Traditions are important, don’t you think? Uncle Nunzio does. And who are we to defy Uncle Nunzio, a rhetorical question if I ever heard one. And so, on this special day, we’re going to tell our traditional Thanksgiving Story, as we do every year. . . Scene: A large hospital in the metropolitan area.A harried looking woman paces back and forth in front...

Everyone has something to be thankful for. Not everyone has Uncle Nunzio . . . Scene: A large hospital in the metropolitan area.A harried looking woman, strangely like the caricature on this page, paces back and forth in front of a busy nurse’s stand, speaking too loudly on a cell phone: “Hello, Uncle Nunzio! I’m so glad you called. Yes, Yes, I...

The Sopranos set off a war among the Fortunato Family, as I suspect it did with Italian-Americans across the nation. On the one side were those who saw it as a good show, well written, well acted, well photographed (we’ll get to that later). They watched it every week. You got a problem with that? Well, yes, yes, I do. And so did my father, and so did one of...