Reminiscing on the way to D.C.
As my post title suggests I'm making my first entry on the Megabus (which my Itouch insists is "megabits"). I find myself thinking a lot about my late Poppy Tony Pandolfo. We shared a birthday, which approaches as a reminder. He always was my hero and inspiration and still is.
His memory is specifically prominent today. The book I am reading is a crime/mystery novel, a genre that he loved,and I spent last night and this morning with my beautiful and heartbreakingly generous widowed grandmother talking and eating her great home cooked meals (the last I'll have for a long while, we joked nervously) before she dropped me off at the Valley Stream train and the last time we did that for a trip I was taking he was there with us.
On this morning's train ride I overheard an anecdote about a Doberman mother who accepted a kitten into her litter of pups and indiscriminately raised the orphan kitten as though she were a pup just the same. In addition to reminding me that our tendency towards prejudice is something learned (it seems paradoxical to learn to be stupid, I know) it also illuminated the idea of a selfless and loving upbringing which I certainly had in my family. Although I am traditionally a bastard child, as my parents are separated and were young when they had me, I was blessed to be raised by two beautifully loving families.
Last night grandma and I were going over some body building periodicals and paraphernalia and looking over my Poppy's legacy in the "Golden Age" of body building, of which he is a significant figure (with a significant figure). I've enclosed a picture I took of a cover we found that he was on from a 1980 magazine below.
Also, here is a link to a song I wrote about him and released on an EP (a month and a year ago today, oddly) with my band AllOne & The Room called "An (EP)iphany" the song is called "Pennsylvanian Patriarch" http://allonevoice.bandcamp.com/track/pennsylvanian-patriarch
Besides being an internationally renowned and active body builder he was also a mover and subsequently traveled a lot and always encouraged me to do so. So I take this trip with his adventurous and warm spirit in mind and heart.
I encourage you all to love those around you and honor the memory of those you've lost not with stagnating grief but by perpetuating their life and love forward through your own actions inspired by and with a fervor galvanized by tragedy.
I ride towards D.C. With a lamenting but adventurous and hopeful heart.
-AllOne
His memory is specifically prominent today. The book I am reading is a crime/mystery novel, a genre that he loved,and I spent last night and this morning with my beautiful and heartbreakingly generous widowed grandmother talking and eating her great home cooked meals (the last I'll have for a long while, we joked nervously) before she dropped me off at the Valley Stream train and the last time we did that for a trip I was taking he was there with us.
On this morning's train ride I overheard an anecdote about a Doberman mother who accepted a kitten into her litter of pups and indiscriminately raised the orphan kitten as though she were a pup just the same. In addition to reminding me that our tendency towards prejudice is something learned (it seems paradoxical to learn to be stupid, I know) it also illuminated the idea of a selfless and loving upbringing which I certainly had in my family. Although I am traditionally a bastard child, as my parents are separated and were young when they had me, I was blessed to be raised by two beautifully loving families.
Last night grandma and I were going over some body building periodicals and paraphernalia and looking over my Poppy's legacy in the "Golden Age" of body building, of which he is a significant figure (with a significant figure). I've enclosed a picture I took of a cover we found that he was on from a 1980 magazine below.
Also, here is a link to a song I wrote about him and released on an EP (a month and a year ago today, oddly) with my band AllOne & The Room called "An (EP)iphany" the song is called "Pennsylvanian Patriarch" http://allonevoice.bandcamp.com/track/pennsylvanian-patriarch
Besides being an internationally renowned and active body builder he was also a mover and subsequently traveled a lot and always encouraged me to do so. So I take this trip with his adventurous and warm spirit in mind and heart.
I encourage you all to love those around you and honor the memory of those you've lost not with stagnating grief but by perpetuating their life and love forward through your own actions inspired by and with a fervor galvanized by tragedy.
I ride towards D.C. With a lamenting but adventurous and hopeful heart.
-AllOne
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