…………………..If you take a true HARD look at yourself….can you say you are proud of who you have become…….and/or are there still things you can work on?……..For me TOLERANCE and PATIENCE are two things I can definitely work on.
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…………….I remember when I was a child….It seemed EVERY winter we used to get a huge blizzard, and snow falls in between…..That’s my Dad with his new snow blower clearing my Aunt Mary’s driveway. who lived next door….in the 60s….That’s her in the background…He loved his snow blower…like a kid with a new toy, and the best thing was we hardly had to shovel anymore!!!!…I also remember trudging to school wearing many layers….sweaters, hats, scarves, gloves, and snow boots….The weather and the seasons used to be much more predictable……Those days are long gone. I can’t remember the last time we had 12 inches and more of snow?! let alone a BLIZZARD……Of course now they are getting snow in places they never had snow, or rarely got snow before….Charleston…..Louisiana…..and FLORIDA!!!………..and people STILL SAY there’s no such thing as GLOBAL WARMING!…….Global warming creates unusual weather patterns….more severe hurricanes, more droughts, stronger and longer El Nino due to warmer oceans, and even more unusual rain falls and snow falls where it is unheard of to have these conditions…where some get no rain and the temperatures soar, other get a deluge of rain and freezing cold……..plus the fact that it has been proven the Earth’s temperatures are getting hotter and hotter every year! Here in Ct., where I live, the winters have gotten milder and milder, and my perennials are coming up earlier and earlier…. but in southern Cal. they hadn’t had rain in over 200 days!…..They are saying this is the coldest winter we have had in years where I live…..It will probably be the hottest summer too!…..It’s just getting worse and worse, and our government is doing NOTHING to turn this problem around!….Actually, they are doing the opposite!…..It’s ironic that countries like Saudi Arabia, who produce enormous amounts of oil….are doing the most to curb global warming with all kinds of new systems they are developing to harness the power of the sun…Of course it is the desert, and they have unlimited amounts of money!!!…With new deregulations our country is making it worse!!….ALL FOR THE MIGHTY DOLLAR!!!.. God help us all! I feel badly for the younger generation and the newborns who are going to have to deal with the future consequences of our lack of action!
………………Just when I thought I had put EVERY single Christmas decoration stored away……one more shows up!!!!!……..I can’t tell you how many times I have passed this pie shape tilt top table going from the living room to the gathering room!….Sitting on top of the table is a large antique English tea cup FILLED with LARGE candy canes!……How could I have not seen it….I guess either I just wasn’t looking or it just didn’t register…..it happens!……I have removed all of the assorted candy canes, and put them in the freezer for my display next Christmas! They are already from the year before, and since I have no intention of eating them or letting anyone else eat them….why buy new ones when these are still perfectly good?!…..I think I am done now with Christmas!!!…..until I happen upon something else I haven’t “seen”!……LOL
…………….It is well established that this country was created by IMMIGRANTS….from the first Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock escaping religious persecution seeking FREEDOM…It has also been said that Vikings were here even before them…..Of course we all also know that when these Pilgrims arrived there were many tribes of AMEREICAN INDIANS, but somehow it has become convenient to discount these people who had been here for centuries before the “white man” invaded, and literally stole their lands……..The……..”IMMIGRANTS”……..in this photo just so happen to be my GRANDFATHER, MAURO DELL’OLIO, and MY FATHER……VINCENZO DELL’OLIO…….My grandfather brought his oldest son, my dad, to this country in the early 20s through Ellis Island as so many thousands of other immigrants did who entered this country from many different countries……My grandfather was a fisherman in Bari, Italy, but when he came to this country he couldn’t find work as a fisherman so he built a wooden cart with wooden wheels, and pushed it around the city collecting paper, bundling it up and reselling it….My father would be tagging along with him as my grandfather had no one to leave him with…..Where my grandfather got the idea of collecting used paper I don’t know…..probably from some other Italian immigrants he saw doing it. My grandfather and father shared an apt with other Italian men in “Little Italy”, an area in the south part of NYC where many Italian immigrants congregated…..Today, it is in the SOHO area, but there is very little left of the original Little Italy…..just a few restaurants…….Eventually, my grandfather worked his way from literally nothing, to create a business successful enough to bring his wife and the rest of his family, four daughters, to this country….Two more children would be born in the US….My father was eventually to take the business over and grow it even larger…My oldest brother, Mauro joined my father in the “family” business and grew it even larger…..My grandfather, and father and the rest of the family did not speak English when they arrived, and my grandfather and grandmother never did learn the language, but somehow they survived because their “tribe” stayed together, and supported one another….My grandfather eventually sent my dad, and the rest of his children to a Catholic school where they leaned to speak English and eventually they all became American citizens…..At this Catholic school my father became an alter boy!!!!…Knowing my dad this is hard for me to imagine!…..My grandfather, who played the guitar, gave my father money for violin lessens…. My dad told me, as a teenager, he used this money to shoot craps with other priests behind the church!!!….He never learned to play the violin very well, but he did grow up loving music!……My grandfather became successful enough to buy a four family house in Brooklyn, which then was considered the “country”….He had quite a bit of land, and had fruit trees and grape vines from which he made wine……From the old photos I have many of the main roads, and boulevards were still dirt!…….I lived in this house until I was three years old when my mother and father and two older brothers moved to Long Island in 1951…A house boom was going on after WW11…. In our area there were still many farms. It was a wonderfully innocent place and time growing up there….so very different from today…….Soon the farmers sold their land, and new homes were built….My grandfather’s house is still there today!…My mother’s story was very similar. Her father and my Dad’s father were friends in Italy, and came from the same village. My two grandfathers traveled together with their oldest sons on the same boat from Italy, and went through Ellis Island together. so my parents knew each other as children………The point of this story is…..All of these thousands of immigrants who came to this country were ALL LOOKED DOWN UPON!!!! They were all ridiculed, called horrible names, and would be treated badly by the so called “Americans” who’s families also came to this country decades before….as immigrants too……Because of the way immigrants were treated my parents never taught us how to speak Italian. They were fearful that we would have an ACCENT, and would also be treated badly……I didn’t know this until years later when I asked my mother why they never taught us their language?….It would have come in very useful in my career with all the traveling for business I did to Italy!……It was these men and women…..these thousands of immigrants who BUILT THIS COUNTRY…………One could only wonder if they were to come to this country today would they have been let in or turned away?……..IMMIGRANTS are the people who built this nation, and continue to do so……What is happening to the INNOCENT immigrants today is deplorable!