Veterans Day

By: My Papa Ed

Veterans Day always brings back memories of my Grandfather, Daniel Goffredo. He was an immigrant from Naples, Italy who came to America.

He once told me that as the ship he was on passed the Statue of Liberty, his heart filled with love for the country he was about to enter.

Several months after he arrived, he met my Grandmother, Maria Polumbo who came to America from Bari, Italy and they married a year later. Growing up in New York, we lived with our Grandparents in a tenement building in the Bronx.

My Grandfather was so proud of being in America that starting when I was old enough to walk on my own, he would wake me up on Veterans Day morning. He would dress me and take me by his hand to the Grand Concourse were the annual Veterans Day Parade would take place. He would hike me up on to his shoulders as the bands and every military service marched by.

My Grandfather pretty much kept to himself and spent most of his time sitting at the dining room table playing solitaire. The one day of the year were he became animated was Veterans Day, which I now realize how important it was to him.

The ravage of war throughout Europe that he experienced as a young man and the bravery of the allied forces gave him such gratitude for the freedom he was experiencing in America.