November News and "Someday"

Just catching up a little bit here. Happy birthday wishes to Brian, Thomas, Michelle, Steve and Brad! November's a big month for the Dalpiaz clan too. We had a visit from Jean, Bob and Hailey last weekend. Mallory was visiting in Oneonta and we got to have some time with the rest of the crew. It's been a while since we have seen them, so it was a very nice weekend break.

Basketball season has now begun. True to form, Ryan has already twisted his ankle a bit but it will be fine. That's just business as usual for basketball it seems. He took the SATs again and we are getting college applications together to finish sending out this week. Senior year is so busy...I'm sure Jean and Linda will agree.

And here's just a little something from Amy many years ago that I think is kind of cool to look at now as she is getting ready to graduate:

From her "Someday" book

Taking a Leap

This is Ryan receiving a pass last weekend in the last football game of the season. He will probably never put on a football uniform again. The day couldn't come soon enough for me. It has taken me 4 years of high school football and 2 years of modified football to get comfortable with quarterbacking terms and responsibilities. And in the last game of his career, the coach plays him in another position--I think they called it running back. That was a cruel cruel trick to play on the mother of the quarterback. I suppose there was a good reason for it and Ryan seemed OK with it so I guess sometimes you just have to take the leap that the coach knows what he is doing. Running back indeed. I thought they were supposed to run forward!

I've been taking some of these leaps with Ryan most of his life. I bought a "Ryan" name sign for his room before he was born. I just knew he was a boy. Our parents must have done the same kinds of things for us. Right? It's just kind of hard to think of them being anything other than practical. I have no idea what sorts of leaps of faith or love my parents took for me or any of my siblings but I wish I did. I probably wouldn't have appreciated it at the time, but I certainly do now.

I'm going to take some extra time this week and think about my parents and how hard parenting is and bless them for giving me the tools to be a parent today. I'll be thinking about your parents too for James is a great dad. And marrying him might have been my biggest leap!

Homecoming 2009

Last Homecoming for Ryan and for James. How weird that seems. Last night at the dance, another chaperone asked if I would care as much about school activities after this year. My response was that I cared about school activities before children and even before James, but I don't really know. It's hard to imagine not caring but I suppose that day will come.

Amy was home for the weekend, feeling much better after two emergency room visits (kidney stone and muscular pain). I heard from my sister Kathy in Florida and my sister Paula came over for a visit. Ryan won his game and the weather broke just as the game got under way. It was senior recognition so between the raindrops and the tears, everyone and everything was wet if not muddy. But it was a very nice weekend for the Harpursville Dalpiaz family. I hope the same for you.

News update

We had a threat of bad weather this weekend but it didn't turn out to be too bad. We had to travel over an hour east to Ryan's game this week so we were fearful of what we would be facing but it turned out to be not bad at all. And they won! Ryan had a great game and scored 3 touchdowns. That's a personal high for him. Thanks for noticing Kathleen and Nick! Next week is Homecoming and we are hoping for a good day then also. He's the guy with the ball here--number 4.

I am trying to document the stories behind some of the things we have collected around here (and you know your brother--we have collected quite a few things). I want their stories known so that someday when Ryan or Amy is deciding whether to sell it in a garage sale or throw it away, they do so knowingly. This is a picture of an item I am certain came from your father's house. I thought I remembered it being down in the basement near the bar but that could be wrong. Any ideas? Neither Kathleen nor James knows anything about it. It's a small bell that's maybe 3 inches tall. The top button with the D appears to be leather about 1 inch across. There seems to be some kind of fastener on the top. I would love to hear about it if you know anything.

Happy Birthday Drew!

Go play in some leaves today Drew. Happy Birthday.

Fall Splendor

Yesterday my sister Paula and I took a little ride to Ithaca to leaf peep and shop. We did more peeping than shopping but we had a great time. We revisited Taughannock Falls and I was able to get a picture from nearly the same spot as I did during Kathleen and Nick's visit. I thought you might find the differences interesting especially in the water flow. It's as beautiful in the fall as it was in the summer (and we found a great new restaurant to try next time, Kathleen and Nick!).

My recent genealogical luck led to an interview with one of my favorite podcasters Lisa Louise Cooke. The podcast is Genealogy Gems and my interview is at the end of episode 73. It's all about my recent revelations concerning your grandfathers James and Costante. I've been very very lucky recently and it was fun to share the story with someone who could really appreciate the significance of them with me.

Guess Thomas isn't the only media darling recently (no video for me, thank you very much but you looked and sounded great Thomas!). Thanks Jean for the heads-up since Bloomberg isn't on my hit parade.

On the Front Edge of History

Here you see Costante Dalpiaz's application for a Social Security number. This document is interesting for a couple of different reasons. One of the most important to me is that it contains his signature. I like to "collect" ancestral signatures and this is a dandy example.

He indicates he was born in Austria. I recall Uncle Lou telling us stories about how these immigrants would identify themselves as Austrian or Italian and the two sides did not see eye to eye. Costante was Austrian. We can see his employer and his home address as well as his parents' names very clearly indicated.

Most interesting to me is that this application was filled out in November 1936 meaning it was among the very first! From the Social Security Administration: Since the Social Security Board did not have a network of field offices in late 1936, it contracted with the U.S. Postal Service to distribute and assign the first batch of Social Security numbers through its 45,000 local post offices around the country. Of these 45,000 post offices, 1,074 were also designated as "typing centers" where the cards themselves were prepared. The procedure for issuing the first SSNs were that the SS-4 application forms were to be distributed by the post offices to employers beginning Monday, November 16, 1936. These forms asked the employers to indicate how many employees they had at their place of business. Using the data from the SS-4 forms, the post offices then supplied an SS-5 form for each employee and these forms (on which the assignment of an SSN was based) were to be distributed by the post offices beginning Tuesday, November 24, 1936. This one is dated Nov 28 1936. Who knew Costante was on the forefront of such history?