"Two Italian kids from very poor backgrounds who did pretty well in life," Buoniconti said.

The Italian kids had never seen matzos before, and they were all crazy about my mother's recipe.

He learned to be careful where he took the Italian kids, he said, because they would beat up black kids.

A black-haired twenty-something Italian kid who thought he was god's gift to women.

Perhaps Italian kids were too poor to buy records back then.

"How do you like my big Italian kid there?"

Some nice Italian kids I met up at Cortina own it.

My buddies were mostly Italian and Jewish kids.

Not bad for a self-taught, poor Italian kid from Waterbury.