by PolackTony » Sat Sep 21, 2024 3:37 pm
PolackTony wrote: ↑Tue Nov 09, 2021 12:24 pm
Albert Tocco was born in Chicago Heights. His father Michaelangelo Tocco/Iocco was born in Chicago to a family from Campobasso province, Molise. His mother Laura Storto was born in Pittsburgh to Italian parents. I wasn't able to confirm her ancestry, but based on the surname she was also most likely from the area of Molise/Abruzzo.
Just to confirm, the Tocco brothers' parents were indeed compaesani. The parents of both Michaelangelo "Mike" Iocco and Laura Storto were from the comune of Castellino del Biferno, Campobasso, Molise (the separate region of Molise was only created in 1963, and thus the province of Campobasso was historically part of the older region of Abruzzi e Molise). Mike Iocco was born in 1895 in Chicago to Giuseppe Iocco and Maria De Lisio of Castellino del Biferno, who had married the prior year in Chicago, and was baptized at Blessed Assumption Parish on the Near Northside that year (Blessed Assumption was the oldest Italian Parish in Chicago). The family lived on Forquer St in the rapidly expanding Taylor St Italian colony on the Near Westside of Chicago at the time and Mike Iocco's younger siblings were baptized at Holy Guardian Angel Parish. After living initially in PA, the Stortos moved to Chicago and also settled on Forquer St (today Arthington), near the Ioccos. By 1910, the Ioccos had relocated to Chicago Heights, presumably for work -- father Giuseppe was a railroad worker down there, while Mike Iocco worked for the Inland Steel Company, as did several members of the Liparota/LaPorte family (also interesting to note that, as I've discussed in some older posts, the Liparotas also had connections to the Taylor St neighborhood around 1900). The surname was originally Iocco, with spelling variations such as Iocca, Yocco, Jocco, and Jacco on some US documents. At some point, the erroneous "Tocco" was entered on a document and stuck for whatever reason (the actual surname "Tocco" is, on the other hand, a primarily Sicilian surname, specifically in the Western part of Palermo province). The family's initial settlement in the Taylor St community makes sense, as this was the primary locus of settlement for immigrants from Abruzzo/Molise in Chicagoland, followed by Chicago Heights.
While Albert "Caesar" Tocco was born in 1929, his older brother Joseph Frank "Papa Joe" Tocco was born in the Heights in September 1922. In 1945, he married Angeline Cuda, a Heights girl born to Francesco Cuda and Elizabetta Montella, natives of Sambiase, Catanzaro, and thus paesani of the Ruberto/Liparota family. Interesting to note that her paternal uncle, Domenico Cuda, wound up moving to Milwaukee, where he was a prominent and socially active member of the Italian community for decades. In an older post about Francesco Liparota of Sambiase, who was presumably a cousin of the Frank LaPorte in the Heights, and who married into the mafia-connected family of the Taylor St Gambinos from Mazzara del Vallo, I noted that he also moved to Milwaukee after living in Chicago. This seems notable given that there were otherwise relatively few Calabresi in the Milwaukee Italian community (which was mainly composed of Sicilians and Northern Italians). It could also very well point to longer-standing ties between the Ruberto/Liparota family and Milwaukee that may, in part, explain why former Milwaukee outfit member Frank LaGalbo was assigned to captain Frank LaPorte when he transferred his membership to the Chicago outfit in the 1950s, as the context for this specific assignment otherwise remains opaque.
As mentioned previously, "Papa Joe" Tocco, alleged to have been a close personal friend of Frank LaPorte, wound up moving out to AZ, where, by the 1960s, both local LE and the FBI considered him an important figure in the Chicago outfit's network of operations and affiliates in the SW. As of 1950, Joe Tocco was still living in Steger, Will County, in the SW suburbs of Chicago, where he owned a trucking company involved in hauling building materials for construction sites. By 1960, however, he had relocated to Tucson, where he owned the Golden West Bakery until it burned down in 1966. At that point, Joe Tocco relocated to Phoenix, where he opened Papa Joe's Restaurant, which LE identified as a major hub for mob activity in AZ in the 1970s. In 1968, authorities claimed that Joe Tocco was one of the Chicago figures who incorporated the AZ Entertainers, Club Owners, and Associates Guild -- believed to be a front for Chicago mob interests in the region -- with Frank Mancini, a flamboyant former club owner in Calumet City who moved to AZ around 1950 and subsequently worked for the AZ Highway Department and DMV (when queried by LE as to his connections to Joe Tocco, Mancini said he had known Tocco since he was a "kid"). Frank Mancini was born in Chicago Heights in 1910 to Domenico Mancini, a native of Pizzone, Isernia, Molise (the hometown of the Foscos and multiple other important and inter-related Taylor St families, as I've discussed many times before), and Lena Orlando, a native of Agnone, Isernia.
Frank Mancini was also reputed to have been a "cousin" of Armand, Robert, Mario, and Nick D'Andrea, mob-connected brothers in Chicago Heights and Joliet. They were at least compaesani, as the parents of the D'Andrea brothers were also from Pizzone. Their sister, Antoinette D'Andrea, married Frank Luzi, another Chicago Heights associate who was the son of Frank LaPorte's sister, Teresa Liparota (Frank's nephew is author Matt Luzi). Armand D'Andrea's construction company handled multi-million dollar contracts for the City of Joliet, while he was also heavily involved in real estate and business investments in AZ. The D'Andrea's cousin, former Chicago Heights PD officer Ernest Savaiano, was among the men said to frequent Papa Joe's Restaurant in the 1970s. Robert D'Andrea, meanwhile, was living in Phoenix when he was busted in 1975 for storing weapons stolen in an AZ heist of 125 firearms. While Armand D'Andrea died of a heart attack in 1978, brothers Nick and Mario, who were involved in cocaine distribution, were murdered in 1981 in Chicago Heights (
viewtopic.php?p=232930#p232930).
Other members of Mancini's "guild" were:
- Joe Falduto, a Taylor St guy born in Chicago to Antonio Falduto and Carmella Malara of the Pellaro quarter of the City of Reggio Calabria. Falduto operated the Roma Bakery in Phoenix and died in Glendale, AZ, in 1976. Falduto had previously been a secretary of the mobbed-up Illinois Specialty Bakers Association in the 1950s (I've previously touched on the bloody history of mafia control of the Italian bread/bakery industry in Chicago when discussing figures like Jim DeGeorge and Carlisi-Tornabene compaesano Cipriano Argento). Falduto's first wife was Edith Scala, a Taylor St girl born in Chicago to parents from Marigliano, Napoli, and a likely relative of Marigliano native Pasquale Scala, founder of Scala Packing Company, a longtime iconic Chicago purveyor of Italian beef and sausage.
- Joe DiCaro, owner of the Phoenix-based B & D Meat Company. Totally unrelated to the Sicilian DiCaros from Bridgeport, this Joe DiCaro was born in Chicago Heights to Vincenzo Bianco Di Caro and Carmella Pancrazio of Sambiase. Vincenzo Di Caro was another employee of Inland Steel and his mother was a Ruberto, so he was likely a relative of the Ruberto-Liparotas; Carmella's brother Domenico Pancrazio was a longtime official of the Holy Name Society of San Rocco Parish in Chicago Heights.
- Convicted heroin trafficker Jose Urias.
Frank LaPorte was himself said to have controlled significant investments in AZ, including lucrative real estate holdings and a natural gas well (this in addition to his investments in CA, of course). Interesting to see that the network of people connected to Joe Tocco shows a pattern of ties to both Taylor St and the Heights and potential deeper connections around shared Calabrian ancestry, given Tocco's marriage and close connection to LaPorte. While his younger brother Al was inducted into Chicago LCN in the 1983 ceremony with the Calabrese brothers, to my knowledge, no firm evidence has yet surfaced as to Papa Joe Tocco's membership status. He died in Phoenix in 1995.
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Another South Suburban LCN figure with ties to AZ was Jimmy Catuara. In 1973, Catuara was acquitted for his alleged role as a mastermind of a nationwide mortgage loan scam that involved Chicago LCN affiliate Louis "Lou the Tailor" Rosanova (who owned the Savanah Inn and Country Club in Atlanta), Chicago associate Billy Dauber, and a number of other individuals residing in Phoenix, NYC, CA, and MD. Rosanova was convicted on fraud charges in the case, after being arrested and charged in Phoenix, where he was said to have been planning to play golf with Dean Martin. In 1974, AZ papers cited LE as alleging that Catuara was planning to "retire" to the Phoenix area following the serious heat coming down on him from the $4.3 million heist of the Purolator Company that year, committed by a gang of guys said to have been reporting to Catuara (use the search function). Of course, Catuara did not wind up riding off quietly into the sunset but remained in Chicago where things didn't end so well for him.
In this light, it's interesting to note a small detail from the testimony of Nick Calabrese during the Family Secrets trial in 2007. While recounting the beginning of his formal affiliation with the Chicago outfit as an associate reporting to then-soldier Angelo LaPietra, Calabrese noted that he and his brother went on the lam to Phoenix in 1969, as Frank Calabrese was trying to duck a subpoena from investigators targeting the juice loan racket in Chicago at that time. While in AZ, Nick said that they were in contact with a Chuck Catuara, who was also staying in Phoenix at the time and who they knew from Chicago. Nick stated that Chuck Catuara worked as an agent/collector for Frank Calabrese's juice loan operation. He also stated that Chuck Calabrese was a friend of their father, James Leo Calabrese. James Leo Calabrese -- a longtime worker at a paper cup factory who died in Melrose park in 1980 -- otherwise hasn't come up as someone connected to anybody, but given that he was a Barese raised on Grand Ave who married a Sicilian girl, it would be no real surprise if he had at least social connections to some people who were affiliated with the mob at some point. I've noted before that the 1922 naturalization of James Leo Calabrese's father, Mola di Bari native Francesco Paolo Calabrese, was witnessed by Nicola Nitti, father of later outfit associate Nick Nitti (
viewtopic.php?p=226324&hilit=mola#p226324).
Both the Nitti and Calabrese families, however, were from Bari and settled near Grand and Racine, so it is no surprise that they had ties to each other. Nick's claim that his father was a friend of this Chuck Cataura could, however, also point to longer ties between the Calabrese family and the Southside Chinatown/Armour Square/Bridgeport area. During the Family Secrets trial, outfit associate and disgraced CPD officer Anthony "Twan" Passafiume, ala "Anthony Doyle" testified that he had known Frank Calabrese since they were kids as they used to play handball with each other. This always jumped out to me, as Passafiume grew up in Armour Square and Calabrese was from the NW Side, so I figured that there was some connection that Calabrese must've had since a young age to the Southside that isn't otherwise legible to us.
There is no record of a Chuck, or a Charles/Calogero, Catuara in Chicago. There was, however, Carl Catuara, born in 1927 in Chicago to Jimmy Catuara and his wife, Mary Bonomo (born in Chicago to parents from Nicosia, Enna). After his father's murder in 1977, Carl Catuara made the papers in the 1980s when investigators were exploring his possible ties to a robbery of an armored car containing rare coins. In 1996, Catuara was fired from his position with the State of IL as manager for a Westside driver's license office when Federal Operation Silver Shovel, a probe into Chicago/Cook County political corruption, revealed that he had been selling fake licenses to cooperating witness John Christopher. Christopher, a nephew of Chicago captain Fiore Buccieri, had prior ties to Carl Catuara, who was alleged to have previously arranged loans to bankroll Christopher's trucking company. Carl Catuara died of natural causes in 1997 before he could stand trial for charges stemming from Silver Shovel. He would seem to be the best bet for the "Chuck Catuara" recounted by Nick Calabrese unless another Catuara had "Chuck" as a nickname. All of the Catuaras in Chicago were, however, from an extended family from Sant' Angelo Muxaro, Agrigento, who settled in the Chinatown/Armour Square area, so any Catuara would presumably have been a relative of some degree to Jimmy Catuara.
Anthony Passafiume aka Anthony Doyle was born in Chicago in 1944 to Frank Passafiume (d.1953), born in Chicago to parents from Termini Imerese, and Mamie Grace Invergo, born in Chicago to parents from Nicosia. Tony Passafiume's mother was thus a compaesana of Jimmy Catuara's wife. The Passafiume/Invergo family, additionally, lived at 29th and Lowe, a few short blocks from where the Catuaras lived at 26th and Emerald. If James Leo Calabrese in fact had personal ties to the Catuaras, it could well explain how Frank Calabrese and Tony Passafiume came to meet each other as kids.
[quote=PolackTony post_id=211865 time=1636485877 user_id=6658]
Albert Tocco was born in Chicago Heights. His father Michaelangelo Tocco/Iocco was born in Chicago to a family from Campobasso province, Molise. His mother Laura Storto was born in Pittsburgh to Italian parents. I wasn't able to confirm her ancestry, but based on the surname she was also most likely from the area of Molise/Abruzzo.
[/quote]
Just to confirm, the Tocco brothers' parents were indeed compaesani. The parents of both Michaelangelo "Mike" Iocco and Laura Storto were from the comune of Castellino del Biferno, Campobasso, Molise (the separate region of Molise was only created in 1963, and thus the province of Campobasso was historically part of the older region of Abruzzi e Molise). Mike Iocco was born in 1895 in Chicago to Giuseppe Iocco and Maria De Lisio of Castellino del Biferno, who had married the prior year in Chicago, and was baptized at Blessed Assumption Parish on the Near Northside that year (Blessed Assumption was the oldest Italian Parish in Chicago). The family lived on Forquer St in the rapidly expanding Taylor St Italian colony on the Near Westside of Chicago at the time and Mike Iocco's younger siblings were baptized at Holy Guardian Angel Parish. After living initially in PA, the Stortos moved to Chicago and also settled on Forquer St (today Arthington), near the Ioccos. By 1910, the Ioccos had relocated to Chicago Heights, presumably for work -- father Giuseppe was a railroad worker down there, while Mike Iocco worked for the Inland Steel Company, as did several members of the Liparota/LaPorte family (also interesting to note that, as I've discussed in some older posts, the Liparotas also had connections to the Taylor St neighborhood around 1900). The surname was originally Iocco, with spelling variations such as Iocca, Yocco, Jocco, and Jacco on some US documents. At some point, the erroneous "Tocco" was entered on a document and stuck for whatever reason (the actual surname "Tocco" is, on the other hand, a primarily Sicilian surname, specifically in the Western part of Palermo province). The family's initial settlement in the Taylor St community makes sense, as this was the primary locus of settlement for immigrants from Abruzzo/Molise in Chicagoland, followed by Chicago Heights.
While Albert "Caesar" Tocco was born in 1929, his older brother Joseph Frank "Papa Joe" Tocco was born in the Heights in September 1922. In 1945, he married Angeline Cuda, a Heights girl born to Francesco Cuda and Elizabetta Montella, natives of Sambiase, Catanzaro, and thus paesani of the Ruberto/Liparota family. Interesting to note that her paternal uncle, Domenico Cuda, wound up moving to Milwaukee, where he was a prominent and socially active member of the Italian community for decades. In an older post about Francesco Liparota of Sambiase, who was presumably a cousin of the Frank LaPorte in the Heights, and who married into the mafia-connected family of the Taylor St Gambinos from Mazzara del Vallo, I noted that he also moved to Milwaukee after living in Chicago. This seems notable given that there were otherwise relatively few Calabresi in the Milwaukee Italian community (which was mainly composed of Sicilians and Northern Italians). It could also very well point to longer-standing ties between the Ruberto/Liparota family and Milwaukee that may, in part, explain why former Milwaukee outfit member Frank LaGalbo was assigned to captain Frank LaPorte when he transferred his membership to the Chicago outfit in the 1950s, as the context for this specific assignment otherwise remains opaque.
As mentioned previously, "Papa Joe" Tocco, alleged to have been a close personal friend of Frank LaPorte, wound up moving out to AZ, where, by the 1960s, both local LE and the FBI considered him an important figure in the Chicago outfit's network of operations and affiliates in the SW. As of 1950, Joe Tocco was still living in Steger, Will County, in the SW suburbs of Chicago, where he owned a trucking company involved in hauling building materials for construction sites. By 1960, however, he had relocated to Tucson, where he owned the Golden West Bakery until it burned down in 1966. At that point, Joe Tocco relocated to Phoenix, where he opened Papa Joe's Restaurant, which LE identified as a major hub for mob activity in AZ in the 1970s. In 1968, authorities claimed that Joe Tocco was one of the Chicago figures who incorporated the AZ Entertainers, Club Owners, and Associates Guild -- believed to be a front for Chicago mob interests in the region -- with Frank Mancini, a flamboyant former club owner in Calumet City who moved to AZ around 1950 and subsequently worked for the AZ Highway Department and DMV (when queried by LE as to his connections to Joe Tocco, Mancini said he had known Tocco since he was a "kid"). Frank Mancini was born in Chicago Heights in 1910 to Domenico Mancini, a native of Pizzone, Isernia, Molise (the hometown of the Foscos and multiple other important and inter-related Taylor St families, as I've discussed many times before), and Lena Orlando, a native of Agnone, Isernia.
Frank Mancini was also reputed to have been a "cousin" of Armand, Robert, Mario, and Nick D'Andrea, mob-connected brothers in Chicago Heights and Joliet. They were at least compaesani, as the parents of the D'Andrea brothers were also from Pizzone. Their sister, Antoinette D'Andrea, married Frank Luzi, another Chicago Heights associate who was the son of Frank LaPorte's sister, Teresa Liparota (Frank's nephew is author Matt Luzi). Armand D'Andrea's construction company handled multi-million dollar contracts for the City of Joliet, while he was also heavily involved in real estate and business investments in AZ. The D'Andrea's cousin, former Chicago Heights PD officer Ernest Savaiano, was among the men said to frequent Papa Joe's Restaurant in the 1970s. Robert D'Andrea, meanwhile, was living in Phoenix when he was busted in 1975 for storing weapons stolen in an AZ heist of 125 firearms. While Armand D'Andrea died of a heart attack in 1978, brothers Nick and Mario, who were involved in cocaine distribution, were murdered in 1981 in Chicago Heights (https://theblackhand.club/forum/viewtopic.php?p=232930#p232930).
Other members of Mancini's "guild" were:
[list]
[*]Joe Falduto, a Taylor St guy born in Chicago to Antonio Falduto and Carmella Malara of the Pellaro quarter of the City of Reggio Calabria. Falduto operated the Roma Bakery in Phoenix and died in Glendale, AZ, in 1976. Falduto had previously been a secretary of the mobbed-up Illinois Specialty Bakers Association in the 1950s (I've previously touched on the bloody history of mafia control of the Italian bread/bakery industry in Chicago when discussing figures like Jim DeGeorge and Carlisi-Tornabene compaesano Cipriano Argento). Falduto's first wife was Edith Scala, a Taylor St girl born in Chicago to parents from Marigliano, Napoli, and a likely relative of Marigliano native Pasquale Scala, founder of Scala Packing Company, a longtime iconic Chicago purveyor of Italian beef and sausage.
[*]Joe DiCaro, owner of the Phoenix-based B & D Meat Company. Totally unrelated to the Sicilian DiCaros from Bridgeport, this Joe DiCaro was born in Chicago Heights to Vincenzo Bianco Di Caro and Carmella Pancrazio of Sambiase. Vincenzo Di Caro was another employee of Inland Steel and his mother was a Ruberto, so he was likely a relative of the Ruberto-Liparotas; Carmella's brother Domenico Pancrazio was a longtime official of the Holy Name Society of San Rocco Parish in Chicago Heights.
[*]Convicted heroin trafficker Jose Urias.
[/list]
Frank LaPorte was himself said to have controlled significant investments in AZ, including lucrative real estate holdings and a natural gas well (this in addition to his investments in CA, of course). Interesting to see that the network of people connected to Joe Tocco shows a pattern of ties to both Taylor St and the Heights and potential deeper connections around shared Calabrian ancestry, given Tocco's marriage and close connection to LaPorte. While his younger brother Al was inducted into Chicago LCN in the 1983 ceremony with the Calabrese brothers, to my knowledge, no firm evidence has yet surfaced as to Papa Joe Tocco's membership status. He died in Phoenix in 1995.
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Another South Suburban LCN figure with ties to AZ was Jimmy Catuara. In 1973, Catuara was acquitted for his alleged role as a mastermind of a nationwide mortgage loan scam that involved Chicago LCN affiliate Louis "Lou the Tailor" Rosanova (who owned the Savanah Inn and Country Club in Atlanta), Chicago associate Billy Dauber, and a number of other individuals residing in Phoenix, NYC, CA, and MD. Rosanova was convicted on fraud charges in the case, after being arrested and charged in Phoenix, where he was said to have been planning to play golf with Dean Martin. In 1974, AZ papers cited LE as alleging that Catuara was planning to "retire" to the Phoenix area following the serious heat coming down on him from the $4.3 million heist of the Purolator Company that year, committed by a gang of guys said to have been reporting to Catuara (use the search function). Of course, Catuara did not wind up riding off quietly into the sunset but remained in Chicago where things didn't end so well for him.
In this light, it's interesting to note a small detail from the testimony of Nick Calabrese during the Family Secrets trial in 2007. While recounting the beginning of his formal affiliation with the Chicago outfit as an associate reporting to then-soldier Angelo LaPietra, Calabrese noted that he and his brother went on the lam to Phoenix in 1969, as Frank Calabrese was trying to duck a subpoena from investigators targeting the juice loan racket in Chicago at that time. While in AZ, Nick said that they were in contact with a Chuck Catuara, who was also staying in Phoenix at the time and who they knew from Chicago. Nick stated that Chuck Catuara worked as an agent/collector for Frank Calabrese's juice loan operation. He also stated that Chuck Calabrese was a friend of their father, James Leo Calabrese. James Leo Calabrese -- a longtime worker at a paper cup factory who died in Melrose park in 1980 -- otherwise hasn't come up as someone connected to anybody, but given that he was a Barese raised on Grand Ave who married a Sicilian girl, it would be no real surprise if he had at least social connections to some people who were affiliated with the mob at some point. I've noted before that the 1922 naturalization of James Leo Calabrese's father, Mola di Bari native Francesco Paolo Calabrese, was witnessed by Nicola Nitti, father of later outfit associate Nick Nitti (https://theblackhand.club/forum/viewtopic.php?p=226324&hilit=mola#p226324).
Both the Nitti and Calabrese families, however, were from Bari and settled near Grand and Racine, so it is no surprise that they had ties to each other. Nick's claim that his father was a friend of this Chuck Cataura could, however, also point to longer ties between the Calabrese family and the Southside Chinatown/Armour Square/Bridgeport area. During the Family Secrets trial, outfit associate and disgraced CPD officer Anthony "Twan" Passafiume, ala "Anthony Doyle" testified that he had known Frank Calabrese since they were kids as they used to play handball with each other. This always jumped out to me, as Passafiume grew up in Armour Square and Calabrese was from the NW Side, so I figured that there was some connection that Calabrese must've had since a young age to the Southside that isn't otherwise legible to us.
There is no record of a Chuck, or a Charles/Calogero, Catuara in Chicago. There was, however, Carl Catuara, born in 1927 in Chicago to Jimmy Catuara and his wife, Mary Bonomo (born in Chicago to parents from Nicosia, Enna). After his father's murder in 1977, Carl Catuara made the papers in the 1980s when investigators were exploring his possible ties to a robbery of an armored car containing rare coins. In 1996, Catuara was fired from his position with the State of IL as manager for a Westside driver's license office when Federal Operation Silver Shovel, a probe into Chicago/Cook County political corruption, revealed that he had been selling fake licenses to cooperating witness John Christopher. Christopher, a nephew of Chicago captain Fiore Buccieri, had prior ties to Carl Catuara, who was alleged to have previously arranged loans to bankroll Christopher's trucking company. Carl Catuara died of natural causes in 1997 before he could stand trial for charges stemming from Silver Shovel. He would seem to be the best bet for the "Chuck Catuara" recounted by Nick Calabrese unless another Catuara had "Chuck" as a nickname. All of the Catuaras in Chicago were, however, from an extended family from Sant' Angelo Muxaro, Agrigento, who settled in the Chinatown/Armour Square area, so any Catuara would presumably have been a relative of some degree to Jimmy Catuara.
Anthony Passafiume aka Anthony Doyle was born in Chicago in 1944 to Frank Passafiume (d.1953), born in Chicago to parents from Termini Imerese, and Mamie Grace Invergo, born in Chicago to parents from Nicosia. Tony Passafiume's mother was thus a compaesana of Jimmy Catuara's wife. The Passafiume/Invergo family, additionally, lived at 29th and Lowe, a few short blocks from where the Catuaras lived at 26th and Emerald. If James Leo Calabrese in fact had personal ties to the Catuaras, it could well explain how Frank Calabrese and Tony Passafiume came to meet each other as kids.