My dad didn’t make it to Veteran’s Day this year. As you’ll see from the context of my eulogy below, he passed away last week. But Louis N. Cinquino left us all with something. Something I explain in my remarks below. If you look closely in the picture of his Army Company N (or any photograph, for that matter), you’ll find him– and it. If you can’t, then keep looking.

I have to say, that growing up I remember feeling a little bit like royalty. Like there was something special, something noble about our family.
I guess it never crossed my mind that royalty doesn’t live in a two-family wooden shingled house, the same one my parents moved into 67 years ago on the day they were married. Or that royalty doesn’t work as a tool-and-die maker and medical records librarian and take one vacation a year to your relatives’ house in New Jersey. Royalty doesn’t pack a brown paper bag lunch every day— and bring that same paper bag home every night to be used again tomorrow.
So why did I feel like royalty? Because I got to live with the king.
The king was a man who liked everyone he met and became a leader in every group or organization he was involved with. A man who did what was right and expected us to as well. A man who saw the good where others would overlook it, and appreciated the tiniest of blessings.
If he was a king, he was the King of the Little Things— the things that don’t get written about, except clumsily by adoring sons. The king of showing up for your kids’ sporting events. The king of volunteering to visit Veterans in the hospital on Christmas morning while your little prince and princess are impatiently waiting to open their haul of presents. The king of endless stories about Italy, the king of the tomatoes, the basil, the garlic. The king of waking up early to make breakfast and play with his grandchildren. The king of playing cards. The king of picking beans for a penny a pound. The king of cardoon.
In recent years, he became the king of waking up every day and dressing himself. The king of doing his exercises. The king of rubbing his wife’s back. The king of not complaining.
The king still had the warm handshake and his enormous machinist’s hands. The king still had the big smile. The king still could make you feel important whenever you were with him.
The puzzling thing I feel today is trying to understand how the King of The Little Things bequeathed to us such Big Things. And I’m not just talking about a garage full broken hand tools, bottles, ladders and scrap lumber. (Which we do have available at a good price.) What I’m talking about is how all of us— not just his family— are left with a huge piece of his immense heart, a massive dose of his good nature, his straight up goodness.
You don’t have to be his son or daughter to inherit his legacy. Just by being here today, you’ve already proven your birthright to the treasures he left behind —and keep in mind he didn’t just leave them TO us, he leaves them WITH us, IN us.
The greatest of these was love. And yet for my dad it was more than love— for he didn’t just love us abstractly, he cared for us. He didn’t just imagine his love, he lived it. He was a great man in all the little ways we remember — his gentle sweetness, his willingness to serve, his optimism and perseverance.
That’s what he’s given us— and what we ask of him to keep giving us now that he has moved into his new address.
In the past few days, I can’t help thinking there must be a lot of people in heaven right now getting the full Louie treatment— you know. He pulls up a chair with someone new that he meets, smiles, listens and asks questions, tells a few stories and listens some more until he finds what he is looking for— that connection, that love.

My cousin told me the other day that my Dad gave her some of the best advice she’d ever received. Something he told her years ago that she always remembered, something she still thinks of whenever she meets someone new. Something I want to leave with you today, something he left with us to carry forward.
Something that kept him going from his early days on the South Side of Batavia to World War II in the South Pacific, from the south block of Myrtle St to the southern shore of the Oatka Creek at the Village Green. Something he found in appreciation of all the people who cared for him when he was no longer able to care for us. Something that he sought and found everywhere, every day and embraced as the truest sign of God’s love— at home, at work, at church, at meetings, with his dearest friends and people he just met.
That something is that We ALL have something in common. It’s our job to find it.
Today, we don’t have to look far to find what we have in common: We love the king.
On behalf of my mom, Rita, my brothers Michael and Anthony and my sister Liz, we thank you beyond these humble words for being here today and for being a part of my Dad’s life. He will continue to live on in us whenever we are at our best.

The King is dead. Long live the King.