Weeping with the Fishes

Another Christmas Eve has left my wife Rita and me exhausted from all the work.  The Feast of the Seven Fishes has become an annual celebration to prove that money is no object and no sea creature is safe from the Italian digestive system. Why must we serve seven...

The Ukraine in Spain

The current war in Ukraine seems hauntingly similar to the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).  That conflict began as a fratricidal war but quickly turned into a contest between Fascism and Communism. Both wars have Russia in common: in 1936 Joseph Stalin’s USSR...

GUBBIO AND PIERINO

As the Christmas season is upon us, I want to do what American poet Robert Frost did and “take the road less travelled by.” Instead of the usual clichés, enjoyable though they may be (presepi, the Feast of the Seven Fishes, Midnight Mass at St. Peter’s, etc.), I’d...

The Mosaic at War

A new cable series (AppleTV+) is coming next January paying homage to the bomber crews of World War II.  This collaboration by the two men – Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks – who have been extolling the virtues and sacrifices of the “Greatest Generation” will follow...

Quo Vadis?

My title, a famous movie epic of the 1950s.  It’s Latin for “Where are you going?”  In legend, it was Peter’s question to a vision of Jesus. Ultimately, it was Peter’s call to his own martyrdom. In today’s increasingly chaotic national and international...

Babes in the Woods

As my soon to be seven-year-old grandson gets older I can’t help but measure his progress against my own bygone youth.  Surely, this is a common exercise among parents and grandparents. My grandson is of mixed ethnicity, all Euro-American.  He hasn’t an Italian...