In Chicago, nobody but the press ever referred to Tony Accordo as "Big Tuna." It's always been "JB" or "Joe" here in the neighborhood.

That tuna, the one that actually led to the nickname, was stuffed and hung on the wall of his first home in suburban River Forest. That house was open to the public for the first time as part of a housewalk not too long ago. The tuna has long since been replaced and a swordfish now hangs in its place.

A couple of years ago, I was dining at a local restaurant with a gal pal. She's not from the area, having being raised in a small farm town in central Illinois. But she's pretty smart, and we've been friends for a long time, so she knows pretty much what I know. At the next booth, some guy was carrying on with his guests about how "all the big gangsters lived here" in the neighborhood. He made a couple of references to Big Tuna and how he'll take his friends on a tour of the neighborhood and show them Big Tuna's house...and Big Tuna this and Big Tuna that...yada, yada, yada. He was just loud enough so that other people around us would periodically turn and look.

Now, I would never say anything under those circumstances, figuring, I'm getting a floor show for free. But I'm with the perfect person to create a punchline for the joke sitting in the next booth.

After the guy says The Big Tuna for about the tenth time, my gal pal leans over and, in her most deliberate exaggerated downstate twang, says to the guy, "Are you from this neighborhood?" And he says yes. And she says, "I'm not. I live in (downstate farm town), born and raised there. But even I would NEVER refer to JB as 'The Big Tuna.'"

The guy sat their flabbergasted and really didn't say much for the rest of the meal.

I just smiled.

...that's a true story, Kay. That's my friend, not me.

tony b.