{"id":111029,"date":"2025-12-12T08:00:39","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T13:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=111029"},"modified":"2025-12-12T08:23:27","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T13:23:27","slug":"happy-100th-frank-sinatra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=111029","title":{"rendered":"“Cock your hat – angles are attitudes.” — Frank Sinatra"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"frank-sinatra-456-030311\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\u201cFrank [Sinatra] is a singer who comes along once in a lifetime, but why did he have to come along in my lifetime?\u201d \u2014 Bing Crosby<\/em> (This quote may be apocryphal. But I like it.)<\/p>\n

It’s his birthday today. <\/p>\n

1. <\/strong>For about 8 years, I lived two buildings down from Sinatra’s birthplace in Hoboken. On the day he died – literally, within hours – the entire town was draped in purple and black bunting. It was as though an army of Oompa Loompas had been hiding in the bushes, holding baskets of purple bunting at the ready, waiting for the news. The beautiful old City Hall had deep purple bunting hanging from all sides. The post office was draped in purple bunting. Suddenly, within hours, black ribbons were tied around every lamp-post. And crowds had gathered outside the birthplace, two doors down, even though Sinatra did not live there, and had not lived there in 900 years. But people went to lay flowers in tribute. Seriously: this all happened within a couple of hours of the news breaking. The Italian population was still enormous in Hoboken at that time (this is no longer the case, at least in terms of Italians like FRANK was Italian.) When “Frank” died, there were still many people in Hoboken at that time who had probably known Frank’s family, or had been here when he was here. It felt like a strange somber honor to actually be there, two doors down, on the day he died.<\/p>\n

2. <\/strong>It’s still hard to believe that this even happened, but it did: <\/p>\n

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