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and I will be sure it appears here for all to read and enjoy.

 

Submitted by Joe and Renee Pellegrino 2/10/2019

Sometime in the late 90's, Renee and I were at an Italian restaurant and they were serving Italian Wedding Soup. It reminded me so much of the soup made at Grandma's house, I had to get the recipe and make my own. I called my mom but she couldn't remember and told me to call Aunt Lucy. So I called Aunt Lucy to see if she could remember and give me the recipe. 

I asked her and the first thing she said was "Oh Joey, it has been so long I don't think I can remember." As we talked, she started to remember. So with pen and paper in hand and our speaker phone on, we eagerly awaited and were ready to record the delicious old country way of making Wedding soup.

She began with a thoughtful pause and said, "First, you kill a young chicken". After that, the laughter began and the recipe was never recorded. She kind of forgot anyway. But the whole thing was hilarious.

After all she was remembering how "She" made soup back when she was a child on Korreck Ave.

 

Submitted by Joe Pellegrino 2/10/2019

For some reason I have this memory.
When the Joe Pellegrino family lived in the upstairs of Grandma and Grandpa's house, it was quite an adventure. The Cherry tree, the garden, the chicken house. Everything that made the neighborhood known as Little Italy.

Grandma would buy us baby chicks for Easter and we would build a pen to put them and raise them to adult chickens. She helped us take care of them and taught us how to do that. One day we came home from school and the chickens were not in their pen. Grandma told us they got out and ran away. We were so sad that we had lost our pets. Grandma assured us they were fine. She made us feel OK about them getting away and we went on with our young lives. 

By the way, we had fried chicken for the next week. I didn't put the connection together for years. Now I just laugh and remember. That's how they did it in the old days.

 

Submitted by Joe Pellegrino 2/12/2019

 

During the Thanksgiving Holiday some of us (Dan, Joe, Joe, John and Tom) would be allowed to play in the woods by the levee. As we (Dan and Joe) got older, we were allowed to carry a shotgun to hunt rabbits and quail. My favorite part of that was that Dan would carry the shotgun and Joe would carry the shells. We wondered upon a rabbit that failed to jump and run. Poor Rabbit. Never knew what hit him. As we were standing there with the empty shotgun, contemplating our next move, Dan took the shell from Joe and loaded the trusty old gun. At that moment Dan said (and I can still here his authoritative voice) "Wait. Let me step back a bit". He took maybe one step back, aimed and pulled the trigger. All that was left was fur. We laughed until we cried. Kids didn't care. We were HUNTERS.

 

Submitted by Joe Pellegrino 2/13/2019

 

When I was  in my early teens and not driving yet, Cousin Ross owned a Corvette. Since he is almost exactly 11 years older than me, I must have been about 13 or 14 and he was 24 or 25 and owned the Shell Station in Godfrey. He decided that he would take me for a ride because I thought the car was cool and had never been in one. And in typical Ross fashion, he scared the shit out of me and laughed his ass off. But in the end, that secured my love  for cars. I was never able to drive them like he could but during my younger years, I owned some pretty fast cars and loved to work on hot rods. Eventually, motorcycles and racing became my passion. I was able to ride those much better than drive a car fast and raced motorcycles into my thirties. So, thanks Cuz for giving me the passion for speed. By the way, I owned probably 25 or 30 motorcycles during my life and still have one today.