The Fighter Pilot From Calabria

      The Mayor was visiting with a local friend this afternoon, talking about wine and this year's crop potential.  A friend of the friend happened by, actually a neighbor from down the street a few doors.  Friend Bob introduced us-this is Phil.   He's 96 years old!  Phil laughs, and admits to 85; but he looks younger.   Phil is retired and lives with his second wife in a house he built about 20 years ago on 6 acres.
     Bob and Phil and their wives have been friends for 10 years or so, enjoying meals out together, and just with the boys(they each have sons).   In time Phil admits to being an immigrant, landing in America as a child of 8 in 1937.   Where did his family hail from?  Southern Italy, on the arid west coast, south of Naples.   Times were tough for all Italians as Mussolini's Fascists were on the move, making expansionist forays into East Africa, enlisting settlers to move to the new "Italian Empire".
     His family had had enough.  So, it was off to San Francisco where he was raised in North Beach, aka Little Italy.  With Anglo Rossi as Mayor then, Italians were well respected. A.P. Giannini was expanding his Bank of Italy which became Bank of America.
     So, little Phil became an American.  After 4 years at Galileo High School, Phil joined the US Navy where he learned to fly as a fighter pilot in the famous F4U Corsair, the distinctive gull winged combat veteran that flew off carriers against Japan.  Now, the Navy was focused on the Korean war.  A truce was signed before Phil was deployed and he was discharged.  He then took on college with the GI Bill and went to Stanford for undergrad and an MBA finishing in 1956.  He then went to work for the next 40 years for PG&E.
     He returned to his hometown in 1985: Verbicaro(CS), Prov. Calabria.  He found his old home and in a moment of amazing luck, found the woman who delivered him, at home, in 1929.  She was a spry 97 and recognized him immediately!
     Phil owns a little vineyard back in the "Old Country" but is looking to sell.   Not much interest anymore.  By coincidence, Phil's home town was the same hometown of the mayor's grandparents.
What a small world.  Phil spends time with his family and has a nice machine shop set up in his garage where he works in metals, creating artworks, ranch projects, and general tinkering.   Phil is very possibly the only Stanford grad from Calabria.  Nice story.