Dear Readers:
The "Italian Connection" has been around over three decades (1977-2009) and since November is the traditional month to give thanks for our blessings, here is a big "Grazie a Dio" for fun had and friends "met" via this space.
I also will share news clips and happy memories culled from the 1977 pages of L'Italo-Americano with you. How far we've come In 1977, the closing November prices for the U.S. dollar in Italian lire...875. By 1997, closing prices for the U.S. dollar in Italian lire...1,697. Today, 2009, closing prices for the U.S. dollar in Euro is .67 cents. Dollarwise, "Dolce Vita" these days are not.
Looking back, my page-mate in 1997 was John R. Privitelli (The Privitelli Report). In 1977, my page-mate was Mannie Pineda, who wrote "Sportingly Yours". Both deal with "games" that are no sure thing. Here is a sampling of 1977 sport stories with Italian connections: In 1977 belittlers could not make up their minds if it was more difficult for Pete Rose to maintain his consecutive game hitting streak than was the case for Joe DiMaggio. But the records spoke for themselves when the Cincinnati star was stopped at 44 straight games as against DiMaggio's 56.
Among congratulatory letters sent to Rose was one from Dom DiMaggio, who hit in 34 straight contests. Rose was born the same year Joe made his record - 1941. Hamburger king Ray Kroc finally said the San Diego Padres, who had been burning up the National League for some time, were his team. The owner, who purchased the Padres in 1974, before claimed the Pads were ex-GM Buzzie Bavasi's team.
Sal Barido aided Milwaukee's surge in the American League to menace the front-running Boston Red Sox with his timely hitting. John (The Count) Montefusco finally came through with his eighth win of the season on a seven-hitter that did in Houston 4-2, yet it was only Montefusco's third com- plete game of the season for the league-leading San Francisco Giants.
This is how it all began:
In 1977, I was living in Northern California, unaware of the weekly L'Italo-Americano publication. (The unification of two newspaper, L'Eco d'Italia of San Francisco and L'Italo- Americano of Los Angeles became effective January 1, 1980). It was only by chance that a non-Italian friend perusing his roommate's copy of L'Italo- Americano in Los Angeles, spotted an item and sent it to me about Jeno F. Paulucci launching the "Council of 1,000."
The article read, in part: "Noted industrialist Jeno F. Paulucci of Duluth, Minnesota, will be in Los Angeles on June 22 to host a luncheon at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and dis- cuss the idea of an Advisory Council of 1,000 for Italian Americans, as well as the pur- pose of the Italian American Foundation of Washington, D.C., of which he is chairman of the board." My father, Vincenzo, always said, "If Italians could stick together, good things could hap- pen for everybody." This "Council of 1,000" sounded like a big step in that direction, so I flew down to Los Angeles.
Arriving at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, I stopped at a table outside the Grand Trianon Room and was greatly relieved to find that Signor Paulucci's assistant, Joe Nardi, had deliv- ered the required invitation, and I was welcome to watch the "NIAF Council of 1,000" lift off. I walked into a grand, ornate room, filled with a sea of suits and a blur of unfamiliar faces busy networking. Dino Bolognese (che aveva gentil- mente offerto il vino) stopped for a moment to dispense a bit of that highly touted "Eye-talian" warmth.
Before taking his leave to oversee that the wine his company donated was properly serviced, Dino introduced me to Cleto Baroni, retired nephew of L'Italo-Americano founder, Gabriello Spini. Six years after founding L'Italo-Americano in 1908, Spini felt he needed help. He summoned to America his nephew, Cleto Baroni, a Florentine like himself, who was then studying letters at the University of Bologna. Not yet 18 years old, Cleto Baroni arrived in Los Angeles in 1914.
Spini had much confidence and esteem in his nephew and made him co-editor in 1924. In 1933, he left the whole responsibility for and ownership of L'Italo-Americano to Baroni. After we were introduced, Signor Baroni led me by the hand from the back of the room to a front row table. After a few moments of "gee whizzing," I looked around my table as Signor Baroni graciously introduced me to everyone, including the lunch bunch at surrounding tables.
Following the introductions, I found myself in a conversation with Mario Trecco, who in February 1971, had become the editor of L'Italo-Americano when the Scalabrini Fathers took over its full responsibility. It soon became clear that many Italian American organizations did their thing, unaware that a few miles away, another Italian American organization existed.
My conversation with editor Trecco indicated a channel of communication was needed between Southern and Northern California. Before lunch was over, Jeno Paulucci had signed up a new National Council of 1,000 members and L'Italo- Americano had a new columnist with "news from Northern California" by Maria Gloria.
In September 1977, as a roving reporter with camera in hand, I sent in my first News from Northern California. It was about a benefit concert presented by the Italian American Friends of the Oakland Symphony, a pops orchestra with Henry Mancini as the guest conductor at the Paramount Theater in Oakland, followed by a reception honor- ing Mancini at Oakland's Lake Merritt Hotel. And that is how your "Italian Connection" column got started and God willing, with a little "buona salute" will continue for another decade or two.
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More November notes with an Italian connection: Airmail, when thrown out of a passing aircraft is called "dropped mail." The dispersion of messages or leaflets from aircraft has fre- quently been used during wartime. The intended recipients are usually the general pop- ulation of a city or area in enemy territory. If the goal is to deliver a message to a large number of unspecified people, leaflets are very effective.
Considering that radio, tele- vision, newspapers and other forms of mass communication in the target area are usually controlled by the enemy, flying over the territory and dropping leaflets can be most effective in getting the message to many people at once. Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863- 1938) a poet and patriot was famous for flying over enemy- held territory and dropping messages to his countrymen.
During WWI, the Astro- Hungarians occupied some Italian territory in the northeastern part of the country. The only way the Italians could quickly send messages to large numbers of their countrymen in the occupied areas was by dropping messages from aircraft.
Italian authorities were particularly concerned about the morale of the people in the occupied territories. Leaflets with encouraging messages were sometimes dropped to give their Italian brothers and sisters hope and to boost morale. D'Annunzio flew over Austrian occupied Trieste on November 4, 1916 and dropped Italian tricolor leaflets, which extolled the recent victory of the Italians on the river Carso front, and said that 10,000 Austrians were taken prisoner along with a brigadier general and 12 cannons, munitions and horses. The leaflet encouraged the Triestines to take heart, for the Italians said they would soon free them from their suffering, but it was not until 1919 that Trieste and its hinterland was annexed to Italy. After the war, D'Annunzio became the dictator of the city of Fiume (today Rijeka, Croatia).
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Bozelli, an engineer from Genoa, was to chocolate what Ford was to automobiles. Accomplished Italian candy- makers started using chocolate as an ingredient very early on and established themselves as leading experts in the art of making fine chocolates. In 1884, when the Russian Czar commissioned from the jeweler Faberge his first golden egg with its surprise filling of precious stones, Italian producers introduced what may have been the first chocolate Easter eggs containing a surprise gift, the "sorpresa."
The Italian chocolate industry is centered around Turin in Piedmont and Perugia in Umbria. Production on a com- mercial level developed in the early nineteenth century when Bozelli designed a machine capable of producing over 660 pounds of chocolate per day. By the end of the century, the industry was booming.
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Caffarel, Pier Paolo, a "Piedmontesi", was a "premia- to" pioneer in Italy's chocolate industry. In 1826, the upheaval and horrors of Napoleon's wars had recently ended in Europe and a peaceful silence was restored in the Piedmont region of Italy. The capital of the Savoy kingdom was Turin, a small city of 90,000 people that was isolated by the majestic and impassable Alps. It had not yet become the frenetic center of industrial, commercial and financial activity it is today.
There existed a very small factory, tannery, to be exact, located on the green fields of the Valdocco area in Turin. The minute plant had no electrical power, but it was equipped with a paddle wheel powered by water from the Pellerina canal. Pier Paulo Caffarel, the new owner, converted his small tannery into a workshop and from that moment on, only chocolate would be produced in the factory.
There are several long-established firms in northern Italy. These include Caffarel, Baratti & Milano, from the Turin area, and Perugina (now owned by Nestle) from Perugia, makers of the famous "Baci" (kisses) chocolates.
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