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By the 1960’s Mehio had clearly become an icon of IC.
Nothing deterred him from showing up
in the early morning hours.
it was still a public road) and obviously
found a niche for a ready market.That
was back in the 1950’s.
Mehio was here to stay.
He soon expanded his items on his cart
and offered students and staff cakes,
newspapers and cigarettes (Surgeon Gen-
eral warning didn’t appear until the mid-
60’s and still meant little then). He never
really seemed to run out of cigarettes.
Dabbous recalls watching him packing up
in the evenings. Mehio would put away
all his supplies except for about 20 packs
of cigarettes.These he would stuff into his
pockets. “Just watch,” he would tell Dab-
bous. As if on cue, AUB students would
suddenly emerge from their dorms and run
after him to buy one last cigarette pack.
By the 1960’s Mehio had clearly become
an icon of IC. Nothing deterred him from
showing up in the early morning hours
and staying well after classes were finished.
10
WINTER
2010
Nabil Dabbous ‘80
was already an AUB
student when he heard that Mehio – IC
and AUB’s unofficial shopkeeper -was
about to be ousted from his traditional
place just outside the school gate.
Dabbous and his friends quickly signed a
petition requesting AUB officials to allow
Mehio to stay.
The students won. An incredulous Mehio
arrived home that night and told his fam-
ily about the day’s event.
“He couldn’t believe it,” said Youssef Itani,
Mehio’s youngest son. “He was not a
talkative man but his eyes said it all.”
And yes, it seems IC’s infamous Mehio
had a wife and children. Five children
actually. All boys: Ibrahim, Mohamed,
Marwan, Adnan and Yussef. He also had
a name: Mehioddine Ibrahim Itani, born
in 1924. He and his family occupied a
one room flat in Sanayeh.
Mostly uneducated, Mehio had neverthe-
less a flare for business. How he ended up
at IC no one really knows for sure. What
is known, however, is that Mehio started
out pushing about a modest cart around
Ras Beirut selling all kinds of confection-
aries. At some point, he made his way
down to AUB’s main entrance (back then
Mehio