Fifty years of friendship is worth celebrating. And so this spring, my oldest and best friend and now business partner David Steele, founder of One Wealth Advisors, and I set off on a trip to celebrate our achievement. The terms were simple: we each chose one destination. No vetoes – No negotiations.
I chose England, well knowing David had always been a skeptic when it came to the food and the weather. But I am, unapologetically, an anglophile and I also had a related bucket list item to check off. We spent 4 days in London, my favorite city in the world, eating great food and thereafter made our way to the Cotswolds and even cycled through it one afternoon. And then came the moment I had waited many years for – Anfield – Liverpool. There is no stadium quite like it in the world and when 55,000 people sing You’ll Never Walk Alone together before kickoff you get a feeling that’s hard to explain – it was magical. Liverpool played Chelsea that day and to my disappointment it was a draw but that didn’t dull the experience. Afterward, David admitted that England had exceeded every expectation he had.
David chose his favorite place, Sicily. Which, as it happens, is the homeland of my family on my father’s side. Despite having already traveled throughout Italy, I had never visited the region my grandparents left early in the 20th century. We landed first in Palermo and eventually made our way to Cinisi, a small town just outside the city, adjacent to what is now the Palermo airport. Walking those streets was emotional. I felt connected to my grandparents in a way I hadn’t expected – I still miss them terribly. And then something happened that I could never have planned. I walked into the local hardware store to make a small purchase and mentioned to the owner that my last name was Mannino and that my entire family was from Cinisi. He looked at me for a moment and told me he was the son of my grandfather’s first cousin and therefore, my cousin. Standing behind a counter in a Sicilian village I had never visited was my family – il mio cugino. He told me something that basically proved it, that my grandfather never returned to Sicily after emigrating because he was afraid to fly. He had left by boat, and a boat was the only way he would ever consider returning, which he never did. Ironic since he came in 1912, the same year the Titanic had sunk. By the way, the entire conversation was conducted in Italian — a language I have been studying for several years and which, at that moment in a hardware store in Cinisi completely justified every minute of study.
Fifty years of friendship. Two destinations. One unforgettable trip.
