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An Italian Nice Guy
By David Robert Crews
Tony was a nice little Italian immigrant man who came
up, from New Jersey, to hunt Black Bears at the Maine
hunting lodge where I worked guiding bear hunters. He
was there on a one week trip with a six-man party of
Italian guys from New Jersey and New York. I learned a
lot about him that week from his hunting buddies, from
what he talked about and by the way that he handled
himself.
If you have seen an average number of movies and TV
shows in your lifetime, then you’ve seen Tony’s type of
Italian man characterized in a few of them. He was small
in physical stature but humongous in heart. He worked
hard everyday and gave his customers at the junkyard
that he owned, in New Jersey, a square deal most every
time.
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He was generous to low-income folks who were looking for
good used vehicle parts at his junkyard. He gave them a
break on the prices of parts if he figured that they
were in a tight spot and needed their vehicle running to
be able to go to work and take care of their family.
Tony told a group of us guys sitting around the
breakfast table in the Lodge with him one morning that
at times professional mechanics came into his place for
used parts. If they were wise-asses and tried to steal
from or cheat him in any way or if an individual bragged
about ripping off the general public, then Tony would
charge the rip-off mechanic a hefty price for parts. The
mechanic could either take it or leave it and do his
business elsewhere.
Tony loved his family as much as any man who ever lived.
When he married his wife it was strictly for love. They
each found the other to be immensely attractive.
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His wife was a sweet Italian girl who was born and
raised in the USA, and she never let poor Tony forget
that. Any argument between the two of them that she
wanted to end, whether she was winning or not, ended
with her saying to her immigrant husband, who was a
naturalized American citizen, “There’s ships going back
to the old country everyday.”
She grew up in a rough New York neighborhood. She had a
keen sense of when a neighbor needed her help and when
to look the other way.
Tony said that she was the best business partner a man
could want. She knew how to run the business office of
the junkyard and how to make a good, honest profit.
One of Tony’s hunting buddies told me that Tony’s wife
couldn’t cook worth a crap, but Tony didn’t complain
about it and was quite defensive of her, when his family
mentioned her lack of kitchen skills. It appeared to me
that Tony preferred salami sandwiches served with love
to a full Italiano meal dished up without love by a wife
who didn’t care about him or the business that he worked
hard at everyday to put food on the table.
Tony’s kids couldn’t get enough of their Pop, when he
was at home. To them he was gentle, understanding and
world wise. He disciplined his kids fairly but firmly,
because he knew what it takes to make it in this
sometimes-harsh world.
He treated all the kids in his neighborhood good, and he
enjoyed watching them play. He was first off of the
front porch to be a referee anytime that some kids’
argument got too mean and nasty or it progressed to a
physical fight. In the late 1940s, the 1950s and early
1960s, when Tony was a maturing young man, sometimes
adults let a fair fight roll on out to the end. They
knew that sometimes it was better to let two evenly
matched combatants get it out of their system right away
by having it out with each other - when someone was
there to see that it didn’t go too far. That was better
than to let their anger fester till they did something
uncalled for with a deadly weapon or something. But if
the fight weren’t near at all reasonable, he broke it up
and tried to talk it all over with the individuals and
have them declare a permanent peace treaty. Several
times he made it possible for kids who woulda’ never
gotten to have fun with each other again to become good
friends for life. And he had provided that service for a
few grown-ups too in his time.
Tony had lived with the brutal devastation of World War
Two all around him as a young teenager living in Italy
at the time, and he was grateful for all that God had
given him.
On Tony’s first day out in the woods on the bear hunt, a
hefty black bruin came walking into his bear bait.
We hunting guides had placed Tony behind a nice, big
fallen down tree where he could see the bait clearly
while hiding from being seen by any bear that might come
by for a meal of the slaughterhouse leftovers that we
used as bait. Wild Maine Black Bears are very skittish.
They skiddadle at the first sight, sound or smell of a
human in the woods, but they rarely ever attack any
human, so we placed our hunters near baits but in a tree
stand or on the ground in a concealed spot.
When that bruin came walking into Tony’s bait, Tony saw
it and brought his 30-30 Cal. lever action Winchester up
to firing position, aimed in the direction of the hungry
bruin and pulled on the trigger. Nothing happened.
Tony had loaded his rifle when he went into the woods,
then levered a round into its chamber and dropped the
hammer from firing position down to safety position, as
he should have done, in order to hunt safely. But he got
so shook-up when he saw the bear, he forgot to cock the
rifle’s hammer back again so that it could be fired.
Tony pulled and pulled and pulled on the rifle’s
trigger, but it didn’t shoot. He kept glancing down at
his quiet, unresponsive, non-firing gun and back at the
bear. The bear kept coming and the gun’s trigger started
to bend from the pressure of Tony’s strong,
hard-working-blue-collar-guy grip. His hands and arms
were quite powerful as the result of working hard for
many years using hand tools to remove parts from junked
vehicles for resale.
As the bear got closer to Tony, he became sure that it
was intending to eat him and not the bait. When he
glanced down and saw that the trigger was now bent
sideways and sticking out the side of the trigger guard
he gave up, stood up and threw the rifle at the bear. He
screamed prayers and obscenities off into the woods and
ran down towards the closest road as the bear ran back
up into the woods with equal fervor. The bear may have
mumbled a few growls about missing out on a good meal
but Tony only heard his own various vocal emissions.
That was enough bear hunting to last Tony for his
lifetime. He spent the rest of that week hanging around
the Lodge being a pleasant guest to have. No one cared
that he didn’t hunt anymore, because all knew that it
isn’t for everyone. He never hid his newfound,
overpowering fear of bears in the woods, and we all at
the Lodge respected the way that he handled his personal
limitations.
We all have our fears and limitations. You may be afraid
of the woods at night, I see the nighttime woods as
being calm and comfortable, but I’m seriously afraid of
heights. Our personal fears and limitations are no big
deal if we work it out together and you do well what you
do best in life. I do the same, and we respect each
other for doing our best.
Tony took little walks up into the woods behind the
Lodge every day. He never went far into the woods, about
as far as a city park is wide, but he thoroughly enjoyed
himself.
On one of his short walks he saw an interesting wild
mushroom growing down on the forest floor. He thought
that he recognized it from what he had learned about
mushrooms as a child helping his grandfather gather
edible mushrooms back in Italy. But he knew that so many
types of poisonous mushrooms look similar to edible ones
that complete knowledge of a mushroom’s edibility is
necessary before eating it.
Tony bent down to take a good look at the underside of
the mushroom’s cap just to see the details of it. He was
careful not to touch it too much, as he didn’t want any
poisonous stuff on his hands. He placed his knuckles
against the moist, cool ground and lifted the mushroom’s
cap, with one fingertip, just enough to see the
underside of it. All of a sudden, a tiny baby chipmunk
ran from under the dead leaves on the forest floor and
right into the palm of Tony’s hand.
Oh my, was he ever pleased to see that! He thought that
it was a wonderful tiny critter who musta’ been lost
from its momma and was in need of someone to take care
of it. Right away he decided that it would make a good
pet for his kids. He brought the baby chipmunk into the
Lodge to show it to everyone there. He glowed with
sincere gentleness as he held the tiny critter in the
partially cupped palm of his hand.
Then Tony took the baby chipmunk with him out to his
sleeping cabin, laid down on his bed and had a nap with
it held warmly in his cupped hand. When Tony awoke a
little while later the chipmunk was laying on the bed
with Tony’s hand cupped over it like a small tent and
the baby chipmunk had its chin resting on Tony’s thumb
and it was looking straight into Tony’s eyes when they
opened. Them two disparate creatures made a solid
spiritual connection.
Tony saw that the tiny creature was indeed relying on
him for its protection and a good start in life. The
next thought that came into Tony’s mind was that the
baby chipmunk would not live a good life if it was kept
in a small cage, while being pestered by a bunch of
caring, curious kids down in New Jersey. He knew the
critter had to go back into the woods to live wild and
free, so he took it back to where he found it and let it
go.
And everyone at the Lodge enjoyed knowing that he did
what was right.
David Robert Crews
2727 Liberty Pkwy.
Dundalk, Md.
21222
ursusdave@hotmail.com
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