La Nostra Costa (Our Coast)

The author’s story begins in Nimis, a small agricultural village in the north eastern region of Italy known as Friuli. The year was 1923.  Benito Mussolini and his black shirted Fascists had just seized power.  The author’s father, Gervasio Comelli, had a choice to make.  Either re-enlist in the Army or come to America.  He chose the latter.  Knowing of other immigrants who had chosen the rugged north coast of Santa Cruz County as their new home, Gervasio decided to do the same. Situated a few miles south of San Francisco, Gervasio found work there on the local ranches. The Italians called them rancios and the ranchers were known as ranceri. The coast was referred to as la costa.

Not knowing much about ranching, the ranchers gave Gervasio the nickname Bronco.  Bronco was quickly broken in to his new job.  Bronco worked the ranches from 1924 to 1931.   He then returned to Nimis to seek a wife.  There he found Valentina Bressani, a beautiful and vivacious 17-year-old maiden. Filling her mind with wondrous stories of America and the easy money to be made there, the smitten Bronco convinced Valentina to marry him.  He then return to la costa, promising his young bride that he would bring her to America as soon as he could arrange to get her the proper papers.

Valentina arrived on the coast in 1933.  She soon found out that Bronco’s stories of easy money were no longer true. America was in the depths of a Depression.  All she found was hard work and the infernal coastal winds.  Still, Bronco and Valentina, had enough faith in the American Dream to start a family of there own. Their first born son, Giovanni Primo arrived in 1934.  Three years later their second son, Ivano Franco was born.  Thus, the author’s journey through life began on the rugged north coast.     

Using historical events and intertwining local family names with historical figures, some famous some infamous, such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Herbert Hoover, Winston Churchill, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Primo Carnera, Joe DiMaggio, Benito    

Mussolini, Adolph Hitler and Al Capone, the author brings to life the true and adventurous story of the Italian immigrants who settled and worked su per la costa (up the coast). Through his eyes as a young boy, he describes what it was like for his family to be declared enemy aliens during World War II.  During this same time period he takes us back to Nimis, Italy, and recounts what it was like for his relatives to live under the suppression of Nazi occupation forces. He tells us the story of Valentina’s youngest sister who survived the War only to be wrongfully branded a collaborator by Italian partisans and how his mother shrewdly devised a plan to successfully bring her to America.

The author, in some detail and using numerous photos, illustrates how the people of la costa lived, worked, fought and made deals. He also writes about the ranceris’ mannerisms, the way they talked, sang songs, argued and swore.  In his own “savory” style of writing, he even narrates how his mother prepared some of the ranceris’ cookhouse meals.

In the author’s world lacking television and video games, he describes how he and his boyhood friends amuse themselves by playing games in “the big gravel yard” and on their own private sandy beach. With a touch of humor, he tells us how he and his youthful friends, practicing their own inept form of voyeurism, surreptitiously find out how humans reproduce themselves.  Being thus informed, the author reveals how the   “big gravel yard” gang prepare themselves to “get the girls.”

In 1959, the author, leaving la costa behind, joined the San Jose Police Force. In chilling detail he describes how certain violent acts, such as the assassination of his best friend, changed his life forever. Using actual events, the author gives us a disturbing glimpse into the murky world of the police and outlines the personal rules he followed in order to     

survive.

For those readers who like their history told in a narrative fashion and embedded in a true life story, La Nostra Costa fills the bill. This never-before told story of the ranceri on the north coast of Santa Cruz, will keep the reader turning the pages, seeking the final out come of this family’s journey to and from la costa.      

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