Yes, my mother and I converse in two different languages. What of it?

There was an interesting phenomenon that amazes my white friends when they came to our house.  The same phenomenon existed in the homes of my Croatian, Hungarian, German and Polish friends.

Our parents spoke their language to us and we spoke English back.  We still do it.  My mother and my sons do it to some extent.

This might have grown out of convenience or necessity, but what it did do is tune my brain to be able to understand Italian and English without having to translate what's being said.  It's so natural for many of us we don't even notice.

My friends would come into the house and watch these exchanges.

My francophone friends did not have this experience.  Perhaps it was because they went to French schools that French was their first language.  When they were together they spoke French.  (side note

I am not going to die if I don't eat. Honestly.

The information that cluttered my childhood all led to me dying.

Seriously.

I wrote before of the importance of the funeral.  But the obsession with dying is funny.

They don't say "you're going to die".  They say "you gonna die".

If you don't eat, you gonna die.

If you eat too much, you gonna die.

A little bit of culture shock when they arrived.

My mother's hometown of Fossa, AQ, Italia looks like every other town in Italy.  What might seem ordinary about her town is what's beautiful about Italy.

From Piemonte to Sicilia, towns that resemble Fossa are visible outside the driver and passenger windows during a weekend drive.  They are all different.  They all have different feasts, patron saints, nicknames and their own dialect.

To help you understand what a visual, cultural and environmental shock Canada was to these people, I will spend today's post showing you around Fossa.

Before we go on, let me take a step backwards.  This topic has been on my mind long before I took this course.  In the spring of 2015, I was enrolled in GEOG1F90 at Brock, Human Geography.  We spent much of the course discussing "Sense of Place".  In a nutshell, a Sense of Place is the relationship one has with the geography, landscape, architecture and people of a specific place.  A

This is my brother Anthony, this is my other brother Anthony

My name is Francesco DeChellis.  My grandfather's name is Francesco DeChellis.  My cousin's name is Francesco.  I have a brother Anthony.  And a son Anthony.  And my father is Antonio.  And my nephew is Antonio.  And my maternal nonno's name is also Antonio.

When my brother opened up my son's Christmas gift one year, that elicited a huge, and probably deserved "I told you so" from my wife.

Names are a big deal to the generation before us.  And for many of us.  My older two sons are named Alessandro and Anthony, after their grandfathers.  My

What Italians Do With Hockey Sticks.

We all know the stories ... Italian parents in Canada waiting for their children's hockey sticks to break so they can use them in the garden.

All immigrant cultures did it ... if it was long enough and sturdy, it ended up in the garden. Our white friends' dads used to mount their hockey sticks in their rec room with little labels like "first assist".  When things became more civilized our parents used painted rebar to hold up their tomato and bean plants.

One hockey stick I had almost took a different route to the grave.  I wasn't a hockey player, but I always had sticks and skates.

When I was still living at my childhood home, my friends and I rented the arena every Sunday night.  I had two sticks, but one was never used and was in brand new condition (like plastic on the couch).  We stopped playing about a year before I was married.  When my sons started playing hockey, I helped out on the ice and one day my stick broke.  I immediately thought "I know exactly where I left my other stick", 11 years after leaving it there.

How do you "shut the lights"? Why Italians speak English the way they do.

I met a guy at school from Toronto who once asked me why Italian kids used to say "shut the lights" and "shut the TV".  I didn't get the question or why he was laughing.  Maybe his family was wealthy and could afford the higher electricity bill? Who knows ...

It turned out he was making fun of me, and Italians.  For a bit of background, I could barely speak English until I was four years old because my mom stayed at home and I was with her.

I grew up in a very Italian and French neighbourhood in Welland, ON, Canada.  You were either French, Italian or lost.  All of our parents speak/spoke English the same way and it didn't hold anybody back.

I have a very good understanding of the grammatical structure of French and Italian .  Those who claim French or Italian as their first language have similar patterns in their English.   For the most part I knew what their English derived from, but actually learning the grammar puts it all into better view.

The Importance of the Funeral

"Did you go to Sam's funeral? How was it? Who was there?"

That, my friends, is how the conversation about a funeral usually begins.

I have been going to the funeral home for as long as I can remember.  I don't ever remember not going to the funeral home.  Losing a loved one is never easy and the grief is crippling as it is for everybody, but it is with great dignity that Italians deal with the business of death.  It's not taboo to discuss death or people who have died.  There is a difference between dealing with death and dealing with the business of death.

Funerals are important events in the Italian community.  Respect is a big thing in our culture and funerals are one of the main places where respect is shown (or intentionally not shown).