On special Sundays, we didn’t eat lunch at home before our drive. Instead we would drive down along the Monongahela River to a very small and dirty steel mill town. There we would have lunch at Milla’s. She owned a restaurant right beside the steel mill on the second floor of an old brick building. I can still remember climbing the rickety steel staircase to the top where we would enter the restaurant from the back. Once inside, you were enveloped in a delicious aroma of tomato sauce and spices. Milla would hurry out of the kitchen and when she saw us her face would light up. She spoke very quickly in her broken English, and I would quickly lose the thread of the conversation. Milla would hug and kiss each of us and after seeing that we had the best possible table, she would proceed to bring us whatever she thought we should eat. I have never in my life met anyone who could cook as well as Milla and I would have no problem eating whatever she put on my plate.

            Milla was an immigrant from Italy who came to America sometime after the turn of the century. My grandfather also emigrated from Italy, and my father picked up some Italian phrases from him. Milla and my father would sometimes converse in Italian while I looked on in wonderment.

            After we ate our lunch, Milla would always grab my hand and walk me down the hall to her husband’s bar. It was not open on Sundays but she would unlock the door and in we went. Behind the bar from floor to ceiling was a rack filled with a child’s favorite junk food. There were potato chips, pretzels, candy, and gum. Milla would hand me a brown paper bag and tell me to, “Fill up the bag. Take whatever you want.”  I recall just standing in awe of all the choices and having a difficult time deciding what to take. Although my parents had taught me not to be greedy, I knew Milla wouldn’t let me leave until the bag had been filled to the brim. I was soon grabbing all my favorites and stuffing them into the bag. Milla would look on with a smile on her face. When the bag was full, she would walk me back to my parents. As we approached their table, she would take my hand and press a coin into my palm. Sometimes it would be a fifty-cent piece, but occasionally it would be a silver dollar. I never spent one of the coins Milla pressed into my hand, and I still sometimes look at them and think of her.