Chapter 20 ~ From Rome to Sicily - Italy

Sent: Mon, Oct 24, 2011 7:10 am Subject: Fwd: Memory Lane - Rome to Sicily, Italy Oct, 2011

Chapter 20

MEMORY LANE --

ROME to SICILY, ITALY OCT 1 - OCT 13, 2011

I have not found anything that I did not enjoy while roaming the streets and hills of all places visited during our southern travels in Italy from Rome to Sicily, except for one very small item that I almost hate to admit......The pizza of Italian towns except for one very small restaurant that we visited in Rome does not compare to the pizza made in New York.......New York pizza is the greatest pizza in the world and I have challenged [in writing] our Italian traveling guide in a survey presented to us, to a contest between Rome pizza and New York pizza.......Let us see if they accept this challenge in the coming days ahead of us..........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_pizza

That being said, this country I must admit is one of the most beautiful places one would like to and should visit at least once in their lifetime.......This has been our second visit at this time..........On the more serious side of our visit our guide informed us of the killing of two political figures [one in 1992] that were fighting the mafia, were eliminated from Palermo simply by blowing up the highway where the politician had been driving in 1992.......It is said that for every million dollars attributed to highway construction, $700,000 of the million dollars makes its way into organized crime in Palermo.........

New York Times - World News

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/13/world/italy-accuses-18-in-1992-slaying-of-anti-mafia-prosecutor-in-sicily.html

The scenery of all towns visited on the southern locations of Italy were without saying incredible and amazing.......We also visited the town of Mondello that was also out of this world......We have taken many pictures of many famous places and had a hard covered professional photo book made up with the help of my daughter Donna and our son-in-law Mark, of the places visited on our tour......While up in Mount Etna in Sicily I collected several small lava rocks that I will keep as a momentum along with the pictures.......One of the pictures taken of me is next to a small sign pointing to a side street in Palermo that reads, "Don Corleone".......If I ever get to learn how to upload this picture on the internet I will add that picture to the distribution along with several others....(See picture Above just recently added to this chapter)

There was quite a bit of driving involved and that in itself can be quite exhausting.......Should we ever travel to Italy again I will be certain to make it a leisure trip at one or two locations.....

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It was 1959 on February 14th, Valentines Day, when I first met my beautiful wife Elizabeth.......I had driven to this house in the Bronx at 542 Underhill Ave, built by her grandfather and was to enter the building thru the back entrance that lead me into a large room in their basement........It was a blind date arranged by my co-worker Mike and his girlfriend Adeline (Lee)........When I entered the room I was greeted by Elizabeth's family who were all seated around the room and apparently knew I was coming to meet their young daughter.....When I stepped into the room I immediately knew who Elizabeth's mom was as they had the same eyes and looked somewhat like twins......The rest of the ten or so people in the room were all relatives of Elizabeth's and were all there as a typical Italian family would be on a cold winters night......After saying our hellos we stepped out to go on our date with Mike and Adeline (Lee) into the wintry evening........

I later found out that Elizabeth was six years my junior at a young age of seventeen and at the time thought to myself of her as jail bait as was described of females under the age of eighteen years old.......But one week later Elizabeth would turn eighteen years of age so I continued to date and see her......On October 7, 1961 we would be married and spend our honeymoon in Puerto Rico and later move to Sunnyside Queens in New York.......If one were to do the math between marriage and the current Sicily trip one would than understand the reason for this trip......We celebrated our Fiftieth Golden Anniversary with my brother Vito and his wife Shelly and two Louisiana sisters that happened to be on this Italian Tour with us at the hotel we were staying at on this wonderful evening.......[also a Canadian couple named Carmen and Carol that we later would meet that evening]......

When we first were married on October 7, 1961 we had found a nice apartment in a Sunnyside, Queens apartment building where unbeknown to us, Elizabeth's Aunt Grace Raimo and Uncle Gus Raimo [ See Chapter 17 ] also co-incidentally lived.....I can recall the worried look on Elizabeth's uncles face as they too were also somewhat newly weds with a young son called Robert, but over the months that followed we became close and would enjoy each others company from time to time with visits to their or our apartment....Later at the birth of our first daughter Donna in 1965 Aunt Grace and Uncle Gus would become Donna's God Parents...

This would also be the town where Joe Spinell and his mother lived approximately one block away.....We would see Joe Spinell on occasion visiting his sister Grace and would visit with them or at Joe's apartment where Graces mother also lived with her son......Grace's mom would also appear in several films herself such as the Rodney Dangerfield movie called "Easy Money" that was filmed in Staten Island...Whenever she would appear in a film part, they would always pick her up with a stretch limo.....

On many, many occasions we would all meet at Nancy's home (mother-in-law) for a typical Sunday dinner with Pasta, Meat Balls and many other Italian goodies including Wine to wash it all down....In attendance the usual suspects at that dinner would be Nancy, Jimmy, Grace, Gus, Robert, Liz and myself...Depending on circumstances and the years that would pass there might also be many others in attendance that would enjoy this traditional meal.....

Pictures of Joe Spinell

Joe Spinell

The Internet Movie Database - Filmography

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0818874/

As you may or may not know both Joe and Uncle Gus would have interesting parts in "The Godfather film" that would come out in 1972.......When Joe and Gus went to audition for this film I was asked to accompany them to a Manhattan building where this audition for "The Godfather" would take place.......Later when the filming of The Godfather wedding scene would take place in our home town of Staten Island my family and I were invited to view the filming of this marvelous event back around 1971 (See Chapter 17 by clicking on this link http://www.americantorque.com/page/0/2379/).......I had read the book that the film was based on only because the reviews were so over whelming at the time as it concerned the mysteries of the intriguing organized crime families or if you will the mafia........Nancy my mother-in-law had a neighbor in the Bronx who was married to the writer of this book Mario Puzo........This neighbor would also knit sweaters for my two daughters Dina and Donna back in the late 60ties and also for Elizabeth.....

Godfather Book Mario Puzo - Author http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Puzo

Recently my oldest daughter Donna located a Documentary Film Directed by David Gregory in the year 2001 that was not seen by the public and only recently placed on Youtube about one month ago........In this film clip you will see Aunt Grace make reference to her sister-in-law who was Elizabeth's mom Nancy........Until the viewing of this film clip the public including myself was not aware that after Marlon Brando the second highest paid actor in "The Godfather" was Joe Spinell.......The film clip is about 49 minutes long but gives more insight into the life and times of Joe Spinell who has appeared in many various films thru out his career........

In my personal opinion this film clip could and should also have concentrated more on Joe Spinell's accomplished work such as "The Godfather" (1972) trilogy series, "Brubaker" (1980), "Night Hawks" (1981), and many other Films where his acting was of a more serious and artistic nature....I have made the attempt to add some of that material below in order to show some of what was missing from Joe's documentary.....This clip is for adult viewing only, due to the nature of its content......

Joe Spinell Documentary by Director David Gregory (2001) - Aunt Grace Raimo (Joe Spinnel's sister) can be seen in this interview at the beginning of the film...

http://youtu.be/eqjvWjB8HOY

**** ************* SOME INTERESTING SIDE NOTES *******************

* When Joe Spinell passed away it was Uncle Gus who was called to the scene at the apartment, but later would not speak of the site, as I recall, as it was very disturbing in nature.....

* During a gathering of family and friends at a wake for Joe Spinell's brother, I can recall Joe asking me to later meet with him on some future date, to teach him how to make a mold of a human head, (that I had self-taught myself - See first photo below) in order to produce a likeness of a persons head....We never did get to meet for some reason or other and this educational process never occurred...After Joe's passing I always wondered if the reason for Joe's inquiry to produce a head was for his later film called "Maniac" (1980) that he was the Producer of and also had the starring role in it...(See first and only sculptured Ceaser photo below along with a photo of Joe Spinnel with a reproduced likeness of himself, followed by a video of Tom Savino explaining the reproduced head used for the "Maniac" film).....

* Just before I met my wife, It was Joe Spinell's brother Billy that took her to her High School Prom when she graduated at age 17....One day with her permission I hope to post a photo of that occurrence.....

In his film role in "Farewell, My Lovely" (1975) Joe played a character called 'Nick'....(Co-Incident...?)

* Although I am currently unable to document this fact I had read somewhere that it was Bob Hope who suggested to Joe Spagnuolo that he change his last name to Spinell.....

* Sylvester Stallone and Aunt Grace (Joe Spinell's sister) are the Godparents of Joe's daughter who is currently still amongst the missing from a very young age.....Today on November 19, 2014 I have further been advised that Joe Spinell was also the Godfather to one of Mr Stallone's sons (Sage Stallone).....

* Aunt Grace and Uncle Gus are the Godparents of my daughter Donna. ( In the future, a photo of this event will be installed ).....

* Adeline who arranged our blind date over 50 years ago, along with Mike my co-worker, has recently been in touch with Elizabeth on Facebook and currently resides in Florida.......A copy of Chapter 20 has been fowarded to her several months ago for her viewing.....Hope she enjoys it as much as I enjoyed writing it......

* Elizabeth believes there may be a factual error in the content of this writing and the "Joe Spinell Documentary" film...........

* Last night Elizabeth and I viewed the film "Gladiator" which had a new meaning to us as we walked amongst the Roman Coliseum and the Roman Forum while in Italy....There is a possible sequel in the works for the "Gladiator" film written by Nick Cave.....Today (July 14, 2013) I saw the script as so many others may have too...

* In wikipedia's 'History of Pizza' under 'Pizza in the United States' Totonno's grandson is my neighbor and resides but a few feet from my home...... In 1924, Totonno left Lombardi's to open his own pizzeria on Coney Island called Totonno's...... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totonno%27s

Also while the original Lombardi's closed its doors in 1984, it was reopened in 1994 just down the street and is run by Lombardi's grandson. Another quirky incident is that my chiropractor's great grandfather also worked at Lombardi's pizzeria than left to start his own restaurant now know as the famous 'Patsy's Pizzeria' where Frank Sinatra and the "Rat Pack" would frequently attend...Frank would always say that it was the best pizzeria around....It sure is a small world.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patsy%27s_Pizzeria

Nick.......October, 2011