postcards from the edge

Many of you know how much I love correspondence that is stamped and postmarked and delivered by the postman to the box at the end of my driveway (now affectionately or dismissively called snail mail.) I am grateful to all of you who send me postcards from your travels. I save every one and sometimes rip them to pieces to include the stamp in a collage.

The reality of travel now is that it is far easier to find an internet cafe, pay one euro for fifteen minutes of time and send off missives to friends and loved ones in a flash. It is no problem to find postcards, but to find a post office that is open and figure out the language and currency is not so easy. And who wants to stand in line on their vacation?

So here is my postcard to all of you. I did find a hotel where the man at the desk provided stamps for one letter. I decided to send it off to Eliza in Africa who has two mail stops on her trip. The postage was the same to Tanzania as it was to the States. We were closer to her there than we are at home. Imagine my surprise to see the statue of liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge on this Italian stamp.

Stamps tell a story. On returning home, I did a little investigative research.

The internet turned up a New Yorker article about the New York Police Museum and an exhibit about Joe Petrosino, the subject of the above Italian stamp. He worked at fighting organized crime in New York. That work took him on a fateful trip to Sicily.

He was one of the only NYPT officers ever killed on an overseas assignment. Lieutenant Joe Petrosino, was assassinated, presumably by the Mafia, while on a secret mission to Sicily in 1909. A quarter of a million people showed up for his funeral back in Manhattan. There is a small but fascinating exhibit about Petrosino up at the New York Police Museum. Petrosino was a pioneering member of the Italian Squad—at the time, New York had about a hundred and fifty thousand Italian residents, and only a handful of Italian officers. You can’t fight crime if people can’t come into station houses and make themselves understood.

Impressive story. Local boy makes his country proud.

More to come on our trip to Italy. Hope you enjoyed getting my postcards and letter.