 Al with Eidan, Christmas 2006 - the youngest and the oldest |
 Al with 3 of his great grandchildren: Kai, Matthew, and Alexandra, July 2004 |
My grandfather passed away yesterday, at 94 years old. His health had steadily deteriorated over the past year, so it was not unexpected. He always took great pride in the accomplishments of his 4 children, 9 grandchildren, and 5 great-grandchildren. Including both sides of my family, he was the last of his generation, and I miss him already.
He especially enjoyed telling stories of his parents, who left behind a life of poverty in Sicily to start a new life in Boston. I am named after his father, Michael Mandrachia, who was a master mason. My grandfather told me more than once how his father could eyeball a job site and make corrections to the engineers’ estimates of how much cement they would need. I like to think that some small fragment of that talent lives on in me.
Feb 20, 1944 - Al Mandrachia and Eloise with their daughter Susan (my mom)
Feb 20, 1944 - Al Mandrachia and Eloise with their daughter Susan (my mom)
If you asked him to, he’d also tell stories about his experiences in Europe during World War II as a doctor in the Army. But it was never like “there goes Popi with his war stories again.” His tales were always fascinating, and I don’t think I ever heard the same story twice. The last one he told me, just a few months ago, took place after the war had ended, and he was attached to a couple of OSS agents (the OSS was the predecessor of the CIA) for a mission. They were dispatched to a ski resort to retrieve a couple of Nazi colonels. The OSS had learned that the colonels had gone to the top of the mountain, where they had stashed a supply of food. They then cut the lines for the lifts, and hoped they could ride out the aftermath of the war there, unreachable and unnoticed. So my grandfather and the agents had to climb the mountain to arrest them, and fortunately they surrendered peacefully.
What impressed me the most about him over the years, watching him grow old as I grew up, was that he always challenged himself. After he stopped working, he took up dancing. When he could no longer dance, he revived his interest in painting. (I wrote a post last year about an exhibition of his paintings), When he could no longer paint, he took up writing poetry. And through all of that, almost to his last day, he played the stock market, and was amazingly successful at it. Just a couple of months ago he made a very generous contribution to the boys’ college fund. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have been able to afford my first year of grad school at Georgetown, as loans only covered half the tuition (fortunately I received a fellowship that covered my tuition for the remaining years).
Here is the draft of his obituary, written by my aunt, and there are a couple more pictures below.
ALFONSO C. MANDRACHIA, M.D.
MELROSE – Alfonso C. Mandrachia, M.D., died peacefully the 18th day of December 2007 with family at his side. He was born in 1913 in Chelsea, MA, the son of Michael and Susie (Montalbano) Mandrachia. Raised in Everett, MA, he was a graduate of Tufts University and Middlesex University (precursor to Brandeis University) School of Medicine. A volunteer, he served during World War II with the 86th Infantry Division, the 169th Medical Battalion (Separate) and the 10th Armored Division, and attained the rank of major. His overseas campaigns included Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, the Ardennes, and Central Europe. He was the medical officer assigned to the examination of a number of high-ranking enemy officers, and was awarded both a Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.
Following his discharge, he established his medical practice in Everett and completed post-graduate study at Tufts College Medical School, Pratt Diagnostic Hospital, and the Boston Dispensary Clinic. He had a long career as a family practitioner, and was as devoted to his patients as they were to him, routinely making housecalls long after they had otherwise become a rarity. He was a member of the Everett Medical Society, the Massachusetts Medical Society, and the Lambda Phi Mu Medical Fraternity. Over the years, he served as chief of the medical staff at Whidden Memorial Hospital (Everett), and city physician for the city of Everett, and was company physician at General Electric in Everett and Automatic Radio in Melrose. He and his family have lived in Melrose since 1954.
A member of the lacrosse team at Tufts, Al was an avid skier, golfer, oil painter, and bridge player in his adult years. He also enjoyed crossword puzzles and writing poetry. An exhibit of his paintings was displayed last year at the Melrose Public Library, and playing bridge at the Milano Center with the “Sunshine Boys” was one of his favorite activities.
He leaves his devoted and loving wife, Elizabeth Cserhalmi. He was predeceased by his cherished wife of almost fifty years, Eloise (Saunders) Mandrachia. He will be most remembered for his deep and abiding affection for, and pride in, his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. He leaves three daughters and one son, who will miss him greviously: Susan Kenny Killebrew and husband David of New York City and Newport, R.I.; Priscilla Mandrachia and husband Vincent Ferraro of South Hadley, MA; Michelle Barbati and husband Joseph of Melrose; and A. Charles Mandrachia, Jr. of Melrose. Popi leaves nine grandchildren to treasure his memory, E’loise Tamer, Rebecca Toppa, Michael Toppa, John Kenny, Nathaniel Ferraro, Zachary Ferraro, Alexander Barbati, Matthew Barbati, and Cora Barbati. Also, five great-grandchildren on whom he doted: Alexander Tamer, Matthew and Alexandra Brown, and Kai and Eidan Toppa. Also predeceased by his sisters Florence (Mandrachia) Augello and Catherine (Mandrachia) Joyce, he leaves several nieces and a nephew.
A special remembrance will be held with the Sunshine Boys at the Milano Center at a date to be announced. No other services will be held and the family requests no flowers. Memorial contributions may be made to the Melrose Public Library, 69 West Emerson St., Melrose, MA 02176 or The Fitch House, 75 Lake Ave, Melrose, MA 02176.
 A sampling of Al Mandrachia’s paintings, on display in Melrose, MA |
 The Mandrachia clan, probably around 1983. Al is standing near the middle, with the white shirt, and that’s me (Michael) next to him in the green shirt. |
Shinjuku Gyoen National Park in April 2007
Shinjuku Gyoen National Park in April 2007
I noticed that it’s been so long since I wrote about Japan that I no longer have any Japan posts on my front page, and we can’t have that (I’m not counting the Japaridelphia post). With temperatures well below freezing tonight in Philadelphia, a look back at some nice spring weather in Tokyo is in order. Undoubtedly one of the most beautiful spots in Tokyo, Shinjuku Gyoen is one of just a few places I took the time to visit more than once during our 5 month stay.
The gardens which are 58.3 hectares in size, and with a circumference of 3.5 km, blend three distinct styles: French Formal, English Landscape and Japanese traditional. The gardens have more than 20,000 trees, including approximately 1,500 cherry trees which bloom from late March (Shidare or Weeping Cherry), to early April (Somei or Tokyo Cherry), and on to late April (Kanzan Cherry). Other trees found here include the majestic Himalayan cedars, which soar above the rest of the trees in the park, tulip trees, cypresses, and plane trees, which were first planted in Japan in the Imperial Gardens… The gardens are a favourite hanami (cherry-blossom viewing) spot, and large crowds can be found in the park during cherry blossom season… The greenhouse… has a stock of over 1,700 tropical and subtropical plant species on permanent display.
Unfortunately I went too early in the season to see the French and English gardens in their glory, but the rest of the park is spectacular in the early spring. It’s acre upon acre of well manicured, immaculate, perfectionist-fetish Japanese landscaping at its finest. Each time I went I had just a couple of hours for my visit, but the park is huge and you could easily spend a very pleasant, relaxing day exploring it.
It’s one of the few public parks in Tokyo that charges an admission fee (200 yen - about $2). They don’t allow people to use frisbees, balls, etc. and no pets are allowed (most parks are referring to as koen, but this one is a gyoen - an Imperial garden). But you can bring a picnic, there’s a restaurant, two tea houses, and at least one snack bar.
If you’d like to visit, check out the Shinjuku Gyoen official web site (English version). For some reason the site doesn’t come up when you do a Google search, which is unfortunate, because it has by far the best map and access guide. To get there, the easiest route for most tourists will be to take the Yamanote line to Shinjuku station and go out the South exit. This is the world’s busiest train station and the the world’s second largest, but don’t be intimidated - just follow the prominent English signs. Turn downhill when you come out of the station. You won’t see the Gyoen entrance at first, but just a minute after you cross the intersection with Meiji-Dori Ave, you’ll see the Shinjuku Gate entrance ahead of you.
My hand has healed, but the index finger and ring finger are rotated now, making it difficult for me to write
I got my cast off on Monday (after breaking my hand a month ago), and I’m thrilled to have my left hand back. It’s still a bit sore and swollen, and I can’t do things like make a fist yet, but the doctor said it should be better within a week. He doesn’t think I need any physical therapy: I’m just working on squeezing one of those stress balls regularly, and periodically putting pressure on my knuckles, so my fingers will go straight again (the tendons need to be stretched out since my fingers were curled in the cast for a month).
The one disappointment is that I don’t entirely have the normal function that the doctor said I would. For most tasks, the rotation of my index and ring fingers is not a problem. But I’ve discovered it’s a real problem for writing and using chopsticks. The way I hold a pen for writing involves all my fingers, and now my ring finger is getting in the way of my pinky. So I’m experimenting with new ways to hold pens and chopsticks. It’s really strange - I keep having the feeling “this isn’t my hand - who took my hand? - I’d like it back now.” It’s frustrating, but I’m sure once I figure out a new way to write and get used to it, it will come to feel completely normal.
My sister’s boyfriend Paul with Eidan
My sister’s boyfriend Paul with Eidan
In honor of yesterday’s unexpected early winter snowfall here in Philly, I decided it’s finally time to post pictures from our trip to Newport this summer. The first couple of pictures below are from a performance of the Navy Show Band at the Newport Art Museum. The Museum hosts a summer evening picnic series of musical performances. The tourists come for the Jazz and Folk Festivals, and the locals go to the Art Museum shows. The rest of the pictures are from Hazard’s Beach, where the boys spent most of their days during our week and half stay in August. My sister was visiting at the same time, so her kids - Matthew and Alex - are in some of the pictures. They live in Texas, so it’s nice for the kids to have a chance to get together in Newport. I spent my childhood summers at Hazard’s, so I think it’s great the boys get to spend some time there too.
If you’re not familiar with PHP sessions and how to use session variables, getting up to speed isn’t easy. What makes it difficult to learn is that it’s hard to make sense of the online resources. That includes php.net, which has a ton of little pink and yellow boxes on its pages about sessions, with caveats about important changes between PHP versions. The “right way” to use sessions has changed with successive releases of PHP, and many of the old ways are now either more trouble than they’re worth, or simply may not work at all anymore. Throw in the changes with PHP classes (if you want to store objects in sessions), and the multiple possible ways your server can be configured for handling sessions, and it gets even more confusing. So any tutorial you read that’s more than a couple years old may lead you astray.
I’m not going to try covering all the possible variations, but here’s what works for PHP 4.3.9 with a default session configuration (see the Runtime Configuration section of that page if you want to see the details), using MySQL and Apache. I’m fairly certain this all works in PHP 5 as well, but I haven’t tested it.
- session_start: you need to call session_start() on every page (you can save yourself from repetitive coding by putting this and other page startup code in an include file). Note that by default it stays with the session id that’s automatically set when the user first starts his session - you don’t need to pass in the session id (the php.net documentation could be clearer on that point).
- Requiring your class files: for any objects stored in session variables that you use in a page, you will need to call require_once() on their class files before your call to session_start(). This is necessary for PHP to know how to map the data in the session variable to the class (another good candidate for reuse in an include file).
- session_register: you don’t need to use session_register() anymore. Just use the $_SESSION array to store your variables. I found a lot of online discussions from a few years ago about session_register being essential when putting objects in sessions - that doesn’t apply anymore.
- serialize: if you just want to store your objects in sessions (not in files or database tables), you don’t need to serialize() them yourself, and you don’t have to worry about losing the object type or access to its methods.
- mysql_connect: at first I tried putting a call to mysql_connect() in a startSession method of a database class I created, thinking I’d only need to call it once for the user’s session. That doesn’t work: the connection is lost after the http response for the page is complete. Trying to store the connection in a session variable does not magically persist it for the user. mysql_pconnect() is not the answer either, for reasons outlined in the php.net Persistent Databaase Connection page. The answer is to simply make connections as needed for each page - old connections will be reused if they’re available, so this doesn’t necessarily lead to an unnecessary proliferation of connections. You can even call mysql_connect() repeatedly on a page and it will by default re-use the connection that was initially opened on the page. This is nice if, like me, you’ve written a database class and you have a generic query method in it: you can call mysql_connect() in your query method, and not worry about how many times it’s being called by a particular page.
I should point out all of the foregoing is for garden variety purposes: managing connections for high traffic sites, security, scalability, and dealing with users who don’t accept cookies, are all beyond the scope of this post.
So, in my code I have no calls to session_register() or serialize() (as they’re not needed for storing objects in session variables), and in my database class’s query method, I call mysql_connect(). The main things to remember are requiring your class files before calling session_start(), and doing so on every page.
Al with Eidan, Christmas 2006 - the youngest and the oldest
Al with 3 of his great grandchildren: Kai, Matthew, and Alexandra, July 2004
Feb 20, 1944 - Al Mandrachia and Eloise with their daughter Susan (my mom)
A sampling of Al Mandrachia’s paintings, on display in Melrose, MA
The Mandrachia clan, probably around 1983. Al is standing near the middle, with the white shirt, and that’s me (Michael) next to him in the green shirt.
