And speaking of wine tasting...

My father told me an interesting story about grandpa. Even though he was employed as a core finisher, he also held a part time job for a while just after he settled in Beloit. This was during the time of Prohibition and grandpa still had a bacchanalian sense of taste, not only for wine but also for adventure. He found some old-country pleasure in tasting bootleg liquor for one of the area distillers. It seems one evening a still exploded, spewing hot liquid all over the room. Unfortunately, grandpa was in the line of fire. He was knocked unconscious, his face and hands covered with first degree burns from the flaming alcohol. His buddies brought him home and carried him into the house that night. My grandma, not one to take these things lightly, delivered a stern lecture to grandpa and demanded that he never return to that place again. He didn't. In the meantime though, great grandpa Nicolo continued his delivery job for as long as he could with another area bootleg liquor distributor until Prohibition was finally lifted in 1933.