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Fred's Corner July 27, 2009 By Fred Cicco
Sure is hard to believe in
this day and age. My parents celebrated this great event Saturday,
November 21, 1998. What a terrific achievement this is. It would be nice
if more people were true to their vows and worked out their problems
instead of running to the divorce courts.
My parents were married in Italy in 1948. They went to Rome (the
eternal city) on their honeymoon. As they did the tourist thing around
the city, I’m sure my Dad was showing my Mom the different places he
visited when he ran away from home 13 years before. You see when he was
ten years old, he decided that he had to go see Mussolini and let him
know that he appreciated the job he was doing with the country. It’s
about 400 miles from the town I was born in Calabria in southern Italy
to Rome. It was 1935 and my Grandfather told my Dad that he had to learn
to be a tailor. My Dad was never one to have someone tell him what he
had to do, so the first chance he got to go to Rome, he took it.
He has always been kind of headstrong. The region of Italy where
we are from is known as “capu tosta”. Literally translated it means head
of stone. He made it to Mussolini’s office and was greeted by his
secretary. They passed along his message to “IL Duce” and they contacted
my grandparents. They took him back home to southern Italy and told my
grandparents that if they so much as thought about punishing my Father,
they would answer to “IL Duce” himself. Needless to say in those days
you kind of had to go along with the program.
My Dad went on to continue his tailoring training. He opened a
little grocery store and he and my Mom operated it until they decided to
come to the U.S. The Angotti family was already here. Their mother and
my grandfather were brother and sister, so they are my Dad’s first
cousins. My mother was already a U.S. citizen because her father had
come to the Pittsburgh area in 1913. The law used to be that if you
became a citizen then your children became a citizens automatically
anywhere in the world. My Mom and my aunts became citizens without ever
coming to the U.S.
When my parents came to this country in 1951 they brought their
cute little son (me) with them. We came over on the SS Independence, the
very same ship my wife and I cruised on in Hawaii this summer. Pretty
weird. Anyway, we arrived in Gary and lived at the Angotti’s for a while
till we got situated. My dad worked at the mill for a short time and
commuted to Chicago to work as a tailor. Then in 1952, after only a
little more than year, my dad went into business for himself. He opened
a little tailor shop on 7th Ave. and we lived in the
apartment building above the stores. The shoemaker was next door and the
restaurant was on the other side. The fifties was the time of the small
Ma and Pa stores and it was a great time to be growing up.
The thing that you learn is that even though they weren’t happy
with each other every minute, they showed you how to perserve through
your problems. They taught us about hard work and having values. It’s
too bad we can’t have more of those long ago times instead of all these
superstores. In those days people did what they could to work out any
problems. You had divorces but, there was a different attitude about
things.
Of course, when I think about their 50th anniversary,
it also reminds me that I’m 48 years old. I don’t feel like I am. I’m
really overjoyed to have these two wonderful people around. My mother is
so full of life and love and my father always full of adventure and
daring. I thank them for everything I have learned from them in
life and I relish what I learn from them everyday.
Fred Cicco
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