Sicilian Knight

The blind old man tapped the boy's shoulders with a long loaf of bread: "Angelino, you're now a Sicilian knight. When you get on that ship and go to America, you have to stand up to bullies, show them you're not afraid, never cry and defend all girls." When Giuseppe Angelo stepped off the Queen Frederika and on American soil for the first time, on that day after Labor Day in 1955, the old man's words were still echoing in his ears. He spent the first two weeks at P.S.112 getting beat up by bullies and trying to save girls from hair pullings and foot trips by the "bad" boys. But he didn't show fear and he never cried. The old man would've been proud.