The fear of my father and the pressure from federal agents combined with the beginning of a severe drinking problem prompted my mother to find a divorce lawyer. She met a young attorney by the name of Marvin Arth. In order to explain this strange relationship it's important to offer a little bit of background on Marvin. He grew up in a small town called Great Bend, Kansas and attended Kansas University where he received his degree in journalism. He received a law degree and was set up for practice in Ohio where he and my mother were introduced. Marvin represented my mother in the divorce, which played out more like a criminal trial than a divorce proceeding. The procedure was long and drawn out and in the end, my mother lost everything. After the divorce, my mother packed us up and we fled Ohio. She was afraid and felt that we needed to go into hiding. While she never outright told me that our lives were in danger, as an adult, I realized that her fear at the time was real. She belived whole-heartedly that my father would kill us. Her natural instinct was to run and hide, which is exactly what we did. I was around 6 years old at the time and remembered the last visit I had with my father. He took my brother and I shopping for Christmas and I never saw him again. That is until I was 21 years old.

The irony here is that had my grandfather still been alive at the time, I do not believe the outcome would have been the same. Italians tend to cheerish family. This was indeed a unique set of circumstances that literally sent the lives of my mother, brother, and myself in a new direction.