Rita Ciresi - "Monopoly"
"Monopoly" is one of a series of vignettes from my memoir in progress, Made in America, which explores growing up Italian-American in the tumultuous 1960s and '70s.
My childhood home was littered with religious items that marked us as Italian--crucifixes affixed above every door frame, porcelain saints on every chest of drawers, a plastic Pieta that sat upon the television set. So I was thrilled whenever my sisters and I found anything under the Christmas tree that seemed really American: jump ropes, yo-yos, and board games like Uncle Wiggily and Candyland.
No game was more American than Monopoly. I loved the Monopoly board with its bright colors and place names that evoked glamour and wealth: Marvin Gardens, Broadway, Park Place. And I adored the tiny silver tokens that reminded me of fancy charm bracelets rich girls wore in glossy magazines. Sometimes when my sisters weren't around, I opened the Monopoly box and ruffled the colorful paper money inside, pretending all of it was mine, mine, mine.
But playing Monopoly with others never was fun for me. My sisters and boy-cousin got caught up in the competitive spirit of the game, choosing the most aggressive tokens, accumulating properties, and putting up more hotels than Donald Trump. I both longed to do the same--because that would make me more 'merigan--and yet I was too shy, too dreamy, and altogether too girlie-girl to play for high stakes.
Those Saturday and Sunday afternoons playing endless rounds of Monopoly made me realize I had a more Mediterranean spirit. I knew I always would be happier on the sidelines, quietly sitting in a spot of sunshine, as opposed to getting down and dirty in the roughness and rudeness of American life.
Photo courtesy of pexels.com
My childhood home was littered with religious items that marked us as Italian--crucifixes affixed above every door frame, porcelain saints on every chest of drawers, a plastic Pieta that sat upon the television set. So I was thrilled whenever my sisters and I found anything under the Christmas tree that seemed really American: jump ropes, yo-yos, and board games like Uncle Wiggily and Candyland.
No game was more American than Monopoly. I loved the Monopoly board with its bright colors and place names that evoked glamour and wealth: Marvin Gardens, Broadway, Park Place. And I adored the tiny silver tokens that reminded me of fancy charm bracelets rich girls wore in glossy magazines. Sometimes when my sisters weren't around, I opened the Monopoly box and ruffled the colorful paper money inside, pretending all of it was mine, mine, mine.
But playing Monopoly with others never was fun for me. My sisters and boy-cousin got caught up in the competitive spirit of the game, choosing the most aggressive tokens, accumulating properties, and putting up more hotels than Donald Trump. I both longed to do the same--because that would make me more 'merigan--and yet I was too shy, too dreamy, and altogether too girlie-girl to play for high stakes.
Those Saturday and Sunday afternoons playing endless rounds of Monopoly made me realize I had a more Mediterranean spirit. I knew I always would be happier on the sidelines, quietly sitting in a spot of sunshine, as opposed to getting down and dirty in the roughness and rudeness of American life.
Photo courtesy of pexels.com
Rita Ciresi is author of the novels Bring Back My Body to Me, Pink Slip, Blue Italian, and Remind Me Again Why I Married You, and three award-winning story collections, Second Wife, Sometimes I Dream in Italian, and Mother Rocket. She is professor of English at the University of South Florida, a faculty mentor for the Bay Path University MFA program in creative nonfiction, and fiction editor of 2 Bridges Review.
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