Peppino is my adopted grandfather. He is a painter I see every Thursday at the Y. He loves to speak Italian to me, even though I only understand a tiny bit of what he says.

He is 87 (you can hear him tell me he's "ottanta sette anni"), and was born in Poland. After losing his entire family in WWII--from what I can piece together--he ended up in Sicily and learned Italian a word a day, then went to medical school in Rome, and decided to move to America in his early 30's.

But that's not what he's talking about here.