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As I age into the past, I am having trouble with the future.
It seems that today’s young people, enjoying their youth and the fact that I am
not into it as they are, they seem to be missing so much.
Furinstance…
My nephew Chris, the macaroni man visits every Sunday to
help me get aggravated over the Mets and Jets. To his credit he is curious and
asks many questions about his past family history.
If there is one thing I like to do it is to inform my nieces
and nephews and someday my grandchild about their heritage, it is a proud one and
one that needs to be told. The trouble I have is that the kids today seem to be
jaded about what and who they are!
Furinstance…
“Uncle Joe, do we have mafia in our family? I mean the
relatives are all Italian and from Brooklyn, you can’t tell me there isn’t
mafia in it?’
“Uncle Joe can tell you ‘No!’ without a doubt, and most
Italian American families, especially from Brooklyn will tell you the same
thing. If anything, they may be victims themselves.
It makes me cry that the kids today buy into the idea that
our family was Mafiosi. My family was hard working and honest. They worked for
a living, investing their time and money into the future for their children, in
fruit and vegetable stores, and pizzerias to betray that devotion because
Hollywood painted an inaccurate picture saddens me. They suffered the pains of
the construction gangs, the late nights of sewing buttons on coats, the daily
routine of mass-producing in factories, all for their children and the future.
That future was for these kids, who have no clue!
I want to cry that my poor grandmother came to America with
nothing, as a young girl, not able to speak the language, but willing to
sacrifice her life and youth to build on the future so a nephew or a child of
mine might have the wrong impression. The problem today is kids don’t know what
suffering is. They don’t know what sacrifice really means. They don’t have a
sense of what the common good means.
As a family, we were taught as children that we all needed
to contribute. I worked and gave most of the money to my mom who used it to
help pay the bills. I never resented the idea that I did, instead I felt that I
was doing something worth the while and important. I realized that what I was
doing was taking some of the burden away from my parents. I felt good, and
spent what money I did keep for presents for the rest of the family, to pay a
bill so mom and dad could get a little sleep at night.
Dad went to work everyday. He came home tired, everyday. We
looked forward to his coming home. Mom stayed at home everyday. She struggled
to make ends meet with the money Dad gave her from his salary, which was 98% of
it. Mafia families didn’t have to do those things.
Grandma once had a pizza store. Her store was profitable and
thrived, and she gave money to needy families who needed it during the
depression, they were Italians in Brooklyn, they were not Mafiosi. The Mafia
came one day and moved upstairs from the pizza parlor, and grandma had to move
away, rather than cater to the bastards.
No Chris, I can tell you, there were no Mafia in your
family, and I can tell you that proudly.
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