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PAGE 2B PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS THURSDAY. APRIL 8, 2004
The First In A New Series
They Touched Me
By Wayne Smith
[Editor’s Note: The Rev. Wayne
Smith, a Big
Canoe resident,
is the founder of
The Friendship
Force,which
today boasts 350
chapters in 60
countries .
Among his
notable accomplishments and award
was being nominated for the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1992. Focally, Smith
is active in the community in many
facets, including serving on the
staff of the Big Canoe Chapel.]
Introduction
Each of us has a story to tell. All
of them are interesting to somebody.
My story has been made extraor
dinarily interesting because of the
persons I have met along life’s jour
ney. This series, which will one
day become a book, is autobio
graphical because it recounts
episodes from the lives of a few of
the hundreds of people those who
have touched me deeply.
Their touch has left an imprint
on me and I have learned from
them.
Often the lessons learned were
quite different from what I expect
ed to learn when I first met them..
For example, Muhammad Ali
touched me many times. This book
will tell about some of those
encounters and what I learned from
this man who may be the most
famous living person on earth.
Most readers will be amazed at
what “the Champ” taught me as I
observed his life in many situations.
Yasir Arafat touched me, too.
He is despised by many and revered
by his followers. My wife, Carolyn
and I were his sole guests at a four
hour dinner in a hide-away apart
ment in Beirut in 1978. You may or
may not agree with my assessment
of this man. But you will be sur
prised with what I learned from
him.
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter,
Martin Futher King, Sr., the former
Presidents of South Korea, the
Philippines and Germany, Bobby
Knight and Pete Maravich, both of
basketball fame, Queen Elizabeth
II, Queen Noor, Ted Turner and
many other persons who are widely
known have touched me. I have
learned from them all.
Mention “name droppers” and
any sane reader would think that I
must be the king of them all. All I
can say is that there are few, if any,
of these famous people whom I
have sought to meet. Somehow in a
natural way they came across my
path. I am not impressed with
“celebrity.”
That old expression that says that
“all men put their pants on one leg
at a time” is a strong belief of mine.
By far, those who have touched
me the most and changed my life
for the better are people who are
not known by the multitudes. Their
lives are every bit as fascinating as
those who have gained world fame.
I will tell my life's story from the
perspective of how the famous and
not famous have touched me.
The first chapter is about Jimmy
Muscatello. Ever heard of him?
Probably not. He immigrated from
one of the poorest regions of Italy to
the United States in 1914. Convict
ed of manslaughter, he was the
kindest and most generous person I
ever
knew.
There have been hundreds of
other persons who have touched
me. Perhaps, if God permits me to
live a little longer, I can expand on
this book and include a chapter
about YOU if you are reading this
we have come across each other’s
paths. Hundreds have. I am happy
that “They Touched Me.”
Part 1 in the series
Jimmy Muscatello
Jimmy Muscatello could hardly
believe his eyes. He stared at his
poker hand and tried to keep a
smile from his lips.
The King of Diamonds had just
been dealt him. This card completed
a royal flush, the approximate
equivalent of a golfer making a
hole-in-one, or of one of those hun
dreds of thousands of unrealistic
buyers of lottery tickets picking the
six winning numbers.
It was 1930 — Depression Times-
- and Jimmy Muscatello could use
the large poker pot which he had
nursed up to nearly a hundred dol
lars by deftly raising his bets and
keeping others in the game.
Jimmy had been living in
Charleston, West Virginia for three
years after arriving as an immigrant
from Italy. He had learned enough
of the English to get by. He spoke
the language with a distinctly Italian
accent that was punctuated with
profanities and scatological terms
he didn’t understand but his words
invariably made people laugh.
Poker was another matter. He had
learned that game back home with
his boyhood friends, some of whom
were the sons of mafia bosses.
Jimmy’s father was a stonema
son back in Italy. His mother had
birthed a dozen children and had a
fulltime job as a wife and mother.
Life was hard in Locri, the small
seaside village located near the toe
on the boot of Italy’s topography.
It was a depressingly poor area and
definitely was Mafia country. Even
when work could be found the local
Mafioso demanded a cut of the
meager earnings of all that was paid
to the hard working members of the
Muscatello family.
So while some might consider it
bravery to leave "the old country"
for an unknown land with a differ
ent language and strange customs,
the Muscatello family considered its
plight and decided that it should
send two of its sons to that fabled
land which an ancestor named
Christopher Colombo had discov
ered some 400 hundred years earli
er.
The two boys selected to make
the journey were Domenico and
Vinzenzo Tiago. Domenico became
known in America as Domenic and
Vinzenzo Tiago, being a mouth full
for Americans to say, was called
Jimmy.
Domenic was 19 and Jimmy was
16 when they left their family, vow
ing to write every week and send
back as much money as they could
to help support their father, mother
and brothers and sisters who proba
bly they never would see again..
The boys made their way to
Naples, the closest large port city to
Locri. From there, as thousands had
done before and afterwards from all
over Europe, they set sail for Amer
ica, that fabled land where it was
said by some that even the streets
were paved with gold.
After over two weeks of suffer
ing seasickness in the stuffy steer
age compartment they shared with
dozens of other on a ship filled oth
ers who had set out to make a new
life for themselves, they saw her.
There was the Statue of Liberty.
She stood proudly, welcoming
those who were seeking a liberty
that few knew in the lands that
birthed them. In another hour the
ship had docked at Ellis Island. It
took three days to process the Mus
catello boys and allow them access
to the “land of free and the home of
the brave.” But they were there at
last.
As they made their way onto the
streets of New York they couldn’t
believe their eyes. The sound of lan
guages they did not understand
overwhelmed them. The size of the
buildings could never be described
adequately in their letters to the
folks back home. And how could a
person ask directions to the central
station when they only had learned
to say, “Where-go da train West Vir
ginia?” When some kind stranger
would answer, they couldn’t under
stand a word.
But with lots of smiling, and fin
ger pointing they walked from
lower Manhattan to Grand Central
Station. Fortunately they found peo
ple there who spoke something that
sounded something like Italian. But
the boy’s accent from the province
of Reggio Callabria made it hard to
understand that they should take the
train that was headed for Pittsburgh
and then change for another one
that would take them to Charleston,
West Virginia. They wanted to go
there because they had heard that
there was work in the coal mines.
Having learned how to be stonema
sons they reasoned that they could
cut coal out of a mountain.
In 1913, life was hard in the
United States for immigrants. But it
had been harder in Italy. At least
there was work in America. While
the streets really were not paved
with gold, at least there was gold to
be earned, even at the rate of ten
cents an hour. The Muscatello boys
learned that they could work laying
railroad track in West Virginia for
fifteen cents an hour. This kept
them outdoors and that was far bet
ter than being deep in a coal mine
chipping away at black chunks of
carbon. It wasn’t long until they had
become a part of that large wave of
immigrants who helped build the
infrastructure of the United States in
the early 1900's.
Jimmy furtively glanced up from
his incredible poker hand.
He noticed that four of those at
the table had thrown in their cards,
giving up on any hope of winning
the biggest jackpot of the night.
There was now just one other player
at the table of six. Jimmy thought
that his one remaining opponent
must also have a good hand. But
nothing can beat a royal flush. Now
was the time for some strategic rais
ing, calling and bluffing a bit. The
more bets that Jimmy could entice
his lone adversary to throw into the
pot, the more money he would be
able to take home to his wife, Myr
tle and her two children. Shortly
after he saw Myrtle hanging pinning
her washing on a clothesline, he
told Dominic “Ciao!”
Jimmy met Myrtle McGill in
1919. She was large and hearty
woman of Scotch-Irish stock, she
had moved from the foothills of
Kentucky to the mountains of West
Virginia in 1915. Her husband, Bill
Smith, died in the influenza epi
demic of 1916 and Myrtle became a
widow with two children —Carl and
Virginia-- both under the age of
three.
The courtship and subsequent
marriage of Jimmy Muscatello, a
handsome, hot- blooded Italian with
Myrtle McGill Smith, a strikingly
beautiful woman who made the
often mentioned Irish caricature of
"hot temperament" a reality, was
about as easy as a romance between
two porcupines. All of their life
together was marked with passion.
This would continue until they
divorced after 49 years of marriage.
Myrtle became convinced that the
man she loved was seeing other
women.
After all, Jimmy was "only" 73
and she knew all about his virility.
It was not uncommon, all during
their marriage, to hear them shout
vulgarities and accusations at each
other in the morning. By evening
time the same observer often would
see Jimmy in the evening lying on
the sofa in their modest home with
his head cradled in Myrtle's lap as
she stroked his check and combed
his wavy hair while together they
listened to Edgar Bergen and Char
lie McCarthy on the radio.
Somehow Jimmy's stepchildren
never took a liking to him. Perhaps
they were jealous of the deep love
their mother had for this foreigner.
Maybe they were incensed that
Jimmy did not spend as much of his
hard earned money on bicycles and
dolls as they might have wished. He
was frugal with the money he
earned. A good deal of it was sent
back to Locri every month. He
saved as much of the rest as he
could. He had ideas of “being some
body” and he knew that it would
take capital to achieve that, even in
America; especially in America.
Money was not easy for Jimmy
and Myrtle Muscatello to earn.
While Jimmy continue to work as a
common laborer and Myrtle took in
washing to increase their family
income, they made ends meet by
supplementing their earnings in oth
ers ways. There always was a veg
etable garden which produced
tomatoes, lettuce and especially hot
peppers, one of Jimmy’s favorites.
Jimmy had learned the art of Ital
ian cooking before leaving his
native land. The Muscatello kitchen
constantly was filled with the smell
of spaghetti, garlic, olive oil and hot
peppers. But there were two other
avenues to make money which were
especially fitted for Jimmy Mus-
catello’s skills -- Wine and gam
bling.
The Volstead Act which
launched the United States into the
Prohibition Era was a law that
Jimmy simply could not compre
hend. He would concede that per
haps the consumption of whiskey
and other "hard stuff" should have
been made illegal. But how could
anyone think that wine was a harm
ful beverage? Anyway, this was the
way that the man from Locri
viewed matters. He decided that he
would grow some grapes in his gar
den and process them into wine for
a few special friends. The proceeds
from this venture would be quite
helpful in augmenting the family
income and would permit a small
but steady stream of cash flowing
back to the Muscatellos who had
remained in the hardscrabble
province of Reggio Calabria.
Gambling was another way that
Jimmy used to supplement his
income. He did not always win.
What gambler does? But card
games, betting on baseball scores
and the shooting of a mean game of
billiards ("pool") added more to his
net worth than it decreased it.
But never in his life had Jimmy
Muscatello been dealt a royal flush.
It was a poker player's dream.
However, as good card players
know, winning is not just a matter
of getting good cards, it is knowing
how to use them once they are in
your hand. And of all card games of
chance, poker is paramount in
"knowing “when to hold 'em, and
knowing when to fold 'em."
Jimmy's adversary had a full
house; three Tens and two Jacks.
It's a great hand to hold. It seldom
loses. But it was doomed to lose on
this fateful night. The man who held
the full house was confident that he
had defeated the one he disdainfully
referred to as "that little Dego,
s.o.b." How could the Italian beat a
full house? It was his turn to bet and
he raised Jimmy twenty dollars.
Jimmy couldn't help let his lips
widen in a wry smile. His opponent
was sure that this was an calculated
bluff and that Jimmy had nothing
that could beat a full house.
The bet was accepted and
Jimmy, speaking English with the
heavy Italian accent he retained all
of his life, raised the bet again by
another twenty dollars. Now the
jackpot was nearing the two hun
dred dollar level, an enormous sum
for Depression Days.
That was enough. The man with
the full house laid his cards down,
one at a time. Jack, Jack, Ten, Ten,
Ten. With a large smile he looked
into the eyes of Jimmy Muscatello
and at the same time began to
extend his hands to take possession
of the vast array of the one, five,
and ten dollar bills spread out over
the table.
But, as his eyes met Jimmy's he
noticed a gleam of joy there.
Jimmy began to lay down his own
cards: Ten of Diamonds, Jack of
Diamonds, Queen of Diamonds,
King of Diamonds. ...and then
with a shout of jubilation, he stood
up and threw onto the top of the
piled up money, the Ace of Dia
monds .
Silence stunned everyone in the
room. The man with the full house
looked as if he had been hit in the
head with a pole ax. The shocked
expression on his face turned to
anger. He began to cuss. He was
infuriated. He accused Jimmy of
cheating. He said that nobody every
had had a royal flush while playing
him in poker. He simply knew that
somehow this "foreigner" had man
aged to pull a slight of hand on him.
He refused to take his fingers off of
the money which he declared was
his since, according to his view of
matters, the Italian had cheated him.
Jimmy Muscatello knew that he
had won the money fair and square.
He had a reputation among his
neighbors as a hard working and
honest man. All of the other players
at the table jumped to Jimmy's
defense. But the loser would not
relinquish his rage nor the dollars in
dispute. He declared that the money
would go into his own pocket and
that no "sleaze ball Dego" was
going to cheat him out of what was
rightly his. And further, if he tried,
it would be over his dead body.
A new and terrible mood entered
the room. For a moment, after the
death threat had been made, the air
was still and not a breath could be
heard. But then it seemed to those
who later recounted the story in
court that everything which fol
lowed happened in a microsecond.
Jimmy Muscatello was convicted
of involuntary manslaughter. He
was sentenced to one year in jail
and five years of probation. The
sentence would have been stiffer if
it had not been for the testimony of
the other four poker players. All to a
man declared that Jimmy simply
had defended himself against the
knife the other man had drawn; that
somehow Jimmy had been able to
wrest away and in the melee of the
ensuing fight the man with the full
house had tripped and fallen on the
knife which penetrated his heart as
Jimmy Muscatello lay on his back
and the man fell on the sharp blade
which was extended upwards in an
attitude of defense.
Jimmy Muscatello touched me.
Of all the persons I have met, this
man who killed another man, was
the kindest and most loving person I
have ever met. I should know — for
he raised me as though I were his
only son. He never had any children
of his own but no man could have
loved a son more than he loved me.
And no son could love a father
more than I still love him. He was
78 when he died. His time had
come to go. He had become frail
and the woman he loved all his life
had divorced him after 49 years of
marriage. Myrtle had become a vic
tim of Alzheimer’s disease.
In this state of mind, with the
encouragement of her daughter, Vir
ginia, she came to believe in the
absurd thought that this good and
gentle man was being unfaithful to
her — and at the age — of 73!
Yes, it was time for him to go.
But when he did, I cried. My eyes
still become moist with the desire to
see him again each time his memo
ry crosses my mind or I visit his
grave in West Virginia.
Jimmy Muscatello. He was a
man convicted of murder. He never
told me this story about himself. It
would have hurt him deeply if he
had known that I knew. But I did
know. Virginia told me. Her’s is
another story that has touched me in
ways. But I never let him know that
I knew about this incident in his
life. He was the kindest man I ever
have met. How could anyone want
to hurt him?
Jimmy Muscatello touched me.
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Media Advisory
MORE THAN MATT, Extends Hours For Last-Minute Filers
MORE THAN MAIL Hosts Tax-Break Party to Make Filing Fun
Canton, GA April 15 - With the tax deadline looming ahead,
and the post office is either closed or the line is too long, many fil
ers will be down to the wire. Fortunately, MORE THAN MAIL
located at 4047 Marietta Hwy., Canton, GA will stay open until 8:00
p.m. on April 15 to provide the copying and postal services cus
tomers will need to file on time. Many people don’t realize they can
even ship federal tax returns via UPS and track them all the way to
“Uncle Sam”.
Services: • Fed Ex, UPS available with Tracking Number
• Post Office postmark day of return
• Consumers photocopying tax returns
• Boxes of tax returns ready to be mailed
• Online package-tracking demonstration
Where: MORE THAN MAIL
4047 Marietta Hwy. Suite 100
Canton, GA 30114
When: April 15th, 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Contacts: Manager - Mike Glasok
(770) 345-0809