“You look so handsome, Brian.” “I got old, Brian,” said the woman next to me. I love how she always says your name at the end of each sentence. Even if no one else was present, a sign of respect and being fully present. Here she sat, receiving visitors, facing her husband, his coffin and their beautiful wedding picture right next to his eternally sleeping head.

I hadn’t seen Mrs. Drago in maybe twenty years but she looked more beautiful than I ever remember. Her hair, shall we say, treated with that wonderful and ageless Italian grandmother hue of what I call “Nonni Eggplant Magenta”. Her eyes still twinkling like a twenty something’s, wearing her trademark bright red lipstick. Her hands clasped gently twiddling her fingers as she always did, greeting everyone with warm thanks and a peck on the cheek.

My siblings and I, individually, made our way to the funeral home as the day marched on. Katie texting me: “She’s adorable.” And Michael Joseph adding: ”I couldn’t remember what she looked like but as soon as I saw her face, it all came back to me.”

It all came back to me too. Flooding back in that tidal way when a life event happens and you time travel back to childhood. Mrs. Drago was a neighbor and childhood hero of mine and I have never told her this. Attending her husband’s wake rustled up this gratitude which spills over now onto this page.

Jean and Charles Drago lived just seven doors down from us. Mr. Drago was a pharmacist and very proud of it and his healthcare workers union, 1199, of which he mentioned at any opportunity. Jean was the first homemaker I ever really knew. And I got to know her home, particularly the kitchen and basement, real well. Mr. Drago was proud to say that the New York City/Nassau County line went right through their home (True!) in fact through their bathroom, so you could youknowwhat in Queens and shower in Nassau County. I swear he claimed this once, beaming.

I became friends with their son Charles first. I remember buying him some Rona Barrett Hollywood magazines and visiting him when he had broken his leg real bad. Bedridden, we’d visit after school. But I became closer to Carolann his sister younger by a year and a year older than me.

For a few years, I’d be planted in their basement every single day after high school. I don’t even remember what we did, but it was every day. Sometimes we’d be invited into the living room upstairs, almost a sacred room, where Jean would watch “her shows.” “I love my shows, Brian.”, I can almost hear even now. Her shows were the afternoon lineup from 1 to 4 pm on Channel 7 ABC…particularly “General Hospital” and “All My Children”. Every. Single. Day.

Little did I know back then that I would grow up in the world and go on to produce dozens of stories with AMC star Cameron Mathison…see the Hollywood cast of “General Hospital” in the cafeteria every day…and stalk “Vicki” from “One Life to Live” regularly on West 66th Street in New York….near her studio and her apartment. I’d also meet many of the big celebrity stars that fascinated Jean.

My childhood wasn’t terrible. But whatever loneliness or alienation I felt disappeared the moment I entered 65 North Tyson Avenue…through the Nassau County side door. Carolann and I ate potato chips and pretzels….we watched TV, we hatched some mischievous pranks, we ate, listened to the radio, we snacked, we crank called people, we ate, we played cards. Did I mention that we ate?

Jean’s home was where my true Inner Foodie was born. Her meatballs were probably the best I had ever experienced. Carolann and I developed a penchant for junk food and snacks…and hey, we were teenagers…so we indulged fairly often. I think our Friday night ritual was Burger King and Suzy Q’s for dessert. (They were so much bigger back then! Have you seen a Suzy Q lately…looks like an Oreo.) Oh, and a big bag of Munchos. (before they too were shrunk.)

But my sepia toned memory with a Wonder Years-Meets-the Bee Gees Soundtrack in my head wouldn’t be complete without telling you a little about Jean’s passion for old Hollywood, history of her generation’s America and of course her aforementioned real-life thesis about Irish husbands (see Billy O http://www.bokblog.org chapter).

A few minutes with Jean and you’d learn about what life was like when candy and dessert were a luxury, when a dollar wasn’t worth a dollar, and life was far more precious. A time when Italian Americans and Irish Americans stepped on each other for jobs, but learned to intermingle and then step on the next wave of immigrants, and so on. Jean’s life history and her stories of ethnic strata of old New York could fill a Social Studies book. Irish husbands were “too damn good looking” to keep, she would often say. I think she even went with an Irish-American boy way back when, which I’m sure was forbidden. She even leaned over at her husband’s wake to whisper that Carolann had, thank God, found a nice, and “good Jewish husband.”

With all of my grandparents gone before I was born, Jean was my daily personal and living touchstone to the time of my parents parents, more or less. She regaled me with the stories my grandparents never got to tell me. Filling that vacant hole with her own rather colorful observations and life history. I loved hearing stories from her about life from that time, before television and before the internet and before social media.

But there were books. And how she loved to read books! I think there was a time when she practically read a book a day! She had a voracious appetite for history and Hollywood biographies. She would repeat stories she read in these books and tell them over and over to anyone who would listen. It was usually just me.

One of Jean’s greatest obsessions was Sophia Loren and her life story from Italian poverty to stardom. I recently met Loren for a rare big interview I produced and told her all about Jean and how she revered the star from afar.

We fondly remember Mr. Drago at this time and comfort Jean and all the Dragos. But with Jean still around..and believe me, by the look and sound of her, she isn’t going anywhere soon …I wanted to let her know what she meant to me….and how she made a difference in my life. I hope to visit and have her amazing meatballs and “gravy” as she calls the sauce…very soon.