Sunday, September 16, 2018
Dear DiCristofaro Family,
My deepest condolences on the passing of your loved one and my friend Mario. He was a true and kind gentleman.
Most of the following was a tribute I posted on the Our Schenectady Facebook page. There were a number of responses from former colleagues and friends who knew Mario... EVERYONE remembered him with such fond words. And I too remember him that way, because as a young anxious programmer starting my first job out of college, he demonstrated tremendous kindness to me at a time I needed it.
I was blessed to reconnect with Mario in December 2017 because he was my mom's, Beverly's, table mate at Kingsway. When when he introduced himself to me, neither he nor I recognized each other. After chatting with him for over an hour that first time I "met" Mario, he told me he retired from GE, then said he worked at TIPO. I told him I worked at TIPO too. Then we started peeling away the onion... recounting everyone we knew. I was scratching my head because we both knew everyone we mentioned... How could I not know this man? When we both recounted the tragic passing of a colleague who drowned in ~'82 while vacationing in Australia, I felt this was too coincidental. At that point, I asked him his last name. When he told me, I was like, MARIO DIRISTOFARO??!!! I believe we both realized we were old friends from that era. And we were best buds from then on!
I had the opportunity to visit with Mario on 3 subsequent visits to Schenectady when I came home to visit my mom from Cincinnati, most recently August 11-12.
Every time I saw him, I kept telling him about the attached picture because I remembered taking it, and I remembered seeing it somewhere but I couldn't figure out where it was. (Please email me at vinson.lewis@gmail.com if you would like an electronic copy of the picture). As a pre-digital photographer, I have about 50 photo albums; since going digital, I have another 8TB of digital images.
I feel it was God's plan that I find that picture before Mario passed, because I found it a few months ago when I was cleaning my basement. I couldn't wait to make a copy for Mario. At first, I was going to mail the print to my siblings and have them give it to Mario. But when I made plans to come home in early August with my family, I resolved to present it to him personally.
So when I visited mom in early August, I framed a copy and presented it to him. Unfortunately, he was on his way to a Dr appointment so we didn't get a chance to look at it together until the next day. When I saw him the next day, he was so excited! He was very appreciative and couldn't wait to talk about the picture. We both sat down like little kids and had so much fun helping each other remember the names and faces. He asked me to write them down for him because his penmanship was not so good. That was the last time I saw Mario. But I'll always have that fond memory of bringing that little piece of happiness to him and me.
I'm so glad I had that last visit with him. May he rest in peace. God has another programmer.
Sincerely,
Vinson Lewis
GE TIPO 1981-1985
