A True Story, by Accident

A Tribute to My Oldest Brother, Giuseppe

Introduction

Let me tell you about a remarkable story that took place 25 years ago. I had a flight to South of Italy (I think it was to Calabria) and since I was in Rome Termini airport I bought the ticket directly to Calabria, and in the airport waiting for my plane on a terrible weather day - there was rain and hail - so most of the planes were delayed. Suddenly, the loud speaker said my plane would be delayed for two hours. Everybody was upset but I had a book with me so I wasn't too upset and sitting there wondering what I'm going to do. A man came by looking for a seat as all the seats were taken. I looked at him and said, "Oh my God, he looks just like my brother Giuseppe: tall, handsome, dark suit, hat, red tie, and a lot of self-confidence". In fact, it was the identical hat of my brother Giuseppe, dark blue color and he had a confident way of walking and looking around and the way he moved. I smiled as I couldn't help but think of my brother and we caught eyes and the man said, "Are you looking at me?". I said "Yes, you remind me of my oldest brother." And he replied "Oh, what's your brother's name?" Giuseppe, I said and he said how incredible as my name is Giuseppe also!

So I stood up and shook hands with him and said my name is Gino. We said hello and I asked if I can invite him for a coffee or drink at the airport as we had 2 hours to kill. We sat and started talking and he said, "Tell me about your brother". I told him my brother started a business from nothing and with his great tenacity and courage he supported all of us and gave us a chance to go to universities and able to choose the profession we wanted. So he smiled, he said how strange as I started the same way as my father was not well as he had a small shop in downtown in the south of Italy and I started a business and was able to finish school and started to help my father's business on evenings and saturdays while going to school.

He told me his whole story on his success and then on the loudspeaker the announcement that the plane was boarding soon. I wasn't able to tell him the full story of my brother Giuseppe and that I hoped to tell him the full story one day. He said you can count on it. He gave me his business card and went on the plane and left.

25 years later...

Since I had a new project in pre-insulated ducting, a new technology worldwide, I was so busy for the next 25 years traveling worldwide thruout the middle East (saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi,) and many African countries, I forgot about Giuseppe. When the coronavirus epidemic started in Italy and spread thruout Europe and US, my brother Giuseppe got sick one day in Beirut as all my siblings are spread thruout the world (Italy, Romania, Greece, San Francisco, Detroit), we were all very worried about Giuseppe as he was in his mid-80s. Getting the virus was very scary for us so we discussed visiting Giuseppe in Beirut but our youngest brother, Dr. Flavio, said no way should we risk going to Beirut. So we stayed in contact by phone, often talking to his wife, Marlene. Giuseppe had to transfer hospitals to a smaller hospital and he contacted Legionnaires disease which can often be fatal if one's immunity system is very weak. And suddenly Giuseppe passed away. So, all my brothers, especially Oreste started discussing with our brother Dr. Flavio if we can go to Beirut for the funeral but it was far too risky as we were all in our 80s now and coronavirus was everywhere. So, none of us could go to the funeral and it was a terrible experience for me. Giuseppe was the head of the family - the patriarch - and he worked all his life to support the family and send us to schools. He gave me a chance to go to America and become an Engineer and gave my twin brother the opportunity to become a doctor graduating in Austria so it was a terrible experience not to be able to properly honor our oldest brother. And, worst of all, that he died of Legionnaires disease as the product I was selling was the only pre-insulated ducting with UL approval. Standard metal ducting with fiberglass insulation that is poorly installed can cause condensation inside the ducting and accumulate and create a black foam which with time grows bigger and bigger and become very toxic and causes Legionnaires disease. In my marketing of my company, I had an article how this could cause Legionnaires disease. Legionnaires disease is a severe form of a lung infection called pneumonia and was discovered in 1976. Military people who fought in WWII had a club called the American Legion who fought together and would meet to celebrate how they were not killed in the war. One year, in 1976 the soldiers met in Philadelphia in one big hotel and they woke up with 29 dead and 149 sick with Legionnaires, which at that time nobody knew about the disease. The health department sent investigators to the hotel and they discovered that the condensation became so great that it became dangerous. As a result, a new law came out that all hotels and hospitals must clean out their ducting to avoid getting Legionnaires disease. A big artlcle was written on this and I always carried it around to share with all my air conditioning consultants and clients as my ducting did not cause this disease. As a result, my business was booming as nobody knew about this Legionnaires disease and now it became a huge factor in determining whether to choose sheet metal or my pre-insulated ducting. And this went on for 25 years after meeting Giuseppe from Calabria at the airport. I had completely forgotten about that stranger at the airport.

One day, I was watching a German film on TV called "The story of il Casa Conalle" and the assassin was an Italian guy who violently killed a German man as he shot 6 bullets and then smashed his head into the ground. He then called the police and confessed he killed a man and the police came over and took him to jail. In jail, the guy didn't say a word. The judge was confused as the murderer would not say a word. Perhaps he didn't speak the language as this happened in Germany and perhaps he didn't speak German even though they could tell he was Italian. The lawyer representing the assassin knew there had to be a story behind this brutal murder so with some research determined he lived in the outskirts of Rome. He went to his hometown and asked around to family and friends and found an old lady who said this was his son. The attorney asked how could he kill in such a brutal manner? The lady said during WWII that the Italians surrendered to the Germans and part of the Italian army was fascist and the other half was the people's party so there was a big fight between them. So one day an Italian partigiano killed a German soldier and at the time if one German was killed, they would take 10 Italians and kill them in cold blood. They grabbed 9 people and were looking for a 10th and found a small apartment with a small family. The SS German soldiers grabbed the father by his neck while the little boy was crying, begging to leave his father alone. The SS threw the father to the ground and kicked him in the head multiple times and smashed his face into the ground. But the SS was heartless and threw the father against the wall and executed them all. The soldier then turned around and killed the sister of the little boy. The SS grabbed the little boy and kidnapped him and the boy disappeared from his hometown. The family had no more notice about their son. The boy was taken to Germany and went to school there while living in the house of the SS army. The little boy was very sad and depressed, always thinking of his father and his little sister as he couldn't get it out of his mind. So, when he grew up, he became a partisan as Italian Resistance and bought the same revolver gun that the SS used and bought military boots and decided it was time for revenge. He found the killer of his father and shot and brutally killed the SS soldier exactly how the SS soldier killed his father. They took him to court and the judge and jury found him guilty for killing but innocent of the matter because he had already suffered so much with the requirement he had to leave Germany immediately. He was exonerated. But right after leaving court, he committed suicide by putting a bullet in his head while holding a picture of his little sister. It was an incredible movie that profoundly affected me.

The Story of Giuseppe and His Family

The movie was so moving and I watched it just after my brother Giuseppe died. I had a hard time to sleep and I somehow remembered Giuseppe's story which had touched me in a different way. But that was now 25 years ago now. I don't know how to find him anymore other than his first name Giuseppe. It was like a jigsaw puzzle that I was trying to complete, waking up in the middle of the night for several weeks. Finally, after a brief period of time and recollection, I had the jigsaw puzzle completed to the best of my memory. There are few points I don't remember but the whole story was so touching and the success of a man called Giuseppe that I wanted to tell the story. Giuseppe was a young man going to school and in front of the 3 buildings was a soccer field. The first building was elementary school, the second was junior high/middle school, and the third building was the high school. This town was the biggest town all around as it was very rural but it was the most important town of ~15 towns so nearly everybody in the greater area sent their kids to these public schools. The father of Giuseppe had a store selling cleaning products, toothpaste, soap, etc. His name was Vittorio and he was not very healthy as he suffered from pneumonia when he was young so often the shop would remain closed. Giuseppe used to help his father out in evenings and weekends as he was going to school. Giuseppe was much taller than most of the other kids and dressed sharp and always wore a hat - a similar hat as my brother Giuseppe. He was confident and middle class and he decided one day he was going to make his father's business a big business. He was always first in his class in every grade - he was smart, proud and ambitious. He had a cousin named Aldo that would also help in the store and Aldo was also ambitious. They both had big plans and were very close and both got scholarships from a university ~100 km away and were roommates. Back in those days, sex was never discussed in the home or school so it was learned by gossip. There was a girl named Sara who had a relationship and got engaged and then one day got pregnant and she had to tell the news to both parents as it was very embarrassing and they were worried about the gossip in the town. So before the whole town heard the news, the parents decided Sara should marry her fiance. She left the town to stay with her grandmother in another town as she was starting to show her pregnancy. Aldo finished high school with top honors and was able to get a scholarship to go to university to study medicine and become a doctor. Aldo would come home on weekends and learn all the gossip and heard about Sara and convinced Giuseppe to hire her at the store. The store continued to expand and continued to offer more products. The day finally arrived when Sara had a baby girl, Vivian, a French name as she studied French. Vivian was the sweetest baby and so Sara would bring the baby to the store as they lived in a very small apartment with very little money. The store continued to grow and expand with all these new product lines. Eventually, Giuseppe took over the store from VIttorio and because he was ambitious opened up a second store in a nearby town. Sara would help out in the other store while Giuseppe's mother would take care of Sara's baby. Giuseppe was also going to University and received a scholarship. Ultimately, Giuseppe opened up a third shop and Sara would help manage all 3 shops now. Things were going great for Giuseppe as business was booming. Giuseppe met a very elegant girl, Anna, at the university that came from a great family and they started dating. Anna invited Giuseppe to meet her parents for dinner one evening and Giuseppe discovered her father was the top banker in the town. They hit it off and ultimately Giuseppe proposed to Anna in a romantic way. The father, a prominent banker, was very happy and approved of the two getting married. They got married shortly after and the father gave them a nice apartment as a present for their marriage. Giuseppe was also able to get more loans now due to this new relationship and he expanded his stores and opened additional stores. All the stores sold the same types of products so he was able to command better discounts and increase the number of products. Vivian was now growing up and was in junior high but also working at the stores, helping her mother Anna out. Anna then had a baby boy but this boy did not have the ambition or drive. Giuseppe also had a son Roberto and Roberto and Vivian became good friends in their childhood. Roberto and Vivian were both young - two years apart - but became intimate quickly and one day Vivian became pregnant. Vivian practically grew up in Giuseppe's home as her mother, Sara, was always working at the stores in the nearby towns and had to travel more and more. One evening, Giuseppe was out for the evening so Vivian and Roberto were alone and shared a bottle of wine. Romance was in the air and they got intimate and Vivian got pregnant. Aldo, now a practicing doctor, confidentially met with Vivian as Vivian was not feeling well and discovered she was pregnant but promised to keep it quiet. She didn't want anyone to know who the father was and Aldo promised not to tell anyone, including her mother. Around the same time, Sara's husband decided he no longer wanted to be married, packed up his suitcase and ran off to northern Italy. His dreams with Sara were broken and there were now better opportunities in northern Italy. Vivian had a baby boy and she named him Omar. Giuseppe loved the baby and the baby called him Zio (uncle). Omar grew up to be Giuseppe's favorite and he started to mentor him for the business as Omar was very capable and a quick learner and very ambitious. He was always the top of his class growing up. Some funny stories about Omar as he grew up as he always challenged the system and even did not believe the world was round while in the 4th grade. He was holding a globe of the world and saw the line of the equator which cut right thru Africa and then turned it upside down to put the Africans on their head. Vivian finally told Giuseppe that the father of Omar is Roberto which means Giuseppe is the grandfather! Giuseppe was immensely proud and happy and now saw Omar and Vivian in a new light. Omar did not know that Giuseppe was his grandfather. But Giuseppe, like his father, had compromised lungs and his health was deteriorating. Omar went to the same schools that Giuseppe and Aldo went, always the best in class. Giuseppe saw his childhood and his own life in Omar, much more than his own son Roberto. Where Roberto was average and not ambitious, Omar was top in class and very ambitious.

Finally, Roberto had a son named Mario who also was not very ambitious and preferred doing things with his hands rather than going to school and being intellectual. Giuseppe found an apartment that he wanted to buy for Sara and Vivian and he paid for it with half black money and half cash, putting 10% down. So officially it looked like they paid for the apartment for half price. The girls loved the apartment and it was 100m from Giuseppe's home. Omar finished university and unlike the others who always took French as the second language, Omar chose English as most of the companies dealing with the business were from the UK or Dutch countries. So Omar was now able to negotiate and work with all the suppliers on behalf of Giuseppe.

One day, as Giuseppe was getting sicker, Giuseppe said to Aldo that we need to tell Omar that he was the grandfather. Giuseppe never told Vivian that he knew he was the grandfather of Omar. They had a nice big dinner with all the family represented there as well as the lawyer of the company, the banker and the priest. Roberto was invited but his wife was not invited because they believed the men had to break the news to their wives privately. The lawyer was there to ensure that Omar now is part of the family and would be part of the family inheritance. At this time, they had more than a dozen stores so the inheritance was significant. The stores expanded their products, including perfume soaps which were very popular and they even built out a factory to manufacture additional products for all personal & home cleaning. Mario became manager of the products and Omar would now be in charge of all sales & marketing of the company. Just as Giuseppe finally shared all of this, the plane at the airport was ready for boarding so Gino had to leave so this is where the story ends.

This story is in honor and memory of our brother Giuseppe Vincenti, Commandatore. The similarity between the two Giuseppes - their integrity, humanity and tenacity and love for family - touched me so deeply that I had to share this story as it impressed me so much.