CARMEL >> The first time he saw her, he was afraid of her. He found her unattractive, like the wallflower at a freshman dance; rigid, like a schoolmarm; maybe even a little mean. But he found himself captivated, unable to look away, like a roadside wreck. He couldn’t quite identify his feelings but felt certain it was inappropriate to feel anything for a nun.
A story can seem tender to those involved, but the risk in telling it lies in how it will be interpreted. Tony Albano waited 50 years to be brave enough to tell his story and to protect the innocents involved. He also imagined, while he still harbors the emotions felt by a 14-year-old boy, he might be able to frame them from an adult mind.
Albano, who has written and published three books, never tells a story until he knows the ending. In this, his third book, “Cherish,” the story stopped a long time ago. But it ended much later. Basically, it began in 1955, when he was born in Brooklyn.
“My mother was only 17 when she gave birth to me in April,” he wrote, “and, according to her, that summer of 1955 broke all the records for being the hottest summer in decades . . . She said the smell of beer just hung in the air like a black cloud. She almost felt drunk, she was so hot.”
Albano’s story reached its climax in 1969, but he finally achieved its denouement, that moment when the strands of the plot are drawn together, and matters are either explained or resolved, this year.
The full title is “Cherish—A Memoir: The truth about where I came from and who I loved.” Sometimes Albano thinks about changing the title. But, no matter how he frames the story, it still happened.
Best summer ever
Albano remembers the summer of ’69 as an ideal era to be alive. It was the summer of Woodstock and a man walking on the moon. But he has his memory tuned to more personal experiences, the kind that can scar or save a teenaged boy.
“I don’t think my parents ever knew what happened to me in the summer of ’69,” Albano said. “But then, nearly no one did.”
For him, the start of the season, as always, was about the New York Mets. They may have been considered the worst team in baseball at the time, but he believed they could take it all the way to the World Series.
He was alone in that thinking. But Albano was alone a lot. Except when he stood in the stands, a high school freshman, cheering his team, believing they needed him, his support, and his encouragement. He went to as many games as possible.
“At the start of high school,” he said, “I went to what I still consider the best baseball game ever played. On the radio Jesse Colin Young was singing, ‘C’mon people now, smile on your brother; everybody get together, try to love one another right now.’”
He had his eyes on The Mets, but his mind on Sister Elizabeth, the new nun at his school, who had agreed to accompany him to a baseball game. And many after that. Every time she sat beside Albano, the Mets won the game.
When she told him her real name, Mary, their relationship became more real as well, but also more cloistered. The first time they kissed was the first time either had been kissed. It also was the first time either felt noticed or acknowledged or special.
When the Mets won the World Series on Oct. 3, 1969, it was not an analogy for Albano, just the climax to really great year. It’s also when Sister Elizabeth told Albano she was leaving the school, the church, him.
“When you break up with a nun,” he said, “you can’t tell your best friend, your parents—anyone. You just die a little each day, in silence.”
Feeling alone and angry, Albano picked up his guitar and started writing and singing his own emotions. Then one night, a young artist came onto his black-and-white TV screen, singing “Beautiful People.” To this day, he believes “Melanie” had set his feelings of loneliness and longing to music.
“Jesse Colin Young and Bob Dylan were the kind of artists who opened my mind,” Albano said. “Melanie opened my heart. She has been instrumental in my own career as a singer-songwriter, and we’re still in touch.”
Today, Tony Albano lives in Carmel with his wife Pat Albano, and their poodle-mix, Brie. In addition to his music and his writing, he has been a waiter and host at il Fornaio restaurant in Carmel for more than 20 years. For many more years, Pat has been the only living soul who knows her husband’s story. Until now.
Published by Park Place Publications, “Cherish—A Memoir: The truth about where I came from and who I loved,” along with Albano’s other books, is available via Amazon and Barnes and Noble, as well as Whittakers, Kris Kringle, Diggity Dog, and River House Books, in Carmel. The author will present an afternoon of storytelling at the Carmel Valley Library, in November.
