave him for more than a day. She's able to pick and choose the tours she wants to do "because I'm really good at what I do," she says. I asked how she became so knowledgeable, and she replied with one word: "Study." You have to take a test to be a tour guide in Boston, where she is a certified for the work. She also does Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, Newport, Providence and Cape Cod. "I always studied and read and learned and I still do," she says.

"What about your painting," I asked. "That's something else I didn't do until I moved to the Cape," Norine says. A friend had invited her to see a mural in her home and Norine was impressed. A little later, the friend told her, "I've signed you up for art lessons with the artist; it's my gift to you." Hesitant at first, Norine finally agreed to visit the artist, whose name was Natalie. "I remember saying to her, 'I've never painted, but if I ever come back in another life there are two things I want to do, I want to be an artist and I want to play the piano." She said, "Why not try to become an artist now? Come for the first lesson and see how it goes.

"So I did. Natalie provided the supplies, taught me different strokes and sent me home to practice. I practiced till I had pages filled with strokes. One day, she said, 'Okay, you've learned the strokes let's put them together and make a hydrangea.' I began painting hydrangeas on everything. Then I asked Natalie to show me how to draw a tulip or a rose and she showed me. I watched her paint and found I could paint what I saw."

When Natalie moved away, Norine went to the Cape Cod Art Association to learn how to paint with oils. She pauses and points to a painting over her fireplace. It is a blaze of color. Flowers in a field. Eye catching in the vivacious use of colors but serene in its perspective. "That was my very first entry in an art exhibit," she says, "I won second place out of 99 entrants. I'm very proud of that piece. I will never sell that painting; it has real significance for me."

Norine was still learning how to work with oils and had completed just three paintings when the Hyannis Garden Club asked her to donate one of her paintings to a fundraiser at the Cotuit Art Center. "I was uneasy. I kept telling myself, 'You're not an artist, why are you doing this?' I had arbitrarily put a price of $300 on it. When I walked in they told me that my painting was the only one that had sold that day. The man that bought it had said, 'Tell the artist she's selling this too cheap.' I sat down and had a glass of wine. A woman was playing the violin. I looked around. It was like I was living some fantasy and I thought, 'Life doesn't get any better than this.' I've been painting now for ten years. When I am painting I am so focused on what I'm doing the house could burn down around me."  

Norine and Leo traveled in Northern Italy in 2011 with other Southport residents (standing left to right) Dan & Anne Riley and Gail & Mel Monson.

The Piscatellis moved from Hyannis to Centerville but after a few years, Leo developed health problems and could no longer take care of the property, which was now too big for them. They moved to Southport in 2006. "We love it here," she says. "It feels like we're always on vacation and I have met some wonderful people."

I look at the woman sitting across the dining room table from me and try to connect her with the woman she described from her early life. I mention this to Norine. "Oh no," she says, "That woman is long gone, she doesn't exist anymore."

"How would you sum up your life right now," I ask. "Couldn't get any better," she says. Referring to Leo and his health issues she says, "He is a miracle and I thank God every day for what he has given me. At this point in my life I just want to give back as much as I can. The man next door isn't well so I try to help him out whenever I can. He tells me I make the best chocolate chip cookies he's ever tasted."  

Poison berries are being distributed in four Costco stores

There was a warehouse fire

A flood from the Vistula River mired a hardware store knee-deep water

The attendant and a customer were injured in a convenience store robbery

Am I being callous when I say, "Who cares?" The only reason these stories ran, obviously, is because the station had video images.  

• OUT AND ABOUT IN THE VILLAGE The so-called "sidewalk" on Leisure Green between Pine Hill and the golf course needs mowing.  And speaking of landscaping, I would love a yew tree behind my house. I would call it my embraceable yew (ooooh, sorry).   
• RECENT HEADLINE IN CAPE COD TIMES "Airlines Trail Post Office in Customer Satisfaction." The story went on to tell how airlines and post offices do such a bad job. Why does the post office get such a bad rap? I've never had a package lost or a letter gone astray (that I know of) and I think most of us are in the same position. So why does the post office always get picked on?   
• A WORD FROM JOE O'CONNOR One morning at a Catholic school, there was a party and the kids were gathered around a bowl of apples. Although told to take only one apple, a little boy took two, one to eat and the another to put in his pocket and eat later. A nun told him to put one back because God was watching. Later, when a dish of chocolate chip cookies was served, the little boy said to his friend, "Take all of these you want, God is watching the apples."   
• TA-DA! I realize I'm bragging, but I couldn't possibly not include this in this month's column: Son Steve was honored as Pediatrician-of-the-Year at Boston Children's Hospital. (Listen, if it was your kid, you'd write about it too.)

Arlette Noirclerc

Real estate brokers love to chant it: "Location, Location, Location." Well, it would be hard to do better than the ancient and fabled town of Fontainebleau, France, where Arlette Noirclerc was born in 1935. Or her next childhood home, the city of Versailles, where the royal palace and gardens served as the playground for the kings of France and their entourages. More than two centuries later, those magnificent gardens became a kind of fairy tale playground for Arlette.

Arlette's father was an engineer and a successful businessman and the family enjoyed a comfortable, expansive apartment with a view of the palace. When they tired of city life, they escaped to their country home in the small village of Chevry. Life changed drastically when Hitler rode into Paris in June 1940 and the German Army occupied Versailles. The next four years were filled with fear, danger and shortages.

As D-Day approached in 1944, Arlette's father decided to move the family to a safe place in the countryside, where an Australian family gave them shelter. Their refuge--a village in Normandy--might have been better chosen; it gave them front row seats for the terrors of the Normandy invasion. But it was also the occasion for Arlette, aged nine, to meet her first Americans and she was deeply impressed with the soldiers' friendliness and kindness.

Arlette moved to Paris as a teenager to study design at the Les Arts Decoratifs. Five years later, she left France to learn English in London. There, through a friend, she met the London director of Christian Dior, who offered her a two-week job promoting Dior accessories in England. Arlette was 21 and she fit the image. She took the job, submitted to the training and "molding of the amazing Dior machinery" and worked for the next three years for the House of Dior in London, Paris and the US.

At that point, Arlette was ready to embark on several of the many "beginnings" that she describes in her new memoir, Endless Beginnings, the Learning of a Life Lesson. She left her job with Dior, moved to Chicago, got her green card and took a new job as a fashion consultant, fell in love and married a successful businessman, Andrew. Within a year, their son Philip was born. Two years later the family moved to New York, where their second son, Robin, was born.

Arlette's life in the 1960s and 1970s was comfortable but not untroubled. She lost her mother to cancer and nearly lost her own life when an operation was botched. Problems that eventually brought her 15-year marriage to an end became worse. Arlette describes herself as "spiritual" but not "religious." Along the way, she's discovered methods that have helped her to cope with the disappointments that life sometimes serves up. One of these, the meditation and visualization techniques taught by Jose Silva, has been particularly helpful in focusing on the positive side of events and achieving better control over one's life.

Arlette was living in Concord, Massachusetts when she and Andrew parted ways; Philip remained with his father and Robin went off to a private boarding school. On her own at 40 and needing to support herself, Arlette moved to Cohasset and, using her design and entrepreneurial skills, opened a clothing shop in Hingham; it was the first of many commercial ventures to follow--some successful and others not.  

Arlette Noirclerc's fascinating new memoir recounts not only where she's been and what she's done but also what she learned along the way.

There was a shop on fashionable Newbury Street in Boston and then an ill-fated venture to market gowns made in India to department store buyers in Texas, which ended when her business partner died. A memorable road trip in a Volkswagen bus to California with her two sons brought her to a beautiful new home in Mill Valley--where she and a friend were viciously attacked by five armed men who invaded her home. Eventually, however, Arlette established a women's clothing shop in Maiden Lane in San Francisco and became a recognized designer of women's clothing and a successful entrepreneur.

A bad California economy and an earthquake sent Arlette back to the East Coast in 1985, where she continued her peripatetic ways--establishing new homes and businesses in Newport, Rhode Island and Sarasota, Florida before settling on Cape Cod (and now in Southport) to be near her children and grandchildren.  

Her life, as described in her memoir, truly has been one of "endless beginnings" and lessons learned.  Arlette concludes her fascinating book with a list of "Universal Laws" that, although too long to list here, are well worth reading and following. You can find both print and digital versions of the book on Amazon.com: Endless Beginnings, The Learning of a Life Lesson, by Arlette Noirclerc, iUniverse, 2013, 198 pp. 

I'm a dog lover. When my wife and I retired and moved to a condo, we thought about getting a dog but decided it would be no fun to walk a dog in the rain and snow. I suggested we get a cat. "We can't do that; I'm allergic to cats," she said. "Okay, let's get tropical fish," I proposed.

So we went to a pet store, picked up a ten-gallon tank and accessories and selected an assortment of small fish and one big fish-a Cichlid. That tank, with its gravel, lights and ornaments added a pretty feature to our living room but did require maintenance. The fish lived together happily for about a year; then the little fish began to disappear one at a time.

The Cichlid (by this time I was calling him Charlie) survived for a few years, even when I forgot to feed him or clean the tank. Once, when we returned home after being away for an entire week, I found him alive and waiting to be fed. Any time I sprinkled fish food in the tank I could hear Charlie slurping his food. At one point I added an algae eater to help clean the tank, but he died from overeating before the tank was clean. 

The tank finally got so dirty I couldn't see Charlie any more. However, I could still hear him eating. I knew he wouldn't survive in his environment much longer. The answer was to get a new tank, which we did, and then clean the algae off the usable remaining accessories so we could make a new home for him.

Eventually, I got around to setting everything up, but when I opened the old fish tank cover I found Charlie floating on top of the water--dead. I had bought another algae eater just to keep Charlie company but couldn't find him. I thought Charlie ate him. Maybe that's what killed Charlie! This seemed to be the end of our tropical fish adventure.

We drained the old tank slowly and, in the last half-inch of water, discovered the little algae eater, struggling to stay alive. Quickly, I transferred him to a pail with some of the dirty water, where he remained while I washed and replaced all the gravel, cleaned the crud off all usable parts and filled the new tank with fresh water. We named him The Survivor.

Then we discovered that we needed a new filter, filter pads and light bulbs. After acquiring these, we treated the water to remove the chlorine and transferred The Survivor to his new home. He sank immediately to the bottom. Shucks. I thought he was dead, but when I tapped on the glass he sprang into action, and he's still doing well.

Sandy Bernstein is a freelance writer and web designer. Her poetry, articles, and fiction have appeared in such publications as The Writer Magazine, Writers' Journal, Poetic Voices, Flashquake Magazine, Mind Fire, and many other print and web publications. She is a long time member of the Stoneham Writers Group. Currently she is working on a novel, an excerpt appears on her website www.sandybernstein.net. 

If you have a Kindle, you can access her short story "Creepies"on Amazon for $.99.

www.amazon.com/dp/B00BKMXDDS

Lydia Biersteker grew up in Somerville, Massachusetts. She met her husband Dale on the beach at Falmouth Heights in 1969, while he was stationed at Fort Devens. After Dale retired in 2005 from his executive position with the USPS, they moved to Vero Beach, Florida but decided that they preferred New England. They moved to Southport in July 2011. Dale plays golf, and Lydia likes gardening, walking, writing poetry and short prose, exploring genealogy, and lunching with friends. Together, they enjoy dining, exploring wineries and brew pubs, walking the trails of Cape Cod, traveling and playing with their grandkids, who live with their son in Newburyport. 

   

David Kapp, with his wife Billie, moved from Connecticut to Southport in 2009. David retired from a career as a university library administrator, after working in the libraries at Brandeis, Harvard and the University of Connecticut. He was a building consultant for the planning of a number of major university libraries and was, for many years, the editor of Connecticut Libraries. Billie enjoyed a career as an educator and social sciences consultant. The Kapps are frequent visitors to Hawaii where their son, daughter, grandson and other family members live.   

Ray Schumack has held positions as a magazine editor, publicity director and an account executive for a Madison Avenue advertising and public relations agency. He served for 15 years as chief communications officer for a Fortune 500 company, responsible for all corporate communications and product promotion literature. His business articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Fortune magazine and elsewhere. He established his own public relations firm and continues to serve several clients in retirement. His recent memoir,News Releases from the Korean War, recounts his experiences as a war correspondent.

Arthur Wagman and his wife Bobby moved to Southport in 2002. After graduating from Boston University, Arthur was commissioned into the US Air Force. He and Bobby were stationed in France, where their first child was born. Leaving the Air Force as a Captain, he returned to BU, earned his doctorate and began a lifelong career in education. Arthur was assistant superintendent for finance for Wayland, MA Public School, leaving to become the bursar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After leaving MIT he returned to public education and served as superintendent of Dedham, MA Public Schools. Arthur started and is president of Educational Resources Management, a consulting company working with school boards and architects to develop educational specifications for new schools. He and Bobby have three children and five grandchildren.

 

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