Up from South Philly

CHAPTER I:ORIGINS
“Dad, I have only been typing for thirty minutes and already two people are in jail…”— Jen Chiurco (transcribing interviews)
It was a cool, brisk morning in early May of 1967. The sun had broken through a passing group of cumulus clouds and began to reflect as sparkles on the wing of the aircraft I was staring at through the window. The Boeing 707 had stopped on the tarmac as the jet engines began to whine, preparing for takeoff from Philadelphia International. My pulse began to climb almost in sync with the increasing RPMs of the engines. I had never flown. I was intimidated and apprehensive. I began to perspire as my mind prepared for an event that I imagined to be life threatening.
At the time, I was a twenty-five-year-old medical student, six weeks from graduating from The Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia. Following four years of an intense medical education, I was fortunate to receive a terminal ten-week vacation beginning in March and ending at graduation on June 7. Of my own volition, I sought exposure to a field of interest in neurological surgery, which developed during my years at Jefferson. Exposure was negligible to nonexistent as a medical student. I subsequently arranged through a surgeon mentor for a four-week rotation as an observer with The Neurological Group of New London, Conn., at the Lawrence and Memorial Hospitals. During that time, I was invited to accompany Rocco Angelo (the original surname, Angelone, was shortened following immigration), the youngest brother of my mother, Anna Angelo, on a trip to Japan and Hong Kong over the next six weeks following termination of my elective. It was great fortune for me that Rocco (Uncle Rocky) had a peptic ulcer and his brothers, the Angelo brothers, thought it would be a good idea if I accompanied him on this particular journey. We were bound for Japan and Hong Kong for a six-week business trip for Rocco and an educational/vacation trip for me.
The aircraft engines continued in a progressively higher pitch in preparation for takeoff and I reflected on my childhood and adolescence growing up in South Philadelphia. I thought about my experiences and the rigorous educational requirements necessary to qualify for enrollment into a top medical school such as Jefferson. The engines wound to an extremely high pitch and the plane began its path down the runway. We were flying on Pan American Airways, seated in the first-class cabin. The stewardess addressed us by our surnames in a very proper manner, which is an aspect of flight unknown today. As the engines wound to an extremely high pitch and the plane was flying down the runway, my pulse now exceeded one hundred beats per minute.
When the wheels left the ground and the aircraft angled upward, I experienced the sensation of flight for the very first time. I became hypotensive at the sound of the wheels being retracted into the aircraft, a sound I did not expect. I assumed there could be something wrong with the plane. I saw structures on the ground moving rapidly, fading into the distance. I began to think about my life to this point, flashing in rapid sequence not unlike the speed of the aircraft. At that moment, however, I was reassured as to what was occurring by my worldly traveling companion, my Uncle Rocky, who gave me guidance on what to expect in flight, as well as over the next six weeks on our trip to California and Tokyo. I settled into my seat as my pulse gradually diminished, along with my respirations and perspiration. I realized how much of the world I had not experienced or visualized. Growing up in South Philadelphia, I had not traveled further north than New York or further east than Sea Isle City at the Jersey Shore. I had not traveled further south than Washington, D.C. The furthest west I had experienced was West Philadelphia and now since the onset of my terminal ten-week vacation, I had traveled to New London, Conn. One can only imagine the excitement and feeling of adventure to travel to and experience the West Coast of the United States, mainly California, and then on to East Asia, including Japan and Hong Kong.
My mother’s older brothers, Uncle Tim and Uncle Stan, had started a small business, Angelo Brothers, after World War II on Snyder Avenue in South Philadelphia. Their father Stanislaus had passed away from cancer of the rectum at Philadelphia General Hospital, the county hospital for the indigent and uninsured. The business began as a paint store and slowly grew and expanded into lamp parts and then light bulbs. The post-World War II economy was one of the greatest business expansions in our economic history. This small family business eventually graduated to become the most profitable line of decorative light bulbs and was climbing the ladder in production, chasing G.E. and Philips. Manufacturing at the time was economical outside the United States and the company's current production was in Japan, where light bulb production had begun and developed. Uncle Rocky had made these initial contacts and was the emissary of the Angelo Brothers in foreign countries. I was invited to make this trip with Rocky, which was probably the most exciting adventure of my life thus far.
Rocky, like all of the Angelo brothers, was of medium height (around five-foot-ten), with male pattern baldness and terrific blue eyes. He was very slender and always dressed well, with wide-lapel suits that were popular in the '40s and '50s. Rocky had a high school education and went to Girard College in Philadelphia qualifying for admission as an orphan. He attended a short time before quitting. He would later say that he regretted his lack of a college education, but at that time of his life he was just too hedonistic and indifferent to stay in college. Nonetheless, Rocky was an intelligent man and an avid reader – but definitely a man with a wild side.
After we arrived in Los Angeles from Philadelphia, we checked into the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where Rocky spent several days conducting business with distributors and our sales force. The Angelo Brothers, at that time called ABCO (Angelo Brothers Company), had a large warehouse on La Cienaga Boulevard in Los Angeles. The visual beauty and contrast of California was overwhelming to me as an initial shock. I rented a car, a green Mustang convertible, and while Rocky was doing business, I motored myself through Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Malibu and surrounding visual sensations. I had actually never really seen a palm tree, to give the reader an example of my extreme naiveté and inexperience with the world by age twenty-five.
On the second evening at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, I wandered to Uncle Rocky’s suite to check our plans for dinner. Rocky was on the phone, screaming at the other end of the line and cursing with words I was well familiar with, having grown up in South Philly. “Fuck him and fuck you. If he wants to see me, he can come to Tokyo. I will be there in forty-eight hours. Fuck him, too.” This vitriol went on for several minutes and the phone call ended. He did not want to talk about the conversation and we went out to dinner. That evening we dined with one of his old Hollywood buddies, a man named Blake Edwards.