There were three boys in my family and of the three I was both the youngest and the least good looking when we were growing up. We each had our role within our family. Greg was the good looking one, I was the smart one and Jimmy got all the girls!

My brother Greg was 6'1", 200 pounds and looked a little like Tom Selleck. My brother Jimmy was 5'9", 175 pounds with blue eyes and long blond curly hair like Peter Framptom (trust me back in the 70's girls liked guys with Frampton hair!). Both of them were great athletes, especially Jimmy who was a baseball and track star. And then there was me. My senior year of high school (1983) I was 5'9", 120 pounds with brown eyes, brown hair and a cheesy mustache. The photo to the right is my driver's license photo from when I was 19. As you can probably guess my nickname was "Guido"!

In my family I was the smallest, the weakest, the least attractive, the least athletic, and the slowest. Except for academics, where I excelled, I was always behind my brothers. Want some examples? I didn't learn to tie my shoes until I was 6 (mostly because all the lefthanders in my family tried to teach me), I didn't learn to ride a bicycle until I was 12 (mostly because I didn't get one until I was 12!) and I didn't learn how to swim (other than doggy paddling) until I was 22! Even my academics faltered when I hit adolescence and between the ages of 13-20 I was a lousy student, although I still managed to score through the roof on standardized tests.

The summer before my Junior year of college I decided it was time to make some changes. I shaved off my mustache, got a decent haircut and more importantly decided I was actually going to make an effort to get good grades for the first time in eight years. My first two years of college I had a 2.3 GPA, which is basically a C. My last two years of college I took high level courses and had a 3.75 GPA (out of a possible 4.0). At the age of 20 my life finally began.

I spent the first twenty years of my life wondering if I was good enough, handsome enough, strong enough, but I've spent the last 20 years believing in myself and that has made all the difference. It hasn't always been easy and I'm still insecure over certain things, particularly my looks, but today both Greg & Jimmy are 40-50 pounds overweight, so by default I'm now the good looking one! And even though I know it's shallow, I'm enjoying the hell out of my new status!

So if any scrawny 120 pound, 18 year old geek is reading this post, let me tell you something. In life it's better to be a late bloomer than to peak when you're in high school. As far as I'm concerned I'll hit my peak the second before I die and not a moment before!

Alex is not our first daughter. Our first daughter (Sydney) died inutero at the gestational age of 21 weeks from complications from Turner Syndrome. It's still a painful memory so I won't go into the details, but if you're interested, click here to read what I wrote about it when it happened back in February 1997.

When my wife Andrea was pregnant with Sydney she was hormonal, but in a good way. Pregnancy just agreed with her and she became extremely mellow, which surprised everyone, especially me! Two months after we lost Sydney, Andrea became pregnant with Alex and this time she was hormonal, but not in a good way!

When she was about two months pregnant, we started to let people outside our family know about the pregnancy. Almost invariably I would be asked how Andrea was handling the pregnancy and one day I decided to answer truthfully while the two of us were talking with one of her friends. Ironically enough it was while we were in a church. You'll see why in a second.

Andrea's Friend: So how's the pregnancy going?
Andrea: Good, real good.
Andrea's Friend: So how are you feeling these days? Are you driving Todd crazy yet with the cravings?
Me: She's been an Angel...You do know that SATAN was an angel.

The look on her friend's face was priceless.

From reading about my family you're probably thinking we're pretty strange, but the truth is we're actually growing more and more normal with every generation. Want proof?

Four Generations Ago: My Great-great-great-Grandfather Secundo Panizza was married four times. Okay so that's not so strange until you find out the first three wives died mysteriously. According to family legend whenever Secundo got tired of his current wife he would go out mushroom picking. Soon after his wife would die. Coincidence or serial killer? No one knows for sure...

We do know that his fourth wife outlived him, so I like to think she got him, before he got her! At least Secundo wasn't a Martini. Everyone knows Martinis don't commit felonies, only misdemeanors!

Fact that probably only interests me: Because of this family legend nobody in our family would ever eat the mushrooms my Dad picked out in the woods!

Three Generations Ago: My Mom has a photograph of my Great-Great Grandfather Martini and his two brothers that was taken in the late 19th century. The three of them have long scraggly beards, big floppy hats and are smoking what appears to be corn cob pipes. (Nobody knows exactly what they were smoking!) Yes it's true, I'm descended from Italian hillbillies! Whenever I see that photo I think of the film Deliverance and I wonder...how do you say "Squeal like a pig" in Italian!

Two Generations Ago: "Martinis swing from trees!" So said my Great-Uncle John upon returning from his first trip back to Italy since he was a young man. When pressed for more information he refused to say anything else. Speculation within the family has ranged from:

• Martinis are monkeys, which actually makes a lot of sense if you know how hairy we are!

...to


• Martinis are horse thieves who are hung from trees. There's actually a family legend that the Martinis were horse thieves back in the 1800s, but by the time my Great-Uncle John visited in the sixties, I'm sure they would have moved on to at least stealing vespas!

...to


• Martinis are monkeys who steal horses AND are hung from trees!

One Generation Ago: Those of you who read that I was the only male in my family not to be arrested probably wondered what crime my Dad could have possibly committed. After all my Dad was an upstanding person, didn't drink, smoke or take drugs and was devoted to his family. Of course in my family that means you just have to work a little harder to get arrested!

When my Dad was 18 he joined the army. In his second year of duty he was transferred to an army base in Colorado and soon thereafter was promoted to Corporal. Things were going along great until May 1949 when my Dad started getting homesick. Now if I was a "daddy's boy", my Dad was a "momma's boy". Like me, my Dad was the baby of his family and he was spoiled rotten by his Mom. Anyway my Dad decided that he had to get home to New Jersey for Mother's Day to see his Mom, so he requested a 2 week leave, which was denied. Now at this point most soldiers would have just went out and got drunk, but not my Dad. Instead he went AWOL and hopped a train heading back east, spent Mother's Day with his Mom and then hopped another train headed back west.

When my Dad got back to the base he discovered that the U.S. Army is surprisingly lacking in a sense of humor when it comes to desertion. He was thrown in the stockade, which for those of you who aren't familiar with the military is jail. In the end they took pity on a young man who wanted to see his Mom. My Dad got bucked down to Private First Class and was honorably discharged, which considering the circumstances was a pretty lenient punishment. Of course all of this happened during peacetime. I'm not sure if the results would have been the same if my Dad had gone AWOL during wartime!

Today: Yep that's me - Generation 0. I've never poisoned my wife with mushrooms, stolen a horse or been arrested. Slowly but surely my family has become, dare i say it, almost boringly normal. My son Nick will probably grow up to be a peace corps worker or missionary who doesn't smoke, drink or use drugs. Then again if wants to be President he might be better off drinking, smoking, doing drugs and going AWOL! Hey it worked for our current President!

P.S. I think I probably lost my Republicans friends with that last joke!

When Alex was almost 3 years old we went on vacation to Italy with my in-laws. Near the end of the trip my wife and I left Alex with her Grandparents, so we could go on a short cruise by ourselves. While we were gone Alex and her Grandma went swimming in the hotel pool and Alex decided to use the pool as her personal toliet, which wouldn't have been so bad if it was #1, but it was #2! (Remember the floating Snickers bar scene in Caddyshack? It was just like that!) My Mother-in-law picked her up and took her back to the room and started scolding her for "pooping" in the pool. Alex looked her straight in the eyes and said "Grandma, you're not allowed to be mad at me! You're my Grandma!".

Becoming an Adult Part 1

I'm not really sure what age I was when I started thinking of myself as an adult, but I do know there have been four key moments in my becoming an adult. The first was when I was 20 and about to enter my Junior year of college. The previous semester I had hit rock bottom when I somehow managed to get a D in one of my core Literature courses - Formalistic Criticism. (Don't ask me to describe the course. 20 years later I still don't understand formalistic criticism!) That summer I told my parents I wanted to either quit college, change my major (to psychology) or take a year off from school. Lucky for me my parents told me that if I stuck with it, they would start helping me out with my expenses. The first two years of college I worked 30 hours/week and took a full 16 credits, which wasn't a good combination. Anyway I took them up on their offer and spent the next two years concentrating on school and it paid off. For the first time since I was 12 I felt like I was really someone special again, at least when it came to academics.

Becoming an Adult Part 2

My second key moment was when I was 25 and decided it was time to stop drinking. Well not stop drinking entirely, but stop drinking to the point of passing out in the parking lots of bars. (I can't believe nobody ever ran me over!) I felt like it was time to grow up a little. I had a steady girlfriend, was working my way up the corporate ladder and honestly I was tired of worshipping the porcelin god every morning after a drinking binge. So me and two friends (Gavin & Brian, who are brothers - their band is Whale Blue Eye) flew to Florida for one last spring break. Over the next 8 days there wasn't a moment that I wasn't drunk or hungover. My memories of the trip are a haze of booze, vomiting, and music. When I got home I promised my girlfriend that I was never going to get falling down drunk again and to this day I've kept that promise, although I didn't keep the girlfriend.

A short aside about the trip. It was the inspiration for Gavin's song "Drunk as a Monkey" which featured this great line:

I'm drunk, drunk as a monkey
Right down to my simian soul

The song was Gavin's, but the title (or the phrase) was mine. I used to write songs when I was younger, but Gavin and I had totally different writing styles, so we never wrote with each other. Of course that didn't stop him from using some of my favorite phrases for song titles including:

Bad B Movie: This referred to my girlfriend at the time, who was kind of a drama princess. I would always tell Gavin that life with her was like a Bad B Movie and he turned it into a song.

Overacting all the time
Dramatic to the closing line
If your life was on the screen
You'd be a bad B movie

The first time my girlfriend heard it, she pretty much knew it was about her. We broke up soon afterward!

My favorite song title that we came up with was "I Love You, I Hate You, Let's Dance". I'm not exactly sure who came up with it, as we were both a little buzzed at the time. We were at Lollapalooza 1 (yes I am that old!) and we saw these two girls in the mosh pit. When we first came up to them, they were hugging each other, then they started hitting and screaming at each other and then they started dancing! I can't say for sure but it's possible drugs were the cause of their behavior. It was the weirdest thing we saw that day, which says something considering the crowd that was there.

Becoming an Adult Part 3

The third key moment was when I was 33 and Alex was born. Up to that point I was unsure if I was going to be a good Father, but once I saw her for the first time, I knew that wasn't going to be a problem. Her birth was the defining moment of my life up to that point.

Becoming an Adult Part 4

And finally the fourth key moment was December 2002 when all hell broke loose and everyone ended up in the hospital, except for me. That showed me that I was strong enough to handle the pressures of being an adult on my own. Until that point I had always had someone to fall back on when things were tough (e.g. parents, wife), but right then I really had nobody other than myself. I could very easily have crumbled, but something kept me going. I think it was caffeine!

So have I finally reached adulthood at the age of 40? I really don't know. Maybe adulthood isn't a destination, but a journey. Maybe you're not really an adult unless you continue to grow your entire life.

After my sister turned 18 she moved down to the basement and with the help of my brother turned it into a bedroom/bar. Every weekend the two of them would throw parties in the basement with my parent's permission. There was drinking and some pot, but at least early on it was a pretty mellow scene. As time went by though the parties started to get more popular and when Hell's Angels started showing up, Mom & Dad got a little concerned!

One night this brain surgeon (I'm being sarcastic here) my sister was seeing was totally strung out on something stronger than pot, so my Dad went down to throw him out. A few minutes later he snuck back in to the house and wouldn't leave, so my Dad called the cops. The cops came in through the basement door and started chasing him through the house. He finally ended up on the second floor of our house, saw a door to the outside, opened it and leapt through it.

Now here's an interesting fact about our old house. When my parents bought it in 1964 it had a door on the second floor that went out to a deck. The deck was in really sad shape, so my parents tore it down and planned to build a new one someday. Sadly for our brain surgeon they still hadn't done that by 1971. I'm sure for about a second after he leapt through the door he thought he was flying. Then gravity set in!

Down he fell and down he fell, until he landed in our backyard with



a big splat! The cops picked him up and took him away and my sister got a new boyfriend. You may ask what the moral of this story is? I think it's probably "look before you leap".

In 1970, when I was 5, my family (Mom, Dad, 17 year old sister & 15/13 year old brothers) camped cross-country from New Jersey to California and back. It was my Dad's dream trip. This trip would later be immortalized in the film National Lampoon's Vacation (hence the title of this post). Okay that's not really true, but here are the highlights of that trip.

1) Crossing the Mojave Desert in a 1966 station wagon w/ no air conditioning in August when the temperature was 110 degrees. All we had was one of those little rubber fans that plugged into the cigarette lighter. There were six of us in the car and since I was the smallest I got stuck in the very back of the station wagon, farthest away from the fan. I could have died back there! ;-)

2) Our tent blowing into Lake Mead during a storm. All six of us slept in the car that night.

3) My Dad driving 100 MPH on the highway through the Utah Salt Flats, while my brother Greg encouraged him to "Go Faster Dad!". Unfortunately for my Dad, my Mom woke up at that moment. She was not happy!

4) My Dad driving along Route 1 in California, while filming out the window with his Super 8 movie camera. For those of you who don't know Route 1, it's a winding road along steep cliffs, which drop off into the Pacific Ocean. When I was younger we used to pull out the film and count how many times Dad almost drove off the road! He used this same camera technique when we drove to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado and that's back when Pikes Peak didn't have guard rails. And my wife wonders why I have a fear of heights!

5) Not being able to see Alcatraz because Native American protesters had occupied it. I'm not joking about this. For 18 months Native American activists occupied Alcatraz. Click here for the details.

6) My Dad leaving us in Kansas. This is my personal favorite memory of this trip! ;-) We were only about 10 days into the trip when my Dad got fed up with my brothers not helping him put up the tent each night at the campground. So he woke up early one morning, called a cab, left a note for my Mom and headed for the train station. What he didn't count on was that the train going back east wasn't running that day, so we caught up w/ him and dragged him kicking and screaming back to our car. Okay it wasn't quite that dramatic, but it took a promise from my brother Greg to cut his waist length hair (remember this is 1970) to get Dad back in the car. I have to give Greg credit he followed through on his promise. Of course it was 10 years later!

It's now been over 35 years since we took my Dad's dream trip. It was the last time my whole family went on vacation together. My sister died in a motorcycle accident three years later and my Dad died last Summer, so now there's only four of us who remember the trip. Being the youngest by so many years (8 years) there will probably come a time when I'll be the only one left, but I'll still be telling these stories to my kids and grandkids. Our trip might not make it to the big screen, but it will live on...