Be Open to “Reaching Out”

Aldo Nazarko spent his formative years in war-torn northeastern Italy, in the Adriatic city of Fiume. As a young person, he was a refugee and “displaced person.” In all his eight decades, however, he never felt like a DP or even misplaced. Self-described as a curious and trusting person, Aldo has embraced life with all the vicissitudes thrown his way. He emerged from upheaval and separation and approached it to pursue possibilities and share the results.

Now Aldo lives in a modest townhouse in Victoria. He and his wife, Linda, exude warmth and friendliness. Aldo tells his narrative humbly and Linda occasionally clarifies answers, while out of sight in the basement and the office, important artifacts bear witness to a full life.

Those mementoes point to a phoenix-like journey. By the time he was 14, Aldo and his family had experienced Fascist rule, Nazi-occupation and Allied bombing; the ceding of their city Fiume to a different country, forcing displacement of the family to 10 different refugee camps up and down Italy and Germany; a six-month convalescence in a sanatorium for suspected tuberculosis; the absence of a father for almost a year who was earning enough money in Canada to send for his family; and a trans-Atlantic boat crossing (1951) with his mother and brothers to Pier 21 in Halifax and then Port Arthur, now Thunder Bay, Ontario. Linda adds, “For the Italians of Fiume, it was a veritable Diaspora.”

Family and Friends are Lodestones to Connections

Perhaps it was the optimism of his growing up, of knowing things seem to work out for the better, that gave him his outlook. Aldo admits he was receptive to the encouragement to grab those possibilities by family and friends. They were like magnets to adventures rather than risks. His father was an instrumental role model.

Vladimir Nazarko, a Polish émigré, did what was necessary to secure his family’s Italian nationality in a troubled and diverse city. So, he joined the Italian army and served in Eritrea thus obtaining his citizenship. He also worked as a lumberjack in Canada to pay off his immigration contract early and then worked in the shipyards of Thunder Bay afterwards in his preferred skilled profession, plumbing, and as a steam fitting engineer. Vlado grabbed his chances and also gave back, volunteering to the Fiume shipyard fire brigade, for instance. It was important to keep and support family and friends.

Aldo and his first wife, Shirley, moved to Vancouver from Toronto in 1967, their “centennial project,” he muses. An aunt lived in Victoria, their preference, but his firm (Royal Typewriters) didn’t have an office there. A decade later, he quit that job, but not Vancouver, and became a postal worker in 1976 as he approached 40. Also, he and his wife opened an art-deco curio shop, The Airmail, an adventure which broadened their scope. Exercising his penchant for history, Aldo took the name and the logo from a 1933 Canada Post brochure. They also acted on suggestions to attend art-deco conventions in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, where he rubbed shoulders with Barbra Streisand and Andy Warhol. Streisand bought some vintage glass after haggling over prices but left an autographed photo as extra compensation. Warhol would not touch any items but got others to hold them up while he made enquiries, saying “What are handlers for?”

Unfortunately, Shirley died of lung cancer in 1986. By then, they had moved to Victoria at last (1980). He met Linda in 1988 and they married in 1993 in Rome’s historic Trastevere, of course. Aldo retired in 1997 after working for Canada Post for 21 years. He engrossed himself in gathering family documents, as well as addressing his huge record and movie collections. But, always open to possibilities, a friend gave him six months of untrammeled retirement before recruiting Aldo to volunteer for Meals On Wheels, becoming the social contact for shut-ins for 10 years. He also volunteers (nine years and counting) at a soup kitchen (the 9-10 Club at St. Andrew’s Cathedral). Generous with his time, Aldo willingly shares his private passions with others too.

Aldo has a love of music and his extensive collection attests to it. He’s active with it too. He’s been a member of Pacific Opera Victoria for more than 30 years (he often interviews members of the cast on his radio show). Yes, he got involved with a radio station dedicated to cultural diversity, CFUV. When they were requesting new programming, Linda mentioned that he should share his collection with others. The gauntlet was picked up; Aldo did a demo and has been hosting “Off The Beaten Track” for 16 years. He describes the program as a homage to diversity, playing all genres. In fact, he feels he is channeling Clyde Gilmour, CBC’s long-time host of Gilmour’s Albums, and calls his new avocation “radio without borders.” Aldo avows, “The radio show is a labour of love; if it had been my profession, I never would have retired from it.”

“What’s Past is Prologue” (The Tempest, Shakespeare)

Throughout it all, Aldo’s indomitable spirit rose to make and take opportunities. “Sometimes it’s just luck, the right place at the right time, but you have to be receptive too,” he says. “I met a guy who loaded jukeboxes and asked to help him. We became friends and I got to keep some 45s. That’s how the collection started and who could have predicted where it would lead.” His latest project developed serendipitously also.

His aunt asked him to write a family history and the project consumed him for a decade, delving into relationships, historical figures and events. He was surprised how much the young ones in the family were interested too. An editor saw promise in the work but not without numerous fact-checks and rewritings. The memoir he says, “has been a project that has brought my life full circle.” Typical of Aldo, however, the circle spins in new directions of experience and sharing.

The result is a published memoir, A River of Oranges, which was launched in September in an overflowing café of friends and relatives. His granddaughter used the event to inspire a painting. The family is now excited about book marketing and signing, interviews and reviews. And so, Aldo contemplates how being receptive and trusting, and attuned to history, continue to bear fruit:

• a navy chaplain he befriended at Esquimalt arranged Aldo and Linda’s wedding in a 13th century basilica in Rome
• hearing country music for the first time, Web Pierce’s Jailhouse Now, after arriving in Canada, the experience led to a record collection, and ultimately his radio host avocation
• trusting that some advice is worth following such as The Airmail, a music demo, and a writing course all opened doors
• running with his aunt’s request to tell the Nazarko story for the family will now reach a larger audience
• travelling back to Fiume reconnected him to long-lost relatives and family history, as well as opening up the loveliness of the Dalmatian coast to travel
• meeting Margaret MacMillan at a book signing of Paris 1919 led to a cherished inscription and discussion about Fiume
• feeling the spirit of ancestors in the office with him, a “good and fulfilling emotion,” he says.

For Aldo, openness and sharing has made his life and his retirement eventful, inspired and active, all because of a willingness to reach out. As Kate Atkinson wrote in her Whitbread Award novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, “the past isn’t what you leave behind; it’s what you take with you.”

To learn more, visit www.ariveroforanges.ca

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