Some traditions never die. Other traditions are unbelievable and make you go, "what?". The first time someone told me about the Flight of the Angel, which has happened every year during the Fisherman's Feast in Boston's North End for 111 years, that's literally what I said. 

Let me explain. During the finale of the annual Italian festival, a young girl dressed as an angel is hoisted up by rope, three stories high, 11-year-old Gianna Puccio of Medford told me. “You go over the people and then they lower you down in front of the Madonna, and they do the trumpet. And then you say a speech at Italian,” Gianna said.