Now that the Columbus Day season is upon us, with our very welcome annual court holiday just behind us, and the Italian American Lawyers Association is belatedly holding has its annual ''fete de mustacciola'' honoring Marco Polo and celebrating the alleged discovery of this lovely continent by Christopher Columbus, I find within me a need to say a few words on that general subject. I do so at this time in my capacity as historian of the Norwegian on One's Mother's Side American Bar Association. I speak from quite a bit of research, on a subject that attracted my interest some years ago startling and in a rather mystical way, as you will hereinafter learn.
I am prepared to and do at this time emphatically declare that Columbus did not discover America and that a Norwegian Viking by the name of Leif Erickson did and did so in the late tenth century.
You Italian American lawyers are all wet. All wet in the sense that you have allowed yourselves to be lulled by the conventional and convenient wisdom, always a mistake.
To say in the presence of so many Italian-Americans that it was Leif Erickson and not Columbus who discovered America is, of course, tactless, impertinent and likely to invite a barrage of recklessly flung mustacciola, along with chicken bones, what's left of the salad and perhaps an empty wine bottle or two, but I will excuse our Italianate brethren and sistren should that occur, considering that the intense nationalism of Garibaldi still smolders in many Italianate breasts and properly so, for Italy is a lovely country and Italians are, generally, fine ladies and gallant gentlemen and their civilization is noted world-wide for stupefying cultural achievements. Who but an Italian could compose La Boheme, or write Summa Theologica or carve the statue of David. But, it was not an Italian who discovered America. I hate to have to tell you this.
Let me point out that some years ago, when this organization was just getting started, on invitation I wrote stunning paean to the Italians; a summary of their vivid history from the Etruscans to and including Sophia Loren; a dissertation on their cultural achievements from the Arch of Scipio Africanus to the Maserati 231L; a tribute to the Italian ladies and their exquisite grace and charm; a bold defense of the Italian gentlemen, explaining the cultural as well the anthropological basis of the roving eye, the need to cut the bella figura and the necessity to pinch supple bottoms from time to time. I wrote of the lovely climate of Italy, of its grand edifices and of the perfect symmetry of the Bay of Naples. I spoke well of the Romans, of Cola di Renzi, of Garibaldi and even of the Mafia. The things I said in that piece about Italian cuisine were worthy of the notice of, say, Julia Child. It was one of the best things I ever wrote; it was lively, it was droll and it was inspirational. I, alas, did not keep a copy. I sent the original off to an official of this organization for possible use as a preamble to the charter of this organization, expecting heaps of praise for my impressive versatility and scholarship in summing up the Italianate civilization and its grandeurs.
Instead, someone in the organization lost it. I have been a little tee'd off ever since.
But, I bear the organization no ill-will. Things do get lost, and I should have kept a copy.
So, before I embark upon my remarks tonight--remarks that may tee you off, remember that I am a grand friend of Italy and Italians. I have tarried long in that bountiful land and I once shook hands with Gina Lollabrigida, an experience that left me totally debilitated; using up as it did all the adrenalin that was then in me. I still feel a little faint, whenever I think about it.
I am here tonight on serious business. Historical truth crushed to earth is not, a good thing. For a particular reason as will appear hereafter, I feel that I must make Leif Erickson's case for him, suspecting that he would ask me to do so if there were a telephone line from Valhalla or if old Leif could get a telex or a FAX through to me at the courthouse. It is likely that Leif has been smoldering with resentment for almost five hundred years now up in Valhalla and that the Valkyries, those Bella Ragazza of Nordic myth, stay out of his way on and around October 12th of each year, and leave him to his brooding, entirely celibate. Leif Erickson has a lot to be sore about for conventional history has treated him badly. He did, after all, discover America. In fact, this organization should really be called the Italian-Ericksonian Lawyers' Association.
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