toritto's Blog

ehh....what town in Italy is your family from?

toritto

toritto
Location
tampa bay metro, Florida,
Birthday
September 10
Bio
I was born in year 4 of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius Claudius and raised on 66th Street and 13th Ave. in Brooklyn. And Coney Island, Traveled the world. Married my high school sweetheart and stayed together 40 years. Now a retired old widower crank living in Florida with my cat. Author of "Initial Verses" - a collection of poems on love, loss, poverty and war" and "Toritto's Blog - a Memoir of a life in posts."

MY RECENT POSTS

MY RECENT COMMENTS

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MY LINKS
JUNE 19, 2013 11:03AM

L'affair Snowden - What we Learned

 
 
 
Ok.  Snowden is on the run.

“It’s espionage!”  “He’s a traitor!!”.

Yeegads.  All for telling us that our government is listening to us and wants to listen to the globe.

“We have warrants!”  shouts Obam… Read full post »
14 Comments
JUNE 18, 2013 10:07PM

Via Scarangella

 
1048 
 
via Scarangella, Toritto, Italy
 
 
Narrow street of ancient age
your memories are shining
your beauty still as new
though your stones were worn 
well before she was ever born.

Your grace is of a young girl
twirling, pulling up her hair
in endless motion;… Read full post »
6 Comments
JUNE 17, 2013 4:23PM

Truth is Coming - Ed Snowden

 

Excerpts from an on-line interview between Edward Snowden, America's most wanted, and the Guardian newspaper in the U.K.

"I pointed out where the NSA has hacked civilian infrastructure such as universities, hospitals, and private businesses because it is dangerous. These nakedly, a… Read full post »

20 Comments
JUNE 17, 2013 5:20AM

No Stairs


100_0491 

I live in a house with no stairs.

Eighteen hundred thirty two square feet

three bedrooms, two baths two car garage.

A lanai.

 

Houses with stairs are for the young.

People who live in houses with stairs

go to work everyday

have kids and a dog.

 

Coming

… Read full post »
17 Comments
JUNE 15, 2013 10:27PM

Grandma's Windows

 
 
Moonlight never shined
across her bed of dark pecan
through the small minded windows
of America.
 
No view of stars or sunny sky
no ever changing blue or gray.
  A glass pane cordoning
the outside from the in;

Windows that moved up and down… Read full post »
5 Comments
JUNE 14, 2013 10:38AM

Poppa Was a Union Man

a repost for Father's Day 

Your_Mom_and_Dad_edited

Danny and Mary in front of our little house - circa late 1950s

The ghost in the doorway is me.

My father was a union man; a member in good standing of the International Hod Carriers, Building and Common Laborers Union of America. In the… Read full post »

3 Comments
JUNE 12, 2013 9:24PM

Lesbian Life

photo 

Remember when Obama came out in support of same sex marriage? 

The  Sunday morning "news" shows and respected journalists were yammering about whether or not coming out for same sex marriage would help or hurt Obama’s re-election efforts.

"Sixty percent of those polled i… Read full post »

22 Comments
JUNE 12, 2013 10:54AM

Morning at Fred Howard Park

Picture of Fred Howard Park Beach in Tarpon Springs Florida  
 
 
Let me sit here for awhile, I thought
contemplating the morning sea
the cloudless sky, the yellow shore
all lovely bathed in light.

I really did see it for a moment;
now, eyes shaded,  I am pretending
daydreaming of nights when young,
memories filled with the… Read full post »
6 Comments
JUNE 11, 2013 6:45PM

Now I Know - for Father's Day

30600002

Poppa and his mother - both gone a long, long time

 

He thought for a moment

and wrote

in a blank space

inside the front cover.

 

“May your days be filled

with happiness

with only a moment of sorrow

so you know the difference.”

 

Scrawled by the… Read full post »

10 Comments
JUNE 10, 2013 7:02PM

"Freedom"

 
This photo provided by The Guardian Newspaper in London shows Edward Snowden, who worked as a contract employee at the National Security Agency, on Sunday, June 9, 2013, in Hong Kong. The Guardian identified Snowden as a source for its reports on intelligence programs after he asked the newspaper to do so on Sunday. (AP Photo/The Guardian) 
 
You will knead enough dough
for dozens of loaves
but will taste not a morsel
for you are free to slave for others
while your children stare in store front windows
hungry.

From the day you are born
they surround you with lies
lies enough to… Read full post »
7 Comments
JUNE 10, 2013 8:12AM

The Almond Trees

 
 
I wasn’t born with dreams like yours
while tending almond trees
I  could never own;
a few bread crumbs for dinner,  almond butter
before a  hungry, empty bed.

Dawn, another day
seeking work
salt  in my eyes
trudging the fields
dreaming of a home;
11 Comments
JUNE 9, 2013 8:56AM

Vanity Fair - a Belated Mother's Day Gift

  
 
 
Orphanage girl;
a franklin stove
simmering  Sunday's  sauce
I often wondered if you  dreamed.

Italian woman;
sweatshop seamstress 
wife and mother,
did you ever miss the tall windows
of Milan in high Summer?

Besides your hopes and dreams
3 Comments
JUNE 8, 2013 7:11PM

Vanity Fair - a Belated Mother's Day Gift

  
 
 
Orphanage girl;
a franklin stove
simmering  Sunday's  sauce
I often wondered if you  dreamed.

Italian woman;
sweatshop seamstress 
wife and mother,
did you ever miss the tall windows
of Milan in high Summer?

Besides your hopes and dreams
3 Comments
JUNE 7, 2013 8:03PM

Forsaken

 
. 
Sit not in your darkened room
alone and brooding, 
feeling forsaken by the fates,
the sounds of the living
rising from the streets.
 
Mourn not uselessly
your luck that’s failing now;
your plans, your hopes
all gone awry.

Instead prepare and brace yourse… Read full post »
6 Comments
JUNE 7, 2013 3:56AM

Forsaken

 
. 
Sit not in your darkened room
alone and brooding, 
feeling forsaken by the fates,
the sounds of the living
rising from the streets.
 
Mourn not uselessly
your luck that’s failing now;
your plans, your hopes
all gone awry.

Instead prepare and brace yourse… Read full post »
3 Comments
JUNE 6, 2013 3:53PM

Sands of Damascus


 
 

No one remembers
the angels of the Sumerians
of  Hyksos. of Ummayad;
Only the gutted market place

the innocent scream of survivors,
for those killed at checkpoints,
Picasso's children, now a montage
of arms and limbs.

no pity for yesterday’s beauty;
just
… Read full post »
3 Comments
JUNE 6, 2013 8:55AM

In Memory of a President's Son on D-Day

a repost of last year's EP for D-Day 

 

170px-Ted_Cane_France  

Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr.

In memory of Brigadier General  Theodore Roosevelt Jr.,  awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at Normandy June 6, 1944.

Citation:  "for gallantry and intrepidity at the… Read full post »

6 Comments
JUNE 5, 2013 2:47PM

Scalia's Devastating Dissent

scalia 
 
Justice Scalia finally made us proud.

In common with the vast majority of progressives I have considered our two Italian - American Justices to be running dogs of right wing conservatives / corporatists; borderline demi-fascists.

Scalia was on the side of Citizens United; agai… Read full post »
5 Comments
JUNE 4, 2013 11:17PM

Sands of Damascus

 
 

No one remembers
the angels of the Sumerians
of Hyksos. of Ummayad
Only the gutted market place

the innocent scream of survivors,
for those killed at checkpoints,
Picasso's children, now a montage
of arms and limbs.

no pity for yesterday’s beauty
brush away the
… Read full post »
4 Comments
JUNE 4, 2013 3:51AM

The Train to Nefasit

 

 

Riding Acela to Boston
Connecticut towns roll by; 
coffee and church steeples
a successful man in coat and tie

recalling when three and twenty
with no awareness I was blessed,
I hopped the train to Shegareni
on my way to Nefasit.

Wheezing ancient mallets
pulling freight ca… Read full post »
8 Comments
JUNE 3, 2013 8:47AM

June 3 - Birthdays That Might Have Been

For Joann, who might have been 68 today and our eldest, Daniel Jason, who might have been 40 today. 

Youth Football 

A son is buried 'neath Monmouth's fields

at the mountain of little olives

just a short pass from Vince Lombardi

whom I’m sure recruited him by now.

 

I’ll … Read full post »

11 Comments
JUNE 2, 2013 9:23AM

Making Angie Cry

R34LSZWR_big 

Everyone was so happy that day

I didn’t know why so I was happy too.

I rode on daddy’s shoulders

down 13th avenue

passed the Endicott theater

Waving and happy people

kissing in the street

Grandma bought me a mello-roll

and now I was getting to play horsey.

Giddiup… Read full post »

15 Comments
JUNE 1, 2013 12:00PM

My God! Are We Norse?

1048

via Scarangella - Toritto 

I have an unusual last name.

Scarangello

Actually it was Scarangella.  It was changed by the bureaucrats at Ellis Island who mistook the cursive "a" for an "o".  So that became our name.  In Italy our name is not found with an "o" at the end.… Read full post »

18 Comments
MAY 31, 2013 11:08AM

Armed Resistance to Fascism - Parma - 1922

 
parma
 
 
Parma barricades - 1922 
 
In August 1922, just ten weeks before Mussolini seized power, one of the largest armed confrontations between fascists and anti-fascists in history took place .  Led by a Socialist Party MP, Guido Picelli, the local branch of the… Read full post »
5 Comments
MAY 30, 2013 8:49AM

Armed Resistance to Fascism - Parma - 1922

 
parma
 
 
Parma barricades - 1922 
 
In August 1922, just ten weeks before Mussolini seized power, one of the largest armed confrontations between fascists and anti-fascists in history took place .  Led by a Socialist Party MP, Guido Picelli, the local branch of the… Read full post »
3 Comments
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