There was one corner of Woodlawn that seemed as if it would always remain stubbornly Italian: the bocce courts in Van Cortlandt Park.
But as older Italian men died or moved away from this north Bronx neighborhood, the nightly bocce games stopped. Weeds sprouted. Children mistook the rectangular courts for sandboxes. Dogs ran loose on them. Eventually park officials considered razing them to make way for more benches.

Then came the unexpected. As the ground thawed in late March, new players surfaced, with shovels and rakes to pull out the weeds before starting games again. Only these were not the men of old — they were not men at all. “Now it’s a new age,” declared Maria Maksym, 67, one of the new players. “It’s old women.”
Though a few men appeared, they have watched curiously from the sidelines.

“I think they’re waiting for the women to do the cleanup, and then they’ll join,” said Josephine M. Bastone, founder of the newly formed Bastone Bocce League, which is tossing around team names like “Bocce Babes.”

The bocce revival has happened all over the country as a dusty old game favored by Italian old-timers has evolved into a trendy social sport — one largely without taxing physical demands— played out on neighborhood courts as well as in more glamorous bocce halls complete with bars and bands. The goal of the game is for players to toss a ball closest to a smaller ball — called a pallino — that serves as a target.
In New York, where bocce has long been found in Italian enclaves like Little Italy, the game has increasingly spread to other neighborhoods and been embraced by a new generation of players from hipsters in Brooklyn attracted by its throwback appeal to gray-haired ladies in the Bronx eager to reconnect over the slower rhythms of an earlier time..

Australian Billionaire Commissions Titanic II Replica To Sail In 2016 (VIDEO)

...so who wants to take the ride? I would, but it's being built in China.

I saw the moon Saturday night, but it didn't appear unusually large, but it was bright. Of course, I had had a lot of beer and about a dozen shots of tequila, while celebrating Cinquo de Maio, so I honestly don't know what the hell I may have been looking at.

Last night's "super-moon" was missed here due to clouds. I was thinking about it, though, and this scene from "Moonstruck" came to mind. Cher's uncle recalls a story about Cosmo's moon.

I spent the whole evening checking on the moon outside and yelling out, "It's Cosmo's moon!" I truly love that scene where she tells him he looks like he's 25 years old. I smile every time I watch it.

My grandmother, Mildred Murphy, is celebrating her 98th birthday today. She's still sharp as a tack even though she needs a cane and has lost much of her eyesight.

I asked her today how she would like to celebrate her 100th. She said if she lived to 100, she'd die of embarrassment.

For those of you lucky enough to have a living grandparent, please realize your blessing.

98, wow... that's great, Kly!

If my memory serves correctly, I lost all 4 of my grandparents between (my) age 12 and about 22. And they were all mid 80s to mid 90s. I miss them, so continue to enjoy them!

I should add about my living grandmother that she had a cousin, who died in Illinois a few years ago, who reached the age of 110.

My dad's father was the youngest of 19 children. HIS parents lived to be in their upper 90s. They lived in that general area of Russia where many live into their hundreds but they starved to death in the 1930s. Other than that, longevity in my family doesn't exist. I've already outlived both of my grandfathers.

Was there a famine in the 30s that led to their starvation?