With a name like MONTESANO, I have an inherent right to make the following commentary (humorous postscript to follow.)

1. Johnny Miller might have been thinking Italian-American denigration when he made the two comments, but nothing he said in either one can be construed (only misconstrued) as xenophobic, biased or bigoted. It is true that guys with the name Rocco don’t get their name on the trophy, as none appears on the championship vessel. Guys named Ben, Jack, and John do seem to appear with frequency, as well as a feline named Tiger. Guys with the names Bubba, Prayad and Tze-Chung Chen fail to appear. Angel, Olin and Orville have been inscribed on the chalice.

2. Rocco looks pretty bad on some days. Isn’t it ironic that Miller referenced a white dude being pool cleaner to a black guy and someone had to find it offensive? Is being a pool cleaner such dishonest work? It’s not like he mentioned some illegal trade. Kind of shows how far we’ve come and failed to come.

3. Mediate can’t be that I-A. He pronounces his name MEE-dee-ate, not May-Dee-AH-Tay, as a good I-A would. I don’t imagine that he considers himself as Italian as he does American. After 3-4 generations here, we are all Americans!

4. We Italian-Americans are a pretty tough bunch and I would like to state for the record that the Order Sons of Italy in America and the National Italian American Foundation are wimpy and media chasers.

5. I believe, in my heart of mediterranean hearts, that Johnny Miller likes pasta, red sauce, and Sofia Loren and that he likes Rocco Mediate, too. The reference, for all time, evoked Bob May, Mike Donald, Al Espinosa, and guys not named Jack Fleck. It was a maudlin commentary on the reality that greatness typically overcomes goodness, blown out of proportion by zealous defenders of political correctness.

Humorous Post Script: Our running family joke is that Montesano (translated as Mountain Health or healthy mountain) was, in another time, Montesanto (holy mountain.) However, due to our ancestor’s inability to stick to the high road, we were stripped of the “t” (which might look like a cross, if you need a visual metaphor) and reduced from holy to healthy.

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