Ciao

Happy Sunday. Love those clocks changing. Dad and I went to 11am mass today. We went to the Italian mass. Yes, the whole thing except the homily was in Italian.

Dad's mom and dad came from an area outside of Milan in the late 1800's. Dad is the 2nd youngest of the children. The last, my Aunt Norma was born in 1925. They were American. Oh yes there were still traditions but they spoke English in the house. They were taught to be proud to be an American. Dad still gets teary eyed every time he hears the National Anthem, he is a WWII veteran which adds to his pride.

Some families in the neighborhood were VERY Italian, the type that still spoke the language and raised their children like they were in the old country. The majority of these were the Sicilians. We did have polenta dinner traditions and a mix of slang American/Italian/Sicilian words were spoken...but we were always more American than many of our neighbors.

Dad didn't understand most of the mass, he was raised with the mass in Latin, Italian of course is also a romance language, but for an 87 year old man he was a bit clueless.

Dad enjoyed the choir though. He had tears in his eyes as they sang to San Ambrogio. Of course the parish is the only one our family has even been members of.

Next Italian mass is in January. He said he would like to go again.