The next couple of days will be different.\u00a0 I have to attend a funeral for a close relative.\u00a0 She was ninety-seven and so I\u2019m travelling both closer to my geographical origin and back in time to my childhood.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be going back to the Catholic church I attended as a child and seeing the neighborhood I lived in.\u00a0 And a lot of my cousins will be there and my siblings.\u00a0 I probably will also see some old acquaintances for the last time on this Earth.\u00a0 And that is a thought that gives me pause.\u00a0 This is the second death of that generation in the last few weeks.\u00a0 Those folks had a lot of vitality.\u00a0 All of them on that side of the family have reached their nineties.\u00a0 I\u2019m not exactly sure how I feel about that legacy.\u00a0 It\u2019s not an unmixed \u201cblessing.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll look over the old neighborhood.\u00a0 Last time I was there it had become a Southeast Asian enclave of one sort or another.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be interested to see if the homeless and the illegal aliens have shown up to any degree.\u00a0 I suspect things will look worse than even it looked a decade ago when I passed through.\u00a0 The only thing that seems to have endured since my childhood is an old-fashioned Italian bakery that somehow has endured.\u00a0 The family still runs it and from what I\u2019ve been told they still make crumb cake and cr\u00e8me doughnuts that are worth buying.\u00a0 So, after the wake and the mass I intend to stop by that store and buy some pastries to bring home to Camera Girl.\u00a0 She\u2019s partial to good crumb cake and I like it too.<\/p>\n
When I get back, we\u2019ll have some good coffee and enjoy some pastries while I tell her what the old neighborhood looks like.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll tell her who showed up for the funeral and who didn\u2019t.\u00a0 What everybody looked like and any family news for good or bad.\u00a0 And hopefully, there won\u2019t be any new feuds breaking out to report.\u00a0 At this point in the cycle, I\u2019m hoping everybody is looking to let bygones be bygones and go quietly into that good night.\u00a0 But you never know.\u00a0 I come from some pretty ornery stock.\u00a0 There are old feuds that go back well over a hundred years that I\u2019ve heard about and as far as I know are still being honored.\u00a0 But hopefully those folks won\u2019t be showing up for this family gathering.<\/p>\n
And in fact, I know of at least one party who will attempt to spark a gathering of the clan for a summer party sometime in the summer.\u00a0 I used to have one every summer about a decade ago at the Compound but people got older and travelling became more difficult so it subsided.\u00a0 Maybe this will revive the custom.<\/p>\n
So, I\u2019ll see what I can do to keep this site active while I\u2019m on the road.\u00a0 At the very least there will be pictures and quotes.\u00a0 I\u2019ll see if I can get one more post scheduled after this one to fill in the gap.\u00a0 But we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n
Well, back I go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The next couple of days will be different.\u00a0 I have to attend a funeral for a close relative.\u00a0 She was ninety-seven and so I\u2019m travelling<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3366,818,1263,2860],"tags":[83,1267],"class_list":["post-32026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-life-in-dunwich","category-ocf","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-reclaiming-the-family","tag-family","tag-photogs-corner"],"yoast_head":"\n