Nourishing the Soul with Italian American Stories

Have you ever sat at a family gathering, basking in the warm glow of shared stories and home-cooked meals, and wondered about the heroes who shaped those beside you? Get ready to embark on an intimate journey through the lives of Italian American podcasters as they unveil the cherished icons of their childhood. From the velvety voice of Dean Martin to the resilient figures of their own lineage, our podcast hosts  Bob Sorrentino, Frank DiPiero, Claudio Reilsono and Steve Mancini interview great guest that share soul-stirring tales that are woven into the rich tapestry of Italian heritage.

Picture yourself seated at a bustling family table where each dish is a chapter of history and every recipe tells a story. This episode is a sumptuous feast of memories, where traditional recipes like "cavetelli" and "pizzelles" are more than just food—they're edible heirlooms, lovingly crafted by hands that tell of struggle, triumph, and the unyielding bond of family. We'll journey from the kitchens where these dishes were born to the modern-day tables where they continue to nourish our bodies and spirits, celebrating the culinary magic that binds generations.

Finally, step into the vibrant streets of our ancestral homelands and experience the visceral connection that roots us to our Italian heritage. Whether it's the pride in the accomplishments of Italian luminaries or the jubilant chaos of Christmas Eve gatherings, this episode wraps you in the warmth of community and the enduring embrace of traditions that punctuate our holidays. Join us as we honor the laughter, tears, and triumphs that compose the symphony of an Italian American life—where every note resonates with the love of family and the strength of an unforgettable legacy.

Italian Roots Newsletter https://italianroots.beehiiv.com/
Italian Roots Blog https://www.italiangenealogy.blog/
Italian American Life ( Frank DiPiero )https://italianamericanlife.com/
Italian Impact Weekly ( Steve Mancini and Claudio Reilsono ) https://italianimpactweekly.com/
Paterno Construction ( Carla Golden )

Italian Marketplace LLC
Online tee shirts, hoodies and more for Italians

Farmers and Nobles
Read about my research story and how to begin your family research.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi everyone. This is Bob Sorrentino, from Italian Roots in Genealogy, and I think we're going to have a really fun show today with some great podcasters and some great guests. So, just to do a quick introduction, we have Frank DiPiero from Keeping it Real with Frankie D, steve Mancini and Claudio Olsono from Italian Impact Weekly, rich Leto, carla Paterno, deanna Olive Berry, dan Zangroni and Rebecca Clementi. So welcome everybody. Thanks for being here. We're going to start with just asking a question here and there, and I'm going to host for a while and I'm going to turn it over to our other podcasters and I'm going to start. I think I want to start with Frank DiPiero and ask Frank because I know you do a great show, a great piece, the Italian American moment, I believe it's called. So who was your hero?

Speaker 3: 0:56

Frank, my hero. I didn't even think of that. You mean as a kid, growing up? As a kid, yeah, growing up, I mean for some reason as a kid I really always liked Dean Martin. I have to admit that I loved Frank Sinatra, but I always had this thing about Dean Martin. I just maybe because he was so cool and just everything he did I really liked him. I liked his music, I liked his movies, I liked everything about him.

Speaker 1: 1:30

Yeah, he was fun, Carla. How about you?

Speaker 4: 1:33

Oh gosh, as a child, my hero. I'd like to say it was somebody Italian. I'd like to say it was somebody in my family. The honest truth, it was Marie Osmond.

Speaker 1: 1:45

Dan, how about you?

Speaker 5: 1:47

Well, I've been raised in America. I mean I loved Cowboys. Cowboys were the coolest guys on the planet at that time. But going back to Dean Martin, my uncle would sing and he'd sound just like him. So yeah, I mean I loved the way his voice sounded too.

Speaker 1: 2:03

You know I'm going to be a little bit corny here perhaps, and I thought about it and I came up with my dad and I'll tell you why. My dad was the guy that everybody went to in a family, whether it was my mom's family or his family. If something went wrong, that's the guy that he called. You know, somebody needed a lawyer or somebody needed a mortician, if somebody needed anything, he was always the first one that he called and he would drop everything to go there. You know, becky, how about you?

Speaker 6: 2:34

No, this was a tough question for me because I don't think about that. I maybe even had someone I would call a hero when I was a child. I mean now as an adult. I certainly admire the veracity and fortitude of my grandparents to make the journey here and think about how pivotal that was, not only changing their lives but also the rest of us that came after as well.

Speaker 1: 3:03

Yeah, and they were really true heroes, for sure, steve. How about you?

Speaker 2: 3:08

So I'm going to be out in left field here. Becky, I kind of think, like you did, I was a hero's tough question, because there's different stages in your life where different people mean something to you. And when I was growing up as funny as this sounds Sylvester Stallone because I remember as a really young kid watching Rocky for the first time and that's kind of to me the first time a movie ever for lack of a better term kind of positively glorified Italians, I mean what was his nickname? The Italian stallion? I mean tell me when they did that in a movie or a show. You know, italians to this day are always seen, as you know, let's just say, not necessarily the positive light, but I can literally word for word Rocky one, two, three, four, you know, with Rambo movies I mean that was that, was my guy right there. Sly was always my favorite.

Speaker 1: 4:00

Deanna, how about you?

Speaker 7: 4:01

It's a really hard question. I've been trying for the last few days to try to think of a good answer. And I mean I loved Reese. I live in Newton John going up. I don't know if I would say she's my hero, but I watch the movie every day. So it's really into like music and kind of like in a almost worshipping those type of things, and of course it wasn't anything Italian. And also I liked Blondie. I used to all the videos of me singing and screaming my head off. So yeah, as a kid I really wasn't thinking about like, oh yeah, my grandparents came over on the ship and suffered and you know all this stuff, and I didn't think about that as a child. So yeah, probably now as an adult I'd say my parents and my grandparents, and you know my ancestors before them too. Claudia, how about you?

Speaker 8: 4:55

That question my mom and dad, they. There's an old Italian saying if you ever see a turtle on top of a fence post, you know he didn't get there alone. Wherever it is I'm at in my life, if it was not for my parents love, support, belief and trust and hard work, there's no way in hell I would have the life that I have. My dad went through an awful lot in his life, as did my mom, and but they overcame all of those obstacles to make sure that I had what I needed, had what I wanted and absolutely to this set and Steve allows me, after every show that we do, to end the show, and I always thank my mom and dad.

Speaker 8: 5:37

So, without question, I have a lot of people that have inspired me, a lot of former athletes that I study and I learned from, without question, my mom and my dad, my dad Olindo and my mom Ida. We named my daughter after my mom. So and I try to honor my parents with tournament games with you know all kinds of things. I'm always honoring my parents because I truly adored my parents and they adored me.

Speaker 1: 6:03

Yeah, that's a great answer, Rich. What did? What did your Italian family members, grandparents, teach you about family, work, ethic, life, etc.

Speaker 9: 6:13

You hit on the word. It's the familial net, whole web, starting with the grandparents, those immigrants. But it was like my aunts that were like my second mother, my second grandmother, where we would gather, obviously Sunday. And things that I remember about is my grandmother always handed me like a dollar bill as soon as I would get in our house, squeeze my hand and just hold it so tight and not let me go. But it was definitely family values. You know, respect when you see your aunt caller, aunt Rose, uncle Mario Today you might not hear that Aunt or Uncle, you know, and just an embrace grace our culture and tradition. So I'm very thankful for having that with me, heritage and tradition, and continue as much as I can.

Speaker 1: 7:04

Yeah, on the 15 minute drive from my house to my grandmother's house, my mother must have told us 10 times go kiss your aunt, make sure you kiss your aunt. Yeah, go there. I'll say that. I say Steve, steve, you're laughing. So you went through the same thing.

Speaker 2: 7:20

I may have been told once in a while to. You know, go give a kiss or go give a hug and you're all right.

Speaker 7: 7:26

You can then get the lipstick on.

Speaker 2: 7:29

You know, the irony is and I think you all agree with this, and I'll say this when all those people are gone now, you would give almost anything to have that moment, to go give them a kiss.

Speaker 1: 7:39

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2: 7:41

What you don't appreciate when you're younger.

Speaker 5: 7:43

They seem to know that, because they would just kind of grab you and kiss you, whether you're like it or not.

Speaker 1: 7:51

And so you know kind of I did the same with me always my uncles, my uncles taught us work ethic. They were all hardworking men and everything like that. And all my uncles, all my aunts and uncles, are gone now Show of hands. Do you still have aunts and uncles, parents, alive, Uncles?

Speaker 5: 8:07

Just my mom. My mom is 93. Fantastic.

Speaker 6: 8:12

I have an aunt that just turned 100 and her brother turned 90. This year.

Speaker 7: 8:18

My great aunt just died at 100 last year.

Speaker 1: 8:23

So, dan and Deanna, now you guys live in Italy, part time, full time. Is it the same? Do you know that they have that same kind of ethic?

Speaker 7: 8:35

Yeah, it's really family oriented. In fact, sometimes Sunday can be a little bit lonely because everyone's with their families. It depends where you live. I mean, in Naples there's a lot of stuff going on, but where I was before it would be moved because of this depressing thing that would happen on Sunday Everything's closed in a small town and everyone's with their family and you're just like all right. Well, what am I going to do?

Speaker 1: 9:04

Yeah, that's very very true.

Speaker 5: 9:07

And it's not even Sunday, it's actually every day in Calabria. Every day at lunchtime, everyone disappears and they're with their family having lunch, and then they, of course, they take a nap after that too, especially now where I am. Now it's not the high season where everyone comes to the seat, so my development is extremely quiet, but it's still lunchtime. It's just like a ghost town.

Speaker 7: 9:35

For me. My family's not here. I have some relatives three hours away, but I'm not going to see them for lunch every day, becky.

Speaker 1: 9:44

I know from our interview you grew up in the movies and stuff. You grew up with a very close knit family and I love this. You got to make wine with grandpa.

Speaker 6: 9:56

Yeah, we did get to make wine with grandpa. And when you're talking about family, a couple of things I had written down was and this goes with the relatives you saw in that part of the movie of winemaking that's my father's side of the family. They are from Sicily and my mother's side is from a little town in Carveli on the mainland. But what was interesting about that family and the experience winemaking though for them one of the things was from that family to learn loyalty. And I really mean it that way, because my dad used to talk about how when he was younger, sometimes when he got perturbed I'm one of five, so when he got perturbed with us he'd remind us that when he was young he had to kiss his father's ring and that was just part of being respectful and loyal. And his half brothers treated him as the.

Speaker 6: 10:53

He was the head of the family, he was the oldest, but they treated him in a way like a Don. So it was a very different kind of culture to be with those relatives. And then on my mom's side, a bit different kind of context, and they only were like I think he was a mile and a half from each other, from Akron Ohio, so they were on North Hill and not very far from each other, and but that idea of there was, but for both, I think, that sense of resilience because of the hardships they each had experienced. We learned and, as people have mentioned, the work ethic as well in terms of those family experiences.

Speaker 7: 11:35

Do you notice a difference from one side to the other? Because I, because my dad grew up as one of seven children. Both of his parents were from Italy, whereas my mom's mother was born at two recently immigrants who had recently arrived. And then my maternal grandfather came as a baby. So, no, he was like a child. But my dad grew up with parents that were like 20 when they came to America and you know they were poor. My grandfather died, my grandmother remarried but they were wearing hand-me-downs, they were poor, they.

Speaker 7: 12:07

My dad worked. I think I told Bob in the in the interview I did with you know, so my dad definitely gave us this different type of worth. I mean, of course, my mom's family all worked and are educated and stuff. But I really learned a lot, like from my dad always talking about how we had nothing, we were poor, we had to work as children and of course, as a child I was like what you know I think you're kidding, like you know. Now I realize you know my dad became a fire chief on the FDNY and, you know, worked for 40 years Again, he could have retired after 20, but he kept working.

Speaker 7: 12:42

And one thing my dad always told me about. Like you know, don't call him in sick unless you're dying. Don't be late, you know, oh my God, you're late. What? Like you know a lot of these things that you did. Yeah, that you did, but that's because they had to him and all his brothers had to, like you know, really work for everything they have. So they were very serious about work and my grandfather, when he was alive, also had, you know, several jobs.

Speaker 1: 13:06

And Carla. Carla has an interesting story about that too, because her, your great great grandfather, started the construction construction business right In New York City and he I mean I know from the story you could tell the brother made him still a lot of ethic into everybody, right.

Speaker 4: 13:42

Well, you know, I don't know if their work ethic passed this far down. You know they were. You know they came to the new world, they were poor and it was survival. I don't know if their work ethic in the turn of the 20th century passed this far forward to my generation, quite the same degree that they had. However, you know, I've come to my Italian American heritage sort of later in life. I didn't have a lot of these things instilled in me as a child, but they're things that I've come to appreciate as an adult, Learning about my ancestors and understanding the environments and families my parents grew up in.

Speaker 4: 14:26

My dad is very driven, very success oriented, and he was also put on a pedestal as a child in his family and he lived with the generations and they waited till he walked in the door before anybody could take a bite of food.

Speaker 4: 14:43

You know he was. He was the first one who went to college, he became a doctor and but I think that he thought that's just how families were. I don't think he realized the intention that was behind it. You know that everybody made an effort. It wasn't just automatic. So I think when my dad moved away from Auburn, new York, where he grew up and transplanted into North Carolina, there wasn't that family structure, so that's not something we really grew up with and I think he was a little bit mystified that it was just going to somehow blossom around him. He didn't realize how much work and intention went into creating that atmosphere and I think that that's something that was sadly lost in the generations. And you know, as far as the women in the family talk about work ethic, I think I come from a lineage of women who like to keep really clean houses, and that takes a lot of work.

Speaker 4: 15:45

And I realize, as an adult, that that's just not automatic. You know, that's something that's like in our DNA and and that's something that, as an adult, I appreciate.

Speaker 1: 15:58

All right. Well, I'm going to turn, turn over the host thing to a great podcast, the Frank DPR. Also, frank, I'm going to throw up a question there for you. Okay, well, thank you. One question is a fun question.

Speaker 3: 16:09

Okay, let's see, rich, what was your favorite Italian dish growing up?

Speaker 9: 16:15

So I kind of remember what it looked like and it was Bollente, was basically cornmeal. At first, you know it didn't impress me, but today it's like a gourmet dish and it was. It was just a cornmeal and I'll call it with some gravy, but it was red sauce, marinara sauce on it. But it was a heartwarming dish and that's something that stuck with me.

Speaker 3: 16:42

Okay, Steve, what was yours?

Speaker 2: 16:45

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you quick funny thing here. My grandmother used to cook things and she would call them by names, but I'm not sure if it's an Italian or whatever it is, so she would cook something called cova deals. She would say, oh, cova deals and covita, and we, I think we call it gnocchi now.

Speaker 6: 17:06

No, that's right. No, covita yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:08

Yeah, it's like gnocchi so she would make the longer Okay but she, she would call it cova deals and when she, when her father, came over, he didn't speak any English. So I found out later she had to have been fluent very early in Italian. So a lot of her Italian kind of morphed because she would say words that later on I realized it's either Italian or kind of a very interesting dialect. But her father died fairly, I think maybe she was like 19. So obviously she didn't have a need necessarily speak Italian. So she would say these words that I think you know it's like a lot of people and when you grow up the second generation, first generation, they kind of morph the pure Italian to something else.

Speaker 2: 17:48

So cova deals was what we would probably call gnocchi and she would make them, you know, with the thumb and they take a little bit of dough, whatever. She thumb them and put them on the tray and I still remember those and they were good. And I think between those and one other thing she made fresh around Easter, we called it she called a pit cells. You guys know.

Speaker 6: 18:07

Yeah, I make them all the time Right.

Speaker 2: 18:10

So those are my two favorite things that I really miss Okay, I mean really miss.

Speaker 3: 18:16

Claudio, what was your favorite calabrese dish growing up?

Speaker 8: 18:20

You know, my mom was a fantastic cook and everything she made was good the, for the holidays, fried broccoli with garlic. Time, make it to this day when you smell it. It brings back the holidays the buck, kala and all that stuff. But, and of course, the spaghetti and meatballs and all that. But we used to make 300 pounds of Italian sausage every year and what we used to do was, obviously, the sausage was great, right, but we would also make something called cellimogra, which is basically fried fat with remnants of meat, right. So my mom would give me a couple pieces of the fried sausage, a couple table spoons of cellimogra and a piece of bread the size of a wall. And I said, my, give me a little bit more than cellimogra. She said, this stuff will kill you. It's, you know, it's fried so great. My dad told his cardiologist that we had that. His eyes got bigger. And then my dad brought him some. He said man, this is good, but this is why you're here.

Speaker 8: 19:22

But, really my mom, my mom, to make you know, when I was in Italy, she made a pie for every day I was gone, you know, and they were all good, and the cream puffs and the sausage, just everything. For me to name one, you know, it wouldn't do her justice and I try to make a lot of those things that she made, but everything, my mom, my mom could have cooked a broom and it would have been good.

Speaker 3: 19:46

Very nice, Becky. How about you?

Speaker 6: 19:49

Well, some things have been mentioned, but my mom was also a wonderful cook as well, and so for us, for especially our childhood, she'd make homemade noodles, and of course she'd do it during the day when we were in school, but they'd be drawing on the dining room table and so she had to keep us because we need all the raw noodles from. We thought that was great, but again, that was homemade sauce and everything, and Robbie Oly, she would make by hand as well, and that was always terrific. And then sometimes she would dip into her past peasant hood while she made pizza which we had at home. On occasion, if she had made bread, she would put it, set a little aside, and we have what was called poor man's pizza, which was mostly bread with olive oil, salt and pepper, and then that would be served along with something else for dinner.

Speaker 7: 20:39

So those were all sort of like, almost like focaccia, yeah, almost.

Speaker 3: 20:47

Carla, how about you?

Speaker 4: 20:49

My mother is an excellent cook, so I had a lot of great food as a child, but she did identify more with her German ancestry than her Italian. She was a quarter Italian and but she did make linguine and clams a lot and so we love that. As a child that was really good.

Speaker 3: 21:08

I'm getting very hungry now, bob Sorrentino, how about you?

Speaker 1: 21:12

Easy, Uncle Frank's homemade ravioli. He had the board and he had that big doll. He could roll out a piece of pasta the size of the table and knock out you know a dozen, a dozen or 12 dozen ravioli and you know like an hour or something like that, Definitely my favorite, Nice Diana.

Speaker 7: 21:35

Oh gosh, I've been dying to answer this question so it's really hard because I have favorites on both sides. So, but my mom is an excellent cook and my mom and my grandmothers all made great things. My mom tried to incorporate also my dad's, my maternal, my paternal grandmother's recipes from body into things we ate at home all the time. So my favorite thing now and also growing up, was we called it buddy's pizza, but it's actually like a stuffed focaccia which has and they still make it over there too and body. It's got olives, onions, anchovy and olive oil and it's it's stuck, so it's got two layers and it is fantastic.

Speaker 7: 22:17

So I made it for my uncles. We had a family reunion as we going in my grandmother's tradition, having a family reunion, and my dad and all my uncles tried it and they were like, yeah, thumbs up, just like mom made it. And we were like they were like, oh, mom, you made it like mama. They were like they almost made me cry because they were so happy to have a picture of them holding it up. But, um, you know there was that my mom always made homemade pizza, like a clam pie, a veggie pie and onion pie, whatever, and all the desserts. I basically had like all the desserts from Naples, like Miyacho Strug for the Christmas, and on my dad's side they're different kind of desserts.

Speaker 7: 22:59

I don't know if anyone knows cartelate. They're like they look like roses, yeah, and then the bean cotto inside or honey, so it's hard to choose, but I'd say the Barae's Pizza, which is not really pizza, but she called it Barae's Pizza and second down the Miyacho, because when my mom would make it she had to stop making it because we would all eat it like in one day and she's like I can't, and I think we all gain like 20 pounds from eating the Miyacho all the time. But of course we use the, the Neapolitan dialect word. We didn't use the Italian words for all these things. And Easter bread we made we were in the newspaper for our Easter bread, which is Paloma in the Neapolitan dialect but Colombo in Italian, and yeah, just, I really liked all those things, but I think the pizza is the best.

Speaker 3: 23:46

Okay, very good. How about you?

Speaker 5: 23:51

So many, yeah, so much good food. You know, my town was full of all the old country recipes. My whole town was pretty much run by Italians. My mother made a fantastic sauce, my grandma the sweet stuff. You know. My grandmother would do the pizza free to just fry the dough and pull it out and put it all full of sugar. The pastry shops were incredible, the pasta chow and some, some relatives would make the cassade, which is a Sicilian and maybe by Naples or Sotoliano in that area. So a lot more local Calabrian recipes which you know. Any any food here in sauce here is just as good or you know, as back home in New York. But yeah, so many, so many good foods, it's hard to pick one.

Speaker 3: 24:42

Yeah, I would say, for me lasagna was like, it was like a troll. I noticed somebody, yeah somebody just put up a comment.

Speaker 5: 24:50

Anyone have pizza free. That's the one I was talking about. It's just. It was just. She'd make the dough into like a floppy, ugly looking doughnut, throw it in the oil, put sugar on it, and then she would send us kids away running, you know they put raisins in it.

Speaker 2: 25:10

No, she never put raisins in it, it sounds like my grandma's raisins in it. She put raisins in the dough and then she would fry it, and then we would sprinkle the sugar on it Again. The funny thing is the dialect is called a pitse frites, you know?

Speaker 7: 25:24

yes, a little bit of dialogue to the words. You don't pronounce the letter to pop, Of course it's going to sound different. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:32

I put up another question for you, Frank, so OK how connected? Do you?

Speaker 3: 25:36

feel with Italy, Italian, Italian American culture growing up. Let's start with Diana, Diana.

Speaker 7: 25:47

OK, this was the question I was thinking of the other day, as opposed to how did you feel growing up? How did you feel? How do you feel now? It's interesting living in Italy. They try to make me feel more American and of course I'm not an Italian native, but I always felt Italian American and in fact, even my cousins they were on a trip when we all felt this way, all the cousins I've like 30 cousins on my dad's side. My cousin was going on a cruise and they asked her like where's your, where are you from? And she said I'm Italian. And they're like oh, why is your passport American? And it's funny because I was thinking back to how I always said I'm Italian, what are you? Because in New York we say what are you? Oh, I'm Italian, what are you? I'm Irish, you know, I'm this, I'm that. And obviously we know most of the people are also American. So it was strange to me, moving to Italy, how they almost are like oh, what were you saying? I'm American, like you're American, I'm like no, but you don't understand.

Speaker 7: 26:42

I didn't grow up. Yes, I grew up American, but I'm saying we grew up Italian, american, 100%. Like going to my grandma's every Sunday, you know, having the family reunions, you know, just always being really close with the cousins, so and all the relatives and aunts and uncles, that yeah, I definitely felt really connected. As Italian American I didn't know that much about Italy as a child. I never went.

Speaker 7: 27:08

As a child my grandparents would go on their own, you know, my mom and dad went on their vacations there and stuff like that before we were born and yeah, I would say we knew the history but we felt Italian American and I think living in Italy has definitely changed me that I always grew up with a. I think I grew up with more of a Neapolitan mindset and a Neapolitan culture as far as food and traditions, because, like the precept, you know, at Christmas, the Nativity, we had that and we had all the recipes from Naples and I always identified with my mom's side a little bit more, because my mom's mother lived on Staten Island and my dad's parents lived in Brooklyn, so we saw them less so but I definitely felt Italian American and it's funny how here sometimes in Italy they might try to take that away from the Italian part, away from you, because I don't think they understood and it's not everybody, it's just certain people. They just don't understand. Oh, but you're American, like you know, do you put ketchup on spaghetti and I'm like are you serious?

Speaker 1: 28:18

Yes, I have that question too. That's how you Americans. That's how you Americans make your sauce with ketchup, not you know like some probably do what we don't.

Speaker 3: 28:30

Well, thank you, let's stick with the ones in Italy. Daniel, how about you growing up? Was it the Italian American?

Speaker 5: 28:39

Yeah, I did have this question so I looked at it yesterday. I wrote that I mean I felt a slight connection when we were visiting relatives. Some were not born in the United States and I did feel a little connected to the culture because, you know, everyone in my town, like I said before, was Italian. I mean there was a lot of Polish and Irish too, but I never really saw them growing up because all my parents' friends were Italian. There was a few Jewish friends or you know a few, but mostly it was all Italian. I mean the entire city was run by Italians. Basically, you know they ran the government. So they're all mostly per second generation. So I felt a slight connection.

Speaker 5: 29:25

But I mean I loved America, of course. I mean who wouldn't born in 1957? It was such a great time to be a kid in America, you know. Now I feel a lot more connected. I mean I come here where my grandparents came from. I mean many times it's very emotional to get your feet on the soil here where they came from, to know how they lived and how they dreamed of when they heard about a place called America, how they worked to get up to Naples, to get on that boat, so it's really wonderful coming here and you get a. I recommend it to everyone that I know. In fact, when I walk around this town, they all look like they're from my town and I tell my brother, that when you get here you're going to see these people.

Speaker 5: 30:10

They look like they're all from New York, new York, you know anyway.

Speaker 7: 30:15

I.

Speaker 5: 30:18

Yeah, yeah. Well, I've got a lot of relatives here too and they're like oh, you're the family that went. You know, my, my uncles, my, see, my grandfather's brother, you know he had a family, he came and then went back and never went back to the United States. So they're here and when they, when I, since I've met them, they've made me feel much more connected. Then that's both, my mother's side, my father's side. You know, I've got 90 percent. I did the DNA test and all that. So, anyways, many people in this Italian town, you know, tell me that they have family in the town that I grew up in. Oh, you're from there. Oh, I got a cousin. There was a, so there's a huge. In fact, there was a guild in in my hometown for this town. That's how connected they were. So, anyways, so I'm very connected now that I've come here.

Speaker 3: 31:12

Oh, I'm sure you can't help but be connected when you're in it, that's for sure. Yeah, we have a question from Mary. Last time I was in Italy and we spoke in Italian, people would say a medicani. Guess they could tell. I mean my opinion. You could if you come from Italy, if you grew up in Italy and you came and you lived there until you were 20, and then you moved to America, and then you go back seven, eight years later they're going to call you the mayor. Yeah, once you're gone really America yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:44

You know what. You know what stuck out to me more than anything else when I was there. I'm not Sorrentino there, I'm Sorrentino. Yeah, you have to say your name correctly, Thank you.

Speaker 2: 31:55

They all are very. They're like huh what?

Speaker 7: 31:57

So Rich. How about you?

Speaker 3: 31:59

How about your feelings on this? So it's funny that later in life I realized how Italian I was my high school yearbook.

Speaker 9: 32:11

90% Italian last names Di Lorenzo, russo, nosella. Yeah, two growing up.

Speaker 7: 32:15

Common meaning. I didn't realize how.

Speaker 9: 32:17

Italian. I was right when I would go to my grandmother's house and I'd see her shrine or her bureau with pictures from the old country. You know who were these people? I don't know, but there's that shrine right and Jesus. I go to my aunt's house. I see the fig tree. You know what's?

Speaker 7: 32:31

this fig tree all about.

Speaker 9: 32:32

You know, it's the old country, right? Yeah, we had fig trees.

Speaker 9: 32:38

Like I said it wasn't until later in life and when I made that trek to the ancestral village where your heart gets warm and you connect with those roots, let's say, and it all just bubbles up, so to speak. And as I reflect now I see, okay, now patriarchal. I see the fig tree and I reflect now I see, okay, now patriarchal, because my grandfather had passed. It's all about her taking care of her. She's the head of the table. I'm at the kid's table with my cousins.

Speaker 9: 33:06

So once again later in life, where you reflect and then you say to yourself geez, I'm entitled to dual citizenship. How did I? I didn't know that 50 years ago, right, when I look at my dad's birth certificate and it says his parents were born in Italy, I mean it's overwhelming, quite frankly, on how Italian-American that we all are, when you can trace your roots. And I've actually had arguments with some of my cousins like, well, you're a second generation. I said, no, I'm kind of a third generation. I've asked different people and the truth of the matter is the foreign born that naturalized here are considered the first generation because they have that hybrid Italian-American. My parents are second and then I'm third generation.

Speaker 7: 33:54

Yeah, there's always tools and thoughts on that.

Speaker 9: 33:57

So I agree, deanna, but yes, like I said, later in life, the reflection, but all those visuals that I remember going to the festivals, going to my dad taking me to his social club. I was the little kid, I was the little Bambino, but he was proud to take me in there. Everybody was family, but they weren't family. They were just the neighbors, right, but they shared in our heritage. What else can you say? All right, well, thanks, yeah thanks, Rich.

Speaker 1: 34:25

So let's turn it over to another great podcast host, Steve Mancini. So, Steve, take it away. I put a question up there for you.

Speaker 2: 34:33

I thought you said great podcast host.

Speaker 1: 34:36

Oh, you have the perfect but I don't have a podcast voice. You have a podcast voice, no, I appreciate that.

Speaker 2: 34:42

So I'll tell you what I do want to make one comment to Mary. Mary, I'll tell you they know you're American, but what I've learned is keep speaking Italian as much as possible when you're in Italy. They do appreciate it, they really do. Most Americans go to these foreign countries and they figure oh, everybody speaks English so I don't have to try. When you go overseas, you should make the effort to speak the language so you just keep doing it. They might call you American, but I'll tell you what they do appreciate it. That was the one thing.

Speaker 7: 35:09

I learned If the person wants to speak Italian with you, you keep pushing and you keep speaking Italian.

Speaker 2: 35:15

That's right.

Speaker 7: 35:16

Absolutely Italian, and so is my friend, and we were in Florence two weeks ago and the girl kept smirking and thinking it was funny that we spoke Italian and we were like we're not gonna speak English with this girl, we're gonna keep going in Italian, like we do with a lot of time.

Speaker 2: 35:30

They're also trying to practice their English, so I give them.

Speaker 1: 35:33

I try and give them the benefit of the doubt, but you don't have to give free time True.

Speaker 2: 35:37

And, by the way, lucrecia, you said something about greens and beans. I'll tell you one thing I think maybe you guys can tell me if this is some Italian dish that's called something else. But my grandmother I think it was Becky, you mentioned, or maybe it was Carla you mentioned the old fashioned cranking out the noodles. Well, my grandmother used to crank out the flat noodles, dry them and then cook them with beans Like not green beans, but with like almost like beans out of the can, and we call it. You know whether it be spaghetti and beans or the noodles and beans. I don't know if that's some dish that they made up here or what, but it was delicious.

Speaker 5: 36:07

And again one of the that's the pasta vasu.

Speaker 2: 36:10

That's pasta vasu yeah. Pasta vasu, that's what I right.

Speaker 7: 36:12

That's the food, because Italians they brought it.

Speaker 2: 36:14

We're gonna get to the questions or Bob's gonna commute me, so all right, let's tell them. I think, Becky, you've been too quiet. So what makes you or made you proud to be part of the Italian family in general? Obviously, you're here, so you must love it.

Speaker 6: 36:29

Well, part of that love obviously is rooted in family as well, with having my dad was born here, so he would we think of him as first generation and my mom emigrated here.

Speaker 6: 36:44

And I think what's?

Speaker 6: 36:49

I found this question difficult too, because I don't think about pride and being proud in the same way, but I think that what I could say is, once each family came here to the United States in the early somewhere around 1919 and 1920, how much each generation has found a way to realize for themselves what they felt the American dream is, and then how that gets passed along.

Speaker 6: 37:28

And this probably is more on my mom's side, that one of the things that came down that might have been part of work and ethics that we were talking about, but translated into what some of us have done in our lives, is a lot of a service back to the community and taking care of community, and I think some of that started within the family, helping each other and all. And then where I'm from, as I said, the North Hill area of Akron sort of, was at the time an Italian enclave in terms of population, and so you had a sense of that, and so I think in terms of pride is how much that's spread out through us over time. And then it's interesting to see the iteration from each generation and now, as I look at my nieces and nephews, what they're doing with their lives and how that might be yet an extension of things. That happened because family came.

Speaker 2: 38:32

Oh, great answer, Carla. How about your turn? What makes you proud to be part of the Italian family?

Speaker 4: 38:39

To be honest, I think I'd be proud of whatever I am, but I am predominantly Italian. My dad is 100% Italian, my mom a quarter. My dad is Capiello and I felt very Italian growing up because I had to spell my last name all the time.

Speaker 6: 38:56

And pronounce it for people.

Speaker 4: 39:00

And you know I am in my mom's family. The paterno family has just a really great story with a lot of documentation, and so I feel pride on both sides of my family. And you know I love Italy. I love a lot of things, but Italy is easy to love. And the design aesthetic. You know this. You know everybody's got something great about their country and a lot to be proud of, and I'm glad to be proud of this one.

Speaker 4: 39:35

And, like I said before, I've come to this kind of late in life, other than you know, going by Carla Capiello, my entire childhood.

Speaker 4: 39:42

There wasn't a whole lot of Italian heritage infused in my childhood, but now, as an adult and having done research and pieced back together my paterno family's history, I just stand in awe of what they were able to accomplish. I try to put myself in their shoes and I just hope that I would have had the fortitude and the determination that they had to create this building empire. And I feel, like you know, I play a role in that story, in the reassembly and the preservation of their story, because much of it has been lost to time and I can at least steward that and hopefully it will be. It won't get lost again to time and I can honor my ancestors that way and that makes me feel part of their story and something to be very, very proud of. And I am going for my dual citizenship. Interestingly, even though my paterno family has such a powerful, big story, it's through my Capiello lineage that I qualify for dual citizenship, so I love the balance there sides of my family have given us that the irony right.

Speaker 4: 40:59

Right, right right.

Speaker 2: 41:01

By the way, you did make a comment, though, and it's kind of a very important one, but I think this shows why there is such a disconnect, depending on what generation you're in. I'm very similar to you. Things weren't consciously infused. You are Italian-American, you are Italian. I never forget the family. It was something. There was just a. Things just were what they were because you were closer to the generation than immigrated here. Then there is a break, and where people became American, and now you've got this kind of skip the generation almost and now we're all looking back on oh, I want to reconnect to my roots, but we're kind of having to make up for lost time.

Speaker 8: 41:45

And your story, I suspect, is very similar to a lot of folks.

Speaker 2: 41:49

Daniel, I'm going to ask you the question what makes you proud to be part of the Italian family?

Speaker 5: 41:52

Off the top of my head they just seem like happy people, a simple approach to life's problems.

Speaker 5: 42:00

Of course, they're proud of the food that we've given to the world and there's a lot of sincerity, just pragmatic people, tenacious, I mean just what we've given to the world as Italians through art and engineering and just the history. Those are the things I'd be proud of in terms of the attitude that they seem to approach problems with and they're pretty resilient and I, just after coming here as well, good people who are, you know, they just quite pragmatic and just get to the heart of the situation and not really holding any grudges, and let's just, you know, get past this problem. We might have so and the ability to adapt and change.

Speaker 2: 42:49

All right, claudio, I'm going to give you a shot at this, because I know you're proud to be Italian.

Speaker 8: 42:54

You're my co-host. Given this world is unbelievable, although my favorite. We do hold grudges, but that's not so.

Speaker 2: 43:05

Real Italians do Claudio.

Speaker 8: 43:10

My dad, my mom and dad. From day one all I heard was Marciano Gratziato, giorgio Canalia and Mario Lanza and Carlo Bucci. And then, not only that, but whenever we would watch a TV show, my dad would see a director or a writer of that guy as Italian, the producer of that guy as Italian, and so that was instilled in me from the day of reasoning. Okay, then, later on, as an adult, obviously we tried, I do that with my daughter. And but a month ago I was lucky enough to be invited to the Italian sports hall of fame in Chicago.

Speaker 8: 43:45

And all of the great speeches, all of the great acknowledgments, steve and when he on our show, steve said this and some other guests said when they went to Italy they felt home and something kind of hit them. When I went to that banquet and all these great comments about being Italian and their families and the strength and the discipline and the hard work and the ethics and the closeness, it just hit me like an out of the ranch and that was my, I don't know. It hit me, not that it had ever left me, but it just popped up that much more. And finally, daughter, when she was younger she went to a friend's house for dinner and she noticed how quiet it was, how there was no scent in the air of the food. There was really no talking, there was no, nothing.

Speaker 8: 44:41

And we're not like that. You know, we'll say that when we're dead. We talked. You know something else. You know, my mom used to say never speak from the neck up, speak from the heart up. And that's what we do. We speak from the heart up. And so I'm extremely proud and to be Italian with Daniel said what we've contributed. Everybody's contributed something. We are being a little biased, but we started going over the DaVinci's, the Michelin's and the Sinatra's and the Valvano's and the Marciano's, and, and, and uh, you can go on and on. In politics, and, and, and written, and whatever we, you can see our hand in religion, in the medical field and science. We did too bad. Yeah, yeah, we did do too bad, great.

Speaker 5: 45:34

One party.

Speaker 2: 45:36

Oh, that's right. That's right, and I think you know we had uh.

Speaker 5: 45:40

Daniel, here in Calabria. Well, in great minds, here in Calabria I mean it's a huge you know Sicilian Calabria were the original Italy, you know, and we had a huge influence from the Greeks.

Speaker 8: 45:52

I'm glad he froze on that after he said the Greeks Daniel please.

Speaker 2: 46:05

I'm going to ask you this question, though, Jackie. I want to ask you this question because you've been hosting a great part. You and Bob have fantastic podcasts and you've been dedicated to, you know, continuing to educate people, to bring people into celebrate Italian culture Freaky, what. What makes you so proud of the culture of the Italian family?

Speaker 3: 46:21

in general. Well, thank you. Uh, I'd have to say, uh, kind of like Claudio Deanna, I mean growing up, if somebody said what are you? I was Italian, I mean.

Speaker 2: 46:32

I, just I, we all, you're right, we all did that and didn't understand what that meant.

Speaker 3: 46:35

No, I kind of did. I mean I, but what I'm getting at is like it was very prevalent. I lived in a hairy Italian neighborhood and everybody we knew was Italian and all the friends of the family were Italian, and our doctor, our lawyer, our accountant, the barber, the view name at the dentist I'm not kidding Everybody was like that was like all I knew and I was always very proud and that wasn't still to me. And, like Claudio said, you're watching TV and you know that actor's Italian or that coach was Italian and you just kind of innately rooted for them. You know what I mean. It was this, this pride of our people. And you know, not being biased, but like I feel like we have contributed just an unbelievable amount to the world. You know, if I could say it without you know, without being wrong, more than more than the others.

Speaker 2: 47:21

Okay, and I'm proud of that, I don't really and uh, no, you could say it, you could say it.

Speaker 3: 47:27

I'm just saying I said uh, and we need to instill that and that's why Bob was saying earlier I do these Italian American moments. I'm always trying to do things, videos, small things, that. So, these younger people because we're not going to be here forever Okay, and they got to understand what it's really about. And they got to go beyond the, the, the, the logical, the, the stereotypical things Okay, because it's so much deeper than that and that's what I really, you know, I yearn for. I really hope that they, they buy into that and they do understand. And the best way, the best way to understand Italians in in in all that go to Italy. I mean, I agree with whoever said that earlier take a trip to Italy, you got to go to Italy, that's, that's number one.

Speaker 1: 48:13

And go to the. You got to go to the hometown, just don't just go to Rome.

Speaker 2: 48:17

Once, that's right, at least once, real quick. By the way, bob, I do want to give you, I want to give you the last word on this question. But but? But, frank, you said something and Deanna, you said the same thing. You grew up and they say, oh, what are you? I'm Italian. But then you go to Italy and they say you're American. So when we're in the States and we say you're Italian, I do think we don't. My opinion is, I think, when you say I'm Italian, like what, what does that really mean? I don't say that anymore.

Speaker 3: 48:41

Right Now I say Italian, american. Up until 19, when I went to Italy, I said Italian.

Speaker 2: 48:48

Coming back and you go to Italy, and then you come back and you realize I'm Italian American, I'm Italian American, I'm Italian American, I'm Italian origin.

Speaker 3: 48:55

I mean, I, I get that. And one other thing I just wanted to throw out there, because you mentioned that Rocky and all that and true story real quick. I think I was about nine when the movie came out and there was this movie theater. It was around Grandin Harlem in Chicago and in the neighborhood and I was taken to see the movie. And when I tell you the boxing scenes at the end, everybody in the movie theater was Italian. It was screaming. I'm just nine year old, it was almost intimidating, but everyone's screaming like we're an actual boxing match. It's a movie and I left the movie ready to just I would have run through a brick wall for being a town so that's.

Speaker 2: 49:41

I'm still trying to hope he's going to win Rocky one, but unfortunately, folks, we can't change the ending. Bob, I want to give you a last shot at this one. What makes you proud? Because again you have a wonderful show? You know you've been doing a lot of research over the years and helping people to do the research. Obviously you're proud of this. What makes you so proud of this?

Speaker 1: 49:58

I think a couple of things. I think mainly, you know growing up with that family and I'm sure you know every, every culture has their family and then they're growing up. But there's to me there's something special about that closeness and you know, being surrounded with, you know, cousins that were like brothers, aunts and uncles that were like parents. It was just kind of a special thing. But also and somebody mentioned that, I think, when we first started about heroes and things like that, especially when you go back and you see the terrain, you see that that in my case, my grandparents who came in 1915, you see that that journey was not easy. You know they came across a country, some of them you know, on on donkeys to go to Naples, to take a boat for 14 days to get here. I don't know if I could do it, to be honest with you.

Speaker 1: 50:56

And there was no way no keeping in touch you know, no, no, and and yeah, yeah, and to that point, you know, when I got back and got and I got a, I got the photo that my grandmother sent to her father saying from your dear daughter to my dear father, so you never forget, she knew she was probably never going to talk to him again. Yeah, and now people come and you go someplace, you go wherever you got a phone and everybody's talking. So I think it's just that that kind of special force or whatever it was that drove them here through all the hardships and you know, when some of our people came, they had heard stories about how hard it was to get there and they came anyway. So I think that's it. But let's let's turn the last question over to Claudio, and I think I think this might be a fun and simple one.

Speaker 8: 51:49

Okay, what is your? What does it say? What is your fondest memory growing up? What is your fondest memory growing up? If I can go, go ahead, Steve.

Speaker 2: 52:02

You know it's funny, it's not so much. Our memory is. It is something that happened every single year and it was something and it's something I still do to this day. It is the Christmas Eve get together, when everyone is in the house together. It is one of the few times of the year where you literally have all of your cousins, your aunt, your uncle, you know whomever brothers, sisters, nephews we are all in the house together. It is a. It is a madhouse.

Speaker 2: 52:33

When I moved back here to Pittsburgh after I retired from the military, I moved back to Pittsburgh. That was the one thing is my grandma just recently passed away, or yeah, she just kind of was in the home and before she passed away, and I said I'm going to keep doing that. And it's the same people that are still alive that come to my house for Christmas Eve and my wife goes crazy Wow, we got all these people, we got to get it, but it's same. At the end of the day, we love it. We love it because it's the one time where everybody's screaming and shouting and they're not necessarily angry screaming and shouting, which, for the people listening. I want to. I want to make something very clear just because we're yelling doesn't mean we're angry.

Speaker 8: 53:12

So whoever?

Speaker 2: 53:12

screams the loudest gets heard. So there's this, there's this rack with it up. So the house is just, you know, it sounds like it's worth a Super Bowl and it's like all we're doing is asking the pasta, you know, pasta spaghetti. But to this day, my, my fondest memory is truly Christmas Eve's. Every Christmas Eve, when everybody came over for a good reason and I still do that to this day I invite the same people come over and whoever's alive or just not grown up moved out of the area. We all get together every Christmas. I still miss it. I still keep it on. I will. Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 8: 53:44

Keep it up. It's Ralph Deanna.

Speaker 7: 53:48

Oh, my favorite, my fondest memory growing up is making Easter bread with my mom, my grandmothers and all my aunts and cousins all the female aunts and cousin sorry, all the female cousins and aunts and basically we would make ridiculous amounts of Easter bread, like 65 blows. My mom would hand it out to the neighborhood. Everyone just mailed it to Florida, wherever, Like we just went crazy and we were actually on the cover of the Staten Island Advance in 2001,. But we had been making it. It was my great-grandmother's recipe and my grandmother still made it in America and, yeah, we'd make like tons of it and it's just like tons of eggs and mixing and everything.

Speaker 7: 54:39

And I'm not a baker, I don't like to cook either, but I love that. That was my favorite thing. And then, of course, having to wait for Easter morning to eat. It was like torture. But my mother was like you can't touch it till Easter morning. You know it's like come on, why? Why are you doing this to us? You know, but we love that. And one thing because we all came together, usually on Good Friday or Holy Thursday. If we went to stations of the cross, we would start doing it after and, you know, till like one in the morning, you know, which is really good, and we still do it and we're teaching younger generations to do it as well.

Speaker 9: 55:23

So it's basically what I said earlier. You know, when my dad would take me to my grandmother's, the first thing she would do is grab my hand and put that dollar in my hand, hold my hand like it never let me go. And then later in the day, when it was Sunday dinner, like it is here sitting at that kids' table with my cousins while the grownups were in the other room and just instilled a lot of familiar with me. So, but that clutch of her hand and that dollar bill, I wish I can do that again today with her.

Speaker 7: 55:55

Did you get it on the way out of the way in? Because I got it on the way out the door On the way in, on the way in, I got it on the way out, the door On the way in. I got it on the way in.

Speaker 4: 56:04

I got it on the way out the door.

Speaker 7: 56:05

It's easier thought it by the parents.

Speaker 4: 56:06

I got it on the way out In my bag.

Speaker 4: 56:09

You are okay, I. My top fondest memory has nothing to do with being Italian, but my most favorite memory from childhood that is very Italian is when my father Capiello, took me back to where he grew up in Auburn, new York, and it was the multi-generational small-town experience and I I it was so enchanted by it because it was so different than how I grew up in Florida and North Carolina and I'm just so glad I got to meet my great-grandmother, who lived to be a hundred and six, and so there were four generations around a table and I'm just so thankful that he Got around to doing that, just so that we could experience that once in our lifetime, because it was just, it was so different and it was like going back in time and I knew, even as a child, that something was very special about having all those generations around one table, eating everything that was made from scratch in that house, in the basement kitchen. It was Didn't know it then, but I know it now how incredibly special that was the basement is the most important part.

Speaker 7: 57:30

I had the family reunion in the basement, despite the fact that she had this beautiful upstairs Just reminding me of that.

Speaker 6: 57:39

Bill, building a little bit off of what rich said about Christmas Eve. That was my family Hosted and it was not unusual for us to have 50 plus people in the house and everything. It was wonderful. But kind of build on on that theme For my mom because when she emigrated here they had a very interesting very first Christmas and we would make her tell us that story over and over again.

Speaker 6: 58:05

And one of the things she did with us is she'd always saved something from Christmas Day and so getting everything under the tree, and so when La Bafana came On the 6th she'd have something for us. So usually of course it was a school day, so when we came home there was a little something for us to kind of have a bit of a taste of Something special on that day as well. And then, with her very special Christmas story, we for inside the family, we published a little book that we gave to all of our family members about her and my aunt's I told you was had just turned 100 About their very first Christmas here in the United States.

Speaker 1: 58:49

Yeah, sweet but I put the picture up behind me, grandma's backyard. There was nothing like it. Her birthday was late August and just before school started and and all my cousins, all my aunts and uncles, there'd be a hundred people in her yard and, just you know, you'd start eating when you get there and you'd be walking out with a sandwich. Just in case you know, my uncle, with my uncles, would be at the barbecue. From you know, morning tonight. And I think what amazes me more about that time and I was talking, news 1959, 1960, 61 the food that came out of that tiny little kitchen, 100 degrees, you know, five, ten pounds of pasta. Well, we didn't call it pasta, I'm, we call the macaroni. Nobody said pasta back, but certainly that was it. And that's my grandmother back there in the picture, my mother's mom, and she was just a Just. She lived for her grandchildren, that's all she cared about.

Speaker 5: 1:00:00

Yeah, it's wonderful right.

Speaker 3: 1:00:04

Well, very fond memory, besides the Rocky movie, we had the feast of our lady among Carmel. It was in Melrose Park, illinois, right outside Chicago, chicago, heavy populated, italian, but like everybody went to the feast, it was called the feast and it was such a great. I mean, when I was a kid it was like ten days and then it became seven and then it became four and unfortunately but, but back then it was popular and I mean thousands of people, everybody Italian, and it was just, it was just a, it was a great memory of. Really you look forward to it, you know.

Speaker 5: 1:00:45

So that was definitely a very fine memory growing up then, Dan me, oh Well, you know, again, I have to say, just growing up, 1950s and early 60s in America Happen to be in Central New York, upstate New York. It was just such a wonderful time, just I, you know it was just playing in the street till you know it was too late. People call coming, calling you to come home, but you know, just playing outside in the street because the streets filled with kids, and then, you know, in the wintertime, playing in all the snow, just, it was such a good time. Neighborhoods were safe and and again it was populated with Jewish and Polish and German and Irish and Black and white and all kinds of people.

Speaker 5: 1:01:40

So my memories, you know, of course my best ones are when I was a kid, kind of. I mean, I've got good ones now too, of course, because I got my own kids and my own grandkids, but I'm making new ones, but yeah, it would have to be when I was a kid, just knowing that I could be free and I had no worries.

Speaker 7: 1:02:00

Yeah, I'm playing out, I do is different.

Speaker 5: 1:02:05

Oh, my mom just chimed in, dan we created oh.

Speaker 7: 1:02:11

I fried the ribbons for. That's so cute. I Was playing outside. I was thinking about when they would say if parents would say, come in when the when the street lights come on, you have to come inside, like nowadays, like what, come in.

Speaker 1: 1:02:30

They don't go outside anymore.

Speaker 6: 1:02:32

I don't see the kids in the neighborhood.

Speaker 2: 1:02:40

Well, just in case you weren't home with the street lights, you either heard the loud whistle or the yell.

Speaker 7: 1:02:48

We have a home video of my mom screaming, calling. I was like, oh gosh, these are priceless.

Speaker 8: 1:03:00

She enjoyed my childhood because my parents Created an atmosphere for me to enjoy my childhood. Number one, but number two, that something that's still. We were lucky. We were friends with chuck knocks, who's from our hometown here in swickley in Pittsburgh, and he was a football coach for the la rams buffalo bill clc hawks. Chuck was like an uncle to us and chuck was we used to call them an honorary Italian, but anyway we used to look forward to his games. That was my childhood damn in the pirates and all that. But we knew and I knew a lot of the old pirates so that was special to me. But watching chuck and the rams from 73 to 77 and uh was magical for us and and they were a great team. They didn't go all the way to the Super Bowl but that was extremely special. I appreciate all of you so much. Continue to to talk about our heritage. I know steve and I do and, um, I'm extremely passionate about it. We still have a lot of uh, young Italians out there doing special things and uh, I appreciate.

Speaker 1: 1:04:08

I take care. Cloudy knows what it takes.

Speaker 7: 1:04:10

Make you all oh, sorry, when I was talking about the last question.

Speaker 7: 1:04:13

I forgot to say something important and I don't know if you guys have done that family had done this. My grandmother had this family reunion where she would go crazy around Like the first of the year, maybe the second first, like you know a new year's day or the week after, and she would go crazy having this big party and providing everybody, like in the whole entire family and the neighbors. Upstairs there were people I thought were my cousins, that were just neighbors. I don't know if you guys had that.

Speaker 1: 1:04:44

Oh, we had. We had all kinds of strangers coming into the house. I mean, who's that? Oh, but okay, yeah.

Speaker 7: 1:04:52

Hey, listen, this is this, that was really, we have the home videos of it and I watched them over Christmas time and I was like that's another big thing besides the Easter making it. I just wanted to mention it. I forgot.

Speaker 1: 1:05:04

No, that's great and this has been certainly been a lot of fun. Before we go, frank, you want to put a plug in and Steve you want to plug? Put a plug in for your shows.

Speaker 3: 1:05:13

Oh well, thank you. Ah, so I could be heard at Italian American lifecom.

Speaker 2: 1:05:20

Frank, you got to give them more than that buddy Cause it's a great show. No again. If you can catch Italian impact weekly, go out to our website, italian impact weeklycom. Italian impact weeklycom. You can catch all of our shows on all the major streaming services. Just go to Italian impact weekly. You know, if you're on iHeart, itunes, spotify, just look Italian impact weekly. Or, like I said, go out to the website Italian impact weeklycom. A lot of great grass. I think a few of the folks on this show have been on there. That should tell you. You know it's good, because it's not just me. So thank you all very much.

Speaker 1: 1:05:52

All right, great guys Take care.