All the women in my mom's family sew, including my sister. In fact, my mom's youngest sister went to design school in Chicago in the late '60s. I've never learned out to use a pattern and have to be reminded how to use my mom's sewing machine, but I can handstitch, so I can fix a hem or sew curtains.

My mother was a decent seamstress (she doesn't sew anymore) and still is an amazing cook, but she never thought about teaching either of us what she knew, so none of that got passed on. Sadface.

We both got the cooking, just not the sewing. He got out of the garment industry and shut down the tailor shop when I was in first grade. From that point on, our lives revolved around the restaurant.

He was called on to dust off his emergency repair skills at a wedding two weeks ago. The bustle for the train fell apart, and my father was in a corner of the lobby with the bride redoing the bustle. He always carries his thimble with him; it's his talisman. The bride had the foresight to have a complete sewing kit, just in case.

Pop tarts:

It's really kind of funny.... He started at the age of 6 as an apprentice to a tailor in Italy. He'd go before and after school to the tailor shop to learn his trade. When he did his military service, he was ostensibly in the Italian secret service (more like OSS or CIA, than U.S. Secret Service), but in actuality he was the personal tailor to a number of high ranking officers. He worked in Rome, Milan, and Turin before deciding to emigrate to the states. He was allowed to stay because he had a skill that was in demand, and his permanent residency was conditioned on his skills as a tailor (somewhat like the H-1B visas of today).

Yet I only have vague memories, interspersed with brief intensive flashbacks of specific events of him (and my Uncle Tony) working as tailors in their shop. They both were such snappy dressers. But I can only remember that because of pictures. My vivid memories of my father at work when I was young all involve the pizza shop, and him dressed in jeans and a white v-neck t-shirt, standing in front of the pizza table tossing dough in the air. It seems like two different lives.

Sorry, I'm a bit introspective today.

He always carries his thimble with him; it's his talisman.

That's so sweet! And he can always play a game of Monopoly, too.

The bride had the foresight to have a complete sewing kit, just in case.

That's so smart! Someone was definitely thinking there.

When I went to visit my dad after Amy's booksigning a few weeks ago, we went through family photos. Dad's immediate family was small, and since his dad came from Sweden with his brother and uncle, those were the only family on that side we had any photos of. So, most of the older photos are from my paternal grandmother's family, and I learned a lot more about them while we were sorting through them than I ever did. I brought home the two postcard photos of my Great-Great-Uncle George from his military service in the years immediately before WWI--one pic was of his company reenacting the War of 1812, so I figure it was from either 1912 or 1914. There's another photo of the entire company from 1916. I don't even know if he served in the war or if he had gotten out of the service beforehand. I think when I have some time I'm going to head over to the library and take advantage of their ancestry.com subscription to look up his military records.

I also want to research my great-great-grandma Carson. She owned her own business in 1900, a beauty/barber shop on the far south side, and I want to find out about her and what happened to her husband--great-grandma Alida never spoke of him at all to my Dad, nor did any of her four siblings.

look up his military records.

Good luck with that, there was a bigass fire at the main military records repository about 40 years ago, and a lot of 20th Century records--including my father's, dammit--went up in smoke.

I love reading about peoples' family history. Keep on, please.

Oh, that's right--I remember reading about that fire years ago. Damnit.

My great-grandpa Jesse was born around 1883ish (I think?), and after finishing school went around to logging camps in Michigan and Wisconsin giving a shave and a haircut (two bits) to all the loggers before moving onto the next place. He did that for a few years before getting tired of it and moving to Chicago. He walked into Carson's hair cuttery-beauty shop-barber shop looking for a job, got one, and then fell in love with the owner's daughter. He opened his own barber shop on 95th and Ada, just east of Ashland, which he ran until the 1940s, I believe.

Oh, and I look a lot like Alida, her siblings, and her daughter, my grandma Alice. All those Carson genes are exceedingly evident on my face. When I sent my sister a picture of me pre-hair dyeing but after losing a lot of weight, her first response was "Grandma!!" Yeah, I know.

Ha!

(BTW, "Carson" has been on my list of names to name my if-I-ever-have-a-kid kid since I was wee. And you'll love this: it's a combination of my love for both Carson McCullers and Johnny Carson.)

My cousin Jen named her daughter Josephine in honor of Jo March...and Josephine Baker. Gotta like that combo.

Oh I love that, Scrappy!!!!