in a minor way, its appreciation of art in a major way, its ability to give answers to Big Questions, its penchant for connecting the dots of popular culture and explaining the failures of modernism and the triumph of the gospel. Dad was holding forth on issues such as the hippie movement’s inability to realize its promise or to provide an alternative social and moral model because “While their analysis of the problem of our plastic society was right, they had no answer.” Dad also spoke prophetically: “You wait,” he said; “the hippies are going to wind up more middle-class, bourgeois, and materialistic than their parents.” Dad would often say “The next generation will follow anyone who will promise personal peace and affluence. If they are asked to make a choice between freedom and security they’ll choose security. It will be the new fascism.” Billy Zeoli was a heavyset, swarthy, handsome fast-talking man with a strong chin. He was charming and generous in a godfather-wanna-be way.
