Maria Gloria Rando

Dear Readers, 1. June – Giugno usually is a happy month with weddings, birthdays, graduations and Father’s Day (June 21), but due to the corona virus, it may NOT be so happy this year. Let’s not forget the feast days of …

Dear Readers, American History is being rewritten. Positive contributions made by our forefathers will soon disappear from our US.History Books. Before every shred of positive print is wiped out, I thought I would refresh your memory and mine by reprinting “I …

Dear Readers, “A man does not have to be an angel to be a saint,” said Albert Schweitzer.  The same holds true for Fr. Angelo D’Agostino, founder of Nyubani (Swahili for “home”) and the subject of a new book, DAG …

Dear Readers, October, the month your “Italian Connection” usually devotes to Christopher Columbus. Discovery Celebration related matters are being downsized a bit this year, therefore, I thought I would share some other October dates of general interest in addition to our longtime October honoree …

Art Angels were the hundreds of volunteers who flocked to Florence, Italy in early 1966 to help save its art treasures after floods, caused by heavy rains. Literally, many art works were floating down the streets of the city. Among …

December, the month we celebrate Christmas, exchange presents with our friends and wish all “Buon Natale,” I got to thinking that some people, by their efforts, wind up enriching an entire community or in the case of Carlo DiRuocco, the …

Dear Readers, July jottings with an Italian  Connection: America’s first lady Eleanor Roosevelt (1933-1945), in a Fourth of July, Hyde Park, N.Y. parade, rode in a FIAT Roadster.  Why would a tall woman like Eleanor squeeze herself and her hefty chauffeur Tubby Curnan into a FIAT …

October, the month Italo-American organizations throughout the United States celebrated Columbus Day with parades and public festas, is becoming a thing of the past. Since the 1992 Columbus Quincentennial commemorations, political activists have been watering down Columbus Day Discovery celebrations, to …

Dear Readers, Merry Christmas or Buon Natale is fine but Season’s Greetings sounds too one size fits all seasons. It seems that with merchants putting up their Christmas decorations (now holiday decorations) a nanosecond after clearing shelves of candy corn …

Dear Readers, Some extra Summer jottings with more Italian connections: Admiral Christopher Columbus statuary continues to be defaced throughout the USA but in 2020 it seems to be okay and with no “defacing public property” consequences. In Boston’s Italian North End, a beheaded Columbus statue …