Sage advice from a voice of experience

In today’s crazy world, it’s nice to be reminded that it’s still inhabited with nice people. One of them is my friend and mentor, Walter Santi from Bloomingdale, who celebrates his 101st birthday in April.

Born in 1923, when cars, radios and airplanes were all new inventions, Santi is the son of Italian immigrants from Modena, the birthplace of opera legend Luciano Pavarotti. Ten years prior, on October 22, 1913, he lost four cousins in the coalmine explosion disaster in Dawson, New Mexico.

Contrary to popular belief, not all Italian immigrants lived in squalid urban ghettos. After arriving in either New York or New Orleans, millions took trains and went west to New Mexico, Colorado, Montana and California, where dangerous jobs often awaited them.

Yet Walter experienced the American Dream. He grew up in a multicultural neighbohood in Chicago where everyone got along. In addition to self-teaching himself French, Spanish and Yiddish, he traveled the world (Argentina was his favorite) and retired as a machinist in Addison in 1988.

For the last 36 years, Walter has enjoyed his two grandchildren, indulged his passion for photography, tended to his house and garden, and kept in touch with people via email and Zoom and the world via newspapers and the internet.

While celebrating at Enzo’s Sports Bar in Bloomingdale recently, where he enjoyed pizza, Peroni and chocolate cake, I asked him what advice he had for people consumed by debt or stress. He simply smiled and said, “Just relax.”

Are you listening, world?

Bill Dal Cerro

Chicago