As Pat Venditte looked on from the shade, his bocce team, the Venditte Girls, gave the team from Sons of Italy a run for their money. A flick of the wrist, a gentle toss and then the slow roll of a ball down a carpeted court on Omaha’s riverfront.
First a Venditte Girl, then a Son of Italy and back and forth, in the game that is a mix of croquet and shuffleboard. For Venditte, a “born and raised” Italian son of Omaha’s Little Italy neighborhood, this weekend’s Santa Lucia Festival at Lewis & Clark Landing was the very definition of Italian culture in Omaha.
