Where the windows on the front of the unit frame downtown Pittsburgh, the back of the building looks out on the South Hills of Western Pennsylvania. And we’re beginning to see the first hints of autumn color. Over the weekend, I drove up to Toronto for Canadian Thanksgiving and both upstate New York and Southern Ontario were showing reds and yellows.

Mary decided that Canadian Thanksgiving need not be about turkey and instead served a delicious porchetta – a savory, fatty, boneless pork roast. And true to Zinga, Muto, McCaig, Melchiorre tradition, of welcoming all who come to visit, Mary’s neighbors showed up unannounced/uninvited and joined us for dinner.

Naturally, that became an occasion for us to list all the various times people showed up unannounced and just sat down and ate with us. Rose and I think the first-time was in the early 80s when my parents’ neighbors showed up on Christmas Day at noon – the table was set and we were getting ready to sit down and eat – and my parents’ neighbors rang the doorbell. My father welcomed them and invited them to sit down and eat with us. For that first-time, we the snobs – my sister Jo’, Rose, Derrick, Mary and I – went upstairs and refused to eat with the uninvited. But that quickly changed and with each new iteration we began welcoming the unannounced, the uninvited. A response, a behavior my immigrant parents taught us; a response, a behavior that has given us wonderful memories, wonderful stories to tell again and again. (This iteration will include how Mary and Rose went without risotto, because there wasn’t enough for the expanded group.)

 

partial reunion – 6 of the 8 – of our 2023 barge trip
(missing are Rick and Sarah)