Good morning everyone, today is March 11, 2021. Thursday another week flying by. Today the weather promises to be actually springlike with temperatures reaching into the 70’s. The last time we felt these temperatures was back in November. So I expect we will all try to share in some of this gift from Mother Nature.
In my quest for enjoyment and happiness has brought me many places to do many kinds of things that add to my life. Again I feel this way now because tomorrow is not a given, everything could be gone in a blink of an eye. So we must take advantage of the present to make the journey through life enjoyable, there is way to much burden in it anyway.
My quest yesterday brought Marylou and I to a store called Home Goods, they had beautiful tablecloths from France, especially Provence in the most beautiful colors so we selected one. I feel our home reflects our personality, so if we want to live happily we need to surround ourselves with beauty and niceties for me that could mean a new razor in a color. She left me as I went to pay the bill, I took one last look around the French exhibit and saw on the table a box of chocolates and you know I have been giving her chocolates for the last fifty years. Let’s call it a term of indearment but as I looked through the boxes it comes with a frame able print. There on the cover was the casino of Monte Carlo a place we both hold dear so that is the one I bought. She was delighted. Monte Carlo is a place with exceptional beauty and sophistication. In 1956 Prince Rainer married the movie star Grace Kelly at the time one of the most beautiful women of Hollywood, she converted the country into a destination for the rich and famous, something lacking since the war.
On my walk yesterday I thought about our trip to Monte Carlo but it quickly faded as I thought about the headlines in the news. Prince Harry of England and his American wife Megan Markle another American actress have left the royal family and gave a scathing interview to Oprah Winfrey bashing them. Now there are always difficulties with in laws on all sides but you work them out because there is love involved, a love of a daughter or son, a love of parents. If you don’t care about each other it is easy to break up a family but most people ignore things and try to make the best of it. But most of us no matter what culture you are from have been taught you didn’t air your dirty laundry. I being Italian was taught know matter how bad a situation is you never talk about the family in public they are your family and you work it out or not but it is a private matter. So here we have a couple sitting talking about the queen and the royal family an institution that has lasted 1200 years. I’m sure things were said that shouldn’t have been but that is normal family interaction. This girl was accepted into one of the most prestigious families in the world giving a wedding that cost upwards of 45 million dollars, a twenty room apartment in a palace, a wedding dress that cost anywhere from 300,000 to 400,000 dollars became a duchess. Pardon me but I don’t feel sorry for you. Your husband has known from birth his brother would be king and that’s just the way it is. But to look for noteriity during a time of a world wide pandemic is to me disgrace people out of work for over a year, businesses closed, schools closed especially in England where the virus stuck particularly hard. What have you done to help? Frankly I was a little taken back by Oprah’s involvement, I would have thought better of her. Maybe this has nothing to do with our lives but it shows to much of the world, that thinks Americans are rude and obnoxious that this is the American way. I have never had a problem in Europe but then I don’t act rude and obnoxious. Maybe today seemed a little senseless to some but it is conversation and what is going on in the world. We need to stay connected.
In closing please enjoy the weather today even if that is your source of enjoyment. I have many plans in my head let’s see what comes
to fruition. Til Tomorrow!

Good morning everyone, today is Wednesday March 10, 2021, the weather predicts temperatures in the 50’s. Well yesterday Mother Nature gave us a real treat, it was like a spring day that’s why I enjoy the month of March, it gives us little presents of beautiful weather to look forward to but it can also bring back reality with a snowstorm however, they melt quickly. I hope all of you were able to spend sometime outdoors yesterday and get some fresh air into your lungs. Today not as warm but still beautiful. Last night I watched a show called the New Amsterdam it is a hospital show based loosely on Bellevue Hospital in NYC. It was sort of a tribute to all the hospital essential workers who have died of COVID. It made me realize and appreciate my anger when I hear this pandemic was not real. Nothing infuriates me more than hearing that. Maybe imbellished on some counts but whatever it was and is took lives and to me that is reality. Something we must take seriously and continue to be on guard.
I have begun to resume my daily walks outside. It gives me a great opportunity to think, remember, plan. Now I listen to music which never really sparked much in me but now that is different a song can envoke such stong memories and ideas. In my life I have been accused of being out of reality not seeing things the way they are, however I don’t see it that way I see it as I am an optimist. I try to find good in all situations and ways to make them better. When I wrote about me on the Refections of a life page, I compared myself to the song from Frank Sinatra, I’ve been a puppet, a pirate, poet and a king. And I know one thing each time I find myself flat on my face , I just pick myself up and get back in the race, that’s life there’s no denying it that’s life. During my life like all of us I have had ups and downs but if you stay down you might never get up so I live with the idea of trying to make it better.
You know I ask you everyday to find something to make you enjoy life no matter how small it is, we need that in life to be happy. Marylou knits and I asked her awhile ago to make me a scarf you know scarves are essential to me. Well she did and it is amazing and keeps my neck as warm as could be. Now I will wear a scarf til May because if my neck is cold I am cold and I’m always cold. So I asked her to make me a lightweight scarf I can wear in the spring. She agreed but said you come to the knitting store and pick the yarn you want. So we did this, it was someplace I had never been but I got great enjoyment out of picking what I wanted the woman showed me all weights of yarn and colors, I wanted black but she advised against it, so I picked something close. It is a nice feeling to pick something and realize it will be made for you, I used to get that feeling when picking fabrics I wanted made into shirts. I told her on the way home you can give me that for St Joseph’s Day which is just around the corner.
In closing for the day I will repeat like I do everyday to remind you, find some enjoyment today no matter what it is just let it make you happy. Til Tomorrow!
lol

Good morning everyone. Today is March 9, 2021. The temperature has already reached 40 degrees , so I can assume we are in store for a great day. Now we have no excuse to get out there and enjoy the day. Yesterday I was out and I found myself in a store so I was doing some shopping and in the last few days while shopping I have noticed while people are still masked up and socially distancing there is a diffent climate brewing, people are actually going near each other or at least the same way rather than turning and going the opposite way. It is a little different feeling. When I was paying and I went into my pocket I couldn’t find what I was looking for, all of a sudden I felt a tap on my shoulder when I turned around a woman was back in her designated spot on the floor, said sir you dropped some money on the floor. As I retrieved it we actually smiled a t each other, I have begun to notice a smile in people’s eyes, and thanked her. I guess with people being vaccinated daily, we are not as frightened as before. But that certainly does not mean to let our guard down. So continue to mask up, social distance and wash your hands. It still amazes me in a public bathroom some still don’t wash their hands. Something that never ceased to amaze me before let alone now.
Today was one of my early days by 4:15 am I already had done laundry, while in the basement I started to move boxes and I came across one with pictures, so I sat down to look, it contained many photos from high school, weddings , invitations a whole gamut of different things, of course I studied everyone. One that I came across was Justin with his violin, he must have been 4 or 5 years old. From the time he was an infant he had great interest in music and we were told by the doctor we should explore possibilities for him to be involved in it. We were referred to the Delcroix Institute in New York, it was on the east side near the UN.. so Marylou and I went to see the school, of course he had to be accepted and after his meeting with the director he was accepted. This was a very prestigious school but very bohemian, I could have made it my home. Many students were children of diplomats given its proximity to the UN. So Marylou and I took off every Tuesday afternoon to bring him to his class, of course I would make a day of it shopping on third Avenue. And having lunch before the class, in the late 70’s to mid 80’s the restaurant scene in New York was changing, new restaurants were imerging all the time not as formal more casual, lighter fare, child friendly and with embargo lifted many new foods were coming into the United States from Europe especially Italy. Foods Americans had never seen before. We found a restaurant on 3rd Avenue named Jack’s it billed it self as new lighter fare from California, it featured new kind of salads, pastas that’s around the time they started to use that term, no more macaroni. Truffles wer a big thing and they used them a lot . So we went every Tuesday for lunch. Justin just loved the hamburger, with Kobe beef. One day sitting eating a man kept waving at Justin and smiling but I really didn’t pay much attention but when the man and guest were leaving he stopped at the table and said you must be proud of your son he is so well behave for being so young in Avery heavy German accent. When I looked up it was Henry Kissinger. Of course I thanked him and he left. But every Tuesday we met up again sometimes he would sit closer to our table and talk to Justin and us, but he alway found something to praise him for, he commended his for playing music. His behavior. He was a real gentleman, like you no longer see. Now you know I am not political, but Kissinger was the first Secretary of State that I ever took interest in, why, because he negotiated the cease fire in Vietnam and to me that was a world shaking event. However, as all politicians become scrutinized Kissinger fell prey to that, today some call him a war criminal for his policies, others say he was the greatest Secretary of State in American history. I don’t know, I guess history will tell. All I know is that he was a nice man and was kind to a small child with his words.
So today I will take advantage of this weather and so should you. We need to keep our lungs open with fresh air. So get out and enjoy, I will try to follow my own advice. Have a great day Til Tomorrow!

Good morning everyone, I trust that everyone had a nice weekend. Today is Monday March 8, 2021. The weather will start out cold today but will warm up, we are on our way to better days ahead. Yesterday I decided to make chicken soup, you know I like soup for lunch everyday. This is not something I always did, I really didn’t like it that much especially chicken soup. But that like many other things about me have changed. While making the soup, I remembered Marylou’s uncle always told the story of her grandmother, how she woul make soup from a chicken and then take it and roast it in the oven, with 8 children she had to stretch the meals. So I did it, it was delicious not dry at all ,actually very moist and tasty so again I learned from the past , thanks to the original Mary Louise.
My mind this week has been on children and childhood. I think because so many former students reached out this week I feel humbled by their words. However, children to me our greatest gift from god and like any other precious gift it is to be taken care of to the utmost. It is not easy being a parent, children require a lot. They don’t truly understand what life is about yet, all they know is what they want, that has been that way since the beginning of time. They don’t understand that to get what you want you must work for it and that is a parents role, we try not to disappoint them but that is also how they learn. I have always considered myself lucky to have had the parents I did. When I think back I really did have a good childhood that is not to say I didn’t feel disappointed many times and didn’t understand but age changes that you begin to see reality. I think sometimes I am cursed with an amazing memory, I very rarely forget something and the smallest of thing can evoke a memory that most people have long forgotten. It is not that I hold on to things it is that these memories become part of my personal history that’s where the name Reflections of a life, family blog came from. I now go to physical therapy for my shoulder and as you know there are no magazines or any reading material anymore in an office because of COVID. But in the office there is a book on a shelf titled West Point, the military academy. When I saw the book I thought back to being an 8 year old. At that time I was a Boy Scout and they were having a father son trip to visit and tour West Point on a Saturday. Of course I was excited to go , all boys of my generation loved playing army. Now I went home and talked non stop about this trip at dinner and I told my father how much fun we would have on the bus , at lunch. He turned to me and said Joseph you know I cannot go with you it is a Saturday, I could never miss a Saturday at work. You will have to go alone and have fun. I still remember the disappointment lI felt, the day came and I went alone, in the gift shop my anger subsided a little and I bought him a coffee cup because I knew he would be there if he could. I held on to that cup all day, getting on the bus I dropped it, it broke in about a thousand pieces now I felt really angry about the whole thing. I flung it in the garbage and when I got home I never mentioned that trip. Til this day I don’t think I ever discussed it with my parents. But the older I got I came to the realization you do not always get what you want, life is a series of happiness and disappointments and we must learn how to deal with it. That was our generation somewhere along the way these ideals were forgotten children today have a hard time coping and I believe that stems from us, maybe we were too indulgent and gave in too much. That’s why children today often seek professional help but maybe that is a good thing and it would have helped many my age. To sum it all up childhood is not easy, that’s why children need the best people in their lives , people who teach and nurture and bring out the best in them. To quote Maya Angelou, we never forget how a person made us feel.
So today enjoy yourself , and if you can remember the joys and carefree feeling of being a child agin and try to recature some of those feelings, eat a lollipop or something like that. Til Tomorrow.

Good morning everyone, today is Sunday March 7, 2021 . I’ve looked out the window and it is a beautiful day already and they say we should reach almost 40 degrees not so bad I will take orbit we still need warm clothing , so take care when going out. I know I sound like an old hen every morning when I say dress warm but I guess that is inbred in me to look out for others,some close to me call it butting in but I don’t really see it that way.
Every day I ask you to find something enjoyable to make you happy even if it’s a small thing because one day we realize that those are the really important things.
I am from a generation of letter writers although I was on the end of the era when letter writing was a major form of communication replaced by the telephone. However, I still held letter writing in high regard, there were just times in your life you needed to write to someone and there is a format that you must follow. I taught this to my students over many years. But over time even I came to realize the time for the letter had passed it’s peak, to be replaced by e-Mail and such. But just look at history and see for hundreds of years famous love letters have survived. That is something you don’t get with e-Mail. Why do I bring this up, this has been my enjoyment all weekend, former students have found me on line and have written to me, some from as far away as Portugal. I cannot really explain the joy these letters have given me. To see the lives that have developed since I last saw most of them as an adolescent 13 year old. I don’t know how much influence I have had on creating their lives, I hope I made some kind of impression, no teacher ever knows for sure.
You know as I have said I don’t really believe in coincidence, I believe fate sort of rules our lives and our destiny. A predetermined course of events by a higher power, I know that might sound strange to some but I also believe everything has a reason. One day in 1987 I had sewed what seemed like hundred of names on jackets and I had to return them to the Newark Store, so I did, something made me want to go to my father in laws office which was all the way on the other side of the building to say hello which was not something I normally do because I was always in a hurry to get back to Montclair. When I entered the door was open so I entered without knocking and just walked in there he was with another gentleman, I of course apologized for being so rude as to just walk in on their meeting, but they both assured me they were basically done. The man was buying a display case for the school he was principal of, my father in law explained I was a teacher and waiting to be placed in a school in Newark, the gentleman shook my hand and said while you wait if you want you could substitute at my school, the man was Mr. Robert D. D’Amico and the school was Wilson Ave. now I had never heard of that school I asked where is that. He explained in the Ironbound, now I knew about most of Newark but basically nothing about the Ironbound , other than Goldfingers , Fornos and I had heard about Texeiras bakery. I agreed if he needed me to call. We parted ways. The day after Christmas break I received a call late about 7:30 in the morning, he said would you like to sub today I said yes but it’s late it will take me time to get there. He said no problem when you get here you get here. So I ventured into Down Neck, I had no idea where I was going but I finally got there. I entered on January 2, 1988 and did not leave til 2015. The Ironbound became my adopted home, I loved everything about , I always felt I was somewhere in Europe teaching the best kids on the planet. So that’s chance meeting sealed my fate and created my destiny, so yes I enjoyed talking to these boys and enjoy seeing all of them on line. Please continue to reach out to m, I’m still here I will always be your teacher wheather you liked me or not.
Now today is Sunday god gave us this gift of a day to rest and enjoy, so take advantage of our special present. Talk soon, Til Tomorrow! Don’t forget my special gift on refections of a Life.