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...

It's very difficult for me to say goodbye. I'm not sure why. Case in point: I started a blog post when I left teaching in Fort Erie in 2007. The post was about how difficult it is to say goodbye.  I never finished that post. I'm not even sure where it is. I looked for it in my draft section but couldn't find it. I started another post on the difficulty in saying goodbye after leaving a brief stint as a consultant with the school board from 2012-2015. I never finished that post either. My first memory of needing to say goodbye was in 1969. I was born in 1960 in Niagara Falls, Canada. I lived in a small wartime house on Franklin Avenue with my family of four plus my maternal grandparents. The house is still there (minus the pink aluminum siding); I think my parents paid six thousand dollars for it. We moved to Montreal in 1965. I don't remember needing to say goodbye to anyone that we left behind in Niagara because our entire extended family was either moving with...