niagara falls – 19634th entry – 8th grade

The summer before 8th grade, I went to Toronto with my uncle, aunt, Rose and my grandmother. On the ride down, I remember going in and out of rain-showers. We were driving Highway 17 and we’d go through sheets of rain and then come out onto dry weather only to go through the next sheet. It’s an experience you can have only traveling in a car.

The image on the left is us in Niagara Falls. (Left-to-right: Maria, Mario, Rose, Egilia, Nunziata) It must have been a side-trip. I bought Mafalda these Niagara Falls decorated shot-glasses that she still has 50 years later. The other memory I have of that trip was my staying at my grandparents’ rather than with everyone else at Nunziata’s. (That too felt grown-up – being allowed to go on the trip and then being allowed to stay somewhere on my own.) The trip was also the end of a period in my life, a time I associated more with the Perri side of the family than the Zingas. It was the bookend to our trip from Calabria, because the next phase was really about being Canadian. Living and being with the Perris was the first experience after immigrating. Now, on Turner Avenue, I would be able to write my own story.

This is the first time I’ve connected the trip to Toronto and Niagara Falls to the summer of 1963. (It was an amazing year for change – moved to Turner Avenue and away from the connection to Calabria, went the Toronto and Niagara Falls without my parents, went to a new school and met the crew that would become my best-friends.) Had no idea these events all occurred that year.

The actual date of this entry is Sunday, February 17, 2013.