Wilderness Survival at The Pad with Tony Santucci

My old teaching buddy Tony Santucci is a philosopher/nutritionist/living-piece-of-performance-art. He’s boss of the Woman and Infant Children racket in Mpls. When Tonio visits The Pad he brings cubic cubits of yummy nutritious food – mangoes and pecans and coffee beans and designer root beer and muffins, stuff like that.

Tony visited The Pad last week and made this delicious and gorgeous salad out of food he brought and vegetables I’d roasted (green beans and fennel heart). It was a salad to contemplate as you ate it.

When I have visitors my brain shorts out and I can’t handle any task more complex than obeying the Law of Gravity. Stimulating conversation is my brain’s Kryptonite and Tony – philosopher and instigator of mad adventures – tends to be fun to talk to, which sets my brainium to spitting sparks.

Tony has known me for many decades, since we were teacher’s aides working with Special Ed kids at Katherine Curren School in Hopkins, MN in 1976. He knows my brainrot well. When Tony visits he pampers me by doing all the tasks that I’m too glitched to handle – cooking, cleaning, prepping for a hike.

I named a leading character in The King of Chicago after Tony. To win the game you usually had to rub out Tony Santucci, the leader of the Chicago Southside Gang. (Cool gangster by Rob Landeros.)

Here is Tony in all his glory:

Tony is even brimfuller with personality in real life.

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