This Horse is Dead Mr. G.
By Joe Testa

Chapter 1

It was a Saturday morning, and I was late. I ran the ten or so blocks from the waterfront to the market area. The city was just about awake, and the old cobblestone streets were alive with vendors. Wagons and carts were lined up in front of the storefronts.

Young boys and old men were unloading crates and boxes of produce to put on display. Steam from the barrels that contained lobsters and crabs rose up above the teaming streets. Horse drawn wagons loaded with fruits and vegetables were heading out into the suburbs. It was 1955 and it was the time of adventure.

My father had arranged for me to work with old Mr. Ganelli. I was excited, because it would mean I could make some money, and get to see the country.

Well, in those days the country was anyplace there were trees. I had met the old man Ganelli many times before. He owned the fruit store down on Fleet St. and the wagon loaded with fruit and vegetables. He was a nice old guy. Always had a stogi hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

In those days there was no such thing as minimum wage. You worked long and hard, and you worked for tips. The idea was to get the fruit and vegetables to the buyer. That meant running up ten thousand flights of stairs with bags of produce. If the stuff was good & fresh and you were lucky, you got a tip. Sometimes, you got a slap.

The old man could sing, and the clip clop of the horse's feet on the cobblestone had a rhythm to it, hypnotizing. Old man Ganelli had a saying, people would buy horseshit as long as it was stacked neatly. And he liked to tell stories about the old country, and he was smart.

He would say things that made sense. He would start by making a statement.

"Fruitflies,'' then he would look at me with that soggy cigar between his teeth, and his eyebrows raised way up on his forehead.

"Yea, Mr Ganelli, What about `em." I asked.

"Do you know dat people wonder where dey come from?" said Mr. G.

I thought for a moment, and wondered, where do they come from? "I don't know Mr. G." I replied.

"Well my boy, I'm gonna tell ya. They're already in the fruit. When da fruit gets warm, dey hatch, and dat my boy is where fruit flies come from." said Mr. G.

"You mean we eat fruit fly eggs?" I asked.

"Yep dat's right." replied Mr. G.

But did it ever hurt ya. No, but I don't know if I want to eat fruit anymore. Good, cause I don't want you eating all my profits, see what I mean? Everything he said made sense. He just wouldn't come out and say. ``Hey, I don't want you eating all the stuff on the wagon.''

"Where we goin Mr. G.?'', I said.

"I don't know. Wherever Old Red takes us, and Old Red didn't seemed to be very happy. He always seemed to be sleeping, and you would have to hold your breath at times. Because he would stumble and it was a miracle he wouldn't crash to the ground. The cobblestones would trip him up, but he did good on the paved roads.

It was a warm spring morning, and I was setting up the scale & organizing the apples, oranges, grapes, bananas and everything else he had on the wagon.

Soon, we were working our way thru the west end, and Old Mr. G. started to sing his song. "Potatoes, tomatoes, 25 cents a pound. I got peaches, bananas, lemons & lime.'' I would laugh cause that stogi would never leave his mouth.

The old ladies would yell down from the tenements. Hey, I wanna pound of this and give me 2 pounds of dat. I would throw the stuff in the bags and put them on the scale. And old Mr. G. would put the price on the bag with his old yellow pencil.

And I would hit the stairs on a run. 4 flights in 3 seconds, and there was a little ritual of squeezing & poking the produce to see if it was fresh.

And then they would ask you, hey, ain't you Salvi's boy? No, I'm Joe's boy, ya know the bookie over on Front Street. Hey, I know your old man. And they would laugh. Hey, that's good, that's good. Hey Gloria this kid's a hustler. Anything for a tip, make em laugh.

Mr. G. knew the customers that didn't tip, and he would say, ``Hey, on that 3 pounds of apples, for the third floor.'' Half and half, that meant the bottom half of the bag were bad apples. The top half were decent, but not good. That was business.

It was getting towards noontime and we stopped to put the feed bag on Old Red and take a break. Old Mr. G. would wander into the corner barroom and I would stand guard on the wagon, and sell stuff to passersby.

Only this day, I noticed a flock of pigeons flying around in circles and they were all pure whites.

Today I would meet old Mr. Vardinski, his face was made of stone. Like someone chiseled it out of granite.

He looked hard, like steel and yet he spoke softly. It was a surprise to think that such a hard looking man could speak this way, almost a whisper.

He had steel blue eyes that appeared to look inside you. And that any moment he would explode and crush your life from you. And so if I was a little apprehensive when he asked me to run a couple of pounds of apples up to his wife. And even a little panic stricken when he came up the stairs behind me and said. In almost a little boy's voice, with an accent.

"I see you like my white pigeons, you want to steal dem?" asked Mr. Vardinski.

I said, ``Noooo, I wuz just watching them.''

"Good, you look like a good boy.'', said Mr. Vardinski. Come, I show you my pigeons. Whew, I could hear the blood in my ears pounding.

I said to myself, "Hey, calm down, I didn't do nuttin.'' I followed him up to the roof, and it was a beautiful place. He had little fruit trees in barrels, just starting to bud, and all sorts of coops and hutches. He led me into his loft, and it was bright and sunny inside. Made even brighter with all the white pigeons strutting around.

And in different sections that had been screened off. There were other special pigeons, nuns, capuchins, fantails, muff tumblers and way on the other side, birds that he called rollers. Boy was this something else. I had kept a few street pigeons up on my roof, and although they looked nothing like this. They would fly around and were pretty tame, but this was like a dream.

The sound of wings popping as the cocks flew from perch to perch, and the cooing and sounds were almost like a symphony. The trance was broken by his wife who was calling. Sonny boy, Mr. G. is looking for you. You better hurry. I scrambled down the stairs. Pausing to yell that I would be back, to see the birds.

Old Mr. G. had a look of scorn on his face but didn't say much. Just that I better give Old Red some water. Wouldn't want him to choke to death. On our way out to the suburbs Allston and Brighton area.

Old Mr. G. asked about the birds.

I told him, I couldn't believe that pigeons were so beautiful. He added they're even more beautiful in soup. I laughed.

I had already decided on getting me some pigeons. How, was a another story.

The following week on our regular stop for lunch. I again visited Mr. Vardinski's lofts. He had birds that had little crest on their heads. These pigeons were called helmets. He also had some strange looking birds called polish highfliers. Only this day, I was in for a surprise of my life.

My second visit with Mr. Vardinski proved to be as pleasant as the first. I sat on the water can as the old man talked about the birds. Some of them, he referred to by name, one in particular he called Da Boss. I would have given that pigeon the same name. Because he chased all the other birds off the perches, and he would even peck old man Vardinski's hand when he pick him up.

He asked if I knew the difference between the boys and da girls. I laughed and said, "Yea, girls wear dresses.''

He burst out laughing. He was talking about the pigeons.

He explained to me that the birds let you know what they are. But you have to study them, he was talking about expression. Da Boss was a red badge saddle, and his eyes were black as inkwells. It was time to fly the birds. I was excited. The birds were excited. They knew it was time to fly.

The doors on the front of the loft were made of dowels. And no sooner had the old man opened them. The birds broke out and into the air. It was like a small explosion, feathers floated down to the roof. The birds circled around the rooftops and the Boston skyline made for impressive background.

As the flock started to rise up over the city. Mr. Vardinski told me to keep my eye on them. Two old men had arrived and were talking in their native polish and another man spoke to me in Sicilian. He said watch the black one. All of a sudden, the flock exploded.

Pigeons were dropping everywhere. You could hear the velocity as they rolled toward the roof. A few dropped down in between the buildings, and one had crashed on the loft roof. The old guys were hooting and hollering and I was speechless.

The birds continued to fly & break for quite awhile, and slowly they worked their way up into the clouds. I still remember to this day how blue the sky was.

I ran for the stairs again, I was late. And old Mr. Ganelli wouldn't hesitate to give me a slap. I made it down to the wagon just as the old man turned the corner, he was in a hurry. It was a warm day and the fruit would surely go bad.

I couldn't wait to tell my buddies Anthony "Legs'' D'amellio, and Bobby "Monkey Man'' Gatta about these pigeons. We would meet after supper every night behind the Boston Garden, down at the old docks.

We were like generals planning a war.

The Rodeo was in town and we had to figure how to get into the Boston Garden, free. Monkey Man would usually climb the 60 thousand foot fire escape to an exit door. Slip down inside the Garden & open one of the side doors to let us in.

But this night, we were off to Scollay Sqr. The arcade and bribing the usher at the old Howard Burlesque House.

It was summer and school was out. Old Mr. G. and I would be hustling fruit 3 days a week. It was a beautiful Saturday morning and we were working our way out of the city, into the South End.

Old Mr. G. was a pigeon eater. And that bothered me. His brother raised white kings and they would take the babies at four weeks old. I called it murder. He called it delicious.

And to make matters worse, he told me that next year, he would be selling fruit from a truck, and that Old Red would be eaten by his cousins. They did such things in the old country, and he would laugh. Promising he would make me a sandwich from Old Red's leg.

The South End was inhabited by Arabs, and I had made a friend of a kid named Haddad. He loved to ride on the wagon and helped me run the fruit up to the tenements. He also spoke the language.

Today was to be the day to remember. Everything was fine until Old Red crashed to the ground. A crowd had gathered, and an old man tried to pull Old Red up on his feet. Old Mr. G. was frantic, screaming obscenities and to my amazement, spit that stogi out of his mouth.

The words came in slow motion from the old man who was trying to help the horse. ``Hey, this horse is dead.'' What! I ran over to Mr.G. and nearly choked on the words.

Mr. G. the horse is dead, and my mind raced. Did I give him water today?

I sat on the steps in front of the tenement with my buddy, Haddad. A truck had arrived and they were dragging Old Red up a ramp with a winch. Things happened fast in those days. Mr. G. had sold his wagon & the fruit to a man who owned a grocery store down the street. It was a long walk home.

Anthony, Bobby, and I were a team. We did everything together. The previous summer we hopped a train at North Station. The problem was we couldn't get off. We ended up in New York State. Scared to death, the neighborhood thought we had been kidnapped and murdered. We were gone for 3 days. I was ten years old. I had to stay with my cousins till the old man calmed down. It was an adventure.

Old Mr. Vardinski never called me by my name. It was always, "Little Boy.'' We arrived on the block, turned the corner and ran right into old Mr. Vardinski. He was standing with a group of men, and at their feet were crates, with pigeons in them.

"Hey, little boy. Take da crates wid your friends and bring dem up to the roof.'' Said Mr. Vardinski. "Sure Mr. V.'' I replied. When we got to the roof. Anthony couldn't stop laughing. Did you see that guy's face. He looks like a murderer. I had to laugh.

That he did. That he did. Mr. V. was a gentle man. When he finally arrived, he said, ``I have a surprise for you little one. Tomorrow

I take you to da big pigeon show in Boston. You ask your father if you can go. You help me with da pigeons and I give you six of da rollers.''

"I ain't askin no one nuthin. I'm goin.'' I replied.

Six o' clock the next morning and we load the birds into the crates. Old Mr. V. handled those pigeons with love. Not a feather was ruffled.

The man stopped his big station wagon with wooden sides at the curb. Old Mr.V. and I had been waiting with 5 crates of assorted pigeons.

It was a Saturday morning, I had never imagined pigeons shows and didn't know what to expect. The driver was a man I had seen around the neighborhood, and he knew my father. He spoke in Italian to another man and they both smiled and said, ``I was a good boy.''

If only they knew, you like da pidg, sonny boy. You eat da pidg. No no no, my grandmother eats the pigeons, and the man I work for, Mr. Ganelli, eat da pidg, the bastard.

We hauled the crates into this huge building, I couldn't believe what was before my eyes. Thousands of cages, thousands of pigeons. Cages were stacked 2 to 3 high, I was just tall enough to see the first row. We started putting his beautiful birds in different cages. They had tags on them with numbers.

Old Mr. V. was excited. I was excited. I was growing to like this man. He might look like a murderer, but he handled those pigeons with love. He carried a small container filled with powder. Looked like a salt shaker and he would shake the powder on my hands when I put the birds from the crate into the cage. This was so you wouldn't mess up the feathers.

If there were 5 thousand pigeons in that building, there had to be ten thousand people. Men with long white coats with big designs of pigeons on them, were standing in front of cages with little sticks in their hands, moving the birds around. And mumbling things under their breaths.

Another man stood beside with that man and would write everything he said on a piece of paper. I started to realize how important all these things were, and how important these pigeons were to these men.

Old Mr. V. would talk in his native Polish to other men, and they would reach down and shake my hand. Men would be arguing and other men would be laughing. A few birds had escaped and people were running around with nets trying to catch them.

Every row had a different breed of pigeons contained inside. There were Jacobins, Fantails, Homers, Rollers, Tumblers, big birds, small little birds with bulging eyes.

Old Mr. V. was excited, he had won several of the big trophies. And we had hot dogs and soda. It was like a circus.

I have never forgot that day. I had built a small loft up on my roof, and in it were 3 pair of rollers. They were red badges and saddles, and one pure white. Old Mr. V. had come by and put them in my loft, with strict instructions not to let them out. They would only fly back to his loft.

After they had eggs, he would return to train them for me. I was spending more time up on the roof than down on the street hustling fruit.

The summer was almost over. Things had been going just right. I had raised a bunch of babies and they were beautiful in color, and some had started to roll. Old Mr. Vardinski had given me a few more young birds, and I had helped him build a new loft for his show pigeons.

Mr. Vardinski's roof was a place within a place. It was a farm in the city. He had boxes filled with dirt for growing vegetables, and little fruit trees and evergreens, it was amazing.

The city was filled with immigrants in those years, and there were no back yards.

And anything that happened, usually happened up on the roof. You could travel the whole city from the roof. One quiet Sunday morning, I went up to look at my birds. Only there were no birds, they had been stolen. I can't explain that feeling of loss, and rage.

There was gonna be a war. The city was loaded with pigeons fanciers, and most of the lofts were on their roofs. A lot of homer fanciers, tippler and roller flyers.

I rounded up Anthony & Bobby. We were on a mission. Anthony was no joke, at age 11 years old, he had already earned a reputation as being the toughest kid on the block. But I also knew he was afraid of the dark. I found out on that train ride to upstate New York.

We started asking around the neighborhood, we were looking for answers, Only no one was talking. A few days later, 5 of my rollers had returned and old Mr. Vardinski had found 3 of the original birds back at his loft. So, whoever robbed me, lived closer to the west end.

And it could only have been Vinnie "The Fat Man'' Gentilli. "Pasta Face.'' We used to call him. He was a pig. We hustled over to his block. Anthony had a cousin who lived in the next building. So, we set up our position on the roof. So we could observe what the fat man had in his loft. Vinnie the pig had no qualms about throwing you off the roof. And wouldn't have a second thought about force feeding his victim with pigeon droppings.

So we were quite cautious, and a little apprehensive to say the least. It's amazing what kids can think of. We would wait till it got dark, grab my birds, and dismantle his pigeon loft, board by board.

That wasn't good enough. The fat man must pay. We could see my pigeons in his flight pen.

And I had murder in my heart. We also had Salvi, Anthony's older brother. Salvi wasn't a bright kid. He had this thing about aliens, and he said he had seen flying saucers flying over the harbor.

I wonder if he knew there was an airport over there. But his nickname was ``Forklift''. This kid could lift buildings. He was the answer, we had no choice. Salvi put a dozen eggs in a bag, and headed over to Vinnie the human who would eat anything's house.

We trailed behind this giant with no brains knowing he couldn't be stopped by anyone. Vinnie the boy with spaghetti sauce on his face was about to be fed, raw eggs, shells and all. We could get our revenge, and my birds.

The confrontation that day was a classic. Vinnie, after all, was human. And probably wouldn't mind eating all those eggs anyway.

Vinnie apologized considering the fact he was outnumbered and Salvi didn't know right from wrong, and I'm sure he could visualize him and his loft. Mother and father being tossed over the roof's edge. Back at my loft. The birds settled in, peace of mind. Little did I know that Vinnie would become my closest friend, and that under all that fat, lived a very funny boy. Who would remain part of my life, to this day.

Until recently, the M.A.P.R. and many great roller fanciers have never been exposed nationally. We have had the honor to boast such greats as J. Leroy Smith & Stan Plona. But Just as then, there is now.

Many excellent families of rollers and roller breeders, who remain unknown. It is with this treatise that I will try to bring these masters to the attention of the roller world. Boston and New England especially, in cities & towns that surround Boston proper.

This is their story. This is the history of Boston and the Birmingham Roller.

 Footnote

The greatest roller shows of the 50's & 60's were at the old Mechanics Building in Boston.

Many years had passed since I had the thought or the place to keep rollers. The city had changed.

Entire neighborhood had been destroyed. They called it urban renewal. Huge cold government buildings now stood where once family and friends had struggled to get their piece of the American pie.

Old Boston, with its cobblestone streets, the smell of ethnic cooking, and European accents would be gone forever from this place.

Many tearful good byes as friends and family moved out into the suburbs, North and South Shores, and with them went their pigeons.

The reality of things were we were no longer fighting over pigeons. But fighting wars, fighting over girls and making our bones in the street. Rollers it seemed, no longer existed but only in our memories.

I had the urge to see some rollers, but kept putting it off. I eventually built a small loft on my roof in the city of Revere, just north of Boston, and had located a pigeon dealer in Somerville Mass., Al Almeida.

He sold grain and fancy birds, but helped me locate a few roller fanciers and I obtained a couple of pair to fly. Nothing to scream about mind you, but they did fly nice. Catastrophic events would lead me to meet up with John Dushinski.

Oct. 14, 1972, the smoke was rising up over the entire city of Chelsea. The whole city was burning. Over ten square blocks. John came home to devastation. His loft had burned to the ground along with the entire neighborhood. Sifting through the rubble. All that was left was a bath pan where all his rollers had gathered, only to be burned into little chunks of charcoal. There was no getting away from that inferno.

John had salvaged what he could of some of his old stock birds that were in lofts around the city. Moving into Revere, he started over with about 3 pair.

I met John when one of his old cocks flew into my kit. This old roller was an old red bird that could spin, and it wasn't too long before John was knocking on my door looking to get him back and that's a whole different story.

John knew his stuff and we began a friendship around the birds. I had got rid of those high fliers and was breeding from a few pair that John had lent to me.. We would talk about roller flyers from Boston & Chelsea, names like Carvahlo, Gelewski, Mo Smith, and Sammy Castle.

I had known the guys out in the Allston-Brighton area, Jerry Cedrone, Bob Puglia, and recently Oakie O'Conner from Cambridge. Mike Sweeney and I, met around that same time. There were local names that would come up in conversation and eventually we would get to meet those guys.

Charlie Hickey, Fran Dernier, Fred Perry, Fred Madden, and of course, old Mr. Miller from Arlington. John and I were working on our family of rollers and we would get together on a Sunday morning and go on what we called pigeon patrols.

There was that excitement that comes with walking into someone else's loft. There's always a pigeon that strikes your eye, and bartering would begin. Old Mr. Miller out in Arlington was a source of good rollers. Many of the birds were out of Dr. Sanger's imports, and his prices were reasonable, to say the least.

One old man from Nahant Mass. had a very nice loft of inbred rollers, his name was Mr. Pond. I had picked a few birds from him. These pigeons were exclusively black and blue checks and real small. Part of my family of roller were developed out of his stuff. And as time went on, John and I were meeting more roller flyers. I had made several trips down to Stan Plona's loft in Connecticut, but at that time, I didn't have the facilities to keep pigeons.

As the years went by, it seemed that the roller hobby was coming back. More and more of the guys who had rollers as kids were looking for the pigeons.

I had never known for a roller club to exist in all my years with these pigeons. And had never known that any competitions had taken place, and that was too bad. Because a lot of good pigeons were out there, but it was still a nice sport to be involved in, and the fanciers had unique families of rollers. I think one of the most interesting I had found were developed by Fred Madden and I believe Bob Puglia.

I was visiting my family in Allston one Sunday and noticed a kit of rollers flying around the WBZ TV tower. I followed the kit to a loft owned by Mr. Puglia. These pigeons were all pure whites with red or black ticks, or what some called mottled or spangles. Bob was a good guy to talk with and had a lot of stories about the rollers.

And it was thru Bob that I met Fred. His family was small and typy pigeons and strictly pearl eyed. And we used to sit, and watch his birds and try to pick out the spinners. Difficult indeed because in the air, they all looked the same. But I had picked up a few birds here and there and blended that blood into my family of rollers.

And when Fred got out of the pigeons for about five years. I kept two pair of his old stock pure. For that day where he would get back into it, and he did just that. Fred is now developing his family from what he could gather from his old stock. It seems that the fanciers who had the rollers in the 60's and 70's, and before that, are the same guys who have the birds at the present time. I call them diehards, or real roller fanciers. Although many of the guys have since changed their old family of rollers. There are still a few lofts that still have the old stuff.

For instance, let's take a pigeon named Crazy Horse. This old bird was about 7 months old when I first met the late Fran Dernier. I still recall that day, I was with John Dushinski and Charlie Hickey.

Old Mr. Dernier had told us that this little cock bird could spin, and lo and behold it did. Crazy Horse is still around and producing. Although Fran has since passed on. His son, Paul, has maintained the birds and is developing this old family of rollers to this day. And that is a family of rollers that is unique. Small pigeons possessing the ability to spin with extreme velocity. Paul has been an intricate part in the development of the roller hobby here is Massachusetts.

In our next chapter, we will talk about the roller fancier from the south shore and how they developed their strains of rollers. Their input into creating the M.A.P.R., with their love for the sport and dedication to pursue this unique pigeon, in its amazing ability to do what no other bird can do. To spin backwards at inconceivable speeds for great distances. Truly a remarkable pigeon.