Sgt. Grit Community

Recipe for "Marine Breakfast"

(Serves 8 or two hungry Marines) 1/2 lb. Ground Beef (ground chuck for flavor) 1 tbs. Bacon fat (lard/Crisco or butter) 3 tbs. Flour 2 cups Whole milk (add more milk if you want it thinner) 1/8 tsp. Salt Pepper (to taste) 8 slices of dry toast Using a large skillet (12"-14"), crumble and brown the ground beef with the fat and salt, remove the pan from the heat and let cool slightly. Mix in the flour until all of the meat is covered, using all of the flour. Replace the skillet on the heat and stir in the milk, keep stirring until the mixture comes to a boil and thickens (boil a minimum of 1 minute). Serve over the toast. Salt & pepper to taste. "Semper fi"

You see in 1962 I wanted to join the Marines but was too young and needed my father to sign for me. So being very creative I got my original Birth Certificate which was written in fountain pen ink. I bought some ink eradicator from Scranton’s on Main St. and removed the 5 in my birth year. I then took some blue and black inks and tested the mixes until the shade of blue/black was identical and changed the year to 1944.   Now when you have three sisters the chances of getting away with this are slim and none. One of them told my father and he came to me and inquired about it and told me. If you want to enlist that bad then I will sign for you, but I had to agree to finish High School while I was in. Which I did and scored high enough for the New York State Regents requirements to be awarded an equivalency diploma.   I was only successful in this matter because of a lesson I was taught by my Grandfather Philip (Fillippo) Viavatteni who was born in Sicily in 1886. I told him of my problem of doing what I wanted and what my family wanted. He said that he knew how I felt because he faced the same thing when he was a young man and wanted to go to the United States and all his family tried to talk him out of it. He left Sicily in 1906 with just him and his three younger brother’s (who were refused entry to the US and settled in Argentina) his youngest brother’s Franco and Antonio stayed in Sicily (Franco was killed in WWI and Antonio came to the US in 1921 at the age of 17). When my Grandfather came to the USA and settled in Rochester,  NY and  fathered 2 son’s Joseph and John  now their children had many children and if you look on Facebook you can get an idea of just how many.   He told me that he had learned about pleasing people when he was a little boy growing up in the mountainous Provence of Etna (near Mt Etna) in Sicily. Every day he and his Father Joseph had to go and work in a small town several miles away and pick olives. They had a donkey (which he called an Ass) and my grandfather would ride on it while my great grandfather walked besides him. Now on a particular day it was raining very hard and as they passed through a small town they could hear the people saying "look at that young man riding that Ass while the older man has to walk". When they reached the end of town my great Grandfather said tom my grandfather "did you hear what the Town's people were saying"? My grandfather acknowledged that fact and they agreed to switch places. About an hour later they went through another Town and the people started saying "look at that grown man ridding that Ass while that poor little boy had to walk" When they got to the end of the Town they discussed what the Town's People said and they both decided that they would both ride on the  Ass.   With all the rain that had been falling the bridge they had to cross to get to the Olive Orchard was almost awash with the flow of the river. They had to get across in order for my great Grandfather to work so they proceeded to the other side. When they were about half way there the weight of the Ass, my great grandfather and my grandfather was too much and the bridge collapsed and they were spilled into the raging river. As providence would have it my grandfather and my great grandfather made it to the opposite shore, cold and wet but safe none the less. The donkey or Ass didn't make it and drowned in the heavy current.   My great grandfather now turned to my grandfather and said Filippo there is a lesson to be learned here. My grandfather looked at his Dad and said what is it Papa, what is the lesson? My Great Grandfather tells my Grandfather this "If you try and please everybody you’re going to lose your ASS!   So I joined the United States Marine Corps and the rest is history.   “For those who FOUGHT for it Freedom Has a Flavor the Protected Will Never Know”