Family history

I just found out tonight that back in the day my mother threw Dinah Shore (and her entourage) out of the Phoenix Skyharbor restaurant one morning. It seems Dinah was complaining that the pastries weren't fresh and was giving the waitresses a very bad time about it. My mother heard about it in the kitchen and went to have a word with Dinah. That word included "...you're no better than anybody else and should treat the people serving you with more respect. Now get out."

Mom never took crap from anyone. It really did not have anything to do with her father being mafia.

She almost got my uncle (her sister's husband) whacked a time before that. This was earlier in a restaurant in NY. She was mad at my uncle about something and chatted about it in earshot of a 'minder' which was someone the family had sitting there all day drinking coffee. He asked her, "d'ya want me to take care of that for you?" Realizing the implications she told him "no, it wasn't anything like that." I liked that uncle. It would have been sad never to have known he existed.

I met my mom's father once on Thanksgiving when I was 16. I never got to know him.

Update: It is funny how some things tie together. John Wayne used to have a ranch around here and came into Springerville to dine quite often. He was known to be very generous. His face is drawn on the outside wall of one of the places here. As a kid, my sister bumped into John Wayne at Skyharbor one day (he died of cancer not long after.) That sister now lives here in Springerville.