THE GODFATHER

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola Paramount

Growing up in a second generation, Catholic, Italian-Polish neighborhood was an educational experience, especially since I was from a third generation conglomerate family. Watching friends’ fathers make wine from their jungle-garden-backyard grapevines, feed their pet pigeons and create these grandiose grottos with piped-in hymns and polychromed mini-falls was an introduction to a cultural aspect of life only topped by delicious ethnic foods I would otherwise have been sadly sheltered from. A classmate’s father was legal counsel for an unnamed but important organization. My curiosity remained unsatisfied ’cause they moved to a wealthy suburb, Grosse Pointe, but when I saw The Godfather it suddenly seemed like meeting her family.