Broken Italian

The Dean Martin Show. Most of us grew up with parents from the “Old Country.” Italian was spoken in our homes nearly 80% of the time, so as kids we learned colorful expressions and the everyday language. Between my mother’s Sicilian heritage and my father’s Barese dialect, we could understand and speak just about everything. Like Dean, as we got older we lost some of it and forgot many of the words and phrases. Still, those roots never leave you. Dino muttered old phrases during bloopers, it was fun listening to his "mangled Italian. It's good to be Italian. "Let's have a Vino for Dino!"