Rocco Maiolo's Ramblings and Musings

At last month's book club, we read Montreal, Italo-Canadian author, Mary Melfi's book, Revisiting Italy: Conversations with my Mother . We were graced with the presence of the author and hosted by one of our book club members in her beautiful home in Montreal Nord on the shores of the St. Lawrence River.  I know I've written about our book club before, but here's a bit more background. Several years ago, one of my cousins pitched an idea: You know, Rocco... I can still hear Sal's voice; I know when it starts with,  You know, Rocco... I'm in for a ride :)  The idea was a book club for cousins from what we at the time thought would be Niagara and Montreal. It has since blossomed to include Ontario, Canada (Niagara Falls and Kitchener), Montreal, Connecticut, California and Nardodipace, Italy (which is of particular importance because, with the exception of our Noank, Connecticut cousin who married into our fold, all of our forebears came from this small southern I...

Teaching Post 1 Although I was taught, and acclimated to the ways of my parents and grandparents – which was not to complain because there were always people less fortunate than we were – if I were to be at all kind to myself, I’d have to admit my early twenties were not good to me. I floundered badly. I belonged to a whacky church that was cult-like at worst and off-centre at best. It affected many decisions, behaviours and attitudes. We thought we were special which, by definition, made us not special ; it just made us arrogant. We were discouraged from higher education. I spun out after a year and a half of studying Math and Business at university because, well, I was good at Math, but what was I supposed to do with Math? Business?  I married young. We lasted a year. My wife had had enough of her twenty-one-year old, hubris-rich husband and their off kilter church; so one day she up and left, leaving literally just the dog and a few sundry items behind (which her father later co...

Memory: Fireflies in New Rochelle 1968  There's a memory that nibbles at the corners of my mind that never quite takes complete form. I checked with my mother so I know it was 1968. We were living in Montreal at the time. My dad had aunts -- his mother's younger sisters -- in the United States and they scolded him for living so close but never visiting. So after my dad bought his brand new powder blue Chevrolet Impala, we loaded into the car and off we went to New Rochelle, New York.  We left in the dark of night. Our parents would've woken my brother and I up from a dead sleep, but I'm sure we stayed awake for the whole six hour trip.  I remember counting the highway location markers as we got closer to our destination. What did they mean? They were counting down, I think... But counting down to what? My dad said they seemed to be coming every mile, but he also didn't know what they were counting down to. Speaking of my parents: I did the math when I was thinking o...

The other day, I was watching the 2020 mini-series, The Stand, based on the same titled 1978 Stephen King novel. In it, an army general quotes William Buttler Yeats's "The Second Coming." When I heard this line: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.." I thought, that's it; that's what I've been thinking (albeit in a wildly different context, but it fits with my musings). Here's the rumination in a nutshell: communities with a good, healthy, noble, wholesome cause start out well enough. They're centred. They know their mission -- it's decent and worthy. People rally around it. It gains momentum -- there's a buzz, people hear about it and join. Good things happen within the community and because of the community's reach. It's like the Beatles. I know, I just took a hard right, but stick with me. For such a time and place as this (Germany, England and then the world in the early to mi...