"Out of the frying pan into the fire"

It was a very, very hot day in August in Astoria, N.Y. My Irish cousins lived in a house under the El ( elevated subway).....I lived about 6 blocks away, so as I did often, I walked there to hang out with them.
Michael and Joey were home when I got there...I was about 10 at the time, making Michael 8 and Joey 13... at one point we were sitting on the stoop ( yes, they had a stoop too)...I said to Joey, I bet it is hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk...we laughed and I said lets try it..
He send Michael into the house to get an egg...Joey was to be the chef of the day, so he broke the egg onto the sidewalk and we all stood there along with a few more kids that were passing by, staring at the egg...It actually started to cook, that is how hot it was..it did not fry completely but it did cook a bit around the edges....
I left and walked home and later when my aunt came home, Michael told her of our gourmet attempt..
She was not at all amused and called my mother telling that I was the instigator and made them do it...so I got into trouble and was not allowed to go there for a few days....guess the motto of the story is " When you hatch an Idea, don't use your aunts eggs"....

"Bulletin Board September 28th

Today is Mell's 70th Birthday...

Happy Birthday Mell

and many many more

"The Bulletin Board"

I have decided to start a "Bulletin Board"....I will list any info you may want to share, any questions you may have or just a comment....just send me an email giving me your items and I will post them...

Remember this is not my blog, it is "OUR" blog

so lets make it successful and enjoy it....

1. My granddaughter Lauren, Michael's daughter, has been elected Secretary of the class of 2010 at St Joseph College in CT....

"Way to go Lauren"...

2. I need the following email addresses to send this Blog to....

Mell, Trish,Patrick, Billy

Kristy and Gregory

If you have them please send.

3. As I get more proficient at this, I will be adding old photos

and other family stuff...if you have

anything you want to share, email me.

4. Your comments are always welcome.

"Bigger is not always better"

Kasey wanted to hear some stories about her grandfather....This is for you Kasey...

I have to give you some background first....these are things you never heard of and will never see...I was living in Astoria and your Pop lived about 6 blocks away...my father bought our first TV ever...It was a Philco and it had an 8 inch screen...which was the normal size for the time ( circa 1948)...

Some genius invented something to place in front of the screen to make the picture bigger...hence the name of the object was "An Enlarger"..It worked fairly well, the picture was a bit fuzzy, but come to think of it, it was never really clear to begin with....

As with everything we own, TV's improved, screens got larger and clearer, my father bought a new TV about 1950...with a huge screen, I think it was about 12 inches or so....therefore the Enlarger was not needed and it was sent to be stored in my bedroom closet. The house we lived in was a Brownstone, with 3 floors...it was a beautiful house but of course I did not know that at the time....it had a dumb waiter..( you may have to look that up)...a library with floor to ceiling sliding french doors...embossed tin ceilings in the basement with a kitchen...the food could be sent up to the dining room via the dumb waiter..etc...but I digress.....

So..one warm summer day I was in my room on the 3rd floor...and was moving some stuff out of my closet, I was pulling the enlarger out and it tipped over and fell....it weighed about 50 lbs, it was about 18" wide 15" high and 10" deep..it was like a large magnifying glass on a rod in a big heavy metal base....anyway, when it fell, it cracked and guess what....it was filled with an oily substance...that is what made it heavy and that is what made it enlarge what ever it was put in front of it....

Well, now the fun starts....as I was on the 3rd floor, when it broke all the oil ran out and down 3 floors to the basement....the stairs were covered with it, the halls ways...etc....I was going nuts, how do I clean this up..I called Pop and he come right over....lucky for me no one was home....I got rags, newspapers and what ever else I could find to sop up the oil....we took our shoes off and started to wipe up the mess....Pop was doing the stairs I was working on the hallway..then he called to me and said...hey, the color is coming off the stairs....they were covered with linoleum and we learned our first chemistry lesson, linoleum was made with an oil base product and when the oil from the enlarger mixed with it, it took the pattern right off....we worked for over 4 hours wiping, mopping, washing and I knew when my mother got home I was going to get killed....it destroyed all the linoleum in the house...also leaving a greasy residue on everything...

....Pop kept saying..boy are you gonna get it..and laughed...trust me I was not laughing at all....I was 11 year old and I knew I would not see 12....Pop wanted to go home when we were done but I asked him to stay until my mother got home...I figured she would not kill me in front of a witness...I must say she took it very well....but she said now you call your father and tell him what happened....she dialed and as soon as I heard his voice I started to cry, well it worked...he said as long as no one was hurt....but when poor Pop got home, he got in trouble, your great greatmother was very mad because all his clothes and him were a little oily to say the least....by the way, I don't know if I ever thanked him...so, Thanks Mike....

"The Hot Foot"

This Story was prompted by Kasey..she reminded me of this incident....

I guess I was about 5 when this happened....There was a shoe factory about 3 blocks from 521 and one night it caught fire..
I remember all my uncles went yo watch it...after the fire was put out and the police and fire department left.. some of our relatives namely my father and a few others went through all the cartons that the fireman through out of the upper floors...
I remember sitting on the stoop with my aunts and misc cousins and then we saw the hunters of the clan coming down our block carrying boxes and boxes of shoes.....wow, new shoes it was like Christmas, Easter and the first day of school all rolled into one...
As they opened their treasure chests they soon found that they were all women's shoes and they were only for the right foot...they were display shoes that were to be delivered for shoe store windows... I remember my father asking my mother to call Rose Rae ( her cousin) and find out if Nancy would want them...
My mother told him that Nancy could not use them as her right leg was the bad one it was only a brace tpe attachment with a metal rod and metal foot attached.......( at that time she had not had the operation yet to remove her undeveloped leg)....so there the family sat with boxes and boxes of useless shoes....I guess the motto of the story is
"There are no free lunches or Shoes"....

"The Religious Vegetarian"

This is the first known Janet story on record, so it is fitting that it is the first story on the family Blog...

Janet and I attended St. Mary's grammar school together...located in Long Island City. We were in the same class and sat a few feet apart.
This tale took place in the 1st grade...the first week of school and it was my good fortune to be there for the first Janet story in recorded history.
It was our first religion lessen and we all had our used gray catechism books, the home work from the night before was to study the first 3 questions....
We were very excited, our freshly scrubbed faces and our ironed hand me downs filled us with pride.
The first question in the book was....Who is God ?....
and the answer was.."God is a Supreme Being who made all things"
I remember studying the night before and knew the answers as all of the kids in our class did....
as it happened the Sister called on Janet to answer the question...Janet stood up to gave her answer.....I was so proud that my cousin was the first one....she moved from foot to foot and said...." GOD IS A STRING BEAN WHO MADE ALL THINGS"
The class sat there with their mouths open and tried so hard not to laugh.....The Sister holding back a grin called on someone else and received the correct reply....
of course I teased Janet about it all the way home..she was pissed at me to say the least. It was that day that began my venture into the "Wide World of Janet" and I have not stopped teasing her since.
P.S. I still love her though and Janet, I have 327 more stories to tell...

"The Farciacon Saga"

The Farciacon Saga

is a history of three families, all intertwined

and the stories that made up their lives.

(God it sounds like the beginning of a soap opera.)

As you guessed the 3 families are the Farrell's, the Conlon's and the Cianciaruso's. There are more stories for some then others.. but we all should contribute our thoughts and memories to share with our families. Please send me the e-addresses of family members that I do not have, I will add them to the mailing list.

You are able to add your comments to the blog site and I encourage that you do. So here we go....let the stories begin.