Italian fathers and their daughters, remembering Daddy!

I was emailing my cousin this week about the Italian soccer team and why we love those Italian boys and realized that when I first pondered the topic nearly a year ago, I promised one reader that I would get back to them on Italian Dads and their daughters.  I never did.

Since this is Father’s Day weekend and I’ve been missing my Dad an awful lot lately, I thought it was the perfect time to remember the man who taught me everything about throwing a slider, to buying a car, to saving for a rainy day…..not to mention the fact that boys really do run and hide when a Dad drives up in a big black Cadillac.

My Dad was raised by a strict Calabrese father and as such, you would imagine that he would be just as strict.  He was for the most part (just ask my high school boyfriend!).  Yet, when a daughter is born (and my Dad had three of them), so too is a marshmallow.  He was tough in his discipline but soft and squishy on the inside.  He had an acerbic wit which could often sting but not one day went by when he didn’t make me laugh, even when Alzheimer’s had ravaged his left brain ability to think clearly.  His turquoise blue eyes would sparkle, indicating he was about to become Peck’s Bad Boy and someone else (usually one of us) would be the brunt of his joke.

Italian Dads, or at least Italian-American Dads, and their daughters, of a certain generation, wanted us to be self-sufficient but at the same time dependent.  A strange blend which has taken me many, many years to balance.

They want you to be able to fix a faulty faucet and pay your own bills but they want you to need them as well because that is when they rise to the occasion to help you.  You see, we girls all learn our first lessons about the male species from our Dads, be they good or bad or anywhere in between.

My Dad always knew I could take care of myself on the streets of New York as a reporter, yet he always suggested I yield a bit to the “boy/man” in my life who might want to help me.  He explained that sometimes an insecure man might not feel you need him if you are too independent and he was right.  “Let him change your tire or paint your house, even though I taught you how to do it better,” he would say.  That may be the only way they know  how to say they love you.

"Mangia Bene" by Alfred Fantino

My Dad was all about the left brain as a wonderful architect (which I’ve written about before) but he had a great imagination too because he was an amazing artist.  One of my favorite paintings of his hangs in my house now.  He painted it years ago, maybe as long as 25 years ago.  Yet, it was just this week that I only just realized that there is a cat’s tail sticking out of the Nonna’s dress.  You can’t see anything but the tail but there it is.  I guess it was my Dad’s way of letting me know that I might not be able to see him but he’s still always there.

I’m thinking of you Daddy – by the way, the Yankees are in first place now and Boston trails by 3.