These are sordid tales indeed. But I got stuck a few posts ago... I'm still not quite able to picture my brother doing a back flip. I'm closing my eyes. Visualizing.

Nope. It's not working.

All I can hear in the back of my mind is our dad many years ago saying to him, probably in reaction to some other attempt at jackass gymnastics:

"You have all the grace of a ruptured cow."

Not sure when that particular descriptive was first bestowed -- but it stands out in my mind as a classic entry in the Vito Disputations.

In fact, I think I'm gonna start a new blog called Vito Ipso Loquitur and stock it with his famous quotations. Another favorite of mine was what he'd say when he thought you were crowding too much of the couch (he needed a lot of room in those days to take in the spacious play-by-play of Phil Rizzuto and Frank Messer):

"Move over; you take up as much room as the Pope."

He said that a lot, and I never had any idea what it meant. But to this day whenever I see a mention of the Pope or a picture of St. Peter's Basilica, I think to myself: "Yeah, the Pope; he takes up a lot of space."

Rhetorical Dilemma of the Day: If John Paul II came to 38th Street and spread himself out on the couch during a Yankee game, what would Vito say to make him move aside?