| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
|---|
That's me with the sunglasses and the smirk in the midground. My brother's the tall boy with the shaggy hair in front of me. In the foreground are my first cousin once removed Carrie, my first cousin Linnie, my second cousin Cara, and my uncle Kent. My aunt Anne is hidden behind Carrie. In the background by the church are (I think) my uncle Jim, my aunt Beth, my uncle John, my cousin Mark, my aunt Martha, and someone who may be my mother. I learned this weekend that my entire family is crazy and yet still rocks. I also learned that Aaron Burr lived in my grandfather's house at the time that he dueled with Alexander Hamilton. |
i think my mother's in nyc right now. |
|
|
|
The article in the paper was about my big-ass family reunion that was held around Washington Square during Columbus day weekend. 140 of us greezy guineas crawled out of the ditches and showed up. We are all descended from my great-grandfather and his 7 siblings, so everyone there was pretty closely related. One of my cousins (third cousin...his grandfather and my grandfather are first cousins and have the same name) is a trumpet player in a popular band. Popular enough that I've seen 3 of their videos on MTV. Anyway, he and his wife just had a baby son -- the newest member of the family and the sixth person (just counting those alive) to bear that name. What's cool is that my grandfather always wanted to play the trumpet when he was a kid but was never allowed. So now he can, vicariously, through his namesake. My grandfather refused to go to the reunion. He would have gotten to see his siblings, probably for the last time. His sister Anna, who's 84, cried when we told her he wasn't coming. And there's few things as upsetting as watching an old woman cry. Except watching an old man cry. Ack. I have to go. |
But why didn't your Grandfather go to the reunion? I can smell a family saga somewhere, and there's nothing I like better than a tale of intrigue and bad-mouthing. |
|
|
1) He's been afraid of flying ever since a man died on one of the flights he took. 2) He has a hard time travelling so far that he can't visit my grandmother's grave every day. 3) He has a long-standing feud with his brother Andrew. Seems that Andrew owed their mother lots of money. When their mother was dying in the 1960s or '70s, Andrew turned up at her house unexpectedly. He was alone with her in her bedroom when she died, and when he came out of the room, he told everyone that her last words to him were something along the lines of "you don't need to pay back the money." My grandfather thought he was a lying bastard, and he hasn't spoken to Andrew since. My grandfather also won't speak to his brother Joe, but I don't know the story behind that. I do know that Joe was kidnapped by the infamous Black Hand Gang when he was a toddler in the 1920s...here's a nice story... My great-grandfather was a baker (his bakery was on Sullivan St. across from the church of St. Anthony of Padua). The Black Hand (early mafia) hit him up for protection money and when he refused to pay, they took Joe. The story goes that my great-grandfather said they could keep Joe because he wasn't about to pay them the ransom money. But they gave him back after a week or so. They had also (previously, I think) kidnapped my grandfather's cousin Frank. Frank was older than Joe when it happened...he might have been around 8 or 9. I've read old newspaper clippings that said that the Black Hand kept Frank for several weeks in a freezing basement, barely fed him, and then finally dumped him by the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge. Frank (thanks to his bright mind, according to the newspapers) was able to lead the police to his kidnappers and they were caught. Frank also died fairly young, which our family attributes to his ordeal. People say he never got over it, the poor little boy. I have tons of stories about my family which I'll mercifully spare you. It was really neat going to the reunion because I got to hear new stories, and now I better appreciate how cool my family really is. |
|
yep Mafioso i know a couple of blokes, from PA, italian as can be....Lucchese's |
The IRA, now... |
|
|
|
|