Toledo Tales

Left: the misunderstood Don

(Toledo, OH) Fresh from delivering an ultimatum to councilperson Frank Szollosi, Teamsters Local 20 boss Bill Lichtenwald sat down with Toledo Tales to get his side of the story out.

The Don wondered aloud how the relationship between he and Szollosi went wrong.

"What have I ever done to make Frank treat me so disrespectfully?" he asked. "If he'd come to me in friendship, then this scum would be suffering this very day. And if by chance an honest man like Frank should make enemies, then they would become my enemies. And then they would fear him."

Lichtenwald believed that he had been cautious in his comments to Szollosi.

"I spent my whole life trying not to be careless," he said, swirling some chianti in the bottom of his wine glass. "Women and children can be careless. But not men."

The Don spoke of his relationship with mayor-elect Carty Finkbeiner.

"I never wanted this for Carty. I work my whole life - I don't apologize - to take care of my family, and I refused to be a fool, dancing on the string held by all those bigshots," he said. "I don't apologize - that's my life - but I thought that, that when it was your time, that you would be the one to hold the string. Senator Finkbeiner; Governor Finkbeiner. Well, it wasn't enough time."

Turning to Subcomandante Bob, Lichtenwald became misty-eyed.

"Do you spend time with your family? Good," he said to the inebriated Tales editor. "Because a man that doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man."