La Dolce Vita
One of Tony’s greatest regrets was not learning Italian when he was young, and he often thought about it. On his 75th birthday, he just started speaking it fluently. He could not explain it but called it “spontaneous fluency” because he liked naming things so he could put them on a list.
His early life was filled with families named Passaretti, Antonelli, and Corratti, ladies named Mamie, Nellie, Angie, and Lou, and men named Vittorio, Giorgio, Sal, Antonio, and Fabrizio with nicknames like Weasel, Needle Dick, and Augie. Most of them talked fast and wore glasses that didn’t fit so they were always pushing them back to further add to the annoyance of being around them.
Tony never met a psychologist that helped anyone. He knew they were not born or bred incompetent, but the optimist in him kept the possibility that people who went to them actually cured themselves. He could not explain it but called it “spontaneous recovery” because just because he says it doesn’t make it so.
