Column Chronicles: Obituary of Luke Stiffano

Obituary of Luke Stiffano

Frank Cotolo
May 7, 2020

I did not know Luke Stiffano until I met him. A guy named Vito, who I owed a few bucks for a loan on my recent adoption of a child from North Korea, introduced Luke to me one night at a high stakes game of Crazy 8s.

Luke and I hit it off, mostly because we had a common interest - knowing as many people as we could in our lifetimes. We kept scrapbooks with photos of people we met, placing them in scrapbooks with short descriptions of the people.

Then, as people who want to know as many people as they can in their lifetimes do, we never contacted those people again. Luke and I made one another exceptions of those rules and saw each other so much after we met that most people in town thought we were Siamese twins.

Luke and I also liked to gamble on stupid card games. Vito organized illegal, high stakes card games like Four-Person Solitaire, Go Fish, Jacks Or Worse, Pick A Card Any Card and War. Sometimes we would win thousands at these games and then go to a local amusement park. At amusement parks we shared a love for eating lots of crap food and then going on a roller coaster, where we could vomit, trying to hit innocent people walking around the park.

Luke was always filled with joy. He smiled more than any person I met, and remember I met a lot of people.

Luke had a wife that he shared generously with Vito and I whenever he owed us money. I was not married, so I shared my dog Cantinflas with him. Vito let me keep a tab but sometimes Luke would pay Vito my debts and ask me nothing in return but after Cantinflas died, I bought Luke two dogs as gifts. I remember how Luke cried the day he named them Romulus and Remos.

Luke helped lots of people with those dogs, loaning them to families in the area and to blind folks who could not afford Seeing-Eye Dogs. Luke also contributed to the area’s food banks, filling the shelves with Twisters, Mars Bars and Cheerios, which he personally wrapped individually.

I will miss Luke a lot and when that day comes I will add him to my scrapbook as one of the people I met when I wanted to meet as many people as I could in my lifetime.

Thanks.

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.