Veteran has passion for life and painting

Aided by his walker, Alfonse Pizzarelli passes his paintings displayed in the hallways of the Avalon Care Center. Maggie Beck/Union Democrat, copyright 2009

The affable, eccentric Pizzarelli, 84 — a veteran of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War — suffered a stroke about two years ago that limited his mobility and forced his move from a very independent life in Oxnard to the Avalon Care Center, in Sonora, to be closer to family.
 

Recently, the center lined both sides of a hallway with Pizzarelli’s paintings. It’s an odd place for such spectacular creativity.

For instance, on the center’s white walls, hangs a painting of a giant Christ-like figure knocking on a window of the United Nations headquarters. 

“He’s saying, ‘if you don’t stop these wars, I’ll stop them for you,’ ” Pizzarelli said.

Or, an abstract, vibrant painting of a beautiful woman draped in leaves and vines with a beach in the background.   

“It’s just a little fantasy,” he said.

There’s a handful of other paintings from American Indian scenes to abstract visions. But maybe the painting that best explains Pizzarelli’s current state is a piece developed from a sketch he made when he was part of the 1st Infantry Division of the U.S. Army invading Germany.

The painting is of a small, colorful bird, trapped in a birdcage, hanging from a bald, windswept tree, with a cracking, gray wall in the background.    

Pizzarelli admits, after a lifetime of bachelorhood, adventure and war, it’s difficult to be trapped in the center.

“I like to be alone,” Pizzarelli said. “I get more inspiration that way.”

But, at the same time, he seems to like the attention he’s getting and giving.

“He’s kind of eccentric,” said Pizzarelli’s niece, Patti Rittenhouse, of Sonora. “He’s a loner ... but he’s a good man. He has a good heart.”

“I think he’s loving the attention,” she added.

After months of rehabilitation at the center, Pizzarelli was practically speeding down the hallway with his walker. He greeted everyone as he passed.

“Hi momma,” he said to one elderly lady. “How are you doing? Take care.”   

He also joked and flirted with a few nurses.    

“This is my favorite nurse,” he said to Patty Bough, a nurse at the center.

 “He’s a very colorful guy,” Bough said. “He likes to flirt with girls. He’s a ladies man. I don’t believe him for a second when he says I’m his favorite.”

After a childhood in the Bronx, Pizzarelli joined the Army at 17 in 1943 and didn’t retire from active duty until 1968.

Eight years of war during that time has left Pizzarelli with a lot of tragedy to pull artistic inspiration from, including being part of the first wave of soldiers to storm the shores of Normandy on D-Day.

“I was coming off the barges — a whole gang of us — I stepped off and directly into a hole,” he said. “I went down — completely underneath the water. I disappeared. An officer grabbed me by the collar, pulled me up, and said, ‘get up soldier.’ ”

“It was really bloody,” he added. “Until the fighter planes swept along the beaches. We then reorganized and marched through France.”

Of his experience in the Korean War, he said: “It was a bad weather war. We landed from Japan in khakis. It was only supposed to be a short war. A lot of the guys froze to death. If it weren’t for the weather, it probably would have been a short war.”

 But his paintings aren’t bloody, war memories. They are inspired by the time between the wars.

“I like remembering the nice times, not the eight years in combat,” he said.

He often painted when on leave, during peacetime among the artistic inspirations of western Europe. He spent a month in Denmark painting the famous Little Mermaid statue. He also painted on the sidewalks of Paris.

“I enjoyed everything while I was over there — I saw the Louvre,” he said. “Instead of being a soldier wandering bar to bar, I went and saw the historic sites and painted when I was in the mood.”

He lived his whole life like this — alone, roaming between wars, searching for inspiration.

“If I got married, I wouldn’t be able to travel,” he said. “When you’re single, you can go wherever you want.”

After his retirement, Pizzarelli moved to California to be close to his brother and got a degree in art from Moorpark College in Ventura County.

Now, he’s talking about getting the paint brushes out after years of idle hands — searching for inspiration within the center’s confinements.

“I’m doing a little sketching with colored pencils ... I’m thinking about getting the easel out again.”