After 46 years, 91-year-old Frank Scialabba still says hello to Rose Cimino every day. Retired at 91, he comes to Rose’s and her husband’s Grand Avenue bakery, puts on a smock, and packages fennel biscuits called “tartalle.” And he brings Rose her daily joke. It never fails to crack her up. This is a love story —” not a romantic love story, not a story about marriage, but a story about two friends from Fair Haven, a generation apart, who have remained a central part of each other’s daily lives.
“When I tell people I work in a bakery,” Frank told Rose on Friday, “I tell them I could have married the baker’s daughter. But I couldn’t raise the dough.”
Rose lit up, burst out laughing. “That’s a good one, Frank,” she said.
In Rose’s eyes, Frank’s a good one, too. He always has been, since the day, at 17 years old, she took a job in an insurance office on Ferry Street.
It was the early 1960s. Frank worked in the same building. He ran a company called Comet Printing. Everyone in Rose’s office called Frank “Oil Man.” He came in with an oil can any time the chairs were stuck in place. Frank called Rose “Suzy Wong,” after a popular character in the movies.
“Suzy Wong was Chinese,” Frank recalled. Rose, he said, had eyes like Suzy Wong’s.
Rose took off her glasses to prove him wrong. “Do I look Oriental?”
Rose and her husband Al bought a bakery. They moved it to Grand Avenue in 1982. Frank still had his printing business then. He came in each morning for coffee, to chat with his friends, “to get my motor going.”
Frank ran Comet Printing for 50 years. He survived his wife. He survived his only son. He survived two bouts with cancer. He moved into Larson Place, an assisted-living center in Hamden. Every morning he found himself getting in the car and returning home —” to Rose, to her grown children Pat, Nancy, and most of all Mary Beth. The family works together preparing the aromatic, scrumptious daily loaves at Apicelli’s. Frank calls Rose’s kids his “grandchildren.” They feel the same way about Frank.
Frank also found himself wanting to keep busy. “I asked,” he said, “if I could be a pain in the neck.” So each morning he puts on the apron, retires to a quiet back corner alcove of the noisy, bustling bakery. He puts on WQUN to listen to old Sinatra standards. And he methodically packages the fresh rolls and biscuits, from around 8:30 until 1 or a little later.
“It keeps me young,” he said. “It keeps my mind clear.”
They look after each other, Frank, Rose, and Rose’s grown children. If Frank doesn’t show up one day, or he misses a doctor’s appointment, they find out why. Frank brings them cakes cooked by the women at Larson Place. He brings crackers with peanut butter he spread on. They send him home with breads for the Larson Place bakers.
When you see Frank and Rose together, you see a 63-year-old woman and a 91-year-old man shine like suns.
Frank was asked what he loves most about Rose.
“Everything,” he said. That’s all he said. No jokes.
What does Rose love most about Frank?
“He’s a sweetheart,” she said. “He’s always been a sweetheart. And he loves my kids.”
“What mother,” she added, “wouldn’t love that?”