Here's another entry for the Encyclopedia Mastandrea, something that floated up through the pangs of Thanksgiving nostalgia and the torture of excessive storytelling I've subjected Alane and her parents to since yesterday's game at Fordham.

It was Thanksgiving 1984, and my brother and I came home to Brooklyn -- unannounced. My brother had pulled this trick before, but this was my first semester at college, so I was new to it. I got in sometime late morning on Wednesday, in time to see Vito before he left for work. He was both suprised and annoyed, in his Vito way (he really didn't want us traveling unnecessarily). I stayed at the house briefly and then ran out to catch up with some friends. The highlight of the day's schedule would be the informal reunion held at my high school, a Thanksgiving-eve tradition that was strong at the time but is now defunct.

At Xavier, I saw Andre and Joe Nebraska, who had since gotten into town. I asked him if he saw Vito, but he hadn't -- he'd already left for work. Fine, a new item for our schedule: we'd surprise him when he got home from work.

So we spent some time at the school; then we followed Andre to a party at the Armenian church on the east side, and then the three of us went back to Brooklyn. We were sitting in the kitchen in the wee hours of the morning when Vito got home. From the way we were all sitting, he saw me first -- no shock there, he already knew I was in town. Then he saw Andre, and despite the full beard he had grown, he recognized him, went over and shook his hand and said hello. Then Joe, who had been sitting by the heat pipe and was also sporting a full beard, stood up to present himself. Vito turned to him, shook his hand and said hello.

Andre and I looked at each other, a little confused -- for hours we had been predicting a more melodramatic reaction from my dad.

So Vito started unloading the cake and other stuff he'd caried home and my brother hovered. Had my dad even recognized him? We weren't sure what had just happened until a few seconds later when Vito took another look at Joe, leaned forward and squinted...

"Aw shit," he muttered, a reaction more in line with what we expected. But the delay and the double-take -- unimaginably funny. Andre fell into a fit of laughter that lasted a week to 10 days.

We stayed up a while longer and in retrospect it's surprising that Joe Nebraska and I made it to The Bronx at all the next morning (though if I remember correctly, we got there late -- late enough that we didn't need to buy a ticket, something that meant a lot in those days).