mallorys_camera | Defending the Constitution Plus Uncle Ernie Who Used to Run That Card Game in the Basement (Reply)

I just loved Philly. The past integrated with the present; the 19th century townhouses cheek and jowl with the 21st century skyscrapers. And all the spectacular murals! It's a terrific place.

The AmeriCorps VISTA training was… interesting. I suspect much of my LJ for the next year at least is going to have to be Friends-Only because joining AmeriCorps VISTA turns out to be exactly like joining the military – I am now a sworn upholder and defender of the Constitution. I am necessarily going to have to be extremely circumspect in the things I say in public forums. I know I have some readers who aren't on LJ. If you want to keep reading you'll have to get LJ accounts and Friend me.

It was distinctly odd being the token Old Person in a group of 26 year olds. Happens that more than most Old People, I blend pretty well into groups of 26 year olds – not as an authority figure, but as one of the clone – so I got along pretty well with them. Like, "Wow! Get down, Patrizia! You've got the moves!" when we were all dancing together. Right, honey, I thought. And I've been having them moves since before you were a minor irritation in yo' Daddy's epididymis.

One of the more interesting things at the training was observing the split between the privileged kids who'd gone to great colleges and the kids who'd pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. Extra credit if you can guess the skin tones of those two groups! Duh – it's not hard.

VISTA's ostensible mission is to end poverty, although like all organizations – government and otherwise – its real purpose is to perpetuate the organization's existence. The kids who'd gone to great schools knew about poverty, of course, as a sociological concept. They talked a lot about it during the orientation. But the kids who'd come up the mean way mostly kept their mouths shut.

There was a huge amount of social interaction among the kids of the first group. Kids in the second group tended not to socialize, not even with each other.

One of the most daunting things about my upcoming assignment, of course, is how I – as an elderly white female – am going to relate to a target demograpic of mostly black and Hispanic teenagers who are just going to be counting down the days till they can drop out of high school. I mean, what do I tell them: Stay in school so you can end up like moi, an overeducated, old white woman teetering precariously on the edge of the financial abyss and prone to acute episodes of existential despair? I'm hardly a role model.

I am absolutely terrific at programmatic type stuff, though. I can formulate action plans and write grants like nobody's business. So at least I can position the program to be dynamic in years to come.

The high point of the trip was meeting Dan and his wife Connie. Dan is actually my father's half-brother. Parenthetically, one of the reasons I stay on Facebook is because of the DiLucchios on Facebook. I figure they're all related to me – it's not a particularly common last name, right? Who knows, I may need a kidney donation some day. Twin whammies of my own peculiar upbringing and the extremely dysfunctional paternal line are such that it was not until I was well into middle age that I began putting the DiLucchio family jigsaw together.

Anyway, Dan is the product of my paternal grandfather's final marriage. We are actually close in age. He's a terrific guy, and his wife is similarly terrific. We talked at great length about the DiLucchio family's Mob connections. (They survive even unto the present generation if we include the career arc of one of my half-brothers.)

I had a really good time with him, and got to eat some terrific Mexican food.
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