The Dystopian Times, 12. Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day.

A piece of my childhood died yesterday.

Anthony Martignetti, of West Roxbury, died at age 63. I didn't know him personally, but I, and everyone from a certain age up, knew him as the boy running home on Wednesday because Wednesday was Prince Spaghetti day. 

The commercial was filmed in 1969, in a North End that was still redolent of working class immigrants, and close-knit families. A North End where Italian was more common than English, and small squares reminded one of quiet corners in a European city.

The commercial shows a boy running home through the streets of Boston's North End, past the Haymarket vendors, past what seems to be the John Eliot School, through probably the Paul Revere Mall, and up a dead end street to his apartment in an old tenement. As he runs, the scene sometimes cuts to his mother's kitchen, where she and others are preparing vegetables and a large pot of spaghetti. Meanwhile, the voiceover talks about Boston traditions, and ends, as Anthony enters the apartment, hot and winded from running, saying, "and, as every family in the North End of Boston will tell you, Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti day." 

The commercial ran for years; I remember it well during my childhood. There's only one thing wrong. It couldn't have been a Wednesday that Anthony was running home to eat. Haymarket is held on Saturday mornings. Other days of the week, Wednesday included, cars ambled and parked down that street next to the overhead Southeast Expressway. Some of the butcher shops along there were open during the week, such as Puritan Beef Company, and the pizza shop run by Portuguese immigrants, but their stellar business was on Saturdays.

But for many people, Wednesday has been Prince Spaghetti day for years, thanks to that spot. We used Prince Spaghetti, though for sauce, my mother preferred Ragu. The pasta company, founded in North End's Prince Street at the beginning of the twentieth century by immigrants from Sicily, was later moved to Lowell, as production grew. Now, irony of ironies for me, it is owned by a conglomerate. The conglomerate is Ebro Foods, and its headquarters is in Madrid. They also own other famous pasta and rice brands, such as Success, Ronzoni, Creamette, and Minute Rice, as well as other Spanish and European brands. 

Every time I see that commercial I remember those dirty streets, the boxes and crushed lettuce leafs, smushed tomatoes, moldy oranges, wet cardboard, and other detritus underfoot on a Saturday morning.  I remember visiting family friends in tiny, three-room apartments. I remember our own three-room apartment on Hanover Avenue, with the fire escape at the front windows, and the windows with the clothesline in the back. The tiny bathroom had red-painted walls, with black and white tiles, while the kitchen had a beige wallpaper. The water heater was in a corner. The main room had a double bed, a sofa, an ancient television, and my crib. 

After my crib left, it had a turn of the century sewing machine, which I remember my parents buying. There was an ancient Puerto Rican lady who was selling it, and my parents bought it from her. I think her name was Adelina. My mother then bought Butterick sewing patterns and made me clothes during my early childhood. 

Like us, so many families living in those old tenements and apartments. Most spoke Italian, others spoke Galician, like us, my uncle and his family, my aunt and her family, and a single man we knew from a nearby village in the next parish, who also emigrated to Boston. I remember playing on the Paul Revere Mall, or walking down to the Green Cross Pharmacy with my father, and buying a square of Cadbury chocolate, preferably with raisins. I also remember visiting downstairs Italian neighbors, who had two boys, and each boy had a Snoopy dog I was envious of. I have a picture they took of me, holding one of the Snoopys and standing on the couch. I remember I didn't want to stand on the couch because it was wrong, but the Italian lady convinced me to do so just for the picture. 

That was the North End the commercial evoked, that part of my early childhood that is etched on my brain. And, like me, it has reminded so many people of their childhood Boston, even when they lived out in other neighborhoods. The North End was the soul of Boston, its oldest neighborhood, and entry of many immigrants to the rest of New England. And now, the star of the commercial, who will forever be a twelve year old boy running home, is gone. A sliver of our childhood is also gone.

Life continues.