My new kittens

I rescued two kittens yesterday. Goodness knows how three indoor cats and me will live in a two-room studio apartment...and will Abby ever get used to her new brothers? All she has been doing for 12 hours is spit and hiss. The kitties were raised in a vet office so they are unfazed at any animal, so I am hopeful that as the new ones continue to ignore her that eventually Abby will learn to share her space. Luke and Bert are 10 weeks old.

Luke. Note the T-P tube for scale.



Bert

More about my family

Left to right, at my first birthday party, my father's sister Norma, my mother's mother, my paternal grandmother Viola Bernardoni Prata, her sister Lena, another woman who wishes to remain anonymous, and my great-aunt Nellie.


My father reminisces:

"Last year was the 100th year for Prata Funeral Homes which Great Grandfather Raffaele established in 1906. It was a storefront which had a desk and layout equipment. All wakes and funeral were held in houses then. He was the first funeral director in RI to build a funeral home from the ground up - in West Warwick."

"My Grandfather built four funeral homes. I eventually expanded the number to 9 then consolidated a couple to net out at 7."

"Your great grandmother Vittoria (Giannetti) Bernardoni was a very intelligent woman. Came from Tuscany. She started a meat market, bought a 3 decker home and rented out two floors. She made enough money to buy her son Rico a brand new car for his 16th birthday!! She died quite young - diabetes. All the Carlotti's prospered - doctors, businessmen, lawyers etc."

Interesting family, no?

The Mexican Hat travel story

The airport at Athens GA is so small they call it a "Flight Center." One clerk, one counter, and not even a full length counter at that. One TSA agent, a dozen plastic seats in the waiting area, and a few 19-seat turbo prop planes sprinkled on the tarmac and there you have it.

Last night I was there with some friends who were picking up a friend. A 19-seater was just deplaning and entering the waiting area. It didn't take long for the few travelers to scatter, but there was one young man left behind who was walking around in circles. He was holding an oversize Mexican sombrero. I laughed and asked him, "Did you bring that all the way from Mexico?" He said yes.

"Well, that is a well-traveled hat. Now it's in Athens Georgia."

A look of shock crossed his face, and his mocha colored skin turned white, then green. With an accent, he said, "Athens?"

"Yes"
"Georgia?"
"Yes."
"I am going to Athens Greece."

We three launched into action. I heard the tell-tale clatter of the shutter being brought down over the counter. I knew that there would be no hope once the clerk left. The small airport is devoid of taxis, is in an outlying area, and there is no hotel within walking distance. Taking him by the elbow we brought him and his now bathroom emerged girlfriend to the counter and explained the situation. The clerk said to us that it happens more frequently than one would think.

The Greeks call their country 'Grecia,' so 'Athens GA' might have made sense to the two youngsters from Mexico. I don't know. As we left, I glanced back and the view of two kids standing shoulder to shoulder and leg to leg, spines stiff but knees shaking, talking hurriedly to the clerk, haunts me now. Now I wish I had stayed with them until their flight was resolved. I would have taken them home and brought them the next day to whatever airport they needed to go. I think it's important that people know that no matter how lost they are in the world, they will always be found.

Longing for the ocean

Forty-four dollars, a new country, and a new life for the family

My great-grandfather Raffaele Prata came to America at age 28 on the ship Spartan Prince from Naples to Ellis Island. His home town was Roccamonfina, a comune (municipality) in the Province of Caserta in the Italian region Campania, located about 45m northwest of Naples. His listed profession was doctor, and he arrived with $44 in his pocket, significantly more than the others on his entry page, who were all laborers carrying only a few dollars. As a matter of fact, laborer was originally listed but it was crossed out and doctor written above it. He must have insisted.


Below is a crop from the 1920 Providence RI census page. My great-grandfather Raffaele's profession is listed as embalmer by that point. He and his wife Giovaninna had 6 children, Julia the oldest, Anna, John (my grandfather), James, Rose, and Michael became naturalized in 1915. The family had started Prata Funeral Homes, by the time I was growing up there were 7 covering the state from Providence in the north to Westerly in the south.




I lived with my mother and my father above the Funeral Home for two years before we moved to the suburb of East Greenwich.

The flagship funeral home in the historic 1850s Providence building is now luxury condos. Of course.

Is your state road-worthy?

How are Maine Roads? Georgia? Rhode Island? A new report has been released, Source of data: Reason Foundation, Performance of State Highway Systems, 1984-2005, 16th Annual Report by David T. Hartgen and Ravi K. Karanam. Project Director, Adrian T. Moore, Ph.D. In addition to the actual report and its summary and methodology description, I went right to the visual: the interactive map. If you click on each state it will reveal the following information:

Maine 2005
Overall Rank: 23
2004 Overall Rank: 22
Mileage under state control 8684
Total disbursements per mile $68343.62 (Rank: 14)
Rural interstate miles in poor condition 0% (Rank: 1)
Rural primary road miles in poor condition 2.41% (Rank: 44)
Urban interstate miles in poor condition 1.47% (Rank: 17)
Urban interstate miles congested 2.94% (Rank: 5)
Rural primary roads with narrow lanes 25.89% (Rank: 44)
Fatality rate per 100 million miles 1.132 (Rank: 11)
Deficient bridges 29.87% (Rank: 36)

Click here to see which states fare the best and which have the worst roads.

What a whiz!

Car Rolls Into Pond, Sinks When Driver Stops To Urinate On Side Of Road

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- A motorist in Orange County who stopped near a road to urinate lost his car when he forgot to put the parking brake on, allowing the vehicle to roll into a pond and sink to the bottom, according to fire officials.

Authorities said the driver of a Toyota Echo was traveling along the 417 early Tuesday when he decided to stop and relieve himself.

However, in his hurry to urinate, he forgot to put the car in park, the report said.

Seconds later, the man watched as his car rolled down a hill and into a dark pond near Boggy Creek. Orlando's dive team put six people in the pond but were not able to find the car, the Local 6 report said.

The fire chief said he feels bad for the driver. "It could happen to any one of us," Orlando fire Chief Ian Davis said. "He waited a little too long to use the bathroom and thought this was a good spot and it turned out to be not so good."

Davis said the dive team will resume its search for the vehicle later Tuesday.

"We took the kids to Jumparoos...

..." and the air conditioning was out," said my friend to me.

I can't imagine being a mom...taking a pile of kids to an indoor gym/play station... in the Georgia south...on a 90 degree day...and the A/C was broken.

Kids doin' stuff

The children of our county...busy, happy, working. These are pics I've taken that were published in the Athens newspaper over the last few months.

Free Puppy

Head Start playground

The Haircut

Play time at the Daycare

Waiting to bat, Spring TeeBall

The Town Fair

Language matters

For those of you who know me, I've often spoken about and editorialized about the importance of constructive and informative language in the political arena, language that is precise and not evasive, and language that solves, not destroys. With anonymous blogging, those qualities are all too often abandoned as a first resort and the lowest linguistic denominator is used instead.

I found this clip on the Maine political forum As Maine Goes, where its Administrator, Scott K. Fish, posed the entry entitled "Why Language Used on AMG Matters". It's a short clip from C-Span that demonstrates once again that what we say shows us who we are.