by B. » Sat Jan 28, 2017 6:13 pm
OlBlueEyesClub wrote:Yea but didn't Valachi say Bonanno was his assigned as his padrone or something like that, when he was inducted?
It was randomly assigned to Bonanno through a finger game where everyone holds up a number and they count around the circle until it lands on that number, and the person it lands on is the compare/Godfather. I've read about it in one or two other places, one being Rocco Scafidi's making ceremony in the 1950s in Philadelphia. They did the same finger game as in Valachi's ceremony but two decades later, and in Scafidi's case his compare was Domenico Pollina. So in these two ceremonies at least you had a sponsor, captain (if different from sponsor), and a randomly assigned compare who, in Philly's case, was someone the inducted member could go to for counsel/help.
Valachi never says anything else about his compare or any relationship to Bonanno after this ceremony, and Joe Bonanno denied ever knowing Valachi. Valachi also never explained what this role was supposed to be in the first place, if he even knew himself, but we can assume it was meant to be similar to the way it was in Philly. NYC seems to have abandoned this by the 1940s/50s inductions, but the fact that two families in different cities would do the same exact game over two decades apart to choose a random "compare" tells me it may have been an even older custom in the mafia.
But back to your point... I know what you're saying and it does seem significant that Valachi was made by the "Bonanno" boss Maranzano and that his compare was Joe Bonanno, but the Bonanno thing is too random to mean much. Despite all the talk about the mob being more traditional and having a deeper recruitment pool back then, Valachi's making ceremony sounds like a clusterfuck... you had members of two different families thrown together with the lines temporarily blurred due to the war, and most of the guys inducted were street thugs who weren't related to other members, didn't really know what they were getting involved with, and were little more than muscle needed for the war. Not exactly John Stanfa level recruits, but these guys also don't exactly match up with the bulk of the Lucchese and Bonanno membership at that point, who were clannish, had many layers of relationships, generally came from the same towns/regions as each other, etc.
[quote="OlBlueEyesClub"]Yea but didn't Valachi say Bonanno was his assigned as his padrone or something like that, when he was inducted?[/quote]
It was randomly assigned to Bonanno through a finger game where everyone holds up a number and they count around the circle until it lands on that number, and the person it lands on is the compare/Godfather. I've read about it in one or two other places, one being Rocco Scafidi's making ceremony in the 1950s in Philadelphia. They did the same finger game as in Valachi's ceremony but two decades later, and in Scafidi's case his compare was Domenico Pollina. So in these two ceremonies at least you had a sponsor, captain (if different from sponsor), and a randomly assigned compare who, in Philly's case, was someone the inducted member could go to for counsel/help.
Valachi never says anything else about his compare or any relationship to Bonanno after this ceremony, and Joe Bonanno denied ever knowing Valachi. Valachi also never explained what this role was supposed to be in the first place, if he even knew himself, but we can assume it was meant to be similar to the way it was in Philly. NYC seems to have abandoned this by the 1940s/50s inductions, but the fact that two families in different cities would do the same exact game over two decades apart to choose a random "compare" tells me it may have been an even older custom in the mafia.
But back to your point... I know what you're saying and it does seem significant that Valachi was made by the "Bonanno" boss Maranzano and that his compare was Joe Bonanno, but the Bonanno thing is too random to mean much. Despite all the talk about the mob being more traditional and having a deeper recruitment pool back then, Valachi's making ceremony sounds like a clusterfuck... you had members of two different families thrown together with the lines temporarily blurred due to the war, and most of the guys inducted were street thugs who weren't related to other members, didn't really know what they were getting involved with, and were little more than muscle needed for the war. Not exactly John Stanfa level recruits, but these guys also don't exactly match up with the bulk of the Lucchese and Bonanno membership at that point, who were clannish, had many layers of relationships, generally came from the same towns/regions as each other, etc.