five toed cats and hershey bars

Looking way back.
Both my Grandfathers passed when I was young, I do remember their essence and their spirits were kept alive through my Grandmothers’ stories.

John, my Moms’ Dad had a knack for sports. Played baseball for the East McKeesport team and was friends with the legionary Homestead Grays, my Mom has memories of them all playing catch in the alley behind their house. I always heard the stories of his perfect bowling scores, and his joy in beating my Dad. He was gone by the time I was two, but I have keep his photo close to me my whole life.

My Dads’ Dad Alex, came to America when he was around 10 from Italy with his sister. He lost her while traveling on a train somewhere in Philly, never to see or hear from her again. Somehow he ended up living in the boarding house my grandmothers family ran and, well, married my grandmother. Grand pap Guide would visit us on Sundays, he never spoke english well and had some mighty strange habits. Like, he would sit in the backyard and shoot at robins! Telling me everyone in Italy ate them, and that he was happy to be here in America because there were no birds left in Italy. Grand pap was divorced from my Grandmother before I was born and lived in a Italian boarding house in McKeesport with white cats with five toes that ate only spaghetti and chocolate bars.