https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsF74UvXUXA

I would like to thank my middle finger for sticking up for me and always there when I need it.

I am a pizza! Caio! I came to this country from humble beginnings, not sure exactly where or when. But, I know I am Italian by birth, somewhere in the south, maybe Naples or Rome. I’m a simple dish made from flour, tomatoes, and cheese; yes, I have evolved and morphed into something entirely different.

Many other countries claim I am theirs; that’s because they all have flatbread with some cheese and tomatoes. I’ll tell you what I wasn’t born with: pepperoni, pineapple, and other toppings. No pepperoni in Italy; it’s soppressata, an Italian sausage.

Gennaro Lombardi was the first Italian to introduce me to America. I grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, 23 1/2 Spring Street in Little Italy, a block away from Mulberry Street. I’m still here after 120 years. He took his recipe from Naples, Italy. Although pizza varies from Italian province to Italian province, I’m still basically the same.

Roman makes oval pizza, Naples’s pizza is round, and Sicilian pizza is square. Now we have thin-crust and deep-dish pizza. New York pizza is different from Italy; in New York, you walk down the street with the pizza folded and olive oil dripping down your arm. The only toppings I’m okay with are anchovies, olives, oregano, and red pepper. I don’t need much; fresh basil is nice to make a Margarita pizza. This pizza displays the color of the Italian flag, red, green, and white.

I really think I am the most popular food in the United States. Lots of countries take credit for me. I was called focaccia, just a flatbread, 2000 years ago. I have seen many things in my life. Did I ever tell you the time I first witnessed wine being discovered? I mean, what goes better with pizza than red wine.

So, I’m lying around just cooling off after just coming out of the oven, waiting to be devoured. All of a sudden, these Romans start throwing all these discarded pieces of fruit, mostly grapes, into a huge terra cotta vat in the corner. After a few days, it began to stink! It smelled like rotten eggs, which I learned was H2S, Hydrogen Sulfide. Whatever gave the Roman Centurian the idea to drink it? I thought for sure he would get sick and vomit. Instead, he suddenly turns to address the Roman Senate and says, “It needs more time.” Two weeks later, the rotting fruit turned into my favorite beverage – wine.

The same was true for cheese years ago; you encourage this mold to grow. The mold is yeast and is cultured into cheese. Many kinds of cheese really stink, so my question always was, “How do you know when cheese is bad?” You can just cut the mold off and eat the rest. I prefer “muzzarella,” aka mozzarella, made from Italian buffalo. The fresher, the better. Yes, I know “muzz” is hard to melt; that’s why the oven is over 1000 degrees.

I love when olive oil is drizzled over me; it tickles! The olive oil simmers, the cheese melts, and the tomatoes are cooked. Boy, do I smell good! I don’t even feel the pizza cutter slice through me. I am a pizza! I am round, square, and oval. Any way they make me; I am a pizza! Bon Appetite!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cfu8nsPlglY

My dog is thirsty; he has been thirsty for the last three hours. His bowl is empty, and I don’t really care. My son took him on a long walk, and my dog returned very thirsty. His bowl can’t be more than three feet from me, yet I am unable to get up off my couch and replenish his water. Why? I have PTSD.

This is a crippling disorder that is not only mental and physical; it is a biological disorder. I never thought I would encounter something so physically and mentally disabling.

In brief, I was the first responder at a fatal, freaky accident that took the life of an innocent young girl younger than my daughters. An errant double axle tire came loose from a semi-truck and traveled 400 yards before crushing a girl to death, then bounced back at my wife and I. The tire destroyed our car and came within feet of killing us. I couldn’t save the girl. I carry that guilt.

I wrote a book about my experience some years ago, “Espiritus,” which helped set me on a new writing path to help me cope. Writing is my therapy. I always thought PTSD couldn’t affect me because I wasn’t a soldier who witnessed unspeakable things. PTSD is fairly new; in WW1, it was considered shell-shocked; in WW2, it was called battle fatigue. Vietnam introduced PTSD. Apparently, first responders, police, and firefighters can suffer as well. Anyone can suffer from this disorder. There is no cure, just ways of curbing the edge of this depression.

You go about your daily business, and suddenly you are derailed. There are many triggers.

The more you deny you suffer from PTSD, the worse it gets. Learning self-control of situations that suddenly hit you out of nowhere is something else that happens, and you need to find your “safe place” in your mind when this happens. I have a daily box of tools to delve into. My dog is one of my tools; he is extremely helpful. His unconditional love helps. My daily song for my bride releases my heart; planning and cooking dinner is great therapy, as well as long walks to sync my mind and body.

Finally, the most important part of my daily therapy is pausing several times each day to thank God for my wonderful life, followed by prayers for the young girl who died.

I support Wounded Warriors, and the proceeds from my book are donated to this worthy cause.

Thank you for reading my stories.

Peter Arcuri

I found $20 in the parking lot of the supermarket, so I thought to myself, what would Jesus do?

So I turned it into wine.

I recently posted about the high prices for houses in Florida, especially Tampa. With the diligent help of Gustan Cho, Angie Torres and Donna Davidson, bless her Irish heart, they have come through! There is a place in Florida where the prices are reasonable. A brand new house on a quarter acre. Three bedrooms, two baths for under $270,000 list. Its a bit rural but beautiful. If you are curious about the area contact: Donna Davidson, she ultimately made our dream come true!

Just saw an ad for glass coffins, do you think it will take off? Remains to be seen.

I’m not sure where to post this, religion, pets, or hobbies.

Sex before marriage is a sin, unless you do it doggy-style, all dogs go to heaven.

My family told me to get help with my drinking…so I hired a bartender.

https://youtu.be/W7nV45YhFG8?si=mvtKdI293ft4s9et

I thought I’d start boxing again, but one round with Doreen set me straight.

I may have been destined to become a concert pianist. After all, I began my piano lessons at age 7, like my two older sisters. Piano playing was a prerequisite for the Catholic school we attended. A nun, Sister Stella had a sister who was also a nun at St. Anthony of Padua in lower Manhattan; her name was Sister Catherine Marie. Sister Stella, who was in her 80’s, small and ornery, had the difficult task of teaching us. My love of music was put on the back burner after I realized the pain and agony involved in learning. A wooden ruler would grace your knuckles for every sour note, not like the piano was ever properly tuned. The fear of striking the wrong key would resonate through my body. I would begin to sweat, and I already stuttered, which didn’t help. By the time I was eight, my knuckles were raised with callouses. I was the envy of the martial arts world.

My earliest memory of nuns was when I was in the first grade, standing in line after lunch, waiting to go back inside the classroom. The kid behind me didn’t appreciate his lunch, or maybe he was scheduled for a piano lesson and threw up on my pants. He vomited all over the back of me. The nuns felt this was not part of their job description to clean me and began to yell at me. What did I do? They called for my older sister, who was in the 8th grade, to come down and clean me up. I was crying, stuttering, and everyone was yelling at me. That day I learned every curse word in the book; my sister was muttering them under her breath.

As I have mentioned, I stuttered, and I was a big kid, so I sat in the back of the classroom. Because I stuttered, I was made fun of, and the nuns who were teaching me thought I was either an idiot or I couldn’t see well. But they didn’t move me to the front of the class. Instead, they told my parents I needed glasses. Duh? Glasses to cure stuttering! I started wearing reading glasses when I was 55; to this very day, my distance vision is great. Funny, back then, whatever a nun would suggest, my parents, and all parents, would blindly follow.

I wasn’t particularly bright. Since I stuttered, I never raised my hand to give the answer. One day I knew the answer; I raised my hand. I am beaming with information this time, “Sister, Sister, Sister.” She ignored me and said, “John, what’s the answer.” As John searched his heart and soul for the answer, my insides were bursting, and I yelled out the answer. No one knew I even had a voice; I did, and I wanted to answer. When I bellowed out the answer, the nun turned to me and said, “Is your name John?” I was sent to Mother Superior’s office. Mother Bettina was not a force to be reckoned with. She was 90 if she was a day. You knew you were in deep trouble when she rolled her sleeves up. I always wondered what was up their sleeves? She kept a metal ruler handy, not wood, metal, probably because the wooden rulers cracked after so much use. If you failed a test by 10 points, that meant ten cracks on your open palms to make up the difference in your grade. If you still failed, they didn’t give you back the points, just the pain. My knuckles were sore, and my palms were beet red; I could hardly hold a pencil. That yelling out in class got me ten cracks, and I knew the answer! What a way to teach.

My sister Joanne was left-handed. The nuns constantly tried to correct this; they thought being left-handed was a problem. Ironically, my sister became a Sister herself. I never thought nuns were human; I thought they had wheels for their feet like robots. Then one day, their habits were adjusted for more comfort. Imagine my surprise!! Oh, my, they have hair and feet! I then realized they were human.

Some of my works, all available on amazon

Back in the day, a long time ago, we had a band called The Hinges, we used to open for the Doors.

People always ask, “how do I come up with topics to write about?” I’m a creative writer,, so I’m a dreamer. My four children write better than I, there are technical writers, couldn’t come up with a creative thought. One daughter is a veterinarian, the other daughter is a teacher, one son is a Michelin chef, and one son is a savant. To creative you have to be a little odd and think of things others don’t. I can suffer from writer’s block for weeks and turn around and write 3000 words in a morning. They way to cure this is to sit in front of a blank piece of paper, dream and write, just start writing, everything else will fall into place.

The most misunderstood wine

I love steak on the grill, New York Strips, Rib-Eye, all of them and cooked medium rare. Or favorite steak house is Bern’s in Tampa, not only are the steaks cooked to perfection they have a desert room with old Madeiras, Cognacs and Ports that’s where I get into trouble.

• This discussion was modified 9 months ago by  Peter.

I went to the toy store the other day to get me granddaughters a doll. They had a Muslim woman talking doll! She didn’t say much so I stared at her for awhile and I was scared shit to pull the string!

I hear the government is installing chips in everyone, that’s cool as long as mine are Doritos.

I am a 1970 Cherry Red Chevy Camaro Convertible that has been stored in the back of a garage from the day I was purchased new. I cost $3,000 back in the day, the dream car of most red-blooded American boys. The young man who purchased me died in Vietnam later that year. The sadness I felt when I heard the news was overwhelming. He took me out only once, with his girlfriend, for a drive with my top down and four on the floor. We were the envy of everyone. It was a wonderful ride with James and Cathy; I can still hear their laughter. James had a hardy laugh. He thought about returning to his girlfriend and me with hopes of starting a new future. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always turn out the way we plan. I wonder what happened to Cathy?

His parents never got over their loss, and I was a painful reminder of their loving son. So, here I sat for 50 years. The parents thought many times of selling me. However, I was the last thing their son bought before being deployed. Both parents have passed, and my future is questionable. There are no grandchildren to pass the car on to, so I am being sold at an auction. I hear I’m worth a pretty penny.

James, my original owner, has a brother, Tom, who will handle the auction and the proceeds. He has mixed feelings about selling me. He’d rather keep me, but the old house and garage are being sold, and I have nowhere to go. The burlap tarp that covers me in the garage has kept me rust-free. I long to be started and hear the roar of my 350 cubic inches V8 engine with 375 horsepower. I need to blow out my carburetor and breathe life into me once again. I can go from zero to sixty in seven seconds and hit a quarter-mile in fifteen seconds at ninety-four miles per hour; not too shabby!

It will be a closed auction with bids submitted quietly. The highest bid will not necessarily win me. Tom is requesting a letter to accompany the silent bid. Tom wants me to go to a nice, caring family that will keep his brother’s memory alive. He doesn’t want me to be sold to a spoiled kid who will race me and never maintain me. I do not want to be pimped out with spoilers or painted racing stripes. I am a classic and should remain so!

Tom has received dozens of letters with bids; it will take some time to read and figure out who is who. One bid was $80,000! Can you believe that? However, the letter didn’t sit well with Tom; they wanted me for Hollywood. I’m from South Carolina; why would I want to go to Hollywood? They want to paint and repaint me according to the needs of the movie and race me in car chases. Tom declined the offer. Another bid was almost as high as $75,000, but the letter was from a rich guy who wanted to give me to his son for graduating high school. I don’t want any privileged kid owning me. High school kid, racing me with his pals, I don’t think so.

After reading a dozen or more letters, Tom was getting frustrated with the responses. One letter was totally absurd. They offered $3000, my purchase price. Are you serious! I’m worth 20 times that. Tom didn’t even read the letter; he just discarded it with the rest of the letters he felt didn’t meet the bill. Foolish man; he was 50 years old, not too well off with money, and wanted me, really? What use would he have for me, just showing off as he went through his mid-life crisis?

Another letter was a sob story of how a guy had the same car back in the day and felt he needed this car because it was owed to him. Tom had it with all these phony letters. He placed them all in a box and put them on my front seat. Where was I going? What was my future?

One letter fell from the box, it was the offer for $3000, which Tom never read. I noticed an old black and white photo of a young girl and baby boy. The boy’s name was James. Tom didn’t make the connection, well, not yet, anyway.

The silent auction went according to schedule, all the letters were read, and Tom was just about to make his decision when he noticed an older woman in the back of the room. She was accompanied by a man. I’d say the man was about 50 years old. Tom peered into the eyes of both of them and began to cry. The auction was momentarily stopped so Tom could compose himself. Tom raced back to me and opened the box of rejected letters. He rifled through the letters, and the black and white photo fell out. He stared hard and deep at the picture, the boy resembled his brother James, and the young girl was Cathy! His mind raced with thoughts of 50 years ago. Could this possibly be Cathy and his nephew!

The auction resumed, and Tom made his decision on who would take me home. He read the letter that he once quickly discarded:

Tom,

You may not remember me, I was James’ girlfriend Cathy back in 1970, and this is his son, James. My love for your brother never ceased. I kept my secret long enough. I didn’t want to burden your family. They were grieving too much. We were in love. The only time James and I road in the car was that one time. We vowed our love that day. I was three months pregnant when I heard he was killed in Vietnam. I was so lost that I even thought about an abortion. I needed a memory of my true love and kept his son. There is nothing left for my son to remember his dad. I’m an old lady now and raised James Jr. by myself. I’m not looking for money, just a memory.

Thank you,

Cathy

Tom began to cry. He was in total shock. He ended the auction by stating: We found the buyer! Everyone left after hearing who won. A frail woman was led by a middle-aged man to the podium from the back of the auditorium. Tom hugged and kissed Cathy as well as his nephew.

He gladly handed the keys over to her and refused the money for me. “This is the home for James’ Camaro.” As they opened my doors to enter and started to drive away, I felt I was born again; I could feel this spirit of James. I could almost hear his hardy laugh. He was alive within all of us.

John Steinbeck was perhaps the finest American writer, he wrote about the struggles during the Great Depression. He was able to write humor, “Travels with Charlie.” Who do you enjoy reading?

The Grapevine…

I have always liked reading weekly or daily columns by Earl Wilson, Herb Caen, Jimmy Breslin, etc. This will be the first of a weekly column, mostly about real estate-type businesses. Here are my two cents.

I heard that buying or selling a house right now is as difficult as putting a square peg in a round hole. All y’all know better than me. My wife and I have been working with a realtor in Tampa, Donna Davidson. Bless her Irish soul! She is great to work with. My wife and I found a house in Ocala, Florida, and called Donna with two other listings, all within ten minutes of each other. Donna was, at the time, visiting her sister on the opposite coast and said maybe if she called ahead to the listing realtor, that’s exactly what she did, and she spoke to Ortiz, who was handling one of the listings. Donna asked if he could possibly show the two others; his response was yes. ”We realtors have to stick together.” He was more than happy to do so and contacted my wife. They spoke briefly on the phone as I chimed in that I would give him $50 cash for his trouble. He agreed at 10 a.m. Friday morning, just before 10:30, the time we were leaving, to make the hour and a half drive to Ocala for a noon appointment. At ten minutes to twelve, he calls my wife—mind you, we are ten minutes away—and changes his mind. He now says he wants Donna’s 3% commission on the two other listings, and, get this, he wanted 6% on the house he was showing! He wanted me to screw my realtor broker and collect fifty bucks. Being the New York City boy as I am, I said, Well, you really don’t want to know, and I cursed at him like I was a drunken sailor who hasn’t been on shore leave for two years. We immediately made a u-turn and headed back to Tampa. I turned to my wife and said in my best mafia voice, “Now he’s got nothing.” I’m supposed to be buying from this guy and trusting him, and he’s screwing me even before we meet. I will only give you one chance to be trusted; if you fail, there is no second chance. He had a one-in-three chance of us buying his listing, plus he would have a crisp Grant in his pocket. Now he’s got nothing. Is this common? Also, while I’m at it, who determines the percentage rate for the realtor? Some realtors state 1.75% or 2%. What’s that all about?

Let’s get back to realtors: who do they work for? I am always confused about the buyer or the seller; they can’t sell a house without the owner, right? That’s where the cash is being generated. So they work for you, the owner. However, they play footies with the buyer, saying, “Don’t worry, we can get them down in price.” When my wife and I sold her previous house, we used. Nice people, so I thought they just wanted the listing. When we had a prospected buyer, I knew right away by the sidebar conversations that something was brewing and it was rotten. They asked me if they could have someone inspect the roof, and I agreed. The buyer brings one of his drinking buddies, wearing sneakers and a roofer. They ascended the ladder; they had no tools, had a little pow wow, and left without saying a word. People must think I’m a complete idiot; I am street smart! I have an IQ of 185 on the street! I look and sound like I came out of central casting for a mob movie. You are not pulling any wool over my eyes. Within minutes, our realtor, remembering the person working for me, calls and says in an excited voice, ”You need a new roof; the next strong wind will rip it right off!” I’m smiling and saying to myself, Are they for real? I responded to her, sort of like the drunken sailor, and told her to pick up her sign,For Sale,” which would be in the street. I pulled that sucker out of the ground as if it were a strong man’s cement or wood post and tossed them far in the street. They never came back for the sign, so I kept the 4×4 post and trashed the sign. So I ask again: who does your realtor really work for?

You heard it through the grapevine.

Do you enjoy wine? Of course you do! Do you know why? Do you pay attention to wine speak? So many frauds out there that think they know wine. The aroma reminds of wet dog, with a lingering mouth feel that’s tastes like… you can fill in the rest. Many people talk dry, but drink sweet. Yes, most wine drinkers enjoy reds, I enjoy all of them they all have a place at the table. From a Romanee Conte to a white Zinfandel. And screw the theory of white wine only with fish. If I’m grilling salmon it’s a Pinot noir all the way. Okay, enough for know if you want to learn more let’s chat. By the way I’ve been drinking wine since I was seven. I’m Italian after all. I studied viticulture, grew grapes, made wine, won medals. Taught home wine making I am a sommelier or a better description, A Wine Guy, a moniker I have had for years. For more information about me let’s talk.

Inspired by a tragic event that occurred on Fat Tuesday, March 5, 2019. A story of life, death and faith and the journey of an ordinary guy called by the Holy Spirit, this odyssey follows him through the senseless death of an innocent girl and his struggle with PTSD, his own mortality and his devout beliefs. The Spirit travels through the lives of other realistic characters as they find their way through their own beliefs creating their own unique moral compasses. The perils of day to day life culminates each journey with a heartwarming story of faith and love of others.

https://www.amazon.com/Espiritus-Spirit-Peter-Arcuri/dp/B09PRZ1XFP/

So you’re in a restaurant, you order a nice bottle of wine, the server comes over, he/she presents you with the cork, and you’re a little bit embarrassed because you don’t know what to do. Don’t be embarrassed, in this video, I’ll tell you what to do!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH3MNDIpQRc