Where were you April 14, 1973?

When you were turning 13 how much did you know about the kids you were best friends with at school?

I remember 1973 for lots or reasons. It was the year that my father took me around the world and let me see places most kids would never ever get to visit, Saigon, Phnom Pehn, Vientiane (Laos), Bangkok, Chang Mai (Thailand), The Taj Mahal (India), a cow standing on a taxi in Old Delhi, India, a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem (never went to another after that, and I was 13), the Wailing Wall, Tehran (Iran), Rome, London, Tokyo, Honolulu. WHAT A SUMMER!

Before the summer I learned how to smoke for the first time. Two kids who went to Francis W Parker in Chicago were smoking cigarettes outside one of the emergency exit doors to the school. The younger of the two brothers was in my class (at least through April 14, 1973). He introduced me to his brother who taught me that smoking was the thing to do. Kids do stupid things when in the wrong groups. The two brothers were “Vito” and “Disto” DeStefano.

On the 14th of April 1973 they left school early and never returned. I heard later than their dad was apparently the victim of a mob assassination in his driveway. I guess the sons were taken out of school for safety or some reason relative to their dad’s murder. What I did not know until just last week when I decided to do a little memory research on Wikipedia, is that their father was the infamous Mobster, Sam “Mad Sam” DeStefano (September 13, 1909 — April 14, 1973), an American gangster who became one of the Chicago Outfit‘s most notorious loan sharks and sociopathic killers. In all, the DeStefanos had six children, four sons and two daughters. Am I glad all they did was teach me how to smoke. Thank God they did not invite me over to play after school.

 I have never seen or spoken to the brothers since the day they left school. I can’t remember if we had a cigarette that day or not. I can only hope they have had a wonderful life following that tragic day.

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Coup d’etat in Vientiane, Laos (1973)

I remember, but then again wouldn’t you, visiting Vientiane, Laos in the summer of 1973 with my father. Why we went their at all I am not really sure but I am sure there was a reason I may never understand.

The visit was short but like every other visit we made in Asia that summer, it was action packed. We were staying at the same hotel as most of the foreign media. My father had an interest to visit the local Embassy of the Khmer Rouge. We did not actually go into the Embassy compound, but we did stand at the end of the driveway. It was a tree lined driveway, about 50 feet off the main road. At the end of the treelined driveway was a guardhouse and gate. Behind that was a large house that was apparently the Embassy. My father had one of those old roloflex cameras that shows everything upside down as you peer down into the screen area/shutter. As he was adjusting his camera for a picture of the guardhouse, the guard was mounting his bazooka on his shoulder and preparing to point it in our direction. Perhaps the guard did not know what a Roloflex camera looked like and thought perhaps it was a gun or some sort….

Saigon, Vietnam 1973. A special memory…

Image via Wikipedia

It seems that every July 4th, I remember my short visit to Vietnam. It was during the summer of 1973 and the war was at its worst point, soon before the airlift out of Saigon by American Troops. I remember my short weekend visit to Saigon, perhaps because I was 13 years old. It was election weekend…  Aside from standing in front of the Central Post Office and watching the President drive up in his motorcade to come and vote, to having dinner with several local Vietnamese Senators at one of their homes, to the one-legged shoe shine boy in front of the Park Hotel where we were staying who said “You Number One!” when my father and I came out, my best memory was watching Vietnamese MPs chasing a bunch of boys who were swimming in a public fountain. I vividly remember watching one of the MP’s raise his rifle in the direction of one of the boys who was running away and shouting to stop (or it seemed like that was what he was saying). He did not shoot the rifle…

After seeing “Good Morning Vietnam” perhaps the kids were actually Viet Cong. I will never know.

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