ROMEO BLOG

Saturday is laundry day for me. I really don't have much to wash. Towels and face clothes in one pile, colored clothing in another and neutral colors in a third pile. The fact that I choose to openly talk about it tells my readers what my life is about these days. In the "old days" I never thought much about clean laundry. It was always in my d...

The house that I happily call home is located in Branford, CT.  How I ended up here almost 30 years ago is still puzzling to me.  Back in the day (40 years ago) when I was a roofing contractor, I would purchase distressed property. During the off season (December thru March) in roofing,  I would renovate real estate and then flip them in the spr...

The Last Responders...  A couple of weeks ago I made a trip to Walgreen's. It’s one of my favorite stores to shop. I don’t buy enough of anything to worry about the higher prices they charge for peanut butter or teabags. Everything is generally more expensive than Stop & Shop or Big Y. I don’t care. I MAN shop.  At my age, the most valuabl...

Nicknames… When I was a kid… being assigned a nickname was like a badge of honor. You were not only known by your given name but you had the distinct pleasure of being addressed by your nickname by family members and close friends. I am not really sure who actually bestowed nicknames on us. Often it was done by our own parents. They shared their...

Bright and early each morning during the school year I bring my three grandchildren along with other neighborhood kids down to the bus stop at the beginning of our street. It’s not that far but parents today are afraid of stalkers who might attempt to engage their young children if and when they are left unattended. I am the designated driver an...

My grandfather, Ferdinando Criscuolo, was born in January 1889 in Castellamare di Stabia Italy. In 1920 at the age of 31, he came to America with his family seeking a better life. He was 31 years old. “Gramps” died on July 4, 1964 in New Haven, CT I was named after my grandfather. Back then Italian parents  named their first son after the husban...

 Aqua Velva is a blue colored inexpensive translucent after shave lotion. It has a rather strong yet unusual scent.  Because I got myself into so much trouble at school and at home as a youngster, my "time outs" were usually served out at my grandparents house for weeks at a time. I had an Uncle Joe (more like Uncle Buck) who never married and w...

 My father, who loved western TV shows (Gunsmoke, Lone Ranger, Gene Autry, Roy Rodgers) ultimately, had the last say as to what we would watch.  Whoever held the Channel Selector Dial had to surrender it over to him because he ultimately chose what the family was going to watch that evening.  TV was such a novelty that we didn’t care what we watched.   We were content.

Last Thanksgiving I was hospitalized with pneumonia. My daughter Kristen and her husband Tony intervened and hosted Thanksgiving Day dinner at their home. This week they asked if they could continue our family tradition of Thanksgiving Dinner at their home. I graciously conceded the hosting of the holiday to them from this year forward. I happily and willingly did it for the past 50 years and now realize that the time has come for me to pass this precious tradition onto a younger family member.
This will be the first time that I will have not only an empty chair at the Thanksgiving dinner table but an empty dining room as well.