Anna Ricci Haag - 1937 - 2003
Godmother Muse Lady Queen
Take your
Pick
By Carol
Fondiller
The last time I saw her
before she died she looked good.
Delicate silver decorated her arms and fingers,
and a little tendril of her long black hair kissed her temple. “I’m
dying. My veins are black from all the chemo.” We sat and talked of good
old times how we would get so high. We’d laugh at how high we got, but we
were very careful to cross with the lights and walk on the crosswalk, two young
crones who knew it all going to the Ocean Front Walk at night because we were
happy and angry and high.
Fiery as
Vesuvius on a rampage, she could tell a cop to go fuck himself and he’d
fall in love with her. She hit Big Lip Louie with a chair one night at the
Venice West and he was devoted to her from then on. Not every cop fell in love
with her. She was arrested several times, but found not guilty more times than
not.
She fought injustice and the
enemies of good times with all her heart and a wooden spoon. The Beats taught
her to swear and she was an apt pupil. She was mother to her children and their
friends.
“I make polenta. You
come.” It was a command. She’d use what she bought at Bay Cities
import in Santa Monica and what she bought at various supermarkets. Realistic
Italian cooking, canned tomatoes–corn meal stirred in a regular pot, she
didn’t have a special polenta pot. She’d stir the polenta made light
and thin as a bridal veil and pour it on a special wooden board for polenta only
smoothing it with her wooden spoon.
And then
pour over the sauce with mushrooms, pepper, cheap cuts of meat and we’d
dig in with our spoons in her kitchen trying to shape the polenta into the shape
of Italy as we gorged and drank red
wine.
Her heart was broken so many
times by eviction from the Venice West, the Vietnam War and men. But she broke a
few hearts and I know there are men out there who still love her, even if their
hearts aren’t broken.
My friend,
who turned a limp into a seductive amble. Always walking with her 4-inch wedgies
making earrings on an ocean front bench just as she did the last time I saw her.
She walked with a bag full of jewelry to sell along the
O.F.W.
Even in the hospital for her
triple bypass, she was selling jewelry to the nurses, holding up her fingers for
how much when she couldn’t
talk.
She was as earthy and eternal as
the Rome she was born in. She survived the barbarians goose-stepping under
Titus’ Arch, her father being beaten by the fascist stooges of Mussolini,
the farcical descendant of the Caesars. She survived accidents and swindles with
ferocious courage.
She’d cook for
benefits to end the war in Vietnam, for the Beachhead. Spaghetti chicken or
meatballs—“You no like? You a vegetarian. Fuck you, eat. It’s
good!”
She had a goldfish. It
swam in its Five and Dime glass bowl placed in the smoky kitchen. She fed it
guacamole. The damn thing lived for
years.
Anna Haag, born Anna Ricci on
January 19, 1937 in Rome. Died November 3, 2003 in Glenwood, Colorado. Survived
by her son Thomas Paine Duggan, her daughter Duanna Haag, her son-in-law James
Davey, and three grandchildren: Jason, Davey and April
Anna.
Anna, stalwart friend, good
company, direct and so truthful even if it
hurt.
She fed us love and nurtured us
with her courage to stand for
Venice.
Ciao, Anna
Posted: Mon - December
1, 2003 at 04:22 PM