Picture of my beloved Grandfather...If you look closely, directly behind him is a fig tree or two.  My cuttings originate from these trees.  This was in Cleveland, OH.  And yes, that is me with the AWESOME glasses.  ;)

Very cool, Frank.   Those are pretty neat looking figs your holding too..... :-)

Good stuff Frank. I can clearly see the fig trees. Just behind your head against the wall right?

I was born not too far from Cleveland in Akron. It's nice to see that figs were being grown out doors in zone 5.

You probably started a thread on this already but, what's the variety of the fig?

Very cool glasses BTW :-) !

Very cute :)
I had those thick coke bottle glasses too. We were cool ahead of our time. The thick frames are very chick/cool/popular or whatever the kids call it right now

I recognize those bocci balls!!  We had them too.  Ya know, some times the good'ol days were really good!

Frank,

     That's great. These are memories we can carry forward to our kids and hopefully theirs. Was the site of this picture perhaps in the neighborhood around Muffed Road near East 119th and Murray Hill?

Def bocci balls thats what I first thought when you posted just didn't get around to commenting those glasses are great.
And grandfather is the typical looking Italian etc....Love it ...Dont know if he is but he looks it.

Frank a very good looking man, no not you your Grandpa was . ; )
By the way in enlarging that picture and looking carefully there are 5 seperate fig trees in that picture.
Thanks Frank for sharing part of your family history.

Frank 
Did you grow up thinking everybody had a garden,
everybody made homemade wine,
everybody made sausage,
everybody had a fruit cellar,
everybody canned tomatoes
and you had to have a prosciutto ham hanging in the basement?
Damn, those were the days.....
Mario

Nice, not only do you have a story to go with those cuttings but a photo too!  Thanks for sharing.

Martin,
Thanks.  ;)   I didn't realize there were 5 back there.  Imagine if I had started this hobby years ago!


Mario,
You got that right, my friend.  Time to make new memories.


Steve,
Happy to share with you all.  I'm wondering if my parents have more photos of his yard.  They have TOTES full of pictures.

Frank, Mario,

     That's right, everybody had a garden. We compared and shared and showed off, especially the old guys. I remember two older cousins discoursing on the proper way to grow tomatoes, and no yard was complete without some kind of fruit tree. As an old veterinarian once said to me, "A fella ought to grow his own food." Make some memories out of that.

Great picture! It brings back a lot of happy memories of Fourth of July parties at our Sicilian cousins' house in Willoughby (near Cleveland) and watching some guys who looked a lot like your grandfather play bocce and drink wine. I'm sure they talked about figs and tomatoes, too, but I couldn't understand a word of it since everything was in Italian except for "sonuvabitch!" and "whaddayagunnado?"