HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANPA JOE!

This blogue was written on November 6th.

Had he taken better care of himself he would have been alive today at 127! But you know in those days they didn’t take care of themselves.

Grandpa Joe was dad’s father and although I never met him, he left behind a legacy of hard work and toughness that followed him long after his death.

Grandpa was not the kind of guy to fool around with; he worked hard, started a business that helped my grandmother survive the depression, and had a very close friend who married my grandmother after he died!

One day in sunny Naples, someone said or did something to old Joe that kind of upset him, and rather than go through the formalities of asking for an apology, he killed the man with his bare hands! OK, maybe he was a little touchy, but then had his antagonist spoken to him in some other language he wouldn’t have had such a speedy end to his life.

Of course this did not sit well with the Dipartimento di polizia locale di Neopolitan, and rather than book a passage to America, Grandpa Joe stowed away, saving his skin and boat fare. It is my guess that all he packed for his voyage was a long salami and cheese, with maybe a flask of vino to sooth his guilty soul for killing a man, stowing away, and causing all that overtime at the Dipartimento di polizia locale di Neopolitan.

In the early 1900’s, things were not as well recorded as they are today. Grandpa met my grandmother, who was maybe 15 or 16 and they married. Grandpa was a friend of Zio Felice, and so he met grandma Frances, Zio Felice’s younger sister. They had three children, starting with my father.

Then the First World War started and grandpa, although he didn’t cause it, joined the fray in the U.S. Army, where he met his best friend Ralph. Grandpa had a need to serve his country, and since there were no waiter jobs in restaurants in those days, he joined up with the Rainbow Division and went ‘Over there’, where he took out his anger on a few German lads, and returned to the USA.

When he did, a breakout of Spanish influenza occurred and Grandpa was put in the hospital. Yearning to see his wife and children, grandpa jumped out of a third story window and into the snow and took off for Grandma, kids and pasta, and maybe not in that order!

And it is there that we leave Grandpa, for he died from his escape from the hospital, leaving Grandma Frances with three little kids and all that pasta!

It is interesting to note that his birthday was November 6^th, my birthday is July 6^th, and my son Joseph’s birthday is April 6^th!

Thank you, and don’t tell anybody I told you all this, they are still looking for him in Naples as I write!