THE MIGHTY MC CLANES of PARK RIDGE (HOME OF THE MIGHTY MARTOOCH!)

It is my great pleasure to introduce to you, 2 of the 9 members of the MC CLANE family from my home town, Park Ridge New Jersey. You might wonder how I got my nickname "The Mighty Martucci?". Well, I'll thank Andrea for that one, but I honestly think it comes from hanging around with THE mightiest of all families, growing up, and *hoping* some of their ways might rub off on me...but back then, I was simply known as "TOOCH".

Every town has one of those families. You know what I'm talking about: the large family of do-gooders. They are over achievers, burgeoning-on-brainiacness, successful, loving and omnipresent. They're the type of family by which local standards are set: "Dad, why can't we work with Habitat for Humanity in the morning and then go volunteer at the soup kitchen in the afternoon?" to which a Park Ridge parent might respond "Well, we're not the McClanes for crying out loud -- lower your standards!" In my home town, the McClanes were THAT FAMILY. All 9 of them:

Bill, Steve, Jim, Sharyn, Cindy, Matt, and Mike.

Here are Bill (senior) and Serena (patriarch & matriarch), below.

What is it, the statue of Liberty motto?

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled
masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send
these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden
door!


That would work for the Mc Clanes. They always had an open door. And, not that I was malnourished, or needing shelter, but on far-too-many-occasions, I found the Mc Clanes taking me in for dinner and a special treat I called "yummy potatoes". I was, how shall I say this, not particularly the "McClane mold", but no matter, I had a place among their family, even when testing the limits of what might be acceptable teenage behavior.

Most gen X ers, of my home town, had interaction with one or multiple McClanes. They were in your class, on on your (insert here: soccer, softball, cheerleading, football) team, raising money for muscular distrophy, in your CCD class, singing next to you in chorus, cheering on the sidelines, trying to score points at the Academic Decathalon, holding office in the National Honor Society, making First Team All League, you get the idea.

At any given time, someone in Park Ridge had a crush on one or all of the McClanes. It was NUTS!

Being from Park Ridge was a badge of honor -- "Home of the McClanes!"

One of my favorite stories is from church. One thing my family had in common with them was going to Saturday mass. We usually sat on the same, left side of the church, towards the front, but not too close. I remember when it was time to go up for communion, we were sitting back farther than usual that week. We watched the whole McClane clan go up for communion and come back to the wrong pew. One, right after the other, each McClane followed down the wrong pew only to have to exit the other end and go up to the correct pew. They looked like the game "Centipede", meandering there way around an object. All smiles. All American Family. "We're like a herd of cattle" I remember Mrs. McClane saying after mass.

So, I am smiling now thinking about my friend Sharyn (she's the McClane closest to my age.) For some reason, they made Sharyn skip a grade and she was "robbed" (as I feel)of graduating in her rightful class, MY CLASS. Can you tell I'm still bitter?

Here 's a picture of "Mac" and me and another friend, Dave Meluso, from when we went to the Arctic Circle several years ago. We jumped for joy when we made it alive (we didn't know our rental car's insurance did not cover unpaved roads; the entire Dalton highway north of Fairbanks is unpaved...oops.) Sharyn came down to DC to visit me AND her youngest brother, Michael....errrrrr....make that "Father Mike" this past weekend. Yup.

2 doctors, 2 school teachers, an accountant, and a graphic artist weren't enough...they saved their youngest child for God. I attended Father Mike's ordination in Trenton and now he is down here studying Canon Law at Catholic University.

We "did" the Cherry Blossoms in all their peaking beauty. We seemed to have walked every square inch of the Mall, the Tidal Basin, and the Ellipse.

CONFESSION:

I felt like breaking the law (not that I would!) because
walking around with Father Mike gave me the sense that I was carrying around
*the ultimate* "Get out of Jail Free" card. The closest we came to that was
crossing the intersection before the red hand stopped
illuminating.

Seeing the top of Sharyn's uber-curly red hair (it is seriously springy -- inspires one to say "boing") instantly transported me back in time. SMILE.

I shot two clips of video this past Saturday one is above and the other is below. Just click on the play arrow. (Heads up, if you do not have a high speed connection, it probably wo
n't work.) The first video is my interview with Father Mike and Sharyn on the steps of the Jeff, right in front of the Tidal Basin (where most of the blossoms are.) The second piece is from the kite flying area around the Washington Monument. Just as I started recording, a nice couple from Hagerstown identified me and I included them in the video too!