American Essence

Always the Apprentice: Honoring My Father, Who Taught Me Street Smarts and So Much More

A father’s lessons for surviving the real world with common sense and humor.
Always the Apprentice: Honoring My Father, Who Taught Me Street Smarts and So Much More
The author with his wife, father, and mother, 1989. Courtesy of Randy Tatano
Randy Tatano
|Updated:
0:00

There’s street smarts. And then there’s Sicilian street smarts.

Thankfully my father was Sicilian, or I might not know how things work in the real world. Growing up in an Italian neighborhood in a New York suburb, you couldn’t help but be surrounded by people who knew that the rules of life weren’t written in a book. Luckily my dad, Nick Tatano, had a Ph.D. in street smarts.

Randy Tatano
Randy Tatano
Author
Randy Tatano is a former local television reporter and network producer who now writes political thrillers as Nick Harlow. He grew up in a New York City suburb and lives on the Gulf Coast with his wife and four cats.