My dad was Mario Perillo, founder and CEO of Perillo Tours until his death in 2003. My mother, Olga, his wife and my dream-girl, raised a great, traditional Italian family in Pearl River, NY and Saddle River, NJ. "Italian style" in our family meant living on the same block and across the street from my brother Steve and sister, Christine. Life changes and now, we hail from Madison. I was the youngest of four siblings, with my brother Mark passing away in 2015. Typically, when people meet me for the first time, we get into a conversation about whatever it is we are conversing about, my father or my brother’s TV spots, Italy, food, clothes, pick-ups, dance schedule, the parking lot, my parking spot, travel or a sundry of other interesting topics parents talk about. As soon as someone broaches the topic of familial quantity (how many kids you have), when I say eight, you can literally feel the earth cease its rotation. It’s like you come from somewhere else, a land lost in time, or a character visiting earth from a science fiction novel. After they stop the search for Rod Serling, the interrogator freezes in time, similar to the same fate as Lot’s wife in Genesis 19 .. (check it out). Once the movement returns to their appendages and they have been adequately resuscitated, they say the same thing, every time, “YOU” have eight kids??? I do … let’s talk about that, and more …