I've been here too long

Aue has become too much of my life. No, curb your enthusiasm, this is not an "I'm outta here" post.
Today I attended the funeral of one of my brothers-in-law. Rather than spending my time fondly remembering the faithful departed, I found myself mentally recording grist for the aue mill.

The priest that said the Mass was suitably Irish - but with a most unsuitable Protestant televangelist comb-over - and referred to the BIL as a "lovely man, a lovely man indeed". I wonder if "lovely" and "man" are ever spoken in the same sentence by anyone that isn't Irish.

The mourners looked like Central Casting had put out a call for a Florida crowd. I've never seen so many orthopedic shoes, aluminum canes and walkers, white pants, over-the-waist waistbands, blue hair, and polyester in one location in me life. The church rattled with the sound of rosary beads and clicking dentures. Of course, the BIL was in his 80s and lived in the St Petersburg area.
We went out for a meal at an Italian restaurant after the services. To the left of me was a grandson that is in the Air Force and stationed at Minot, North Dakota. He pronounced it "my-not", but my inclination was to say "me-no". I've seen the word in print, but I don't recall ever hearing it. I suppose he's correct, but the spelling says "me-no" to me. Of course, "Des Plaines" says "De Plaines" to me but I know it to be "Des Planes". (That should confuse otherpondians who would then pronounce "Des Moines" as "Des Moynes" instead of "Dee Moyne".)
To the right of me was a relative of the son-in-law of the brother-in-law. He grew up in the Bronx, but now lives in some suburb of New York City called "Bensonhurst" which I believe is near another suburb called "Brooklyn". He said he grew up within walking distance of Yankee Stadium, but now follows the Brooklyn Cyclones. When he said that, it took me a bit aback since I thought he meant he was something like a hurricane tracker that keeps maps showing the current locations of strong winds.
He came up with grist when he asked me to pass the "gravy cheese". Without my aue background I would have been completely lost. As it was, I handed over the Parmesan cheese shaker.
I tried to give him a conversational opening by asking him if he'd tried pizza in Florida. I figured that being a Brooklyn-type, he'd do ten minutes on the superiority of New Yawk pizza, the water-to-grease ratio of pizza crusts, and how the wooden pizza paddle was invented in New York at Umberto's on Fiddy-Tird Street in 1843. However, he said he never did like pies and never ate the stuff. I couldn't get him to say "geddoutahere" either.
There was some guy across from me that was related to somebody somehow, but I never figured it out. My wife was passing around pictures of our son and his wife and baby. When she mentioned that the DIL was Russian (in response to a question about why the grandson is named "Nikolai") he said his g-grandfather was a white Russian. I asked him what a White Russian was and he mumbled something about him not being one of those red Russians. "Not a Bolshevik?" I said. He replied that he didn't know where in Russia his g-grandfather was from.
Why do people grow up "the Bronx", but not "the Brooklyn", "the Queens", or "the Staten Island"? I wonder if you go to "hospital" in the Bronx, but to "the hospital" in Queens".