July- A Month for Heritage!

 While July is the heart of summer and half way through the year... it is also a month of celebrations! For me these celebrations have always meant celebrating my heritage....

It's no secret that I am Italian but I also have English decent in my genes as well. The 4th of July, or Independence Day, holds a special meaning to me in celebration as well. Not only because I am an American of course, but I am also a descendant of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. On my father's side I descend from one Thomas Stone of Maryland who was on the committee that drafted the Articles of Confederation and signed the Declaration of Independence, later also serving in Senate for Maryland.

Shortly after all of the picnics, parades and fireworks every year then comes the Mt. Carmel Festival and mass for Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, which I have posted about many times in the past as well. With both events in the same month and marking the halfway point for the year, July truly is a month for me to celebrate my heritage and all that my family and I are.

So as the fireworks reign this month, I will be celebrating my freedoms right along with a sort of Italian "new year" rejoicing another quiet year of the volcano.  I will be waving flags this month for both sides of my heritage. 

I will look at each day as a new beginning and each month as a clean slate, another chance at a new year. I will embrace the activities of each festivity this month and all they have to offer and represent.

July's Bucket List:

• Celebrate with fireworks several times.
• Enjoy gluttonous festival and picnic foods
• Remember where I come from.... celebrate heritage!

Comment below: What is on your July bucket list? How do you celebrate summer festivities?

A Private Festival

Every year like clockwork at the 16th of July the sleep little town of Lowellville, OH comes to life with the whirl of kiddie rides, screams of aggressive mora players, clanks of bocce balls, and Italian music. The sausage and cavatelli could be smelled in the air from blocks away. Just like everything else this year though the festival looks a little different. There are no vendors.... no crowds gathered in the street.... no games... no children running to capture the elusive flags that can be traded at city hall.... no bocce balls on the court and no numbers being shouted in Italian.... 

In the darkness hidden from public view we still gather with the band playing our song... a culture and heritage that cannot be set aside regardless of the world around it. Tradition must go on! A private viewing of a select handful of us still gather to prepare the Baby Doll. We don our masks and still cheer on... we have even more to rejoice in the start of this new year for us... we have endured and survived even more than in past years on this night. 

In some ways the year's festa was the best ever. It reminded us why we actually have this tradition and connected us more to our roots than the annual hustle and bustle had done in years. We were connected again, we were apart of what I ancestors had passed on to us. Despite the lack of carnival environment, the music still cues up and there is more childlike excitement in the air than any year before.... The doll dances and the fireworks shoot into the air and every Calabrian in the crowd is shaking their fist at rough year that has just ended!! Buona Festa..... until next year!