The Difference

I came home from work in a dense fog from a winter sky.  I had an awful day filled with problems and stress that made me wonder if I’d be back the next day.  It’s funny, I speak those words after every bad day, yet I go back every time.  I sat down at my kitchen table to relax and read the local paper.  The front page of the paper took me by complete surprise with a heading that I’ll never forget, “Brothers”.  The article was about a war veteran who was suffering from lung cancer and described how his family served in three world wars.  The picture showed him holding military pictures of his five brothers.  The man’s name was Dan Vizzuso and my father’s image took me by surprise.

Patsy Vizzuso was born in 1939 to two emigrates from Italy.  My Pop was the youngest of 8 children. Pop’s mother and younger brother died of pneumonia when he was just two years old.  He grew up primarily living with his father, step mother and two sisters and his closest brother Paul, with the other brothers already fighting in World War II.  He was a skinny, dark haired Italian street kid who didn’t make it through the 9th grade, when he was expelled for smoking in the bathroom!

Pop then forged his way into the army in 1954 at the young age of 16.  He served one tour in Korea as a tank driver. Upon returning home, he learned that his step mother had spent all the money he had sent home to save.  He soon went his own way into the world and met my mother.  It is so funny looking at their wedding pictures, because I looked

so much like Pop at that time in my life.  They both looked so happy.  My mother was  the prayer of an angel for my father.