PONDERING THE PAST
An Italian Pilgrimage

My second visit to Italy was in 2002, 40 years after my first visit...yes, things changed ...my cousin Rino said, “in 40 years Italy has caught up with the rest of the world”.
My journey this time took me to Lourdes.
My nephew attended the school “la Nostra Famiglia”in San Vito. They dispensed special permission for me to tag along. We met at the train station, and boarded a Cuccette..(a sleeper train)...our trip to Lourdes France would be a 15 hour train ride. The train was so long they had to leave at 2 different intervals. Our pilgrimage had over 1000 Italians.
One side note...I sat by a lady and showed her some photos my dad had taken on my first trip to Italy...in 1961...she looked through the photos and pointed to a lady she said was her aunt. (go figure)
Our group was assigned 3 ”little sister”

Happy Summer everyone. It looks as though our Lodge has not published an article for quite some time. Boy was last year a mess. We did not hold any meetings or gatherings last year but continued to do somewhat regular newsletters to keep our members in touch and informed.

May 2021 was our first in-person meeting. We moved our meeting site to the Reno Elks Lodge #597. They have a beautiful, large kitchen and a huge room for our meetings. We held Festa there a couple times and it worked out fabulously. Many members and friends were anxious to return and we had our usual 50ish people in attendance. Hugh Ricci gave us a fun heritage game to play as our first program of 2021. We recognized milestone members this month. Bill Nelson and Sam Olson for 5 years; Barbara Wisniewski and Paul Romero for 15 years; Christine and Larry Handy for 25 years; and Pam and Hugh Ricci

On July 24, 2021, the Gold Country Lodge #2705 proudly celebrated its 25th anniversary. Members and guests enjoyed a wonderful dinner provided by “Off the Vine Catering”. Jim Silveira, Gold Country Lodge President presided over the program. Special guests included Barbara Wisniewski-State 1st Vice President, Lynn Lawrence Murphy-Past State President, Dan Marinelli-State Deputy, and Louie Lodi-3rd Vice President. We also celebrated our oldest lodge member Angelo Battaglia who just turned 99 and our youngest members, twins Darren & Carson Hower, 3 years old. 8 members received their 25 year pin & 1 member, Lisa

California has finally opened its doors. After months of staying at home, masking and social distancing, it was wonderful seeing all our lodge friends. Northern Solano Lodge #2534 is open for business once again.

Zoom meetings were required for January through April. Our first in person meeting was in May. It was great to see everyone again. Activities are picking up too. Our Out to Lunch coordinators, Kay Locatelli and Pam Boes, are busy planning new lunch locations for us to visit.

In May we visited Jelly Belly in Fairfield, June’s luncheon was at Pietros #2 in Vacaville and in July we enjoyed

Sisters and Brothers:

Here we are in June of 2021 already. But, If you look ahead, we are slowly winning this fight against the pandemic.. More and more people are getting the vaccine and one day this virus will go the way of Small Pox, TB, Measles, Shingles and Polio etc. Let’s push for that.

The governor says he wants to do away with the color tier system by mid June which just might advance us a little bit faster to being able to meet and greet by August, I hope. I know all of you are so tired of not being able to see your fellow sisters and brothers.

I will miss the ‘in person’ convention this year as I do enjoy seeing all the members from all over our area. The convention will be virtual but that is not the same. I would much rather see and hug every one in person but not this year.

I have no idea where the 2022 convention will be