Thanks, Dad

Signs have become so standardized that I suspect our eyes glide right over 99% of them.  Even older signage usually obeyed certain conventions.  So when you walk past something really out of the ordinary it can almost be jarring.  Consider:

This is unusual on many levels.

1. How many fathers build a gas station for their son?

2. Michelo must have been proficient in both brick and stonework.  Was he a bricklayer?  A mason?  Did he make tombstones?  The contrast in style between the yellow brick and the polished granite is interesting.

3. Most people who want to put their mark on a nice bit of work will place it up high, over the door perhaps.  Somewhere where it will be noticed.  Here it is placed in a nice little niche but it is also right next to the trash cans, and as to the attentions of wandering neighborhood dogs....

The days of this being a service station are long gone, but some good citizen is still keeping it up nicely.  Note that not only is there a push broom leaning against the building, but that said broom matches the trim!

As to the family history of the Antenucci tribe I have been able to find only scraps, and they do not seem to tell a happy tale.  Michelo died one year after he built his gas station, and Benny J. only lived to 1951.