Italian Sendoff
Those of you who don't know me in person might well be unaware of my Italian ancestry -- it's an easy enough mistake, given my pasty Anglo-Irish features and distinctly Eastern European surname -- but those who do will know that I remain rather proud of my melting-pot cultural background. Part of that comes from having a large crowd of old Italians around when I was growing up, mostly friends of my grandparents: men and women who smelt funny and had strong, near-impenetrable accents; people who would chuckle and pinch your cheeks in the way the elderly don't realise the young hate.

As old Italians are wont to do, however, my grandparents' friends began to pass away, and funerals became more and more regular. At one point, having gone to two or three funerals of close friends in about the same number of months (all the while dealing with a husband who was coming out of a heart bypass operation), my Nonna decided she couldn't cope with going to these affairs alone anymore and asked my Dad to accompany her.

On a cold October morning, a large group of very Italian-looking men and women were standing around a graveside in the local cemetery, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth from all concerned. Another funeral, by all accounts very much a reserved, WASP-ish affair, was going on a few rows down. The two congregations couldn't look more different: one made up of prim, obviously upset but very reserved, stiff-upper-lip Anglicans; the other a group of slick-haired Mediterranean Catholics in dark suits and gold jewellery, the women openly shedding tears, the whole thing looking like something out of a Scorsese movie.

Then, all of a sudden, through the crisp, clear air sang out someone's mobile ringtone -- bad timing at best, but even worse when one of the younger members of the Italian group has gone with the ironic choice of Nino Rota's theme from The Godfather as his alert of choice at what can only have been close to full volume.

I wasn't there, but by all accounts the shocked looks from the other group of mourners were priceless, filled with worry that their dearly departed would be spending his eternal rest twenty yards or so away from Don Corleone (and whichever poor Mafia victim would be sharing the grave).

I'd apologise for length, but it's really the second movement that'll bring a tear to your eye.
(Ellinikos contains a source of phenylalanine, Thu 30 Jul 2009, 22:12, Reply)