Last night the Sopranos was very good. Very powerful. Both the Sopranos and Big Love were on top of their game. Spoiler alert: Vito got killed quite brutally because he was gay. It was sad, but he couldn’t stay away from the life of the mob. He screamed for his life through duct tape. Big Love was as frantic as ever with the wives writing up their wills, Bill being offered a membership with a Kiwanis type merchants guild, and Roman’s grip getting tighter and tighter. Then there’s Roman’s 14 year old bride to be living with Bill and Barb’s family.

Nicki, played by Chloe Sevigny reminds me so much of a girl I grew up with, Barbara Williams. I thought the Williams family were the coolest when I was growing up. So hip and modern it seemed. They could almost be Cowsills that’s how cool I thought they were. Marge and Ed Williams had Jimmy, Suzanne, Barbara and Scott at 7 Riverview Avenue as well as Richie who was Marge’s flamboyant brother and Nanny who was Ed’s mother. My brother Frank was Jimmy’s age, Suzanne was my brother Brian’s age and Barbara and Scott were closer to my age. The Williams didn’t have any offspring that was Annemarie’s age.

My family and the Williams’ got along just fine. Back then the neighborhood I grew up with was much closer knit that most neighborhoods today. Kids were always running in and out of each other’s houses. Most parents and adults looked after children that weren’t their own. If I did something at the Williams’ house, you can be sure my parents would hear about it in no time.

There used to be neighborhood barbecues thrown by Phil and Betty Janowski. They had a gigantic pool it seemed to my 5 year old eyes. One time after a raucous day of swimming and running around like maniacs, Barbara and I were roasting marshmallows when someone called my name. Instead of merely turning my head I turned my whole body and the flaming marshmallow on a stick went right onto Barbara’s arm. She screamed. I screamed it was an accident. The very next week Barbara did the exact same thing to me, as if to say, ‘see how you like it!’ Good times.

Barbara discovered boys and wound up going out with a Neanderthal sociopath Brian Palladino who once beat me up while I was enrolled in Summer Recreation soon after I almost burned my parents’ house down. She eventually married Brian. I wound up hanging out with Barbara’s brother Scott a lot more at that time. No marshmallows were burned. We did play with firecrackers when we could get them for the Fourth of July. We also engaged in petty larceny like shoplifting dog collars and blank Memorex cassettes from Two Guys department store.

Time went on, I started driving and Scott joined the Marines. I saw him just before we really parted ways at the funeral of his grandmother, Nanny. I eventually found out that the rosy picture I saw of the Williams’ family was just a façade. They were just as fucked up as any other family, perhaps more so. I was there when Marge tore into her son Jimmy who was visiting and arrived stoned. I saw the fallout of Ed and Marge’s divorce. They were good people though. I remember my brother Brian and I calling Marge to come over because Annemarie stepped on a lead pencil and we were sure she was going to die of lead poisoning. I also remember seeing Ed when he was a security guard at the Garden State Plaza and rousting all the homos from the Public Bathroom. I walked by him hoping he was as stupid as I had heard and wouldn’t recognize the kid who lived next door. To his credit, I don’t think he said anything about it to anyone.

I last saw the Williams’ family at Marge’s wake. I saw Barbara, Scott and the once pretty Suzanne who was now bloated from alcohol abuse. Ed had died and Jimmy had passed away as well. Now it was just the three kids, and their flamboyant Uncle Richie. An Aunt Joanie was there, Marge’s sister in law, who hadn’t aged one day. Still looked the same. These days when I hear of the neighborhood that I grew up in, it’s usually because someone died.