Hi Mr. Pinkwater-I listened to you last week on the Bob Smith Show, WXXI, Rochester, NY. I was the wacky caller at the end of your show. I know I sounded like a bit of a nutcase, I was just nervous and on a borrowed cell phone way out in the country. I drive a delivery van for Airborne Express/DHL. I had to call because my maiden name is Mazzocchi and I wanted to tell you the story of when my daughter was in forth grade (she’s 23 and just graduated from college) and the class had to read the Hoboken Chicken Emergency. Anyhow, the class was reading your book and her teacher kept mispronouncing our last name. She tried correcting her, with no luck. Anyhow, the funny thing was that her grandfather, my dad, Anthony Mazzocchi, was living in Hoboken at the time. Growing up in Long Island I had never met anyone with our last name. I have come to find out that there are many Mazzocchi’s in NJ. (Did you see those gigantic construction vehicles cleaning up ground zero with Mazzocchi in huge letters on TV?)
How did you pick that name for your character? I am going to order your new “Bobowicz” book and a few others. By the way, you were great on the radio, so FUNNY. NPR saves my sanity driving all day. Take care .
Sincerely yours.
Carol Irish
Rochester, NY
I got the name Mazzocchi from a cheap restaurant, a spaghetti joint in midtown where my friends and I used to go because you could get supper for about a dollar-twenty-five. It was known as ""Professor Mazzocchi--Inventor of the Spaghetti System."" That's what was painted on the window. Inside, old rickety tables and chairs--place was unchanged from around 1920. We had lots of fun there.
