Fredo

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Big story on Tuesday.

CNN host, Chris Cuomo, was baited into a shouting match with a guy who hit him with the ‘Fredo’ slam.

That’s a ‘Godfather’ reference and Fredo was a colossal failure in the family.

Cuomo comes from a pretty distinguished family. His Dad, Mario, was the state governor. His brother, Andrew, is the current New York governor. (He’s not too popular in this neck of the woods because of his strict gun laws and because the City gets the money in the New York State budget).

Chris is a night anchor, and seems like a decent guy, but he’s in the public eye, and he’s going to get his share of grief from haters.

The Fredo comment got under his skin and he went off.

As an Italian-American with a long last name that ends in a vowel I’ve heard a lot of the Italian slang words. My college roommate would drive me nuts by calling me a “filthy eye-talion” which was fun after awhile...

...but every once in a blue moon.

When I was about 7 years old I went to work with my brother John and my Dad. I think we were just giving Mom a break, but off to work we went.

We hung around the construction trailer all day, meeting Dad’s co-workers.

The next day, we went home.

The day after that, on a Thursday, Dad was home...which was crazy...he never missed a day!

Turns out there had been trouble.

The coffee can that was full of coins and dollar bills was missing. One of the co-workers confronted my father about the missing petty cash, and he insisted that me or John had taken it.

“Why would you blame my boys?” Dad asked.

“Because filthy eye-talions start early,” the guy answered.

There may or may not have been a punch thrown.

Dad got sent home for a couple of days to cool off.

Dad was certainly sensitive to ethnic slurs.

I can see why others are.

Every black, Hispanic and Asian man has been exposed to it.

Chris Cuomo was hit with something that got under his skin.

Maybe ‘Fredo’ is his target word.

Right now, the discourse is absolutely nasty.

Perhaps we all need to get in line with the ‘Be Best’ program that Melania Trump started.

It’s really seemed to work well for her family.

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