Our grandmother came over from Spain in the 1910s and lived into her 90s. She had a thick accent until the day she died.

It's one of my most popular pieces, although I suspect linguica has something to do with that :-).

John, you can't imagine how delighted I was to read this! So glad to hear about your family, and so glad you found the original message. The topic first came up with an essay I wrote back in 1999, "Linguica and Me", which I have posted here: https://begonias.typepad.com/srubio/2022/07/linguica-and-me.html Here is something I posted in 2003 as a follow-up ... it's also at the end of the above link (I didn't know at the time that your dad was also the owner): I've gotten a couple of emails recently about the article I wrote four years ago about linguica. I hear from people every month or two about that piece, but getting two emails in three days seemed a bit much, so I googled "linguica" and "rubio" and found a link to Moniz. Imagine my surprise (and pride!). So I decided to call the number in the listing, and next thing you know, I'm talking to a woman at Moniz. Turns out she knows who I am ... she found the article on the web and printed it out for everyone at Moniz, so they all know me, I guess. We talked for awhile, and then she asked if I could hold on a second ... I heard her talking to someone in the background, "I've got the guy on the phone who wrote that article!" ... and then this old guy picks up the phone, John Correia is his name, and his job is ... DELIVERY GUY FOR MONIZ! He says he's been delivering for a v.long time, and I said well, my grandmother used to get Moniz delivered to her house, and he said yes he'd read that in the article, and I said well, she was all the way in Antioch (Moniz is out of Oakland), and he said oh, I used to deliver out there, and I said her name was Frances Rubio, and he said he didn't remember, it was so long ago, and I said she was an old Spanish lady, and he said YES, HE KNEW WHO I MEANT! and YES, HE USED TO DELIVER TO HER!!! So here it is, 2003, my grandmother has been dead for almost 20 years, it's been longer than that since I can remember the Moniz truck coming to her house, and ... I'm talking to the Moniz delivery guy and he remembers! File this one under Small World, I guess ...

Dennis Hopper had such a long career ... everyone has something different that comes to mind when they think of him.

It's definitely "undeniably Hollywood", and I can imagine it resonates better with someone who came to it sooner than I did. And I have some Hollywood movies from the 1950s that I enjoy far more than they probably deserve (hello, Gigi). Much as I complain about long movies, the fact that I wasn't bored or impatient with Giant is a point in its favor. It does hold an irrelevant blog note: it's the first 4k movie I watched where the format wasn't mentioned. Only took four days ... time flies when you're having fun :-).