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Buddy Remembers - Then and Now: A Personal History of My Parents' Lives

by Joseph N. Muzio; Cover Design or Artwork by Sheldon Friedland; Edited by Richard A. Danca

229 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #07-3007; ISBN 1-4251-6510-9; US$20.00, C$20.00, EUR13.66, £10.33

This book focuses on the history, personalities, marriage and parenting of two individuals from peasant origins in southern Italy and who grew up primarily in the New York City environs.

About the Book

This book is a memoir, the description of my parents’ lives based on my remembrances, conversations with relatives, reviews of family photographs, as well as examining remaining personal documents of our family. This memoir started as a brief description, and was something I had planned for a long time. Initially, I thought it would be perhaps a few dozen pages. Instead, it grew organically and became a much more detailed recollection of my mother and father’s lives, their marriage, their approaches to life, how they raised my sister and me, and their continuing influence upon me. They came to America as immigrant children; they developed here within their cultural boundaries as Italian Americans; they struggled, thrived and pursued their personal goals. They are still with me today. It has been simultaneously an exhilarating and exhausting process as the writing expanded. This is far beyond any sort of genealogical charting or the identification of distant relatives. Rather, it provides perceptions about my feelings and beliefs regarding my parents, their positive qualities and flaws, as well as how I perceive them now that I am an older adult. This process is one that I urge other children to engage in, writing about their parents so that there will be descriptions of the roles they played. I call such writing a critical component of the collective humanity, tracing the historical journeys that would then be available to the remaining family members and their ancestors. Conceivably, such continued writings could become an endless documentation of family behaviors and interactions. It might even provide a greater clarity and understanding of one’s parents through a long-range lens.

About the Author

I am the second child of Italian American parents, both of whom came to America from southern Italy as children. Both parents were initially practicing Roman Catholics. My early formative years were spent in Bay Ridge Brooklyn, New York, although our family traveled to various places on the East Coast because my father was a legal bookmaker at racetracks. I attended St. Ephrem’s Parochial School in Brooklyn up until the 4th grade. I received my first Communion and Confirmation at St. Ephrem’s. Shortly afterwards, our family moved to Sunnyside Queens. From then on I attended the excellent New York City School system through high school. My baccalaureate college education was at Columbia University and Queens College. While in college I participated in intercollegiate sports in football, track, soccer and baseball. Up until then I was a practicing Catholic. After getting a bachelor’s degree, I joined the United States Marine Corps as an officer candidate, was commissioned a second lieutenant, was promoted to first lieutenant, served three years and four months, and was a Captain. After leaving the service, I attended the University of Michigan School of Medicine, but left because I was having academic difficulties. I pursued a master’s and doctoral degrees at Teachers College, Columbia University. While studying there, I also held various adjunct and full time teaching positions at Englewood Hospital School of Nursing, Newark State College, Hunter College, and Cornell University School of Nursing. For several years I participated as a research associate at Mount Sinai Hospital and Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in the sleep research field. For 33 years, I taught at Kingsborough Community College of the City University of New York, serving as Chairman, Department of Biological Sciences for 15 of these years. Also, I was Director of the Marine Technology program for the last 7 years, retiring in 2002. I am married to Lois Grant Muzio, and we have three sons, Frank, Edward and Matthew. We have resided in Leonia, New Jersey for more than 45 years and are moving to Rockport, Massachusetts in the spring, 2008. While living in Leonia, my wife and I have been active in various volunteer organizations, including my service as a borough councilman for slightly over three years in the early 1970s.