"Beloved"

I ran across an obituary in today’s Sun-Times for Sam Parisi, age 95.  Two things caught my eye, starting with Mr. Parisi’s military service in World War II; he was a bombardier and navigator on B-24s.  The obit noted he flew 25 missions, a number indicating this son of Italian immigrants was active in 1943, when conditions were particularly nasty over the skies of Europe.  But he survived and eventually opened up a grocery I probably passed by a hundred times in nearby Lyons.

The other point of interest for me was how Sam Parisi courted his future wife Frances, “often heading to Comiskey Park to cheer on their beloved White Sox.”  The Parisis married in 1948; the Sox lost 265 games, 1946-1948, with another 185 over the next two seasons.  This was love, indeed.