[Steely Tom]

I also had to have three sit downs over certain issues. I didn’t sit!! I was a nobody. People I knew sat for me and straigtened things out. Silly ####, like a broken machine, or someone though they got cheated out of commissions, but those things could take off fast into somthing bigger, and a few times they did, hence the sit downs.

I have a close friend who's Italian. He wasn't involved in any of that, his family owned a completely legit business.

But he told me a lot of stories about growing up in an Italian family. Grandfather still alive, from the old country. All the uncles and cousins lived on the same block, in a row of houses all right next to each other.

I love hearing his stories.

A lot of them revolve around this: no matter what happened, it is your fault! You're out on a delivery and the truck's tranny blows a gasket, it's your fault. Motor blows out on a mixing machine while you're running it, it's your fault. You fall over in a dead faint while you're inside an industrial oven cleaning it out, it's your f-ing fault.

I think that must be a feature of Italian family culture. Non-Italians look at it from the outside and think "oh, that's so nice, they're such a loving family, it must be so much fun to grow up Italian." Not completely true.

[dp0622]

Not completely true but it is a lot of fun. Or was :(

EVERYBODY lived next door or down the block or down that block.

Now everyone is scattered to the wind.

What the #### kind of family life is that??!?!

Christmas and Easter. GTF out of here. It makes me sick.

I’m my pop through and through. Brother is the sophisticatd lawyer in Westchester.

I’m still on Staten Island where I’ll likely die.

What the #### good are nephews and nieces if they’re in butt#### NJ or Westchester or wherever the #### they all moved to!

Times have changed across the country, and not for the better, my friend.