My Back Pages: Thoughts At Year's End and the New Year Ahead

My Back Pages: Thoughts At Year's End and the New Year Ahead: 2013 is just over the horizon.... one day and a few hours away. Wouldn't it be nice if we, as a people, could forgo our differences and...

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Memories - Part I

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First Memories
My earliest memory is of my Great Uncle Giuseppe dying. I was about three years old... maybe a little younger, and I remember my Aunt Anne saying that Zi Peppine had died. He was my Grandfather Angelo's brother. I remember everyone being very hushed, and the crying that came from Uncle Joe's house. Many memories from this time are hazy, but I remember being treated as something special by my aunts and uncles because I was my father's first born.
 My father worked for General Motors in Tarrytown, NY at the time. He worked on the assembly line. We lived in my Grandmother's house on Everett Street at the time, and I remember waking up very early in the morning as my father showered and shaved and went about his morning business. I could smell the heady aroma of the coffee percolating in the pot downstairs, and the sound coming from the kitchen as my mother and grandmother prepared breakfast. I would sit in my grandfather's lap as the toast was buttered an…
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Who Decides What Makes Up A 'Real American'

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The other day, my wife called attention to a post by someone she had known since she was a child. The person in question had been a friend of her mother's. The post went something like this: 'You Liberal garbage who make remarks about the Bush family better watch out. Don't do it around real Americans!' 
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Memories- Part 2

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Memories -Part II
Prelude
I finished Part I with my thoughts on my Grandfather, Angelo Zaffino, and my loving relationship with him. It ended with his death and wake. Part I left me emotionally drained. I never expected that delving into my memories and writing them down would have such an effect on me, but it did. This, I think, is not a bad thing. It has enabled me to face things that had such a profound impact on my life, the good and the bad. 
  I will pick this up with my Grandmother, Theresa Zaffino. My Grandfather will also come into play here again, simply because they were inseparable for so many years. They had a love and understanding of each other that every couple that has ever been together, strived so hard to have. Not all are so successful, they were. It was a special relationship. They were an exceptional couple, at least in my opinion; and I admit that my opinion is one sided  because I loved them both.
 The years before I came to be are based on what I have heard from m…
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