Jersey, pizza and also some mobsters.

(This post may offend an organization I will not name but I will give you a hint: it rhymes with "The Bafia".)

My mom took her girls on a tour of her hometown this summer.

After we visited her childhood home:

and her school:

"How'd you get to be so awesome?"
"Duh. I went to High Cool."
(Mom jokes are great.)

we went to lunch at Vesuvio's Pizza

an appropriate decision as we had only eaten pizza 37 times the previous week.

PIZZA!

PIZZA!

PIZZA!

PIZZA!

We were all excited about the garlic-and-onion pizza my mom extolled repeatedly but we I was even more intrigued to know the place was run by a well-known member of the Bafia.

It's a great thing that the pizza was excellent as you can't buy pizza anywhere else in the area, according to my mom. Years ago there was a rival pizza joint on a nearby corner but it wasn't open very long. It's apparently hard to stay in business after your restaurant mysteriously explodes.  

These are the stories my mom tells about her childhood. It's never, "One time my dad took all us kids to the zoo." It's stuff like, "One time my dad had a disagreement with the mob and they shot him right in the arm and my mother had to pull the bullet out with tweezers." This story was usually preceded by one of us kids crying about some triviality and followed by the admonition to "come to me when you're in real pain."

As we ordered and ate at Vesuvio's, my mom chatted easily with the men there. (You know, the ones in the mob.) She recalled all the time she and her sister spent there as teenagers. Guys, she has shared memories with the Cosa Nostra!

As we walked along the shore (no Snookie!), I saw my mom in a new light. She comes from a world so unlike my own, a place foreign to my white-bread life.

She *knows* people in the Bafia!

I guess what they say is true: you can take the girl out of Jersey, but you can't take Jersey out of the girl.

(Do not cross this woman. Because she probably has a knife.)

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Despite the lack of photographic evidence, Amy actually was in attendance on this trip. She just a little camera-shy I guess. Or maybe she just doesn't like having her picture taken while shoving pizza in her mouth. Whatever.