Hello Joe

When in Palermo, on the weekends, I would sometimes walk over to the business district to see what was in the shop windows. I always followed the same path. And as I passed by a bar along the way, a fellow in a small group siting outside on wooden chairs the sidewalk would always say "Hello Joe." And sometimes in the shopping district a man walking by would say "Hello Joe."

One afternoon on the way back to the hotel, Passing the bar and "Hello Joe" I stopped to visit. "Hello Joe" offered me a chair and said "Sit down." I did and the conversation began. He asked where I was from, and when I said Lynn, Mass, He perked up and said he used to live in Pawtuckett, RI.

As the conversation progressed he raved about how good America was, and how bad Sicily was. After quite a bit of this, I asked, if Sicily was so bad, why didn't he go back to America. He looked at me with an expression of "how dumb can you be" and said he knocked off a guy on orders from the mob. They didn't have enough on him to send him to jail, so they deported him.

Well, the visit didn't last too much longer, and I went on to the hotel.

After this I was always very respectful when passing somebody on the sidewalk and he said "Hello Joe"