I told you she was fast

HERE I’M talking about genealogy research, although I might write that other post sometime. Was it only last week that she got a first look at my DNA test results?

Already she’s figured out I’m related to this bunch from the old Silk Road end of the Italian gene pool. Now she expects me to ride out to the Khyber Pass to introduce myself to these jamokes. Since we’re family and all.

Going by her notes here… see if I’ve got this straight… From left, Paulie, Frankie, Tony, Vito, Tony, Vinnie, Louie, Tony, Augie, Nicky, Joey, Rocco, Carlo, Mario, Nino, Dino, Tony, Big Dom, Sal the Mooch, Vinnie the Chooch, Mookie No Hat, Tony Two Toes, Tony the Lip, Frankie Cheese, and…  and I don’t know who that last guy is.

People used to say so many of us are named Tony because we didn’t speak English when we got on the boat in Sicily, so the village literate pinned a note to our shirts, “To N.Y.,” like a shipping label. And it stuck. But if that were true, how come a quarter of the guys back home in Goombahistan are still named Tony? I don’t buy it.

So last night I’m about to saddle up the iron piggy and ride across town to a friend’s house to pick up Providence College women’s basketball tickets. The forecast at Accuwildassguess Weather is for snow. I’m about to pull the cover off the bike when I think wha? did they guess right? Sky looks like snow, air smells like snow. Better take the car. A half hour later, it’s snowing. I would have been slip-sliding home in it.

Here’s the old Ford truck this morning. I finished the frozen-knuckle brake job yesterday, got her down off the jackstands in time for snow. New brakes all around, new wheel cylinders, four new sneakers. She’ll pass state inspection like it’s 1949 again.

Tony DePaul, February 18, 2018, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA