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Jan. 27, 2005 My family's annual reunion is getting ridiculous. It's hard enough to keep up with the latest batch of naturally spawned arrivals [more commonly referred to as "babies"], but last year several "long lost" cousins were introduced. And they expect me to keep track of everyone? If I were Mexican, I'd say: "Dios Mio!" If I were Jewish, I'd say: "Oy Vez!" If I were French, I'd say: "Sacre Bleu!" If I were Cuban, I'd say: "Aye Caramba!" If I were Italian, I'd say: "Mama Mia!" If I were..... Oh wait, I *am* Italian. And I guess that explains a familial branching system that would make the General Sherman Giant Sequoia look like a Bonsai. *Technically*, these newly discovered additions are "second cousins" to those of us with the same grandparents, since they are the offspring of my grandfather's brother's children. Our parents and kids of my dad's father's brothers would be direct first cousins. Our parents' kids [us] would be "first cousins once removed." Us kids and their kids are second cousins. I think. Or maybe it's "first cousins twice removed." Or far-flung relatives I'll just refer to as "Hey you" if I ever see them again. I lost track of genealogy after Cain & Abel. It was a lot simpler back then. My particular twig of this forest behemoth started with "Domenico" Coppi (instinctively pronounced as "copy" in America [short vowel before a double-consonant], but spoken as "coh- pee" [long 'o'] in Italy [those darn Italians never were too good at spelling - or at building vertical towers either, for that matter]). Domenico married Settimina, got on a westward- bound trans-atlantic route (this was the "in" thing for newlyweds to do 100 years ago [most traveled by boat, I hear - the only known spirit of St. Louis back then was a ghost in the Missouri State Courthouse]), and proceeded to have nine children: Velis, Nives, Norris, Nida, Anthony, Joseph, Harry, Gloria and Donald. I never gave a great deal of thought as to why the four oldest children had those "weird" names, followed by the relatively normal Joe, Tony, Harry, Gloria and Don [my dad]. Maybe myself and others just assumed it was some "Italian thing." I always figured that if you looked in a phonebook from Venice, you'd see at least a couple Velis's, some Nevis's, a few Norris's and perhaps several Nida's. Maybe even a Norris Mussolini or Nevis Corleone. It didn't seem improbable. Later, when our matriarch became more acclimatized to the U.S., she started naming her kids names that were more familiar in America. Or maybe she'd been in this country so long by the time her fifth kid came along, that she couldn't remember any more Italian names. Or so I presumed. But recently a new theory has emerged. Actually it's more than a theory. I have it on good authority that Velis, Nevis, Norris and Nida were named after storybook characters from a favorite book of my grandmother's ["Nona" to us]. We can just be thankful she hadn't been reading "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." It would definitely be interesting, however, to find the book in question. And the sooner the better. This vital information has been suppressed for too long already. Undoubtedly a cover-up masterminded by Aunts Nevis, Nida, and Norris [not to be callous, but Velis didn't hang around long enough to become an uncle, yet he *did* go by 'Phil' in his youth - now there's a kid who knew how to avoid controversy]. What was the nature of those characters? Is Aunt Nida named after a fictional organ grinder's wife who substituted for the monkey when it was sick? This and other burning questions remain to be answered. Furthermore, why is "Norris" known as Aunt "Notty" to most of her nieces and nephews? Where the heck did that name come from? Was Aunt Notty a lumberjack in her younger days? Did she separate the good logs from those full of knots? Did she have termites at one point in her life? [Less imaginative family members subscribe to the more mundane theory that when Nona pronounced Norris with her accent, it actually sounded like Noree (with a roll to the 'r') and was pronounced as "Notty" by everyone else.] The list of questions might go on endlessly if a fact had not recently come to light. That is, apparently when she was an adolescent [85-year- old Aunt Notty was once a young girl?], she emphasized a remark and/or turned the tide of an argument in her favor by pounding Uncle Tony over the head - with a frying pan, thus garnishing herself the title "Naughty," which has been homogenized into "Notty" to mislead unsuspecting relatives as to the true nature of her name. Word has it that Uncle Tony recovered from the assault and sometime in the ensuing 70 or so years has received an apology from Aunt Notty. Again though, we are left with more questions than answers: What provoked the attack? Did Uncle Tony deserve what he got? Was the pan empty or filled with pasta? To her last day, could Aunt Notty be trusted with a frying pan in hand? And while we're at it, 'Michael' is NOT pronounced phonetically as 'Mitch-ay-el." Before THAT controversy starts, I'd better start going by just "Mike." ------------ About the author: Mike Coppi is a freelance writer from Arcadia, California. Email: mjcoppi@cs.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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