"GUP" / "Growing Up Psychic" Synopsis . . .  continued  . . . Jump to that grey period, just before the great depression, when everyone was hearing stories about how rosy the economy was while looking at their own lives through the somewhat grim lens of their own economic realities.  These were the circumstances which inspired the dauntless Gae to use his ingenuity and an old family recipe to help put bread on the table.  He and his wife, Mary Maria, made and sold wine out of the basement of their home.  In this period of Prohibition, however, his willingness to take risks to improve his family's standard of living put him on a tightrope with no safety net over an arena filled with jackals, sharks, wolves and thieves.  His attempt at holding off the Mafia who wanted "in" on his wine-making led to his gruesome and untimely demise. His wife, pregnant at the time of his death, held the family together the best she was able, doing a good job in the worst of circumstances. To help support the family, her sons each went to work at the quarry as soon as they were physically able. It was on his way home from work one day that Carmen, Anna’s father, first ran into her mother. They fell in love at first sight and soon were married and beggining a family. Anna was the first-born. Anna’s mother, a beautiful, chestnut-haired, fair-skinned young woman of Irish ancestry loved everything about life. She exuded a very special sensuality, maybe because of her connectedness to everyone and everything. She was a psychic, using her talent to bring in extra money reading cards; guiding people. This set into motion a very complicated dynamic between Anna’s parents, as her father both appreciated and resented this type of help from Anna’s mother. Anna lived a life fraught with complications and difficulties, even before she became deathly ill. Her own personal inner strength and determination played a big role in her triumph over near-disaster. She survived an illness that many others would not have survived, but it left her permanently disfigured. Her physical being may have been compromised, but her mind and her spirit were not. To her way of thinking, the best defense was a good offense; and when and where there wasn’t any trouble, she set about making some. She wasn’t about to be some pathetic apologetic pushover; even though she secretly suspected she might be losing her mind. The beginnings of her psychic realizations thrust Anna into a whole different bewildering dimension. Sorting through alarming confusion, dealing with a heavy burden of sadness, maintaining her equilibrium in the face of insanity, and, finally, finding her place in the madness, this is the story of  Anna Volpe Anuzzi and what it was like for her . . . “Growing Up Psychic!”