EH! I GOTTA MATCH!

At St. Peter's Catholic Church, they have weekly husbands' marriage seminars.

At the session last week, the priest asked Giuseppe, who said he was approaching his 50th wedding anniversary, to take a few minutes and share some insight into how he had managed to stay married to the same woman all these years.

Giuseppe replied to the assembled husbands, 'Wella, I'va tried to treat her nicea, spenda da money on her, but besta all is, I tooka her to Italy for the 25th anniversary!'

The priest responded, 'Giuseppe, you are an amazing inspiration to all the husbands here! Please tell us what you are planning for your wife for your 50th anniversary?

Giuseppe proudly replied, "I gonna go picka her up."

Life goes on for a reason: mainly we take care not to take risks that would take us out altogether.

It was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and I was a young man who just completed my college years and was feeling good. I owned a brand new Camaro and had money to burn, my new job as a designer in New York City was taking off well and my future was ahead of me. There was nothing bothering me.

Grandma on the other hand felt otherwise as we shall see. Her vision was I was going nowhere, my future was behind me, and I would eventually turn into a bum. She had the cure: I should get married.

So that Saturday I drove Grandma home to Brooklyn, to her little nest that was Centrale della famiglia (Family Central.) I was anxious to get back to Long Island, but Grandma was not anxious for me to leave, as the late morning dragged into early afternoon. As hard as I might try to leave, she would paint guilt on my soul and ask if I was in a hurry to leave her. (I was, there was a young woman I wanted to pick up for a visit to the city and dinner.)

Life was good!

Finally at around 1:15 or so Grandma’s doorbell rings, and a big smile crosses her face, rising from her chair she races to the front door and opens it. There standing in the threshold are two ladies.  The same shape and appearance, both dressed in black and a bun for a hairdo. What I was facing was a tag team of mother and daughter!

“A JoJo, disa here isa my frenda Carmela and dis a Filonmena, a nicea goil.”

The mole on Filomena cheek with the little hairs growing out told me she could cook, but I wasn’t looking for a cook with a hairy mole.

“Nice to meet you” (Or some lie like that) “Grandma, I need to move the car or I’ll get a ticket.”

“You a movea da car, no teeket.”

To the day she died she wondered why I moved the car to my house on Long Island.

Dad got a hold of me and asked: “Your grandmother called, wondering what happened to you.”

“Dad, she had a hairy mold and out weighted me.”

Dad replied: “I’ll talk to her.”