As for Marina, that started with the original Nona Zeccardi who came here from the Old Country. She was named after her mother, Moma Nina, who came from Italy and lived with our original immigrant ancestors until she died. And that’s why we have so many Marina’s.

While I’m at it, you should know that Louis and Doris Cascino named all their children Joseph or Mary as their first name.  All ten of them. Then they called them by their middle names. I think this was a religious thing. Or a cult thing.

OK, back to the story. My Aunt Toni (your great-grandmother or great-aunt or great-something) was a wonderful and kind woman. She helped me get through college without doing harm to myself or others… mostly. She was also very well aware of how certain members of our family – like most of the adults – would be horrified to find out that I was involved in the Viet Nam war protests. But I was.

In the fall of my senior year, I snuck out of college early in the morning to get on a bus sponsored by the Quakers to go to DC for a big rally. I don’t remember much about it except when we all sat in front of the Pentagon eating LSD while Timothy Leary swore if we just concentrated hard enough, we could get the building to rise up and shake the evil out. Did I mention the drugs?

Anyhow, by the time I had been tear gassed and almost died from an allergic reaction, I was late getting back to Philly. We all were. And there I was in the middle of downtown Philly at about 2 AM, unable to go back to my college because I was about ten hours late for curfew and it was all locked up.

Yes, I went to a college for female Catholic virgins called Chestnut Hill. I had a 7 PM curfew during the week and an 11 PM on Friday and Saturday. Seniors got a midnight curfew. And the boys who came for you had to sign in at a desk where a nun sat and then the nun called you down. If the boy was not from a Catholic college, of which there were/are many in the Philly area, then you were called in on Monday morning by the Dean of Students to explain why you were dating a non-Catholic.

You can understand why, under these circumstances, going back to my dorm was going to be difficult. So I called my lifeline. I called Aunt Toni who made Uncle Joe get up and go get me and then, the next day, called the college and said I was sick and she should have called the day before but forgot. Yep. She covered for me. And my parents never found out.

Fast forward about 30 years when her Alzheimer’s was starting to take hold. We were all in her dining room eating lunch – including my mother. I don’t remember how the topic arose but somehow it did. And Aunt Toni spoke about how her husband had to get out of bed and drive to DC to pick me up in the middle of the night. Uncle Joe (your great something) looked at her and said, “Toni, I never had to drive to DC. The bus brought her back. I just picked her up in center city.” This turned into quite a discussion between them as I tried to intervene and change the subject. The look on my mother’s face would be hard to describe with any word except horrified. Her response to the argument was that her daughter would never have done anything like that. And Uncle Joe, seeing the look on her face, agreed in order to end the conversation. But my Aunt Toni wasn’t buying it and kept arguing the point. I finally burst out laughing and said that she had kept the secret a long time and now, when it couldn’t hurt anyone, it was out in the open. My mother was not amused.

My Aunt Toni knew when to tell a parent about a problem with one of their kids and when that kid just needed some quiet help, support and love. Those she always had in unlimited amounts. And I drew on them for those long four years at the Chestnut Hill College for Catholic Virgins (helluva entrance exam).

You need to know the good, the bad, the ugly and the just plain funny about your ancestors. So here’s a bit of that history that makes me laugh whenever I remember it. And it’s about your great-grandfather, Joe Zeccardi.

Now I know there are a lot of Joe Zeccardi’s in our family but you can’t blame your great-grandfather Joe for this sometimes confusing naming of everyone with that first name. Ask your great-cousin Louie about that.

It was started by Giuseppe, your great-great grandfather. Anyhow, Giuseppe translates as Joseph in English through some strange metamorphosis. And so in our family we have lots and lots of Joe’s.

Now to the story.

So there was a time when your great-aunt Toni was young. Yep. We all were once. She was married to a man named Bill. Your great-aunt Toni was the first of us to grow up and try to be an adult. She was married, had a child, a house – all those grown up things the rest of the cousins hadn’t achieved yet. And one Sunday, she invited all the relatives over to her home for dinner.

This was very special as no one in our generation yet had the guts to feed the family given the expertise in cooking that radiated from both male and female relatives. In order to avoid any comparisons between her Sunday pasta sauce and what we all ate at home, she and Bill decided to cook a Chinese dinner. They worked for days so that everything was homemade and perfect – ribs, fried rice, dumplings. So good. You would think.

Fast forward to the ride home. There is a whole group of us in the vehicle together because this was what I refer to as their van phase. Your great-grandpop had a van and everyone thought it was the best thing in the world. The whole family could pile in and take trips together. This is why I was riding home with them listening to your great-grandpop complain all the way to Glenside that he had Chinese “agita”. I remember him asking your great-grandmom to pass him Tums from the glove compartment. He ate them all the way home. And when he got home, he wanted dinner.

Yes, boys and girls. You come from a very strange family. We love to eat. And we accept Italian agita gladly if it means eating what we love. But give some of us Chinese food – no matter how long it took you to make and how lovingly you made it – and here comes Chinese agita. And that was simply not acceptable to great-grandpop Joe Zeccardi.

Oh yeah, and he insisted you not go barefoot around the house. We all ignored that.

As always with Randy, upon immediately awakening, he looks confused, like he’s surprised to still find himself on earth. But given a minute to shake the cobwebs out of his head and he’s alert. He’s alert and looking at me to find out why I work him up.

I had no answer for him other than that he looked so cute. He stared at me for a while waiting for what was next, for the cuddling and treats that must surely follow or why did I wake him. And then you see the realization slowly dawning… I woke him for nothing. I disturbed his rest but no treat followed. Then he gave me the side eye big time and tried to curl back up into the small space he’d managed to carve out for himself next to the little runt who, when sleeping, cannot be moved by anything smaller than a tractor. But because I had so rudely awakened him, he couldn’t scootch himself into that space again.

So he heaved himself up with a great sigh, gave me another dirty look and moved to the other side of the bed where there was a lot of room next to me. It’s just that it’s not, for whatever reason, the side of the bed he wants to be on – especially when the little runt has it.

Randy is clearly not amused by my reaction to his late night cuteness.

So I turned off the news and started to play a game on my iPad. The world may be going to hell in a hand basket, but I don’t have to watch.

But the Bonanza theme… ah, the Bonanza theme. I bought the sheet music and learned to play it. I would then play and sing at the top of my lungs. Remembering that our living room was right on top of the store where mom and dad were trying to make a living for us, I have to hope that sound – like heat – travels up. If not, we may have found the reason for my mother’s migraines.

But I don’t care. Little Joe was my puberty. He helped me to know what all those urges were. It’s not like my parents or the nuns were going to tell me. So thanks, Little Joe. Because of you, I became a woman.

And yes, for anyone who doubts it, the first thing every Italian mother will ask you when you enter her house is whether you are hungry and want something to eat. And there will always be something delicious on the stove ready to eat. Always!

So sad. She had a chance to do the right thing. As our schools are starved and health care eliminated for some of the most needy in our country, I have to wonder how she can hold her head up. How can she possibly be proud of what she did.

And these asses still have the nerve to send me a million emails a week asking for $15. What for? So they can plan their escape to Canada and have enough left over to buy a nice house?

Would someone please find where the Ds hid all their balls and give them back?

Boy was I wrong.

Our democracy is crumbling faster than the Berlin wall, than stale bread, than Trump’s religious beliefs. And that other party, you know, what were they called – oh yeah, the Democrats. Aside from begging for money from me, I can’t figure out exactly what they are doing to save our country from dictatorship and the loss of all pretense at democracy. They are weeping, wailing and gnashing their teeth at the monsters within… and then running like hell in the other direction out of sheer fear. I won’t be surprised if the party “leaders” move to Canada and beg asylum because the mighty ruler of America is out to get them.

I think our only hope is that the Republicans find their patriotism and try to save us from destruction and the annihilation of a country we were once taught was the greatest country on earth. By the way, we aren’t. Haven’t been for awhile. Think about it. We haven’t won a war since the second world war. We didn’t win in Korea. Or Vietnam. Or the first gulf war. Or, god help us, the debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But at least we were still trying. Now we are just the bullies of the world with a vast arsenal of destruction at our fingertips. The rest of the world is praying we don’t exterminate all life on earth (except, of course, roaches) with our nuclear weapons.

But wait. There’s more. Now we are trying to dominate outer space with our weapons before someone else does. Oh goodie. Even the moon won’t be safe anymore.

I won’t send the Dems 15 cents until they show me their balls and start fighting back instead of sitting there begging not to be hit again. Sniveling cowards. Why did we ever think they would fight to save our country.

People don’t say that anymore about my contemporaries’ deaths.

Hmmm…

1. Thanks to some very good friends, I will be going to see Neil Degrasse Tyson at the Anchorage PAC in July. Or June. I’m not sure when. And it really doesn’t matter. I never understand what he’s saying but I sure do want to. And he’s so excited to try and get us to understand. I love him and don’t understand most of what he says. He’s like my Nona. I never understood her English/Italian either. OOPS! I’ve just admitted I come from immigrants. Please don’t let them arrest me.
2. I recently saw a picture of Jane Fonda on the Red Carpet at the Cannes Film Festival. I would just like to announce very loudly and clearly – THAT IS NOT WHAT 88 LOOKS LIKE NORMALLY! THAT IS NOT WHAT 78 LOOKS LIKE NORMALLY! And yes, as a normal 78 year old and not a Jane Fonda 88 year old, my boobs are as flat and flabby as my upper arms. I learned to live with that as my reality. You should learn to live with it too.
3. And on that same note… I am so damned tired of seeing all those boobs hanging out of fancy dresses at awards ceremonies. And those crotches. I do not find naked dresses appealing. I mean, at that point, why wear anything?
4. And while old age is wonderful and to be respected and better than imagined, there is not an old woman out there who would not trade in her saggy boobs for firm, round, young ones. Everyone of us would. Everyone!
5. Happy Juneteenth.

So my question is – what’s that all about?

See, America has increasingly been seen in the world as a bully worse than Russia. If we don’t like you or your leadership, we make up a reason for war and destroy your country. We claim it is for a high moral purpose but it isn’t. If you doubt this, ask Vietnam, or Iraq, or Iran – and that’s just for starts. We have at one point or another overthrown every government in Central America, or assassinated their leader that we didn’t like.

We stand as the bullies who can end life on this planet with our nuclear weapons. Yeah, so can Russia but I don’t live there. I live here, where foreigners are jailed, deported and allowed to die in horrible conditions while waiting for the vaunted American democracy to save them. Where we are now threatening to take over Canada and Greenland despite no historic connections. In case you missed this in history class, America fought with Canada a long time ago. That border we share is the result. They didn’t want to be Americans then and they sure as hell don’t want to be Americans now. As for Greenland, they didn’t even know we knew they existed except for that lovely Blue Lagoon.

The last century was the American century. This is the century of Asia and Africa. Europe and Europeans – that’s us folks! – are reaching the end of oversized influence in the world. Given how we have handled that influence, it’s probably a good thing. Saying that we brought “civilization” to the rest of the world is saying that no other culture that existed anywhere else in the world was civilized.

What a crappy way to approach other people. No wonder the world is not exactly mourning the loss of America as that city of light on the hill. They never really saw us that way. We did but they didn’t.

I’d say Goddess Bless America but right now, I can’t think of a single reason why she would.