When I just turned sixteen and everyone was getting their new cars they all wanted to experiment with this legend.  We had all heard about it and wondered if it was true.

The story was that there was a hill.  You had to drive quite a long way to get to this hill.  Usually, it was close to a cemetery.  All the people in the car would park their car facing up the hill and then put the car in neutral.  They would get out of the car and wait for what would happen.  Supposedly, the car would begin to move UP the hill by itself.  Allegedly, it was the ghosts from the cemetery that pushed the car up the hill.

I have heard this story in many places.  For instance, in Chicago, California and even in Connecticut, where my cousins live.  It seems as though all the teenagers of this age seem to have this same story and belief.  However, younger children and adults are not usually familiar with this peculiar event, of the car moving up the hill.

Probably the reason why this legend developed was because the teenagers are just beginning to drive.  They are all a little scared of this huge responsibility that driving entails, especially what can happen to them at night while driving.  Therefore, this story reminds them that they need to be in control of their driving in order to feel comfortable and for nothing bad to happen.

My roommate, Samantha, my freshman year in college had the same background as I.  We are both Italian Catholics.  We would share funny stories about our crazy Italian relatives and one day she told me of a very unique story that is always told in her family.

Every Easter and Christmas her entire family gets together to celebrate the Catholic Holiday.  Every year the same stories are told at the table, but every year they seem so change slightly.

Samantha’s grandmother, Rita Grosso, was born in Italy and moved to the United States when she was very young.   When her family moved to the United States they first went through Ellis Island and then separated between New Jersey and Philadelphia.  Her Grandmother’s Uncle, Vincent Grosso, came with the family to the new country.  He was supposedly in the Italian mob.  However, when they made the move to the United States he decided to be “good”.  All the knowledge that he acquired in the mob, he decided to put to a better use, the FBI.  Vincent began working with the FBI.  However, when the Italian mob found out one of their own was working with the government they were extremely upset.  The story goes that the mob masters found Vincent Grosso, gave him cement shoes, and dropped him into the ocean.

However, Samantha recalls that the story has changed over the years.  She remembers when she was a child that, Vincent got cement shoes and was never seen again.  There was nothing about being dropped into the ocean.  So in reality, no one in the whole family besides Grandma Rita knows the truth about Uncle Vincent, and whether he was even in the mob at all.  Moreover, every year there is usually a new member of the Grosso family so Samantha’s grandma feels the need to worn the “new Italian” about the dangers of the mob

“A university class that was taught in a lecture hall was taking a final. And all of the students handed in their test except for this one guy. When he finally finished his test he brought it up to the professor, but his professor told him he had taken too long on the exam and that he couldn’t turn his test in. The student was really mad at first and argued with the professor to try and get him to accept his test. But the professor still wouldn’t let him turn in the test, saying that it wasn’t fair to other students who had finished their tests within the time limit. So the student asked the professor, “Do you even know my name?” and the professor replied, “No”. So the student stuffed his test in the middle of the stack of the other students’ exams and left. He passed the class.”

My informant told this story in his Musicianship class that is full of students who were high school seniors. I was unable to ask him his personal thoughts on the legend. However I believe that it reflects how impersonal the experience at a large university can be. Professors often have class sizes that have over 200 students enrolled, especially in lower division general education or introductory level courses. For most students their professors in these large classes will not know them personally and won’t be able to match their face with their name.  The tone of this story also seems to be a bit negative. It basically says that in a large impersonal environment, like college can be, you can get away with a lot more because no one knows who you are anyway.