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We've spent the past month, and some of us even longer, looking for the right Christmas gift, and more so, asking for the right Christmas gift. I'm past that, but there is one thing I want, but I don't think it will happen.
I want someone to give me the power to forgive because -- in all honesty -- I hold a grudge like nobody's business.
Is it because I am full-blooded Italian, raised a Christian by possibly the most religious woman I will ever meet -- Jeanie Franco who also was good at holding a grudge -- or is it just because I'm a certified nut? Possibly a little bit of all of these things.
If I could ask for one gift, it would be the ability to forgive. All I am really good at is making people laugh.
Growing up watching mafia movies, I used to always feel bad for my brethren portrayed onscreen, and I took umbrage whenever friends would ask me if Italians were really like that. But I remembered all of those who asked and kept a record of it in the worst place I could … my head!
If you broke the heart of anyone in my family, I remembered and would internally dislike you, or something about you for like … the rest of my life.
Many years ago, there was a girl who broke my brother Tom's heart, and she was from Curwensville, so I have been, and will continue to be, anti-Curwensville, regardless of the fact that I've never been there or know anyone else from there! Even a road sign that reads "Curwensville 17 miles" irks me.
One of my favorite things to read in the Sunday Mirror … the divorce listings on the Community page. I look to see if there are any girls there who dumped me or broke my heart, while growing up, and even with my wife telling me to let it go, I offer up a very small smile when I recognize a name.
Petty … yes. But enjoyable … YES!
And my wife is a saint because she always forgives me in spite of my sense of humor. She could really clock me with an uppercut if she wanted to, but she always takes the high road. See, good health is her gift to me.
For instance, if the roads are bad on a work night, and it's iffy whether or not I can drive home at 1:30 in the morning, there is always a chance I will have to stay at a hotel. But then I will tell her 'What if there is a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Convention going on and all of the guest attractions are staying on the same floor as me, what will I do?'
She tells me to do the right thing, but is that her right thing or my right thing? Big difference.
My brother John appreciates my gift. When he got fired as the Altoona football coach in the 1990s, I knew he was pretty down, so I cheered him up by mailing a photo of a woman holding these five babies she had just given birth to that day … with my head PhotoShopped on all five babies. My note to him: 'There are worse things in the world than getting fired by the Altoona School Board … you could be the father of these five kids!'
He still has that photo to this day in his office at home.
See, there is kindness in my heart, you just have to look really really hard, like with the Hubble Telescope, to find it.
Mirror Sports Writer Scott Franco is at 946-7528.