A week ago, we were gearing up for another huge religious and Italian cultural event - the four day, 85th Anniversary Feast of St. Sebastian in Montclair. My partner Ray and I were placing our bread order, marinating our olives and doing lots of other prep work. As we were out and about, we saw a large group of people huddling outside several office buildings around Hackensack.

We had no idea what was going on until we learned that we had just gotten some of the after effects from an earthquake. It was nothing significant but it was very weird, especially since my wife told me that she felt the table shaking when she was out to lunch at the mall.

Fast forward to today, where some folks still are without power and have floods due to the rain and winds brought on by Hurricane Irene. Between then and now, we ended up only getting in two days of the feast - Thursday and Friday - as the entire weekend was unfortunately cancelled.

Overall, the storm was not as severe as predicted, in fact I think we could have gotten in at least another half a day of the feast. I got some flack for a facebook status update where I wrote how I felt that my local media overdramatized things and created so much hype and widespread hysteria for a storm that was neither widespread or long-lasting. My basement had water damage and we lost some valuables - but we are alive and there wasn't devastating miles of wreckage and nearly 2,000 deaths like the poor folks went through with Katrina. That's my main point, you can experience an earthquake after shock or a category 1 hurricane and certainly be a bit rattled, but across the country people live through the eye of these storms all the time - and their entire worlds get turned upside down in the blink of an eye. My prayers go out to anyone in spots that got hit hard. Prayers are important to us Roman-Catholics, oddly so are superstitions...

Someone joked to me that I brought some kind of jinx with the meatball cart to Montclair this summer, which was my first year being involved with the town. It rained a few weeks back for the Feast of St. Donato...now - of all the weekends for Hurricane Irene - it had to be St. Sebastian's weekend?! We arrived bright and early on Thursday morning at Kaveny Field to unhitch the cart and pitch our tent...and then the rain started to fall. And then it stopped. And then it started again. It was like deja vu all over again! We finally got a window of sunlight and were able to get everything set up and decided to grab lunch down at Ah'Pizz a few blocks away - one of the best pizza places around.

When the feast was ready to begin at 5pm, the rain was totally done and it didn't come back again for the entire evening! Everyone was starting to get the vibe that the hurricane was blowing out to sea but obviously we weren't out of the woods. See one thing that bands together outdoor street vendors like myself is our constant positive disposition, looking towards the sky and always hoping for these windows. That may seem like unrealistic (or stupid) thinking to some people - especially the weathermen who are trained to sensationalize a summer spritz for ratings - or the Home Depots who obviously profit off the whole thing.

Guys like me - the independant businessmen who make their living being outside can't have people overly afraid to even come outside. It's all about using your head and not letting a forecast dictate your every move. Unfortunately it seemed that a lot of people didn't want to venture out even though we didn't get one more drip that whole night, but considering everything, it still wasn't that bad of a turnout. My good friend Dan Arminio said it best: "There is no such thing as measuring a feast by its size, number of days, how many people, etc. It's what that individual feast makes you feel like when you're there. And thinking of it afterward."

When Friday rolled around the sun was blazing and we had an amazing night! All the rides were on and ready to roll from the Berry-Go-Round to the ferris wheel and the Super Slide...the lines for the games of chance were long as were the lines for the 50/50 (not to mention the stand for the New York Jets ticket raffle). The feast had plenty of food stands including: Pat's Sausages, Coney Island Pizza, Frankie Antipast, A&J Espresso and TJ's Zeppoles. Our Johnny Meatballs Stuffed Breads were back, made courtesy of DiPaolo's Bakery in Newark, and we used their round brick oven pizza breads for our sandwiches. The toppings bar was also back along with a new item - FIRE roasted spicy red peppers, made in-house. Mamma Mia were those peppers hot!!! But they were damn good.


By the end of the night however, the radar was getting greener and greener and the society had no choice but to cancel the rest of the weekend. On Saturday morning we were breaking everything down and heading home. There were actually some peaks of sunshine thoughout the day but there were showers off and on which really intensified once the sun set. At around seven, I went with the wife and kids to get some snacks and DVDs for what was sure to be a night in front of the TV. It's ironic how many bad car accidents I saw outside all the stores where folks were buying enough stuff to last until Thanksgiving. I definitely am all for being prepared if you live in a high risk area, but some people acted nuts and that never helps anything.

It's a shame the procession of St. Sebastian could not take place on Sunday afternoon, but it is better to be safe than sorry. By the middle of the afternoon on Sunday, Irene was long gone as was the festival. I was not about to sit around anymore so me and the family took a ride to Hoboken and we enjoyed a great meal at Benny Tudino's. When we got home we had to sop up the remainder of the water that had come through the foundation and ruined the basement carpets and some other items. We were thankful that things were not worse and happy to be safe and together. Maybe it was St. Sebastian looking out for us.


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It was one year ago yesterday that I got married in a wedding that was later telecast to the entire nation on Vh1's "My Big Friggin' Wedding" TV show. I'd like to use this opportunity to wish a very Happy Anniversary to my beautiful wife Megin. I'm very blessed to have her and my two boys. When you have your family, nothing else really matters in life. Material objects can be replaced but being happy and healthy with your loved ones is beyond compare. A lot of people don't realize how lucky they are.