Highlights

In my mother’s hometown in Italy, people don’t ask, “What is your name?” Rather, they ask, “To whom do you belong?” You answer with the family name, actually most of the time with the nickname by which your family is known in town. The importance of belonging to a family, to a community, comes before one’s own individuality. The community shares the same values, customs, traditions and dialect, as well as hopes, beliefs and expectations. Italians who left Italy and came to this country have maintained many of those values and traditions. The fourth- and fifth-generations Italian-Americans of today are …

Nowadays, there are as many ways to tour Italy as there are cities to visit and sights to see. You can travel with a companion, charting your own course and booking everything yourself, or you can sign up for a large-group tour that takes you by the hand and attends to every detail. And then there are the countless small-group options dedicated to exploring the country’s many facets and out-of-the-way places. When my wife and I decided to celebrate our 35th anniversary in Italy, we invited my family along for the ride. From that tiny seed a truly magical adventure …

Christmas is a time for celebration, but how celebrate has changed over the centuries. How do you celebrate Christmas? Do you embrace the more secular version embodied by Santa Claus with his big bag of presents, or the more religious one in which gifts are given in recognition of God’s gift to us of His Son Jesus Christ? One tradition I embrace is the Christmas story told by Mario Avignone, the founder of this column. Fr. Pierini asked him decades ago to start writing Petals as a way of keeping Roseland alive in our hearts. In my 10-plus years as …

I write in response to André Dimino’s article “Hey, NEA! No Way!” about the NEA’s resolution concerning Columbus Day. First, let me establish my bona fides to address this issue. My father, maternal grandfather and maternal great-grandparents were all born in Italy — every drop of my blood traces back to Italy. So, I am as Italian as one can be. I am also a teacher of 26 years experience, and for the last 18 years, I’ve been a dues-paying, rank-and-file member of the National Education Association. In fact, for 17 of those 18 years, I’ve held some kind of …

When the Representative Assembly of the National Education Association recently voted in favor of replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, it offered precious little by way of justification. Here is the full text of its resolution: “The National Education Association believes that the history of colonization needs to be recognized and acknowledged in every state. To do so, the Association believes that the name of the current holiday known as ‘Columbus Day’ should be renamed and recognized as ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Day’ in recognition of the early indigenous peoples who were living in the United States before colonization by European …

“Winter’s on the horizon, and as true Chicagoans, we may complain about the weather, but we handle it like troopers. We realize that resistance is futile. We all have friends who have become “snowbirds,” escaping to Florida annually and, this year, straight into the arms of Category 5 Hurricane Dorian! By staying in Chicago, we deal with life as we always have. And yet, we’ve never had to rebuild or relocate. That being said, winter can be a great time for recalling the way we’ve dealt with our major storms — the Chicago way I recall being home on leave …

As paesani of the most notable sailor of all times, many Italian Americans want to shout “Basta!” to the annual assaults upon the reputation of our great hero, Cristoforo Colombo. Isn’t it time to hear something positive about ol’ Chris? Well you can if you go to Boalsburg, a picturesque town in central Pennsylvania. Little Boalsburg — population 3,700 (some 570 miles southeast of Chicago) — is home to the Columbus Chapel, which the Philadelphia Inquirer has called one of our country’s “most meaningful monuments to Christopher Columbus.” Part of the home in which Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain, in …

At its 2019 National Convention, the National Education Association (NEA) passed a resolution to have Columbus Day renamed Indigenous Peoples Day, stating, “As an education association, recognizing, observing, and celebrating factual history is important to maintaining our academic integrity.” Really? Come on! How hypocritical. The current onslaught of politically correct hysteria foisted upon the Great Discoverer is just plain false. Shame on the NEA for being complicit in this nefarious conspiracy to obfuscate the facts and perpetrate the rewriting of history. So, NEA, let’s look at actual FACTS. The New World was no “Garden of Eden” when Columbus arrived. Slavery, …

We’re finishing up another great summer in Chicago, with fond memories of many activities and so much to look forward to. Here in Pullman, the Pullman Artspace Lofts project is nearing completion and the first tenants are brimming with expectation while they wait for their move-in date. The construction fence is gone and the larger construction vehicles have done their job and the buildings are looking more Pullman-like than they did in the artist’s renderings. After ten years, the community will see how the added designation of “artist colony” melds with the national reputation Pullman has as a preservation community …

There are times when I have to wonder what I’m going to write about, and then there are serendipitous times like this! We’ve had reunion picnics, a garden tour, progress on the artists residence, the loss of the Gately’s building, a St. Anthony’s festival, the loss of Roselandites who we’ve known from years gone by, and the initiation of the Kickstarter campaign for my book.” “Petals from Roseland: Fond Memories of Chicago’s Roseland, Pullman, Kensington Neighborhoods.” Summer always provides us with plenty reunions but the best seem to hold off until August and that’s why it gets top billing. There …