Hello everyone. This is Gianni Russo, and we are broadcasting through Hollywood Godfather

podcast. Welcome all of you again. Pat Piccarelli's with us. Megan's with us. Pat, what are we

going to talk about this week well I think

the audience would like to know your origins they all know you from the godfather but they

don't know much else and even at your earliest age you you had rather an interesting life so

why don't you share some of that with us well you know I'm gonna that's my early years are so sensitive to me and I do want to

share that because most people think I you know dropped out of a tree in 25 and made the

Godfather but in 1949 I had one of the greatest experiences in the world and And as you start to, the story unfolds, you wonder why.

I think it's the greatest because it was the foundation that made me who I am today.

I was fortunately and unfortunately stricken with polio in 1949.

And at that time, it was a virus that was totally unknown to most of the world.

And I didn't know what was happening to me at the age of seven years old.

And my mother took me to a clinic.

And two days later, they came with an ambulance and picked me up and took me to a state hospital in New York called Bellevue, where I spent five of the next years of my life, which are very informative years for most kids watching television and Harboy.

I remember Hardy Doody and Cowboys and Indians, and I was confined to a 20-bed ward for five years.

And the whole left side of my body, I had no mobility at all.

Okay, so while you were there, I mean, it's hard for people to understand those years

and how the illness struck this country.

Everybody was scared to death that their kids were going to get this,

and it was no rhyme or reason why anybody got this. You were just, you know, it was the luck of

the draw that people got sick. You wound up in a place that was completely foreign to you,

separated from your family who you didn't see for the next five years, no television,

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