When I was growing up, I had many people tell me that my name was unusual. Well, you can only listen to this so many times until you conduct some informal research to see exactly how unusual it really is. Well, come to find out, if you research the name Leardini in Italy, it turns out that's it's much more common. It's almost like looking in a phone book in the United States for the name Smith. Ok, well, it's probably not that common, but there are several people with the last name "Leardini" in Italy and the surrounding region.
There are even a lot of Leardini's in California that I have never even met or talked to. So, the Leardini name is much more prevalent than even I knew when I was growing up.
When I was growing up, I thought that everyone in the world was Italian and Catholic. When I go back to look at my high school yearbook, about 85% of the people had a name that ended in a vowel. I'm sure there were all different denominations of churches where I grew up, but I thought they were all Catholic. Even when I went to college, almost everyone was Catholic. In fact, there were even masses held on campus. Come to think of it, though, not too many of my friends were interested in attending. It was a huge surprise when I moved down south to see that there weren't very many Catholic churches. In my area, there are 4-5 that are within reasonable driving distance, but there are a lot of other denominations that I am aware of. To get to our church, we pass at least 2-3 different denominations, maybe more. Growing up, we passed 2-3 Catholic churches to get to ours. It's funny to think about how different things are and how my perception of things changed.
Interesting little tid-bit. One of our favorite news anchors/reporters was Ben Thompson, who was with our ABC affiliate. Ben was the late night reporter during the week and on the weekend, he was on the anchor desk. Then one weekend, he wasn't there anymore. It's almost like some of these anchors become part of your family. You see them every so often and trust them to bring you the latest news. Then, one day, they're gone. I spent moments over the next several months wondering where Ben went to and why he wasn't on the news any longer. Then, this past weekend, there was a rain storm in our area and they reported on the NBC affiliate that Ben Thompson was reporting at the scene! So, now I have a decision to make because, I really don't enjoy watching the NBC channel because I think there news broadcast is mostly fluff. Also, there are quite a few "family members" that I enjoy watching on the ABC channel. Let's face it, I'm a creature of habit, so it's going to be a rare day that I switch the channel, but I like Ben, so I just might check him out. Who knows, maybe he'll bring some credibility to the news.
1 comment:
The Catholic thing is just the opposite down here. Growing up I was often the ONLY Catholic kid in class, both in high school and in college. It was hard being the sole representative, especially when we were in history class...Spanish Inquisition anyone?? LOL As more folks move down South, it's changing, but ...not much.
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