I introduce Myself - Sagedragon

in #musician6 years ago

So as a brief biography while it's still in my mind, just recently had to build a resume from scratch, I am the child of an unlikely match from a line of unlikely matches.
By way of example: my paternal grandfather was a first generation Italian immigrant to the US in 1908. He is the handed down story of his marriage to my future grandmother. He, Dominic Giusto, was a rural goat herder in the Udine Provence in northern Italy who drove his flock into the local town of Minus Calminus to sell some goats and cheese. With coins in pocket, he headed to the local drinking establishment and proceeded to consume the local grappa. As a physical footnote, he was 6'5" tall and weighed around 250 lbs, this when the average Italian male was around 5'7" and much thinner. As the evening wore on and the booze continued to flow, he was challenged to try and lift a large rock out of its resting place in the town square. the rock had been there since the Romans built the road through town. While he didn't actually lift it, he did managed to dislodge it and roll it out of the hole. The effort wore him out and he went to the stables with his beloved goats to sleep it off.
Unbeknownst to him, the local town magistrate's daughter, Louisa Vigant, taking advantage of the "modernization" of women's rights thanks to Garibaldi's unification of the Italian provinces, named her own bride's price. Not wanting to get married to anyone, this skinny red head on fire, said she would only marry the man that could lift the rock in the square. Thinking that she was safe from getting hitched, she was then an old maid of 21.
Next morning , nursing a four alarm hangover, Dominic was awakened by a crowd outside the stables singing and dancing. Louisa was secretly disliked by most of the eligible young men in town (maybe not so secretly), so now she would get her comeuppance. Dominic not speaking the local dialect, Fulong, thought it was a party and joined in the procession., when sees a very angry Louisa being drug toward the group of revelers. The local priest hastily preformed the ceremony in front of the town full of witnesses and poof, they are married. Dominic only slowly understands that he is a married man, but that was Ok with him as he had adjusted his thinking to life with no marriage opportunities.Louisa was not amused.
It says something about the relationship that the first child wasn't born until 4 years later. The Depression hit Europe and times were tough, so Dominic gained passage to America and worked the coal mines in West Virginia, saved what little money was paid and bought some land which then was cheap. He went back to Italy, had two more children and then moved the whole family back to America where my father, Edward, was born. All of the sons worked in the coal mines until their teenage years. The Civilian Conservation Corps, CCC, provided a way out to the sunlight and above ground living.
I started this to introduce myself, but it became an introduction of my grandfather. I'll begin entering the rest as a blog. Things get more rollicking from here.IMG_9628.JPGIMG_9287.JPG1-DSC08795.JPG

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