Gasper Special

There is a dinner tradition in the Catanzaro family that we all call the Gasper Special and it is highly anticipated at dessert time. To have the Gasper Special means to put some of everything from the dessert table on your plate. At Christmas and Easter dinners and almost any time the family gathers to eat there will always be several desserts including cookies, cakes and pies. Usually some candy and nuts somewhere on the that fancy table too.

This expression honors and memorializes Uncle Gasper who was known for making a scene about having some of everything on the dessert table at family dinners even though he was diabetic. Apparently those dinners were the only time he indulged in sweets anymore so he took full advantage. Towards the end of his life he even switched to non-alcoholic wine.

He was certainly a very unique character and highly entertaining. I first met him at my first Catanzaro family dinner in 1976 or 77 on one of my early visits to Buffalo. He was Becky’s uncle and lived the bachelor life in the West Side house he grew up in along with his two unmarried sisters Aunt Jo and Aunt Toni. He was the only boy in an Italian family with six sisters. When I met him he was a Buffalo Fire Department Chief but retired not long afterward. The illustration above is from a painting of his fire helmet made by his sister the artist Catherine Catanzaro Koenig, my mother-in-law.

After Becky and I moved to Buffalo in 1979 he would take us out to dinner on Niagara Street. We had dinners with him for many years and had many fascinating conversations. He liked to tell us about his gambling adventures in Las Vegas. He also regularly hung out at the local Off Track Bettin'sg (OTB) parlors for playing the ponies.  

Gasper Catanzaro was the son of Italian immigrants who ran a fish store on Grant Street on Buffalo’s West Side. As a young man during the depression he worked as a woodsman in the Pacific Northwest at part of the Civilian Conservation Corps. He was always proud of his time there and he was also very proud of his service in the Marine Corps during World War II where he served and saw extensive combat in the Pacific theater. After he left the Corps he joined the Buffalo Fire Department and made it his career.

I had some interesting conversations with Gasper over the years and when he learned that I was a veteran who served in the Navy he told me a few of his more harrowing war stories.

He also enjoyed playing his harmonica for his nieces and nephews and later for their children. At family gatherings he would often sit in a chair with a beer pontificating about something in a large booming voice. When our daughter Katie was a toddler she would often skirt around Uncle Gasper's chair which he thought was amusing. She was just learning to talk and when asked why she was running past her uncle she would exclaim "scared of Gasper". Everyone had a good laugh including him. Much later we would fondly remember that phrase and use it when one of the children in the family was acting funny running around the house.

It was sad when he passed away. His fire helmet was on a table next to the painting of it at his memorial service. We all miss Uncle Gasper but his name seems to come up during every meal as everyone anticipates the upcoming Gasper Special.