Sinatra: Part of Heart, Home, and Growing Up

(Editor’s Note: When Frank Sinatra died [May 14, 1998] I was a sports writer for The Trenton Times. I immediately called the paper and asked if I could write an op-ed. After it was published I framed it and gave it to my father for Father’s Day that year. Here you see the shelf he kept it on in his music room, among his treasures. It’s the room I sleep in when I visit. Dad died on April 27, 2021. At some point I’ll feel ready to write a column about him, but in the meantime I want to share this one. I think he’d like that. I re-typed it so it can live on the internet.)

A guy I used to date asked me once why Italians glorify Frank Sinatra. I can’t speak for all of us, but with his recent death, I feel compelled to share how he has touched my life.

When I still lived in Hamilton Square a decade ago, I used to wake up on Sunday mornings to the heavenly aroma of garlic and tomato and to the sounds of Frank Sinatra on the stereo. My mother would be at the stove, my father listening to “Sunday with Sinatra,” the Sid Mark radio program out of Philadelphia.

No one warns you as you’re growing up that these kinds of moments are the ones that will stick with you. That’s probably because you’re too busy being a know-it-all, trying to tell your parents how outdated their music is.