Dario Toffenetti and Carrie Bagg

[00:06] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Hi, I'm Dario Toffenetti of El Paso, Texas.

[00:19] CARRIE BAGG: 93.

[00:20] DARIO TOFFENETTI: I'm 93 years of age. This is February 6, 2002. Location, El Paso, Texas. I'm with my daughter, Carrie Louise Bagg. That's it.

[00:41] CARRIE BAGG: I'm Carrie Bagg, and I am 62 years old. It's February 6, 2022. We're in El Paso, Texas. I'm with my father, Dario Toffenetti Okay, dad, we're just going to sit here and visit. We've had so many questions, the family and I, about you growing up over the years, and you have such wisdom to share with the family, and I don't want to get the stories wrong, so I took this opportunity to spend some time with you and try and have seeds of wisdom to share with the rest of the family. So I'm going to start from the beginning. Can you tell me a little bit about where you grew up and what it was like?

[01:33] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Sure. I grew up in a town called Kenilworth, Illinois. 535 Kenilworth Avenue. New house, three story walk up. And I was born in Evanston, which was suburb of Chicago, as well as Kenilworth is a little further up the line on the lake shore. And we lived there for many, many years. I had a brother, Edward, and a sister, Eleanor, and we had my mother and father, who were immigrants from Italy. They came over separately. My dad came over when he was 14 years of age, and he was promised a job in Cincinnati, Ohio. The only trouble is, when he got there, it was winter time, and it was an ice cream company that had people with cuts. And with the carts being closed because of the coldness of the winter, he didn't know what to do. He ended up in northern Michigan in the iron mines, where there were a number of italian workers. And he spent some time there at the young age, but he got tired of hearing people blowing themselves up. They like to carry dynamite in the pockets of the shirts and then smokes a cigar on top of that. And occasionally the spark went the wrong way, and boom, there was another blast. And he finally ended up going to Chicago by himself, probably two years older. And he got a job at the LaSalle hotel in the kitchen, doing whatever he could get a job doing. Washing dishes, talking to the chef. He used to say, I used to pay the chef a quarter. And he'd shown me how to use my knives, cut food. And it was interesting to hear that, because many years later, my dad was honored as the president of the restaurant association in the same hotel. They started as a flirky, you might say, and he was honored in the same dining room that he used to be working with before.

[04:25] CARRIE BAGG: I never heard that story. That's fascinating.

[04:28] DARIO TOFFENETTI: This was, I forget the year now, but it was many years ago.

[04:34] CARRIE BAGG: And grandpa became the president of the Chicago Restaurant association.

[04:40] DARIO TOFFENETTI: That's correct.

[04:41] CARRIE BAGG: What about you? Did you work with grandpa ever?

[04:45] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Well, my dream was always to work with my dad. That was, even as a youngster, I spent some time in the restaurants, and when I got to about 15 years of age, maybe even a little less, I ran the elevator to the third floor, the one restaurant we had. I used to work in the pantry, and my dad was good to me, and he took it easy on me. I would only work 4 hours a day while I was in high school and in the summertime. So by doing that, I could get home, see my friends at the beach, be a kid as well.

[05:34] CARRIE BAGG: What was your favorite job grandpa had you do as a kid?

[05:37] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Well, I did it all. I worked in the pantry. I worked in the kitchen upstairs, learning how to use the meat, cutting machines, etcetera, and bringing the conversation of what we were going to do today on the menu. I even worked with the maintenance department a couple of summers, and at that time, we had eight restaurants, and we have to maintain them all. So I was the flunky. When they would go to restaurants, they would call me, bring the toolbox, and I have the toolbox on my shoulder and walk three, four, five blocks away and work with them. And I had a lot of laughs, a lot of fun, even when they grab an electric wire and then grab me where I would be the ground. I get a big church, big chair.

[06:50] CARRIE BAGG: That's pretty funny, dad.

[06:53] DARIO TOFFENETTI: I talked to my dad and I said, it's pretty hard to walk to all these different stores. Why don't we get a surplus, Ali? And then we could use that to carry the tools around quickly and be easier for all of us to get around. We can park in the alleys in the restaurant because it's a small vehicle. And he agreed. And of course, I took it home at night, which was the jig on the beach, going up and down the sand dunes with the deep. And I felt very proud that be a part of the organization as a youngster and progressed through the years. One thing I remember my dad when he went to visit somebody for business other than the restaurants, he says, come with me. We're going to so and so's office. Whose office? We're going to Mayor Daley's office. Oh, big Daley, the big head of Chicago. And so I met him. I met Otto Turner, Governor, Governor Oglesby. These were people that used to eat with us on the third floor, which was the bedsheen dining room near city hall. And I knew all these fellows called first name, first name. And I remember them for many years. At Christmas time, my job was to deliver Christmas Hams. Hams, hams from Oscar Maya, who, by the way, was at our wedding, when we got married later. And you talk about that later, but the homes of these people that I mentioned just mentioned.

[09:07] CARRIE BAGG: Dad, when you were early on in the restaurants, I remember that grandpa think business was done a little bit differently. You actually would go with grandpa to the stockyard to pick out your meat. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

[09:25] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Well, I can. I was not with my dad. My uncle, Rudolph Rudolfo, was the buyer of fresh meats and vegetables, and I had to learn how to do his job. So I have to go get up early in the morning, go down to the south water market, made all the purveyors, and also go up to the stockyard and meet all the purveyors out there. And when he took a vacation, I was in charge of that department. He used to scare me because I said, I hope these guys don't take advantage of me because I'm not knowledgeable like my uncle Berlo.

[10:11] CARRIE BAGG: How old were you?

[10:12] DARIO TOFFENETTI: I was in my early twenties.

[10:14] CARRIE BAGG: Oh, my.

[10:15] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Yeah, early twenties.

[10:17] CARRIE BAGG: How old were you the first time grandpa went with you out to Idaho? Had to be about the same age.

[10:27] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Maybe a little later.

[10:29] CARRIE BAGG: Well, you tell me a little bit about the potatoes with Idaho and how he helps you with college.

[10:36] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Okay. Well, I had occasion, my dad had an occasion to buy a railroad freight car full of Idaho potatoes that somebody ordered. But for some reason, the shipment. So he took the shipment. And this was in 1930, in the late thirties, and he did something different. My dad got to be known through the years as the.

[11:20] CARRIE BAGG: Commercial. Oh, menu. The maestro.

[11:28] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Maestro on the menu. By doing what he did, he wrote about foods in a very colorful way. And it was different than other restaurants have ever done. He had big signs in the window, big signs in the dining room. All menus had colorful articles about what, what you're going to have to eat. But it would be colorful, very musical sound, even.

[12:06] CARRIE BAGG: It sounds, in a way, a little bit like more advertising of the. Well, it had been done before.

[12:14] DARIO TOFFENETTI: It hadn't been done before like this ever.

[12:16] CARRIE BAGG: Didn't he get a special award for that?

[12:19] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Well, what happened? And he got to the railroad car and he bought the potatoes in downtown Chicago. At that time, we had probably about six restaurants. I'm guessing this was in the thirties. And he piled them up in the window. The windows of the streets of Chicago were just followed bundles of Idaho, big Idaho potatoes. This was unusual because most potatoes that they were coming from the east coast were little, scrawny little potatoes, if I might say. But the Idaho's were like diamonds. And it was written up in Life magazine, look Times magazines and other magazines in a big way about this doing in Chicago, filling the windows store restaurant windows full of potatoes. Well, it ended up the state of Idaho, became a big friend of the family, and in many ways they honored my dad through the years. The first thing was he was made the sheriff at large for the state of Idaho. And he also got a doctorate of laws degree from the university.

[14:11] CARRIE BAGG: Did he have any influence on you going to school in Idaho?

[14:15] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Well, I ended up going to school. It was funny, but I enjoyed it. It was very wonderful people, really wonderful people. And I enjoyed it very much. I spent, never spent summers out there, but I did spend some time out there in McCall, Idaho, which was a beautiful lake area up in the mountains. But I had an opportunity of meeting at Chicago or out in Idaho. Several governors who stopped by to say hello to us in Chicago, and they were passing through, they would make sure had to go see Tampa Dennis.

[15:07] CARRIE BAGG: Okay. And didn't, did grandpa also get an award from a university in Illinois for an honorary degree from northwestern?

[15:19] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Well, he got it from there was a business fraternity, took night courses, and I'm not familiar with too much of that, but he did get out of there.

[15:35] CARRIE BAGG: Okay, so tell me a little bit more about your parents. I call your mom nanny and your dad grandpa, but I know them from a different angle. How would you describe their parenting of you?

[15:50] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Well, my mother used to say, with my father, I could get away with murder, but she was the one that ruled the house. She was in charge of the house and she took good care of it. She was a good mother. And they met each other in Italy and little village. They both lived across the street from each other and through correspondence. In the early days, my dad went back and got married with her in Rivarido, a little town close by, and brought her back. And one thing I must say, my dad was a true American. He spoke Italian with my mother. But to us children, English was the word because this was America. He was a flag waver, a real flag wavered. And also, like, I remember him being that way. We went one time they had it. I am an american day at Soldiers Field, and I was young at the time, maybe 1615. And I brought a little book along and I got a lot of autographs of people. All the big movie stars were there. And I was right around getting signatures, signatures, autograph. And I lost the book when I was a college, somebody took it. I never found out who. It disappeared.

[17:54] CARRIE BAGG: That must have been hard.

[17:56] DARIO TOFFENETTI: But anyway, my dad and I were good pals. We had a lot of laughs, a lot of fun together.

[18:07] CARRIE BAGG: What is one of your favorite memories with grandpa?

[18:12] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Well, the ones that I always get kidded about. I used to meet him when he came home from the train at night, and he'd be walking down the street past his little park. And this park had little trees over the sidewalk. And I would climb in the tree and I knew he must have seen me. He couldn't miss me because walking, and I'd jump on the shoulder from the tree like that. He yelled, and then he'd laugh and he'd hold my hand and walk me up to the house a couple of blocks. We had a lot together for many years.

[19:00] CARRIE BAGG: If you were going to describe him to somebody, what would be his personality traits?

[19:09] DARIO TOFFENETTI: He was himself, I can never figure out. I never knew the answer from him or anybody else. What made him, in his mind, think about coming to America by himself, 14 years of age, for the promise of rejob that was not open when he got there. And he survived, and he survived well enough to end up being the poet laureate of the many of us. I was trying to think of that before the poet laureate of the menu, which was written in a couple of books about restaurant people. And they always made a point of mentioning that about my dad.

[20:03] CARRIE BAGG: I've always heard that he never had a bad day and always saw the good in things, but I didn't know him. Would you say that's true?

[20:11] DARIO TOFFENETTI: That's very true. Very true. And I think that sort of stuck on me. I like to see people happy. I try to be happy about them. And I have my off days, but most of the time I can do that. And around where I'm living now, I've got a lot of people saying we're to fit. Fantastic.

[20:41] CARRIE BAGG: Because when we ask you how you're doing, you say fantastic.

[20:46] DARIO TOFFENETTI: That's it.

[20:47] CARRIE BAGG: When I see the people where you live and I ask them how they are, they do it just like you. And then they tell me how much they love you. So I think that's a really good influence that you're having on these guys. We all think of you when we say that word. Dad, if we could go to back into your childhood for just one last question. I'm curious if you have any childhood friends that stand out in your memories from when you were a kid.

[21:17] DARIO TOFFENETTI: I did, but I think they're all gone today.

[21:20] CARRIE BAGG: Well, who do you remember?

[21:22] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Eddie O'Rourke. He was a good friend of mine for a long time. We served mass together. Rusty Bergman?

[21:35] CARRIE BAGG: No, just Rusty. Who was Rusty?

[21:43] DARIO TOFFENETTI: He was a neighbor behind us. And he had a brother.

[21:50] CARRIE BAGG: He told me something special in his backyard once.

[21:53] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Well, we were young kids playing with a golf. Our families, my father's golf clubs. And I stood too close to this young fellow, the bourbon, and he whacked me on the chin with an iron.

[22:12] CARRIE BAGG: You still have a little scar there. But he stayed your friend.

[22:17] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Yeah. He cemented the relations.

[22:21] CARRIE BAGG: It cemented the relationship. And what about the little house, the cabin your friend had in the backyard behind you?

[22:28] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Well, that was Rusty's house. Rusty had a nice little house. It was a real log cabin. Had windows and front door and back in the woods of his yard. And we used to, you know, play cowboys and Indians. I guess.

[22:52] CARRIE BAGG: It sounds like fun.

[22:54] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Yeah, it was great.

[22:56] CARRIE BAGG: So would you say you had. What kind of childhood was it?

[23:01] DARIO TOFFENETTI: I had a happy, happy childhood. I learned to drive there. I learned to shovel snow there.

[23:16] CARRIE BAGG: Did you have a special pet?

[23:18] DARIO TOFFENETTI: I had a special pet. I still have mallory, Fritz, my dachshunds. Fritz. I have an iron dachshund at the front door of our apartment.

[23:30] CARRIE BAGG: Little mud scraper.

[23:31] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Mud scraper for your shoes. That's Fritz.

[23:34] CARRIE BAGG: That's Fritz.

[23:37] DARIO TOFFENETTI: He was a little old dog. I don't know how he died or anything. I don't remember that.

[23:43] CARRIE BAGG: Yeah, but you have talked about him over the years. You really did love him a lot. On to your next love. You met mom. How old were you when you met mom?

[23:55] DARIO TOFFENETTI: I was 24 years of age. I had no idea of any special girlfriends or anything. I had a couple of girls that I was going with, but nothing that I thought going in the future. But my mother and father were going to go to Italy. This was after the war, and it's the first time my mother had ever. She had been back once in the thirties with me, as a matter of fact, to visit her family. And she and dad were going to go back after the war to see the families. The first time after the war. So my brother Eddie, my mother and dad myself were invited to a party at my wifes future wife uncle's house for a going away party. And.

[25:06] CARRIE BAGG: Who introduced you there?

[25:08] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Well, introduced by my.

[25:20] CARRIE BAGG: Your wife's grandmother.

[25:22] DARIO TOFFENETTI: My wife's grandmother had always told me about this young girl that she had would be nice for me. Of course, all I could think about. What's this going to be like? So anyway, she came to the party also with her mother and father, who I found out later, my father used to eat at their restaurant, near his restaurant. When he wanted to take a break, he would go to places that have a home place. It was a place that people like Caruso. And it was an upscale restaurant by any means. And so.

[26:18] CARRIE BAGG: She introduced you. Restaurateur families.

[26:23] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Two restaurateur families. But Virginia, my wife to me, came to the. In the kitchen, and she was cute and not likable looking.

[26:47] CARRIE BAGG: She was beautiful.

[26:52] DARIO TOFFENETTI: She didn't pay much attention to me, so that's all right. So I called her up anyway, a week later and just go out for coffee or something, but we went out for evening.

[27:10] CARRIE BAGG: Where was your first date at? Where'd you guys go?

[27:14] DARIO TOFFENETTI: I don't remember.

[27:16] CARRIE BAGG: I think grandma. I don't know the place, but I've heard grandma say something like the blue note. No, no.

[27:22] DARIO TOFFENETTI: We went many times to the Blue Note, which was a downtown music center.

[27:27] CARRIE BAGG: Okay.

[27:28] DARIO TOFFENETTI: But not that night. Okay.

[27:33] CARRIE BAGG: So how long was it till you asked her to marry you?

[27:37] DARIO TOFFENETTI: First night we went out and I said, I'm going to ask you to marry me someday, but not tonight. So that's all I said. And it started and we got married. We got engaged, roughly August. I didn't want to go to Europe with my family, but she said, you really should go because they want to go to see the family and everything. So I went with and we took our own car over on the Andrea.

[28:17] CARRIE BAGG: Villa, which sank later, didn't it? No, no, not that one.

[28:24] DARIO TOFFENETTI: It was italian line. And we went over there and I got engaged before I left. So this was August, roughly. So now we're in July, maybe August.

[28:46] CARRIE BAGG: And what month did you get married?

[28:48] DARIO TOFFENETTI: November.

[28:50] CARRIE BAGG: So you knew each other six months before you got married, right?

[28:53] DARIO TOFFENETTI: That's correct.

[28:54] CARRIE BAGG: Wow. And how long have you been married now?

[28:57] DARIO TOFFENETTI: I have to ask.

[28:59] CARRIE BAGG: 60, 69?

[29:02] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Yes, almost 67.

[29:05] CARRIE BAGG: Wow. What has made your marriage work so long?

[29:09] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Well, just happiness together, acceptance of each other.

[29:17] CARRIE BAGG: Mom says it's about picking the right husband.

[29:21] DARIO TOFFENETTI: That's what she says. Makes me feel good when she said that. I don't make any fuss about it, but I listen.

[29:29] CARRIE BAGG: So I've heard that you gave her. This is a story that I'd really like some clarification on when you got married. And before you got married and you were in Italy, you were looking for a gift to give her at your wedding. And you originally bought her a rosary somewhere in maybe Naples or something. It was a beautiful pearl rosary. But after that, I've heard you guys had a private visit with Pope. And what happened there?

[29:58] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Well, dad had a letter from a friend in Chicago who worked for the Chicago waterworks department. And he said, I want you to say hello to a good friend of mine in Rome. All my dad said, he's something in the church. I don't know what he is, really, but he's something. This man, during the war, was a soldier. And he would take a convoy of army trucks full of food into the Vatican and meet this other priest and give him the truck. And off the wall, this man with the priest that he would meet ended up being the secretary of state at the Vatican.

[30:55] CARRIE BAGG: Oh, wow. Do you remember his name? Tardini. Was he a cardinal?

[31:02] DARIO TOFFENETTI: I don't recall Tardini. Okay, he might have been. I think you're right. But anyway, he. I said the word was out that I had been looking for a special rosary as a gift for my new wife to be. And when we left, well, back up. He gave us his secretary, personal secretary, meeting him every day at 03:00 here, right here at the Vatican. And he'll show you our city, and he'll show you some different stores for rosaries. So that's all I knew. So I learned the word right and left in Italian. Turn here, turn there, turn here, turn there. So anyway, he was very nice, pleasant priest, also. So the day comes to leave home, we're in our hotel. All you know is we're going down the stairs to the front door. And here is our driver, the priest, the sega therapist, and he has a bunch of little things and gifts from.

[32:30] CARRIE BAGG: The church, et cetera, from dignitaries.

[32:33] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Dignitaries. So we gave me one, and I opened it up and I was. It's a beautiful rosary. Beautiful rosary. It was given to the secretary of state from the archbishop of Tokyo.

[33:01] CARRIE BAGG: So he gave it to you the year before.

[33:04] DARIO TOFFENETTI: And I said, I can't take this. I can't take this. And he says, the cardinal said he was holding it for a special reason, special occasion for something. This is it. This is the occasion. Getting married.

[33:24] CARRIE BAGG: That's pretty exciting.

[33:25] DARIO TOFFENETTI: I still got the rosaries blessed by the pope from the expression, I guess, secretary of state.

[33:34] CARRIE BAGG: Maybe that's why you've been married 69 years. Lot of blessings there one more day.

[33:40] DARIO TOFFENETTI: That was very, very special. We went to have an audience with the pope, and it was at a similar home and Costello Gandolfo, which is out of downtown Rome. So we're in a room with about 100 people, and we're just standing there waiting, waiting, waiting. Before ignoring. Man comes out and says, family of tuffinetti, this way, this way. So company walks over, there's a door, opens the door. We're going to slow the room. The door shuts, and we're standing by ourselves, not with 100 people, just four of us.

[34:36] CARRIE BAGG: Just wait a second. Just you, Uncle Eddie, Nanny and Grandpa.

[34:43] DARIO TOFFENETTI: That's right.

[34:43] CARRIE BAGG: Okay.

[34:45] DARIO TOFFENETTI: And in walks the pope.

[34:47] CARRIE BAGG: Oh, my gosh.

[34:48] DARIO TOFFENETTI: With another cardinal next to him.

[34:52] CARRIE BAGG: Wow.

[34:53] DARIO TOFFENETTI: And he says there in business. He talks English. I told him, I said, when I was in grade school, I met you at St. Joseph's Catholic Church, high grade school in Wilmette, Illinois. He said, yes, I remember. I was there. Father Newman was your priest. That's right. And I used to say to people, it was like if you open the oven door and out came the heat.

[35:30] CARRIE BAGG: As soon as he entered the room, you felt this. Yeah. I can only imagine.

[35:37] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Wow. We met other folks after that, but not like this.

[35:43] CARRIE BAGG: That's amazing, Dad. I didn't know that it was just the four of you.

[35:47] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Yes.

[35:49] CARRIE BAGG: I don't want to run out of time to ask you a few other questions because you have such a huge, interesting life to me. I would like to just jump into. I can't ask all the questions because there's just not going to be enough time. But I know that raising kids because I have four can be daunting and it can be full of so many blessings and difficult times. I'd like to know what some of the blessings you and mom have had raising kids. Can you think of any?

[36:28] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Well, we're lucky. We had wonderful kids. We had a son who died of early at 14 years of age with leukemia. I used to say, I used to use the term my son. My son. I was proud of him.

[36:47] CARRIE BAGG: What did you like about him?

[36:49] DARIO TOFFENETTI: He was just a good kid. Good kid all around. Good person. And was 14 when he died. His name is in the grade school wall and he still gets. They give an award every year in his name for civic activities that each recipient does something worthwhile.

[37:22] CARRIE BAGG: Is that at Washburn? In Winnecka?

[37:25] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Yes, in Washburn school. When I get one of my.

[37:29] CARRIE BAGG: What do you remember about the first time you were told you were going to be a parent?

[37:38] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Well, I was happy, but I wasn't scared.

[37:41] CARRIE BAGG: You weren't?

[37:42] DARIO TOFFENETTI: No.

[37:43] CARRIE BAGG: No.

[37:45] DARIO TOFFENETTI: I was lucky.

[37:46] CARRIE BAGG: Back in those days. Were you able to go in the room when your wife had her baby?

[37:51] DARIO TOFFENETTI: No.

[37:51] CARRIE BAGG: No. Are you sure you got the right ones?

[37:54] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Yes.

[37:57] CARRIE BAGG: Okay. And is there anything in Virginia or. I. My sister and I that you like the most can be different for each of us?

[38:11] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Well, you're both different, but you both get hard workers. Jimmy worked hard and went to college. And she worked as a waitress in our restaurant originally. Did a wonderful job. Did a good job. She worked her way up. Going back. I always said, I have money if you want to do something in life work wise, not just to be a panel. So he said, call up on that. I said, what do you want? What do you want? And she said that she wanted be a secretary, so she.

[39:12] CARRIE BAGG: A legal secretary.

[39:15] DARIO TOFFENETTI: So she went to school for it, and she got a job with an insurance company. She worked with the top owner of the company, his special secretary. And she was a good friend for many years with him.

[39:39] CARRIE BAGG: Dad, I'm sorry, but I think we only have a couple minutes left, so I would just like to quickly, and I don't know if we can do this quickly, discuss how you. You were a big aviation enthusiast, and I know you built some airplanes. Can you remember what there was a Ryan, a swallow, an r seven, a super decathlon and a glider. And as kids, we had to go there to visit with you while you were making them. And they hang in a museum today, and we've been so impressed with that as children. I always said, my dad is so smart. Not many people could do that. You've been a wonderful father and a wonderful husband, and I hope to be half as good as you in my life.

[40:29] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Well, I'm proud of you. Thank you very much for what you said. I would like to say one thing about the aviation. I went to my dad one day and I said, I'd like to take a flying. I was 17 years old. He said, I think that's great. He's a man who never was in light airplane. He was an early passenger in the DC three s at Midway airport when they first came into the United fleet. But the day I got my license, I took the test and came down and landed. He was with me on the side, and he said, when can he go? Take me for a ride? The man said, you go right now.

[41:29] CARRIE BAGG: So he took you. You took dad? Papa, Grandpa.

[41:32] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Right away, first day.

[41:34] CARRIE BAGG: Oh, my gosh.

[41:35] DARIO TOFFENETTI: I remember he had white knuckles holding on to the door, but he flew with me and I gave him the stick. I said, you fly it now. And he flew a little bit, you know, but he did it. And he told customers about it everywhere. Went downtown, in our restaurants, they talked about it, flying the airplane. So it was a big one. But we had, we had the first air show in our room. It was antique airplane Association, Inc. We had the first show since 1914 in Chicago. This was in the early sixties. And we had a show in our group who was contacted by Wind radio, who talked about themselves as the greatest air show on earth, meeting radio. But they said, we'd like to tie together with you guys. So they did, and they talked and they talked about the air show coming to Chicago. And I remember the first day we were at the airport, at DuPage county airport, which was a good size airport, and we had a moved from a smaller airport to there. And I was up on top of the tower just in some flags, and I looked at, all I saw was traffic, traffic, traffic.

[43:19] CARRIE BAGG: And how many people you think showed up that day?

[43:22] DARIO TOFFENETTI: At least 200,000.

[43:24] CARRIE BAGG: Yeah. It was huge.

[43:25] DARIO TOFFENETTI: It was unbelievable.

[43:26] CARRIE BAGG: And you were the president of that one.

[43:28] DARIO TOFFENETTI: I was.

[43:29] CARRIE BAGG: And you were in the air show here in El Paso, too, involved in the air show. And you've been with civil air patrol.

[43:36] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Too, for 30 years.

[43:38] CARRIE BAGG: Yeah. So aviation is in your blood. And now you have a grandson who wants to be a pilot. So, anyway, dad, I think we have to come to a stop here because they give us only a certain amount of time, and there's so much more that I know the grandkids and I would love to hear. So I'm just going to keep writing down questions and have the kids make purposeful time with you so we can all learn more because it's inspiring. Thank you, dad.

[44:10] DARIO TOFFENETTI: Thank you.