Back To Prison
No, not me. I’ve never been.
Nor is it any of my friends, so you all can breathe a sigh of relief, I haven’t ratted any of you out. No, it’s Frank “Frankie Breeze” Calabrese who, according to this article on ABC7Chicago.com, has been ratted out by his own son, Frank Junior, and his brother, Nick. And, he’s not outside now, though he was supposed to get out next year. Now, that has got to be hard time, being turned in by your own kid and brother.
I mention this because I actually met Mr. Calabrese when I was a kid. I call him “Mister”, incidentally, because I call anyone who can kill me, or have me killed by just pointing at me, “Mister”. My dad did business with one of his fronts, a place called FCL Graphics. They were printers and undercut everyone else in the greater Chicago area when my dad needed printing done for a company he managed. We went to a Christmas party there once and I met the whole gang, if you’ll pardon the pun. (Incidentally, the picture in the link is nothing like I remember Mr. Calabrese. It must have been taken in the late 40’s, when he was just getting his start.) He seemed like a nice, older gentleman. A sort of grandfatherly figure. But, I shook hands with him. I must have been all of eight or nine. Old enough to remember it, but not old enough that it’s a really clear memory. Actually, he’s responsible for my interest in origami. He owned the license on a couple of origami books and he sent some home with my dad once. I’m been folding paper cranes ever since.
I got to that news story by way of this article on Slate about “mobster” nicknames, but this story caught my attention, because he’s almost never in the news. The only other time I remember seeing him in the news was when he got caught back in 1995 or 1996, long after my father had stopped using his business. We were all a little surprised at the time, but, in retrospect, it does make sense. How else could he afford to charge such low prices. I mean, they were just criminal…
Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Hating people is like burning down your house to get rid of a rat."
--Harry Emerson Fosdick
