On May 21, Mr. Tito, who has numerous relatives in Glen Cove and neighboring communities, came to Glen Cove City Hall for the red carpet treatment and the key to the city. Just a couple of weeks after Mr. Tito blasted off from Kazakhstan with two cosmonauts aboard the Russian space capsule, Soyuz, headed for Space Station Alpha, he found himself in the warm embraces of family members and well-wishers. Mayor Thomas Suozzi greeted Mr. Tito in city hall chambers with a welcome back to earth and back to Glen Cove. The mayor spoke about a shared Suozzi-Tito hometown in Italy. Mayor Suozzi said Tito was the great American success story based in Glen Cove----from working on estates to owning one of your own. The vice consul of Italy, Antonio Tufano, presented Mr. Tito with greetings from Italy's ambassador and an invitation to visit that country. Appropriately enough, Gatilov Gennad, the first deputy permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the UN, (whose summer residence is the Killenworth estate), attended the festivities in city hall. He said Mr. Tito's trip was an example of how fruitful cooperation between two great nations can be. An emotional expression of pride was made by Michael Tito on behalf of the entire family. "We honor our nephew Dennis. We are proud of you, you honored our name and you gave the Tito name its 15 minutes of fame. We are thankful our prayers were answered and you returned home safely," said Mr. Tito. Former Mayor Vincent "Jimmy" Suozzi lightened things up a bit and provided the audience with a "who's who" list of the Tito family tree.

In his remarks, which were followed by a standing ovation, Mr. Tito said, "My trip was a life dream and it goes way back. I worked on my interest, space, and the money just came...I was fortunate. It was a wonderful experience to be in space. I took pictures of southern Italy, [from space], and Long Island under a cloudless sky. As I orbited the earth 128 times, the distance between different parts of the world wasn't far at all. Being weightless brought me to spiritual thought of religious art. The experience was eight days in heaven.....it'll be a lot cheaper for me to get to heaven, though." Not bad for Rose Marangiello's nephew.