Nonno's Eulogy

He had character and was a character.

After writing about Nonno’s passing I’d like to spend some time talking about his life.

Nonno's Passing

Nonno definitely had a love for life! Lucky for me, making his stories funny is easy because Nonno was a character. No joke, he is one of the funniest people I have ever met.

Nonno is the Italian word for grandpa. He was a 100% Italian-American child born from the great influx of Italian immigrants who fled Italy to escape poverty. The oldest male of three kids, relatives called him primo qualità! (prime quality) Nonno loved Italian culture. I would die of jealousy when he mentioned the food and handmade Italian goods that he had growing up.

He attended college at the University of Illinois. There he found two lifelong passions: civil engineering and my Nonna. After he graduated, he married her immediately and entered the military. We joke that he left the military as soon as possible because taking orders wasn’t in his DNA.

He and Nonna settled down in the South Side of Chicago. All of Nonno’s relatives lived nearby. Anyone could stop in at any time. It was like Everybody Loves Raymond on steroids. My mom and her siblings loved it.

Eventually Nonno grew tired of dealing with Chicago and left for Indiana. They went on to have a large family of 12 children, 70 grandchildren, and 55+ great grandchildren. A family friend joked, “He gave birth to a nation.”

Nonno had a hilarious sense of humor. It must have been genetic because all his relatives are hilarious. (I honestly think my entire family has a good sense of humor.) His mom, my bisnonna (great grandma), was also a huge character. One of her sayings was, “I’d rather have a good hamburger than a bad steak!” She also called me “her little German” because: 1. my dad is German 2. When I was running around with my cousins as a toddler, I stopped to fix the fold in the carpet which she thought was hilarious. (The German fastidiousness must be genetic. It is very unlike the Italian, spontaneous way of life.)

Nonno loved working in construction. Right up until his death, Nonno was still doing structural designs for clients. He even learned how to use a computer and construction software. Quite a feat for a 91 year old!

Nonno’s humor could be very biting and off beat. The type of humor that comes so unexpectedly the laugh rips itself out of your mouth before you have time to react. He was one of those people who not only said hilarious things, but did hilarious things. Sometimes you couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or not.

Without further adieu, here are some funny Nonno stories.

Funny Nonno Stories

Ice Cream Thief

When I was a kid, my mom told me that Nonno would tell her, “Look there is a deer outside!”, and when you looked for it, he would steal a scoop of your ice cream. When she said that, I thought back to a couple days ago and said, “He just did that to me! I thought my ice cream looked smaller!”

The Broken Car

He was definitely a troublemaker when he was young! Nonno and his friend Gunzy’s parents threw them out of the house so they would stop annoying the adults. Naturally they started having fun. Fun unfortunately in this case involved climbing up the rumble seat in the back of Gunzy’s parent’s new car, bouncing on to the roof, and sliding down the front windshield. After several runs, when Gunzy was sliding across the leather top it suddenly gave way and he fell through the hole. They stood there dumbfounded that they just punched a hole in the car roof.

Instead of stopping, they changed the game. They just opened the car doors and ran to the rumble seat, went down the hole, and out the doors again. This made the hole larger and larger. When the parents came outside, they were aghast. Nonno and Gunzy got the spankings of their life. (One of many!)

Track and Field

Everyone, including me, who ran track in our family has had Nonno say to them, “Why did you sign up to run in circles?” or “You know I run all the time. In fact, last night I ran to the bathroom!”

Dancing Fiend

Nonno LOVED to dance. He and his Chicago friends would crash Polish weddings to eat and dance their hearts out. If anyone saw them, they would assume they were invited because everyone there knew them. In fact, Nonno danced at every wedding he attended right up until the very end. It didn’t matter how messed up his knees or artificial hip were, Nonno ALWAYS had energy for the dance floor.

Destroyer of Sports Practices

As a man who had to manage 12 kids, Nonno knew time is a tyrant, so therefore he also became a tyrant for time. When coaches said practice ended at a certain time, Nonno would be looking at his watch. When the time hit, kids and coaches were surprised to see an adult standing in the middle of the basketball court! Nonno just pointed to his kid and they walked off the court. Practice usually broke up after that.

Canning Tomatoes

Every year he used his engineering mind and near limitless work force (ie. children and grandchildren) to can and puree the bushels of tomatoes from his garden. Nonno got his money’s worth from his squeezo straino! Everyone had a job right down to the children like me. I remember playing in soapy water, I mean… cleaning and rinsing tomatoes for the adults. People would clear their calendars for this event. It was half chore, half festival and Nonno got a shelf full of canned tomatoes for pasta sauce.

The Boy Scouts

Needless suffering (especially in the food department) was not Nonno’s cup of tea. When my uncle Al joined the Boy Scouts, Nonno made his own pancake batter because he couldn’t take the ready-made mix they used. When he started churning out pancakes for all the scouts, it made him pretty popular!

Nonno also wasn’t a fan of roughing it in the wilderness. Instead of roasting weenies and sleeping in a tent with the scouts, he visited his father-in-law and had a full Italian meal and slept in a comfortable bed. The next day, he showed up to the campsite invigorated!

Suburban Adrenaline Junkie

During the pandemic, my family was living with Nonno and Nonna while our kitchen was being remodeled. (Let’s just say, we didn’t suffer. With the cooking powers of two families combined, every meal was like a 5 course meal that would make an Italian king drool.)

Nonno had a habit of inventing reasons to go to the store and get out of the house. (I am convinced he was an adrenaline junkie but only in the way a suburbanite can appreciate.)

The winter during the pandemic was bad. It snowed almost every day and it wasn’t unusual to see multiple cars that had slid off the road. My dad would offer to pick up groceries to protect him from the virus and snow. He called Nonno to ask him what fish he wanted since it was Friday. The conversation went like this:

Dad: Hey Dad! (Nonno) I’m near the store. Do you want me to pick up some fish?

Nonno: No don’t worry about it.

Dad: But aren’t we having fish tonight?

Nonno: Yeah.

Dad: It’s no problem. I’d be happy to pick it up.

Nonno: No it won’t work.

Dad: Why?

Nonno: You don’t know what I want.

Fad Diets

Nonno loved fad diets. He’s probably tried every diet anyone can think of and then some. Nonno was very smart at business and could sniff out a con artist a mile away. That is unless it came to dieting. Often he’d hand me an advertisement and ask me to buy the special pill or herb that would make fat fall off him without doing anything. I would think in my head, “Is this the same person?”

God bless my Nonna for accommodating his kooky weight loss schemes. He tried low carb, low fat, low sugar, keto, and on and on. Often his weight loss schemes would be sprung instantaneously on the family. One day he’s getting thirds for dinner, the next he doesn’t understand why everyone is trying to feed him bread! Don’t they know he’s got to get this weight off!

Speaking of diets…

Weight Loss Contest

One time he was younger, he had a 2 week weight loss contest with my Aunt Maria. They weighed in with their bathrobes on and stepped on the scale. Both recorded their weight and the contest began. Aunt Maria weighed all her food and skipped all the desserts. Meanwhile Nonno was having second helpings. He was eating dessert! Everyone thought he was crazy!

When it came time to weigh in, Aunt Maria stepped on the scale. She had lost a lot of weight. Then came time for Nonno. He stepped on the scale… He lost more weight than her! The entire family was dumbfounded.

After Aunt Maria came back with the money for the bet, Nonno revealed his secret… He put jars of cream in his bathrobe the first time they weighed in! Everyone went crazy and Nonno paid up.

The Morals of Weight Loss

Nonno was talking to me and my brother about how some people can try to live so healthy that their life becomes miserable. The conversation went like this:

Nonno: I had a relative once who lived through the Great Depression and went to the doctor for a health checkup. The doctor said, “We are looking at your stats and you really need to lose weight. If you don’t you will probably die of a heart attack.”

So my relative asked him, “Ok. How do I do that?”

The doctor told him, “Well you have to stop drinking wine, smoking cigars, and eating carbs like pasta.”

Naturally my relative was furious! He told him, “YOU CAN GO TO HELL!!! I survived the Great Depression and now that I have enough money to eat and drink what I want, you’re telling me I have to stop???”

Me: So did he die of a heart attack?

Nonno: Yup.

My brother: Is there any moral to this story?

Nonno: Not really.

Nonno and Nonna’s 70th Anniversary 2024