Oct. 5, 2026 - OCTOBER IS MY BIRTHDAY MONTH!
Julie has the steps to our house decorated in flowers that are so autumnal in the nature…. it just beckons a birthday celebration
Three generations of Bernunzio, boys, my son Jay on my left and my grandson Rocco John.
My sister Elizabeth in the middle is so precious. She made me the MOST FANTASTIC carrot cake for my birthday. In fact she made two and we have a lot of leftover carrot cake to keep the birthday theme going for quite a while. Next to her is my brother Tom, who I always call for advice whenever I need it. He always has something important advice, but I usually don’t follow it!
Although he probably didn’t know it was my birthday, I received a lovely collection of poetry from writer, ethnomusicologist and fellow banjo nerd, Richard Jones-Bamman……. it came with this letter, which I have included the first couple of paragraphs ….it just made my day…..
"Dear John,
I've been enjoying your weekly postings for years. I'm afraid it's all too rare in these troubled times to encounter someone who freely shares his feelings and his opinions, without resorting to polemic or confrontation. I love the fact that you routinely include stories about your family, your garden, your travels--all serve as reminders of the important concerns that we should engage with regularly.
But, your recent travels to the Bay Area really caught my attention. I was born in Palo Alto in 1951, and lived in/around the region until moving to Seattle in the late '80s. As a kid, I never imagined living anywhere other than The City, and it remains my favorite among the many I've been lucky enough to visit and live in over my 75 years. But life happens, and now it's a place I return to as often as possible-still feels more like home than anywhere else….."
And of course, I made caponata, which is the traditional dish of Sicily, perhaps for the last time this year. The fresh ingredients are now gone. I came to the realization that the main four ingredients of caponata are as follows:
Peppers, Onions, Eggplant, Tomatoes…. The first letters, of course, spell out the word, poet, and I now think that Caponata is the poetry of food
OCTOBER IS MY BIRTHDAY MONTH!
October 5th, 2026
Dear Friends,
I’ve always loved October…. the sights, the sounds, the smells, the change in the air and the landscape… but mostly because it is my birthday month. Now, my actual birthday is October 12th which traditionally was Columbus Day. We would have the day off from school and my Mom would always have a Halloween themed party. But now, as I age…. and frankly, I will be 79 years old on October 12th….. I like to spend the entire month celebrating my birthday, which is what I intend to do. I don’t know how many more chances I’m going to have at celebrating birthdays. When you get to this point in your life, you start to reflect on how many years you have left… so the way I look at it, a one month long birthday is as good as it gets. Hey you never know!
Julie and I started by having a delightful day trip to the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, a ten thousand acre wetland sanctuary located in the Finger Lakes region north of Cayuga Lake. In addition to seeing the great migration of birds, we also did some shopping at various Mennonite stores to gather food. Julie decided to cook for a very large family party on October 4th. That just seemed to be the right day that most family members could make it down to Penn Yan….and a rousing time it was! My twin granddaughters Scarlet and Olive entertained us all. I told Olive that I wanted her to come and live with us. She said, "that would be great but you’ll have to take me to school in the morning. It’s a long drive!" But the best gift of all was having all of my family here. We even included my daughter, Rose, who is in San Francisco with a bit of "FaceTime" with her and our granddaughter Talia, who is now starting to talk a little bit. AND, we are planning on visiting San Francisco the week before Thanksgiving and we are very excited about returning there.
What I will do with the rest of the month is still up in the air. We’ve talked about a trip to the Adirondacks region….perhaps this weekend. Of course we’ve talked about doing some remodeling work on this old house and we still have our fingers in the business of Bernunzio Uptown Music…. I have been absent for quite a bit, but I’m keeping in touch with the guys through Ryan. Perhaps I’m being selfish but I really want to have a special October with my beautiful wife Julie Schnepf. We’ve been thinking of taking some day trips to all the fabulous towns along Routes 5 and 2… Seneca Falls, Waterloo, Auburn and Skaneateles….we’ll see what transpires after all, we’ve got an entire month until it’s Halloween. That’s scary.
With peace,
John Bernunzio.
I got an absolutely fabulous "retro" birthday present from my daughter, Grace and her boyfriend Kylan. A turntable that actually can connect to speakers or Bluetooth and several albums from my youth, including the 60th anniversary of Sergeant Pepper, the Everly Brothers, Bob Dylan and Chuck Berry…. I was speechless and I will be playing records this week.