A tattoo to spice up your life

As spring approaches, my winter doldrums start melting away. I am flooded with vegetable seed catalogs from all over our country. It is a pepper upper. My main focus though, are two local greenhouses, Lonardo’s and Angillis. I look for my all time favorite plant at those locations, the stellar Laparie pepper plant. For the past 16 growing seasons, those plants have achieved a height of six feet and loaded with beautiful sweet pyramidal red peppers, suitable for frying, stuffing or roasting.

I have tried many different varieties of pepper plants, but as yet have not been able to match the height of the “Laparie.”

Several years ago, while getting my plants at Lonardo’s, I met a Commercial Intertech coworker, Larry Fry, who works in their greenhouse. At the time, I had not seen him for 20 years, since I retired in 1986.

Walking tattoo parlor

Larry caught my attention, because I told him he looked like a walking tattoo parlor. I have never seen so many tattoos on a person in my life. I asked him to describe them, since they were very interesting. There are three dogs, a Labrador named Buddy, two German shepherds, Ozzy, Cyndi, and even a parrot. He has an American Indian motif, also featuring two buffalo and three eagles. Two lions from the Cleveland Zoo and the words Harley Davidson imprinted on his chest round out the entourage.

He owns two Harleys and he’s proud of it. Last but not least is a tattoo of his wife’s name Paulette.

Today, I see many women young and old sporting attractive tattoos, something I don’t remember seeing during the Great Depression. Life is chock full of interesting people.

Michael J. Lacivita is a Youngstown retiree and an inductee into the Ohio Senior Citizens Hall of Fame and Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame.