Merry Christmas to all who celebrate. No time this year for any tree setup, so going back to when I took a photo of the one I would have set up this year, too.
Danpbphoto wrote:
I know were this is brother!!!
Great shot at sunrise!!!
Give your pup a kiss for me! A sweetheart!!!!
RD
Thank you Dan! I just watched the movie "Silent Night" played by Linda Hamilton, about 3 U.S. soldiers and 4 German soldiers sharing a meal in a house on Dec 24, 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge. It turned out that one of the three U.S. soldiers, Sergeant Ralph Blank, lived right in your city! The German boy, Fritz Vinckin, who was 12 at the time and whose house was shared by these 7 soldiers from opposing sides, told the story in Unsolved Mystery, later he was able to reunite with two of the U.S. soldiers, one of them was Ralph Blank. What an incredibly story of humanity!
Douglas Liu wrote:
Thank you Dan! I just watched the movie "Silent Night" played by Linda Hamilton, about 3 U.S. soldiers and 4 German soldiers sharing a meal in a house on Dec 24, 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge. It turned out that one of the three U.S. soldiers, Sergeant Ralph Blank, lived right in your city! The German boy, Fritz Vinckin, who was 12 at the time and whose house was shared by these 7 soldiers from opposing sides, told the story in Unsolved Mystery, later he was able to reunite with two of the U.S. soldiers, one of them was Ralph Blank. What an incredibly story of humanity!...Show more →
This was not unheard of in Vietnam either Douglas! Very rare but again not unheard of. All soldiers have a job to do! Respecting that job, whether right or wrong, good or bad, enemy against enemy, can have a moment of peace among opposing sides! There was a movie out years ago about a WWI horse that got caught in "No Man's Land" and both German's and American's combined to free it, enjoy a few kind words and return to war.
Good luck at ANC!!!
Dan
I meant to post this before Christmas. My grandparents had a shop in Boston's South End in the 1920's and 1930's that made religious statues. Many were the large type you would find in churches. This is my grandfather's business card, probably from around 1930 (he died in 1935).
Besides making large statues, they also imported and sold small Nativity sets from Italy. We still have a few left, and I've had one set up at Christmas for as long as I can remember. So I'm guessing this is about 100 years old. My Dad made the barn.
Ciao brother!
My grandfather came from Italy and was a shipbuilder in Philly then a carpenter/home builder for his entire life. Small world....they are becoming dinosaur's.!
Dan
Hi Guys, my great grandfather came from Genoa, ended up in Chicago and became one of the country’s largest produce merchants. My great grandfather, John F. Cuneo then started the Cuneo press, and Hawthorne Melody Farms Dairy, he funded the construction of Cuneo Hospital in The Windy City. Being from Northern Italy he was not associated with the crime family groups from the southern part of the country, which caused him a few problems long the way. The Chicago based groups like The Cosa Nostra and others harassed the family and J.F Cuneo, a couple of family members ended up in the Chicago river because John wouldn't join up with the boys from Sicily. We have Chicago newspaper clippings from his wedding to my great grandmother which talk extensively about the shadow of Cosa Nostra threats to the ceremony and anyone attending. John Cuneo wasn't easily intimidated apparently, he hied a raft of Chicago's finest as security and threw the bash as planned. He owned the land where The Hancock Building sits , that was where he and my grandmother and his family lived until he died and the family sold it all off. The money? Well it apparently evaporated after he died and there wasn’t another motivated genius to generate income, just a bunch of spoiled knuckleheads who lived in incredible luxury until the cash ran out. Funny, that side of the family held their noses in the air and acted like royalty long after their financial situation relegated them to the ranks of the rest of humanity, I always found it somewhat odd and pretty pretentious. In retrospect, there's probably a good movie in there somewhere. Oh, yeah, the Cuneo Press had the contract to print "Playboy" magazine for most of it's life, so there's that............
Upon a little research, it appears there are a few remnants of the Cuneo fortune around, unfortunately none of it trickled this way............... Although I do have a gold ring with the family crest on it which my uncle Andrew Cuneo Wetterer handed down to me. That and five bucks will get you a Caramel Macchiato..............
Wow, very cool Dan. Is that home still in your family?
Jim, that's a fascinating family history you have there! I don't think I knew all that.
My Mom's Dad came over in the late 1800's. I have a copy of the manifest and a photo of the boat somewhere. The manifest has names and heights of each passenger. My grandfather was 6'-2" and the tallest passenger on the ship. He was a laborer before starting the business. He went back to Italy to get my grandmother in the early 1900's, and they had their first child here in 1914. Buried their second on Christmas Eve 1917 (we found the receipt). My grandfather died in 1935 when my Mom was just 8 years old. I knew my grandmother, she died in 1973 when I was 12.
My Dad's parents came over from Italy later than my Mom's, maybe around 1920-1925. There was a large group of families from northern Italy that settled in Marshfield, MA. They were laborers, farmers, masons. Often all three at once. All those families are still well known in town.
All four grandparents were from northern Italy, around Lucca.
Dan, my Dad started out as a farmer, and then a cabinet maker. Never built a house, but he left us many fine pieces of furniture.
Laura, Dan, Mark, Jim, thank you for sharing the stories!
This morning I drove to the Arlington National Cemetery to take pictures of the Christmas wreaths, stopped by the Marine Corps Memorial for the sunrise first. The Christmas wreaths laying this year was almost cancelled due to COVID but because of the pressure from the top and the families (I know Dan did his part too!!), they made different arrangements to complete the wreath laying in a safe manner. I wish there were snow on the ground, that would make the tombstones appear even more solemn, IMHO. The other reason I went to ANC this morning was to locate the grave of General Claire Chennault and his Chinese wife Anna, a fervent anti-communist political activist. She passed away in 2018, 60 years after the general's passing in 1958, she was never remarried. These powerful images have a lot of meaning to me, who grew up in communist China.
Thank you, Mark. I wish there were more aviation related pictures that I can post...Hope the airshows next year won't get cancelled again. This year I went to only two airshows and three flyovers, more than most folks but I normally go to 6-8 airshows a year. I just love the jet noise and the patriotic feel of these shows. They make me proud.
Me too. We don't get many shows up here in the Northeast to begin with, and I think most were cancelled this year. I had tickets to the photo pit at the Lockheed airshow in Florida in late October, but there was no way I was going to travel down there, and they actually gave me a refund.
Here's something, Red Arrows over Boston in August 2019.
Very nice song and story, Laura. If you watch Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima, even the Japanese soldiers had a human side, for their families, at least. War is hell. Every tombstone I saw this morning in Arlington belongs to somebody's son, brother, or father. This morning, I watched from distance a lady probably in her late 20's or early 30's, sitting in front of a headstone for a long time by herself. I don't know what was going through her mind, it was gut wrenching even just watching.
And I have done the long sits at graveside, just talking to him in my mind. There are many active duty and retired women service members who are buried in our national cemeteries, too.
Douglas Liu wrote:
Very nice song and story, Laura. If you watch Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima, even the Japanese soldiers had a human side, for their families, at least. War is hell. Every tombstone I saw this morning in Arlington belongs to somebody's son, brother, or father. This morning, I watched from distance a lady probably in her late 20's or early 30's, sitting in front of a headstone for a long time by herself. I don't know what was going through her mind, it was gut wrenching even just watching.
