Another favorite pastime is Rooftop Trampoline, which involves climbing to the roof and leaping onto (you guessed it) the backyard trampoline.

I remember watching these gymnastics one warm evening, shaking my head solemnly, and making a famous comment to Uncle Joe:

"There's a lot of potential for liability here."

My learned counsel did not faze him; in fact, it seemed to energize him.

Shortly afterward we all piled into the house to eat chicken marsala. And as we ate, an extraordinary thing happened: a conversation that focused solely on food not only began, but lasted for no less than three hours. The meal itself was so good, so damned good, it reminded people of notable meals they'd eaten years before. People were describing bowls of macaroni they'd prepared and eaten as many as 30 years prior. It was amazing.

And then, unavoidably, as if to mirror the very process of digestion, the conversation moved to the bathroom. People described their bowel movements -- not recent ones, but notable ones from the ages. Bowel movements from as many as 30 years prior. Amazing. And wide-ranging.

A sample exchange went something like this:

Joe Fatone Senior [with an air of disgust]: "I made the mistake of using a subway bathroom and the stalls had no doors... And I looked into one and saw a guy sitting on a toilet facing the wrong way -- he was sitting on the bowl facing the wall."

Vito [without hesitation]: "Maybe the guy was a jockey."

By the way, Steve won at Rooftop Trampoline. Liability issues did not even apply -- he won it on his home field.