In his autobiography, John spends at least 16 pages going through his school years. Because I hope to someday see it published, I won’t quote almost any of it here and “leak” his stories. But I will say a few things more generally.
He talks about his lifelong friendship with Matt Jung, who went on to work for Ford Modeling agency in the 1970s. This school friendship turned into numerous trips to New York socializing with the women.
John stresses how education was important in his family – his father had briefly gone to law school, his mother never went to college but attended a prestigious private school. Both John and his brother were expected to graduate college and law school.
In his youngest days, John attended St. Rita’s, which was heavily Italian with many nuns who spoke Italian as their primary language. At this early age, he discovered he had learning disabilities – both his hearing and vision made it difficult to read and hear correctly. To graduate at the same rate as others, he took summer school every year. (I’m not sure how he overcame the hearing issue, but he still struggled to read throughout his life and would need special lighting.)
Midway through school, the Balistrieri family moved to the Upper East Side, which John calls the “Beverly Hills” of Milwaukee. This meant he changed schools to Milwaukee University School. As John recalls, the neighborhood and school had no Italians, so he went from being a majority to a minority in ethnicity, and this was noticed by others. Girls found him to be a curiosity. He built a reputation by standing up to and knocking out the school bully. “Failure to stand up to aggression invites more aggression.”
Although welcome at first, the school turned against John when he was about 14 and his father was making headlines. Allegedly, the headmaster picked John up and held him against the wall, telling him the school was not a welcome place for criminals or the families of criminals. John never told his father. If he had, he says, “The headmaster would have certainly received a visit from my father, Uncle Peter and Uncle Buster to adjust his attitude. I was 14, not stupid. I knew what could and probably would happen.”John was able to get himself transferred to Marquette High School.
At Marquette he wanted to do track and football, but tore a ligament in his ankle. Instead John went for wrestling. He was also active in a variety of community service projects with Bob Philipp, who would go on to be a speech writer for Robert Warren! (Although John says he was a lifelong friend with Bob, he does not talk about how the Warren connection affected them.)
“I dated many girls from Holy Angels, Divine Savior, Nicolet, Whitefish Bay and a number of other schools. We chased a lot of girls in those days. It was something I would do at every opportunity because Marquette High was an all-boys school.” John likes to bring up his exploits with women whenever possible. I won’t go into the details here – buy the book! Somewhat ironically, the priests at Marquette would be some of his closest allies for life, including Father Chuck Shinners – son of Joseph Shinners, who was sheriff of Waukesha County when Jack Enea was found dead there.
After high school, John wanted to go to UW-Madison but it was the Vietnam era and Madison was considered a radical school. His dad said he could go to Madison if he proved himself at another school first, so he chose St. Joseph’s College, a small boys’ college in Indiana. The school was probably best known for hosting the Chicago Bears training camp. John was active in student government, kept good grades and his father let him transfer to Madison.
John graduated from Madison in 1970. He lived on State Street a few blocks from both the school and capitol building. Some days there was so much tear gas he would get a room at the Holiday Inn for $28. On another occasion the Badgers won a game against the Buckeyes, a riot broke out and the National Guard was called in.
(John talks about his feelings on Vietnam, the possibility of getting drafted, etc. He mentions the Sterling Hall bombing. I will include none of that here.)
Professor Jack Barbash – the audio is included in the podcast.
After college, John wanted an MBA so he could be an investment banker. His father said he had to be an attorney, but could get an MBA after that if he wanted. John pushed back, but Frank said, “Either you go to law school or I will offer you Holy Cross.” (Holy Cross is Milwaukee’s Catholic Cemetery.)
Following a friend (he does not name), John went to Valparaiso Law School in Indiana. John says the FBI actively talked to schools to keep him out, which is why he didn’t consider Wisconsin. He claims the FBI talked to the dean at Valparaiso and suggested he find a way to kick John out, because it wouldn’t be good for a Mafia boss to have a lawyer son. Oddly, he says the dean “never said a word about it” to him, so I have no idea how John knows about the conversation. Also, Frank already had a lawyer son… not saying it didn’t happen, but there’s something missing.
Following Valparaiso, John returned to Wisconsin to take the bar exam. He studied eight weeks with attorney Charles Goldenberg and, of course, passed, in the summer of 1973.
Frank Balistrieri threw a large graduation party for John Balistrieri (who received his law degree from Valparaiso) at his Center Stage night club on June 3, 1973 with over 1,000 guests. The entire Maniaci family was invited, with one notable exception: August Maniaci. Baby Joey Balistrieri was absent because he was in Las Vegas. Nick Gentile, Tony Machi, Angelo Alioto, Joe Dentice, Dominic Frinzi, Nick Fucarino, Sam Ferrara, Joe Enea, James Schiavo, Frank Stelloh, Vince Maniaci, Frank LaGalbo, Vito Aiello, August Palmisano, Paul Bogosian and John Rizzo were in attendance. City clerk Allen Calhoun was there, as was Judge Vel Phillips. Restaurant owner Joseph Sardino was there, allegedly as a favor for loaning Balistrieri the money he needed to pay the IRS. (A more innocent reason may be because John was close friends with Wayne Sardino.) The party started at 8pm and went until 2am, and was hot and overcrowded. John received some gifts and a large number of cash-filled envelopes. A fight broke out between Steve DiSalvo and Vincent Maniaci at 4:00am, probably fueled by alcohol. Agents from the Wisconsin Department of Investigation sat outside taking pictures while Dominic Frinzi and Joseph Balistrieri banged on the sides of their panel truck. (John denies they banged on the truck, but perhaps he did not know.) An informant noted that Sally Papia was not there. (Redacted woman) was not there, and they suspected this was because Nina Balistrieri (Frank’s wife) was at the party.
The Wisconsin DOJ caught on film were Nick Gentile, Alderman Mark Ryan, Frank DiMiceli, Joseph Piscuine, Dominic Frinzi, and August Palmisano. Many of the photos were blurry and people were not recognizable.
At the time of the party, a “92” file was opened by the FBI on John Balistrieri. If John is correct, the FBI was following him for a few years at this point. I have seen nothing concrete to support this, but it’s certainly not out of the question they would harass the people in his life without any official investigation.