More D'Agostino Memories ...

There are more reflections on the net about the tragic death of Peter D'Agostino in Chicago a week ago. Ivy in the Blue Chair was a fellow student in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. She recalls:

After our first year, I ran into Peter at the Taste of Chicago/Folk Festival. He was performing bluegrass stuff with 3 other guys on one of the small stages. He played the fiddle and the mandolin and he played really well, and sang back-up vocals. I came up after the show to say,"Wow and I didn't know you did this sort of thing." He saw me and looked panicked."You can't tell anybody at the Div school! Swear to me you won't tell! They won't think I'm serious." I said sure, I wouldn't spread it around and I certainly wouldn't tell any professors but I thought that the other students would think it was great."Swear to me you won't tell." Okay.
Later, when the 6-flat he lived in was burgled and the front door rendered wide-open to the world for further burglaries, the one thing that he brought with him until the locksmith could come was his violin.

He did Italian Roman-Catholic stuff (and was an Italian-American Roman-Catholic). I remember when he came back from his first research trip in Italy. He told me he was so relieved to be back in the States because he had been living in fear that he was going to be arrested for impersonating a priest (which is a very serious offense over there). He would go to various archives to get information and look at documents. And the people would say"No" and"Who are you?" And he would pull out his official paper from the Divinity School that stated"To Whom it May Concern: Peter is a scholar in good standing .... pursuing his doctorate .... researching such and such. Please allow him access to your esteemed collection. The University of Chicago Divinity School - something to that effect. But it was just a piece of paper."There weren't any dago dazzlers" Peter said to me."What's a dago dazzler?" I asked, never having heard the term. Peter looked embarrassed,"Uh, well you know, ah, Italians, they ah, have the reputation for being impressed with authority and official seals and ribbons - so it looks more important." So Peter had bought a gold sticker, a circular gold sticker, of the sort that sometimes get stuck on diplomas - and the sticker was blank- it was just a sticker. And he put the sticker on the Official Letter. And it worked. The monastic and priestly guarddogs who jealously watched over the access to their private collections would read the letter, and nod, and say,"Father D'Agostino, the collection is right this way." He never told anybody he was a priest. He never misrepresented himself. But the men (priests) would see him, see his name and how Italian and very Catholic he looked, see the words"Divinity School," mentally translate them into"Roman-Catholic Seminary," and assume that he must be a priest. I mean, what else could he be?

Thanks to Sherman Dorn for the tip. Friends of Peter D'Agostino and Mary Mapes suggest that you put such memories into a letter to their 18 month old daughter, so that she might treasure them when she grows up.