Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be gangsters

I have had a love-hate relationship with "The Sopranos" for eight years, and tonight it finally ended. HBO's wildly popular series about North Jersey mafioso has done a great deal to harm honest Italian-Americans like me, but I always loved the way so much of it felt familiar - the family banter and explosive tempers, the characters' accents and mannerisms, and the way they pronounce words like cappicola (you know, ga-ba-gul).

At first I thought the show romanticized violence and made some of the characters a little too endearing. Then the hits and the headbashing - and the businesslike approach to making amends - became a little too routine. Could anyone really find that lifestyle appealing?

I admit I was annoyed when the show ended with Tony Soprano having a nice dinner at a local restaurant with his family. Why wasn't he gunned down, or arrested?

There were men lurking in the restaurant in that final scene, but the producers didn't let us know whether they were FBI agents ready to make a bust or Phil's hit men looking for retribution. Viewer were left believing there was a chance Tony was going to get away with his crimes once again.

Perhaps that was the perfect ending. I was looking for justice and I was angry when it didn' t come. I should know better. Sometimes justice doesn't come at all in this world. Sometimes, like Uncle Junior, the former head of the family who ends his days in a nursing home, you outlive your life of crime.

The trouble is, in many cases like these, you pass it down to your children and it starts all over again.