Mafia tales

When the Toronto Star, Canada's most liberal newspaper, has the opportunity to make mountains of news out of molehills of facts, they usually pick on their big fat slob of a right-wing mayor, Rob Ford.

But this week they've taken a new tack.

The Mafia!

Yes, THE MAFIA is big news in the Toronto Star these days.

As a kid who grew up in working class Guelph back in the day, I learned a thing or two about my Italian neighbors.

Guelph had a huge Italian immigrant population at the time, and being just a generation or two removed from the old country, certain cultural artifacts still had currency among them.

Like respect for certain semi-underground organizations loosely known as "the mafia."

There were certain family names that were reputed to have greater or lesser connections to this supposed criminal organization.

Over the years I eventually got to know folks from all those families. I don't know anything about the mafia, but I know none of those folks would mess with you if you weren't messing with them.

So I'm a bit skeptical about the mafia stories the Star has been running all week.

Seems the fact that Vito Rizzuto will be out of a Colorado prison soon is one of the drivers behind their binge of mafia stories. According to the Star the fact that most of his immediate family has died in Montreal turf wars while he was in the big house means he'll be looking for revenge when he gets out.

They also speculate, for no reason whatsoever, that he'll be making Toronto his base of operations.

I knew a guy, Manny Crabtree, who used to be a prison guard at the prison where Johnny Papalia did one of his stints. Papalia was well known as a local mafia big dog. They became best friends. Manny looked out for Johnny, and when Johnny got out he looked after Manny.

Johnny eventually caught a bullet, but their friendship was proof that insofar as there is a mafia, it honors a social contract the likes of which we would all benefit from.

All of those "mafia" families in Guelph went mainstream generations ago. The guys who got off the boat and did what they had to do produced a wave of offspring who became lawyers and university professors and doctors and congressmen and members of parliament and real estate developers and businessmen of all stripes.

Pretty much like most other immigrant communities.

But the Toronto Star still needs to sell papers.