Kevin Riordan: Glouco man's long love for the mandolin

Francesco "Frank" Semola was 13 when he picked up the mandolin during World War I, and he hasn't put it down yet.

"I play every day," he says. "All my life, it's been a part of me."

So as Semola turns 105 today, he'll pluck a sweet little tune or two on his well-worn Gibson.

"We'll sit down, and whatever comes to our minds we'll play," says Semola's 77-year-old son, Tony, who lives a few minutes from his pop's home in Gloucester County. "Every time I come here, we have to play at least 15 minutes to a half hour."

I'm sitting with father and son in the kitchen of the modest, solid house the elder Semola built in 1956, when he moved his family from South Philadelphia. Frank is rather deaf and his eyesight isn't the greatest, but he's alert and lively - perhaps owing to his daily shot ("a little sip") of Kahlua or, more likely, his many days of good living and hard work.

Born in Militello, Sicily, Frank emigrated to Philadelphia with his family in 1912. In 1919, the year after he got his first mandolin, he got his first job - at age 14 - in the shipping department of a clothing factory.

Frank and his wife, Sarah ("may her soul rest in peace"), married in 1931. They had three children, and Frank became a skilled sleeve-setter in Philly's thriving garment trade.

Meanwhile, "I made a few dollars - quite a few" playing mandolin in bars and restaurants, says Frank, who learned to read music and took a few lessons along the way. From 1942 on, he also was a member of the Duffy, Aqua, and Broomall String Bands, strutting up Broad Street with his fellow Mummers until the late 1970s.

With the Munier Mandolin & Guitar Orchestra, which he joined in 1962, Frank performed all over the Philadelphia area for four decades. He primarily played the mandola, sometimes called the tenor mandolin.

"He was an excellent player," says Charles Dugan, president of the 25-member orchestra, which rehearses in Southwest Philadelphia. Even with his eyesight and hearing on the wane, Frank "could still play from hearing it inside his head," Dugan adds.

When he was nearly 100, Frank played a solo - an aria from La Traviata - during a rehearsal. "It was so simple, and so beautiful, that when it was over we all applauded," Dugan recalls. "It was so moving."

Although Frank finally stopped driving four (!) years ago, he still lives on his own. He displays photo collages from his 100th-birthday celebration in the living room; shelves and racks in the adjacent TV room are stuffed with recordings (including the Munier orchestra's Glorious Sound of Mandolins).

"Music is my life," he says. His wife, he adds, "said the mandolin was my first love."

He picks up the Gibson, and his still-fleet fingers release a ribbon of notes; I can feel the tap-tap-tapping of Frank's foot keeping time under the table. "Hello, Dolly," he smiles as Tony begins to play "You Only Hurt the One You Love."

I ask Frank how he's managed to live so long.

"I take one day at a time," he says. "I don't know how to explain to you my secret. I have no secret. . . . I led a good life, from day one.

"Give credit to my daughter, Jean, and my son, Anthony," he continues. "Without them, I'm nothing."

Frank also makes it a point to "read the newspaper every day" - which is certainly music to my ears. "I like to read the obituaries," he says. "I want to see if my name is there."

Sadly, many friends with whom he's made music over the years have passed away. But Frank is, as always, upbeat.

"Am I happy? What the hell [more] do I want out of life?" he says. "I got everything."

Frank's already into the next tune, and I hear exactly what "everything" means.