I had just turned ten, and my sister and I traveled to live in my father’s hometown with his family on the southern coast of Sicily — the largest

Life Lessons from a Ten-Year-Old Cigarette Vendor

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2024-04-25 19:00:03

I had just turned ten, and my sister and I traveled to live in my father’s hometown with his family on the southern coast of Sicily — the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. That was thirty years ago. While our sabbatical lasted for only a year, I did miss America immensely, but I also loved that new adventure.

The Sicilians didn’t get it. Breakfast was a meal, and what I had learned in America was that it was the most important one of the day. It fuelled you up. Got you moving. This was Sicily, and cigarettes and espresso seemed sufficient for the adults, while warm milk and stale bread were good enough for the kids.

Western civilization was rapidly catching up to Sicily, and there was at least one tiny grocery store in town that carried specialty consumer staples you couldn’t find at the regular mamma e papà shops. This is where my sister had seen a box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.

One late afternoon, I heard her announce that she was walking to the store to buy some laundry detergent. To her delight, I tagged along and listened to this and that gossip about the other neighbors on our block.