Other Fronts
Do we need a summary here? I think so…
A) I just couldn’t do it anymore. And, by the way, I do use the word just a lot. Sorry. However, if there was ever a moment to insist upon its use, it is in the first sentence. Remember: forgiveness is a Christian Virtue. I was desperate. A recalcitrant cowboy gardener delayed Important Spring gardening projects. An absolute non-communicator. An interminable infrastructure project was completed four months late and way over budget. Thankfully, the builder was a prompt and consistent communicator. IT fellow. Of course, he would be. Lugging groceries, You’s latest statuary interests, and a couple of tables up…
and in some instances, down Il Poggiolo’s innumerable ramps & stairs. Threatened invasions of overnight guests to our Summer parties. THE HEAT!!!
B) Decided it was time to downsize. A spiritual and physical need to relocate to a simpler dimora in or near Italian Civilisation. Sarzana would work. By the way, dimora means abode in Italian.
C) Consulted with our habitual real-estate agent. Convenient though he was and that I had succumbed to my typical laziness in calling upon him in the first place to list Il Poggiolo, he put me in such a state: I felt threatened by a past association and now his, menaced to maintain Il Poggiolo’s house & garden in Tip-Top-Form for a video I ddi not want, and I was irritated NO END by the man’s total inability to communicate, ie like, Hey! PICK UP THE F**KING PHONE!!!, when I called. Option A- to return my call the same day.
D) I fired the real-estate agent… graced euphoria.
There. For the time being.
Now, let’s back up… once again.
Possibly as a distraction from the above-listed controversies, irritations, other, and in the sincere hope of fostering enthusiasm for a successful search to find an acceptable and alternative dimora, I discovered that I was scared out of my mind.
I initiated The Hunt by getting into my newly purchased and mildly retro- Black MG Hybrid+ 3 automobile and drove… no, that’s not right. Not at all. First, I pulled out my Macbook Air laptop… an expensive piece of s**t, but how can I defend myself? I’ve been caught by Apple. I guess there’s worse in the World. I will mention NO NAMES… and cruised the following gutter global Italian real-estate websites for candidates; casa.it, idealista.it, immobiliare.it, and a few others of lesser market domination. A couple of comments now. They are important to the story…
these web-sites exhibit an astounding array of places… hard to call them properties because of the glaring lack of quality, interest or, charm!!!… ones you would never in a million-billion centuries think to buy, much less to stop and consider the listing’s photos. But, you get caught… always… in the hope of finding blah-blah-blah.
Putting the announcement aesthetics aside, the asking prices were…? Well, they what were they…? Mind-boggling. One comes to mind:
an abandoned two-story stone shack haphazardly with mildew covering the once-upon-a-time white stucco, of about 100 square meters, which is near + or - a 1000 square feet, benignly squatting in an over-grown hill-side olive grove… now don’t get excited, please. Most of the olive trees were dead and larvae-infested hulks… with perhaps a minuscule view of the Mediterranean Sea 20 kilometers in the distance for the gobsmacking price of €1200000. Do we need commas? €1,200,000. I bet with that quote, the owners thought some enterprising person might buy the place to put up stucco-encased Italian row houses… 3-4 per terrace… and with garages. No, thanks.
On a more optimistic note, I found a couple of interesting possibilities. They both provoked obsession. It was difficult enough with the current stress already in play. I am still not over…
a renovated ex-chapel near Pietrasanta… Marble HQ. No surprise: the Catholic Church is the largest property owner in Italy. Well, besides the Ferragomo Family. I guess, the church has Liquidation Sales.
I liked the idea of the ex-chapel. Reality entered the picture once I had paid a visit. Love though is eternal.
The ex-chapel was once attached to a smallish aristocratic villa in the fertile agricultural area… read: once-upon-a-time swamp… south of Marble HQ and its passing N-S train tracks to & from Rome & Milan. Remember: major train lines end up at either Roma-Termini or, Milano Centrale. The villa is now a somewhat shoddy apartment house. A quadrated garden separates it from the ex-chapel. The grounds have been ignored for quite some time by the looks of the carpet of leaves under-foot. Yet today, the ex-chapel’s owners/occupants do still have the Right of Use. Italy is littered with this notion and for good purpose too. A Right of Passage existed at Il Poggiolo. You & I hypothesized that there was a need for a short-cut to waltz cows from the stalls up at the Borgo Castello down to Codiponte’s piazzetta. We eliminated it on our deed. Lawyers can be helpful. Another Right we did not get rid of… we couldn’t have even if we had wanted to… is for locals to collect fruit fallen on the ground. A kind & humane gesture to ameliorate poverty, I was told. The custom still holds today. However, no-one would dare now. We have dogs! Before, there was a little lady, Emma, a lovely person, who loved persimmons. She always politely asked us if she could come to take what was on the ground. No way! We’ll get a ladder and pick the best ones Right off the Tree for you! Her smile was our Happy Reward. Did you know persimmons are rich in Vitamin C? During WWII, one persimmon was worth six eggs. Quite an exchange rate.
A Polish artist, Maria Papa, bought the deconsecrated chapel. I don’t know when. Perhaps, back in the late 70’s, or early 80’s. She renovated it to be her home when working in Pietrasanta. It is not big. The spaces are tight. Perfect for one person, as demonstrated by the micro-cucina. A nest to nest in. The ground floor is entered through French doors after crossing a gravel courtyard. High green privacy walls all around. The main space is a sitting & dining combo, the latter up a step since it was once the altar. The upstairs is reached by one of those homicidal circular staircases, yet it is spacious enough for two Bedrooms & Bathrooms and a large storage closet. It's a change-of-season accommodation. Very Italian. A small balcony serves as the resting place for mops and drying stands. Southern exposure. Plenty of sunshine.
The real-estate agent was a gentlewoman. Polite, friendly, and informative. She brought me up-to-date on why the ex-chapel was up For Sale. A prosperous couple of dentists had bought it as an investment and, as an eventual home for their daughter, who lives and works as an architect in Sardegna. Nice life. She has no interest in residing in a marble & Travertine lined ex-chapel, though recently renovated by her parents just for her. Children. Such ingrates. This latest installment, however, is tinged with the antiseptic look of motel-itis… clean & spiffy, mostly evident in the bathrooms (not shown) and in the Kitchen. So much marble.
Also, the daughter might not have gotten a kick-out of the mixed-use neighborhood. A quarter of small row houses, blocks of stores, factories & warehouses, several offices, open farms, villas of one sort or, another, spiffy suburban homes. Strict zoning doesn’t, can’t exist here. How could it? Someone builds a factory and plops his home on top of it? Or, an apartment-house is built with one apartment for owner, who rents-out the others apartments, while on the Ground Floor, there are shops, and/or offices, for additional income. And, so forth and so onwards to warehouses and factory spaces filling the urban gaps. Towns and cities grow organically here in Italy. As Pietrasanta expanded, thanks to its international acclaim of the area’s marble quaries, factories and their talented work-force… the ex-chapel’s neighborhood became an interesting conglomeration. To me, that is. I loved it! I could see myself living there. I could not see myself living in what was a cottage on the smallish side with an encompassing boy-friend and two spoiled Weimaraner. I shared the photos below with You. His reaction? Thought the chapel was cozy but, too pat. He said there didn’t seem the possibility of investing our shared personalities, our penchant for a certain type of decor or space, our manner of living, into the little abode. He ended by remarking it plainly looked like a motel room, a set environment to briefly stay in, and then, hit the road. He had perfectly read my mind. Oh, well… cute though, no?
Next?
How about a beach home?
I’d have say Yes! in a minute if it weren’t for the stellar asking price of €1,200,000! Again, that price. What gives? Well, I know the answer: the villa is located in the tawny beach community of Pietrasanta Marittima, Marble HQ’s sea-sided sandy adjunct. You & I… and the Dogs… could move right in. There is no need to paint. Finally, You would get his adored Hazlitts Hotel’s Teal. Here, a tad lighter. But still, yuck. However, I can be Democratic. There’s an ample garden for our four-legged and much-loved companions. Fenced-in too. There are other fine attributes besides for this 60’s vintage villa, originally envisioned to be a comfortable beach house: three floors, wrap-around balconies, two Bedrooms, maybe three though the third might be posing as a walk-in closet… two Baths, at least, and it’s near to the beaches and their Summer noise & chaos. Oh! The villa is in immaculate condition. Makes part of the asking price, I am sure.
Two prospects. Neither perfect. Nor are they near to my original intention of relocating to Sarzana. I decided to redirect The Hunt back to Sarzana. Next post.
Threat of a video
Let’s change the protagonist. The real-estate agent.
First, a few comments…
Most Italian real-estate agents, and this comes from vast personal experience in purchasing several properties in & around this Land of Michelangelo et al, are a particularly annoying species of Human Beings. Low marks. Mostly, because they do not listen to you. Worse. They just ignore you and what you want in hiring them, and instead, move on by throwing properties which, DO NOT CORRESPOND, in any way, shape or, form to your desires/wants/wishes. A waste of time. There are other irritating characteristics. I won’t list them here now. They do tend to grate upon any sense of respect for these persons usually attired in: A) grubby clothes and muddy hiking boots… one wore his Birkenstocks!!!… or , B) the latest difficult fashions for someone much wider than is tall. Forget friendship. You and I, directed by Destiny, did come upon one who had sold us Il Poggiolo back in ‘09. One we thought to be relatively up front, legit, got us our place… Il Poggiolo… at the price we wanted to pay. In other words, he did his job.
Our story, with him, briefly…
the agent contacted me… I had left my calling card with one of his office seat-warmers a couple of years before an email arrived in my In-Box the day after New Year’s 2009. My aged mother had just left for home in NC after treating us to a stellar Christmas visit to Florence. Five nights at the Lungarno Hotel. Our room, overlooking the Arno and its cute, fury medium-sized creatures swimming to & fro in the current-less river, was totally upholstered!!! Comfy Midnight Blue wall-to-wall, striped Midnight Blue & White fabric walls, a Queen-size bed with about a meter of soft pillows & duvets covering a to-curl-up-and-go-to-sleep mattress, which You and I promptly tested out with our own brand of calisthenics… or, if not too much info, gymnastics. The hotel’s Staff were brilliant. Arranged everything for us, from private tours of the Uffizi Gallery to dinner reservations. The word No did not ever pass their lips. The hotel’s lounge area with panoramic windows again of the Arno and Florence opposite had huge over-stuffed sofas for sipping wine, dining on a lite-lunch or, taking a post-tour nap, was simply Heaven. I was pretty saturated by Comfort with a capital C, when I opened the email to discover an offer to visit what was billed as a hook for a second home in the Lunigiana. I replied and an appointment was set for the following Thursday. Saw three properties. One in Soliera. I hated it. Three floors of cantine…. might have made for an interesting disco… and another two totally without charm. Bad floor plan. Marvelous views of the Apuane Peaks though, if you could overlook the trash dump below. Noisy & smelly trucks included. Another, right in the middle of Codiponte was fantastic. Un-touched original Tuscan construction of big ol’ wood beams, white-washed stucco walls, stone floors and staircase, wood planks for the floors above, a couple of impressive fireplaces… their flues heating the sleeping rooms over-head… and even little ovens at two Kitchen windows to heat soup, maybe or, just to take the chill off. The place even had a high walled-in courtyard the size of an Italian postage stamp to let the cow get some air. Cow? Oh, yes, chickens and rabbits were kept too in the Ground Floor stalls. However, and despite the house’s charms, if you sneezed or, chose to fart, the entire village would know. Said, No. The last was Il Poggiolo. Forty-five minutes later it said Yes! Made another appointment with the agent for the Saturday following so You could take a look and offer his Judgement. The day was f*****g freezing. You took his time, bundled up for an Arctic Climate, as is his want and despite the near 0 temps, to check all before, below & behind. Then, as we gathered at Codiponte’s piazzetta’s car-park, the real-estate agent asked us what we thought. You piped up… Well, it’ll do. I think you should make an offer. Just what the real-estate agent wanted to hear. Suggested we go low with it and see. What he suggested was below my max to spend-to-buy… for a falling down wreck of a house, and yet with… distinct possibilities for renovation. My Mother’s favorite phrase right after… Will you take less? The agent promptly set to work. He immediately called one of the owners. While we shivered beside You’s AUDI as a Winter’s sun set behind yonder hills, the agent laid out the proposal to the person at the other end of the line… We were two gentlemen from Genoa interested in buying the property, however, we were considering others so, the offer is tot, and it expires on Monday. A classic… Take it or, loose it! The agent promised to personally visit the owners… two sisters… the next day, Sunday, to seal the deal and get back to us. Monday Noon, we were happily on our way to buying the 450+ sqm of Tuscan farm house. Four years to re-build. Sixteen years as a home.
Now, I want to sell. To close the circle, I invited the real-estate agent to Il Poggiolo. He had only seen the place shortly after our re-build was complete. I asked him what he thought about listing Il Poggiolo? Would anyone bite? He was enthusiastic. Money!
Next questions? What would he need from me and what was the Game Plan for listing? Photos? Oh, no. A video. People want videos these days. Really? Really. Not a simple request…
backing up a bit, the real-estate agent had in the interim years aligned himself in partnership with a American woman I had once worked for. In fact, I introduced her to the Lunigiana. Twice I tried. The second time it stuck. She bought a house… a fortress, in her eyes… re-built & furnished it all with my help & council. That was enough. We mutually terminated our association. She then took what she had learned and ran with it to YouTube and the real-estate agent as her next partner. I bet she sensed the time was right to sell to Americans, those adventurous enough to buy a 2nd, 3rd or, 4th home outside the typically knowable bastions for Americans in Italy. The catch word was, of course… Tuscany. I was told their arrangement was the American woman would do the media savvy video fluff-stuff, while the real-estate agent did the grunt work of contracts, deposits, closing meetings at a notary public’s office, etc. Shed of the usual chestnut dye-job from my stint, the video mavin and her video-crew imported from London… again, I was told… would periodically assault a property to video what all was found within & without accompanied by her commentary. What to her were probably clever, pithy, even funny insights bordered on the rude to the rest of the world. Friends and acquaintances here, who knew about her & me, would forward the sales videos, adding their shocked comments of… Is she crazy? Who does she think she is? What’s the story? Mio Dio! A couple I managed to endure… for maybe no more than about two minutes… neither expressed Good Salesmanship. She’s not interested in that? Didn’t seem to be. More Brand Identity, instead. Notoriety too. As Oscar Wilde once intimated, doesn’t matter if what you say or, do, is Good or Bad, it’s garnering the attention that counts… in so many words.
My stomach turned with anxious thoughts of shortly having to submit to her invasion to video Il Poggiolo. I sought council of my own. My dearest German friend offered to come and protect me. I said yes. Another dear friend, an American, helping her daughter to matriculate at a prestigious Catholic university up in Milan, also offered to come to shield me. Said yes to her too.
While ingesting TUMS, the real-estate agent called and asked me to write-up a brief Story of Il Poggiolo. Knocked it off on a rainy afternoon and sent it on to him, receiving a belated thumbs-up.
Thought later, it would be smart to ask for some time, say a couple of weeks, to prep the house & garden. 5,000 square feet of house to make spiffy. I dislike the concept of spiffy. Yet, I accepte it might be desired to sell. The 25,000 square feet of garden could be less spiffy. Leaves raked. All this was also a diversionary tactic to stem my gnawing and aggravating nervousness. Focused upon putting our best foot forward, especially, if Il Poggiolo was to be captured through a view-finder for all Posterity by folk from London accompanying their suspected critical Team Leader. So, I called the real-estate agent. No reply. Texted him. No reply. Went to work and then tried again a couple of days later. No reply. Texted and no reply either. Sent an email!!! And no reply for that either. About a week later, the agent finally called, excused himself for the delay, and asked what he could do. I explained. Time to tackle the house AND garden. He said… Of course! Whatever you need!… and to let him know when all was ready. Someone would show-up on the next sunny afternoon to video. Fine. Thanks. Ugh.
Busted butt. I had to work around the rainy days to tackle the garden: raking, cleaning, trimming, chucking, and burning. When not possible, I dove inside to do similar tasks, except I exchanged hiding for burning. Did call in Reserves. Our Sunny Cleaning Lady dedicated an afternoon to The Cause. Sent a call out to my German Friend. She replied, yes. And, Thank God. I was not psychologically prepared to tackle La Casa Grande’s Dining Room alone.
Lacking a proper photo of La Casa Grande’s Dining Room at its height packed full of stuff, here are two other photos in an attempt to present what I was faced with: Left) take what you see there at the bottom of the photo and multiply it by 100 and Right) what would 100 times look like if You’s stuff was trash. It isn’t. It does accumulate quite rapidly.
Let me tell you… and this is a tip… bring on a German in case of need or fun. Germans are brilliant, organizationally & logistically speaking, especially in The Need Department. They know how to do it. Mine asked politely if she could take charge. I said, yes. And, lo’ & behold, she did… it… undaunted by the mountain range of stuff piled on top of our large square Dining Room table or the other stuff in auxiliary piles in corners, under chairs, and around the room. Piles? What sort, exactly? Here’s a quick list:
dishes, service pieces, vases, my homeless artwork, knick-knacks of unknown provenance, dead-looking silk flowers, an American flag rolled up for safe keeping as if that’s going to help America right now… crystal bobs & ornaments, glasses & goblets, crystal pitchers, serving trays, table linens, bed linens, rags!!! and various non-sequiturs, quaintly referred to by You as objets d’art.
I left the room. I puttered in another precinct of La Casa Grande requiring attention for a bit and then went out into the garden with the Dogs to run those two delinquents and tidy up there. There were lots of there, up there. About twenty minutes later, I strolled in to find My German Friend’s butt projecting from underneath the Dining Room table. She pulled herself out and stood up. We admired her efforts. Meanwhile, topside, the conglomeration of stuff had been considerably reduced. However, there was still stuff that hankered for a hiding place, too. She wondered if there might be other possibilities to stash stuff. No more space under the table, I’m afraid. Looking around, the only alternative was an enormous steamer trunk… as a weird sort of pedestal for a stack of flat baskets… or a chest of drawers. I thought both would have long ago been occupied. You often sneaks in… under the cover of darkness… with grocery bags full of stuff… yes, a recurring noun when You’s involved. His word would be tesori… or, treasures… and he stores them in places, so I won’t know. Months later, he’ll pull out some ridiculous figurine he… just… could… not… live… without. My German Friend and I conducted a quick investigation. Land a goshen! Both were empty. In a jiffy, what was left of the various piles disappeared. Homeless artwork, an odd vase or two, and several objets d’art went into the trunk. All the rest went into the drawers of the chest. Surveying the Dining Room, I erupted with an… AHHH, I CAN BREATHE NOW!!! La Casa Grande’s Sala da Pranzo was transformed from an overly stocked flea-market booth into a full-fledged Dining Room. Fancy that? We did and I congratulated my German Friend for a job Germanically done well.
Oh! Another tip… call in an American too for Moral Support. Mine showed up almost immediately. She was in my neighborhood. Sort of, if Milan counts. Americans coordinate very well with Germans, too. You can even rough them up a bit, and yet they remain True Blue. You do have to serve them white wine and drive them over Hill & Dale to show off local sites & scenery, which do not exist anywhere in the US of A.
Deed done, there remained one problem. Well, two…
You made an uncharacteristically dry comment on the State of Stuff in La Casa Grande with a characteristically tone of irony.
And, the weather REFUSED to co-operate. September passed grim & grey into an even more grim & grey October. Thirty-one days of heavy cloud cover with intermittent bouts of spray. I would study the 5-10-15 day forecasts and when, at least, a sunny afternoon was predicted, I’d call the real-estate agent to book that particular afternoon. No reply. Texted him and no reply. Emailed him and no reply. This made me very angry. There are a few things that irritate me no end. I’ll forego The List to concentrate on one gracing the top of the Classifications: when I call, I expect the other person to pick-up! NO EXCUSES. NONE WHATSOEVER. And, if you cannot swing that then, I EXPECT A Return Call before the day is out. Easy. No complications. Just do it. The real-estate didn’t. Ever.
Provoked, I surprised him with a call at 8:05AM in the morning one day. A successful surprise attack. He picked-up. Ha! Informed him that in two days, the Weather Capitano had predicted a sunny afternoon in store for us. If he insisted on doing a video then, he or, whomever, should be at my proverbial front door… he can choose. I have three… to do the video. We made an appointment. OK… he said. On the appointed day, the sun was out at sunrise. The sun was out at 8:00AM. At 10:00AM. But, at 11:00 AM, it looked a bit pale. Attentively monitoring the situation, by 11:30AM the sun seemed to be communicating an imminent departure. Say towards 1:00PM. So, I called the real-estate agent to alert him to the worsening climatic conditions and to come NOW!!! And, of course, by tradition, he maintained his deplorable record of no reply. Waited and called again. No reply. Texted him. No reply. That was it.
At 4:30PM I called him and he picked up. Before he could offer an excuse, I fired him. I FELT WONDERFUL!!!
Tensions to sell
A reply to the question, To sell or not to sell?, got stuck. Not so bad as a skipping vinyl 33, but nearly. It whirled in my head on a constant repeat. Despite the annoyance, and frustration too, I stayed stealth, attempting to forestall temptations to open up to You-know-who. Get my ducks in some semblance of a row first. Good to know they self, etc. before opening one’s big mouth. And, why be a masochist? Let’s wait.
Then, provoked by a gloriously warm Autumn day, I felt a moment had arrived. The mental waters were calm. Things had stopped spinning. Gosh-golly! Darn, if it didn’t happen on a day when You was present & accounted for and was acting congenially enough for me to broach the subject again… To sell or not to sell Il Poggiolo? Yes, open up, share the inability to shake the notion. It just would not go away. The winds seemed right, to bare all, find common ground of understanding & stuff and, perhaps, of action too. Ha!
It did not go well. Worse, actually. Instead of a No, I got a ruthless… Over My Dead Body. OMDB for short. Smacks of a US government agency, doesn’t it? Nope. It’s not. More You’s displeasure. Does correspond to a kind of nuclear war. One with no bomb shelter to duct into. Yikes? Yep.
I’ve toughed-out You’s invoking what he had just invoked. Not often though…
once was during the reconstruction of La Casa Grande. Phase Two: 2010-2011. Memory Lane of a very cold Winter. Anti-freeze mixed in with the mortar did not do the desired trick. The stuff froze immediately. So, work was suspended for the entire month of January 2011. Gave me time to re-think about how to better arrange what is today’s Salotto, Sala da Pranzo e Cucina Gialla. I thought the salotto mightt instead be an open kitchen affair in one corner with a large dining table between its island counters and a wall with a niche separating the large space from the other one next door. And in another corner nearer to the entrance door, a small sitting area with two comfy chairs before a pleasant firebox. Maybe book shelves there too. Nice, no? The Dining Room, the other space next door… often used more as a warehouse for You’s latest acquisitions. All purchased to give a good home to what others have chucked or dumped for a pittance at a local flea-market… would rather make a convenient library… we both read a lot… and an art studio for me. Only for me. There isn’t such no such place at Il Poggiolo for me to make messes. A pity. I may try to make amends. Sorry, I digress. These alternative plans stopped with what is today the Yellow Kitchen. Thought it could be fitted-out as an ample bathroom with… Hey! A bathtub. Wow! Ain’t got one of those either here. Loved my ideas immensely. Measurements were taken, drawings drafted from them, all was set to show to You. Bring him up-to-date. I was prepped. Showing him the A-3 plans, I don’t think You took even a weensy breath, except one to launch his verbal reaction… Over My Dead Body!!! Could hazard a guess he did not bother to look at the drawings. As a result, La Casa Grande is as previously described, traditionally built with a Salotto, Sala da Pranzo e una Cucina Giallo. It will be forever more. Ditto for sting of that OMDB.
Cannot recall any other instances but, I know they’re around… hiding in the bushes off our Memory Lane, I suppose.
Such a declaration is a pretty effective counter-measure. Quickly kills discussion. But this time? It became evident, in the succeeding days, that, actually, You had more to say about my ambition to sell. Unexpected broad-sides, forays, strafes & burns, assaults… conversational skirmishes!!!… on the topic would suddenly flare-up. For instance, while we sat eating dinner off our laps in front of one of our pleasant fireboxes, driving to Aulla to shop for groceries or, pay bills, and even enjoying the sunshine out on the aia with our respective books, etc. You’s book, apparently, must not have been terrifically interesting. Insufficient a distraction from what afflicted him.
What did catch me off-guard though, besides the internecine surprises with You’s lectures series… and, in consequence, has inspired me to retaliate out of meanness, since I AM A SOUTHENER, to go stealth and head full-steam forward with plans to sell, sell, sell… was his reiterating the main gist of his curious argument:
You… What am I supposed to say to my nieces?
Me… Sorry kids, the house’s been sold?
Another short conversation. This because we share real-estate? I can admit my reply was a lame. Mildly rude, maybe. The better response might have been to let You’s question hang there… in the air. You know? Torture can be an effective strategy when controversy’s about.
But hey? Such words! I and my? What happened to… we and our? It’s all about him. His fear of fare una brutta figura con le nipote, la famiglia, gli altri? Ruining his brand as The Head of the Family? Yes.
I may have committed a tactical & grammatical error using a particular personal pronoun too. My opening salvo, so to speak, was… I am thinking of selling Il Poggiolo. I only erred once. You did twice. Reflecting, a more amenable statement could have been… What do you think, You, if we were to sell Il Poggiolo? Could have worked. Eliminated the knee-jerk OMDB? No way knowing now. What was said, was said.
Regardless, who does You think he is? Have a quick answer. E’ un principe e un dottore. In that order. What a combo- platter. Pedigree and intelligence. Equals suffers upon others his I-Am-The-Center-Of-The-World Syndrome. IATCOTWS. Has had extensive training. Years. Automatic club membership. By the way, the acronym is pronounced… Eee-ahhTT-CoTT-WiSS. Rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it? A mouthful. Meanwhile, for us plebs, it’s called Self-centered-ness. I should remember this. I don’t seem to, neglecting any recall from over the twenty-six years of extensive personal experience I have earned. Another excuse? I have a short memory. That’s it!
You, the poor thing, when confronting unexpected events.. ie, the World ain’t turning as he would want or, was taught to expect, retreats into hurt, betrayal, mumbles about his wounds. I believe it simply covers tracks, of being resoundingly pissed off. Never mind. It’s always going to be my fault. Nothing to be done. Must leave him to stew in his juices. All of them. And hope a tomorrow comes quickly and I sell the house.
Maybe something about those nieces?
There are five of them. They are affectionate kids. Well, sorry, more women. The eldest has surpassed thirty. The youngest is hovering at twenty. She’s thinking about it. All are pretty, fashionable, lively, making their way in Life, and each has un fidanzato and in two cases, un marito. The crowd of them all get along too. Amazing. Not the gossipy, competitive bunch on both sides of my family. Americans. Life is a game and is to be won. Now, get out of my way. Rather more prefer the Italian’s modus operandi: Let’s eat and have fun. Yippee!
For five-hundred years… senza interruzione… You’s family has produced maschi soltanto… until this latest generation, now of ONLY girls. So much for the last name. The nieces will just have to hitch the family’s cognome to their husband’s, for historical tracing, much like loading-up a freight train bound for Modena with extra box-cars, as is the Italian’s want & custom. It’s why You’s last name is so long. A series. Mildly episodical. A long train. I won’t go into the number of given names he carries around… in his zaino. Oh! Hey! I can abbreviate! R-GC-M-E-G. I think there might be two other initials. Can’t pull them out. My memory, as per the previous warning. Get the idea, no?
The whole lot of nieces + significant-others traditionally come down to Codiponte to visit i loro zii at least twice a year. The first is usually in May for a slew of family birthdays. You’s, his mamma’s, a niece’s, an aged aunt’s. Often, they descend more than twice. I never know when. I don’t get to choose the weekend. You tells me at the last minute and they show up. Every visit entails much which is similar to the tedious prep-work for You’s family’s Pranzo di Natale: multi-trips to the grocery store, hauling the loads from the garage up two flights of stairs and a trip in an elevator, two to three days of cooking in a kitchen where the cutting & dicing spaces… already minute by design… are occupied by an agglomeration of orchids, pills, objects of devotion… such as, plastic Halloween ghosts & goblins from 10 years ago… UFO’s, unwashed pans & plates!!!!, and cleaning or, hiding dust & stuff before la festa natalizia, and then, the usual post-event put-the-house-back-to-order. Whew! I have recently been successful to extradite myself from such Christmas tedium by solidly anchoring myself in Codiponte for the holidays this past year of 2024. Possible pay-back for that OMDB? Maybe. Don’t know yet. Just tired. Oh! Come to think of it, however, I may need to hang on to Codiponte just to insure I can continue avoiding a future of those Yuletide labors. Oh, dear. Confusion’s settling in.
Courage. I’m going forward with The Game Plan to sell or, at least, try. The nieces will have to cut-out for new territories. Buy their own homes in the country. Or, if I do, we can meet in Genoa for a pizza.
Oh! One last detail. Relatively important. Sorry, I forgot to mention this: for The Record, Il Poggiolo is my house, in black & white, on paper. You’s name does not appear. It’s not an ours, it is a mine.
I called the real-estate agent who had sold us Il Poggiolo lo’ these sixteen years ago. He sold it. Thought it would be a kind opportunity for him to try selling the place, and to some deserving person willing to pay my asking price. What might that be? I ain’t telling. Lots. My rational? Il Poggiolo is in Italy, Tuscany, the Lunigiana. THESE ARE THE ONLY UNIVERSES WHICH COUNT!!! The houses are old, like 800+ years old. The complex is in an historic village. Solid river stone construction too. Recently re-built from foundations to the roofs. Actually, Italian houses do not have foundations. Houses are anchored to a big rock. Nonetheless, stone and that big rock are certainly a far superior method of residential construction, compared to those plywood & metal bracket affairs built over in America, and which, you see on the nightly news destroyed and cleverly strewn over hill & highway after a line of tornadoes have whirled through. Il Poggiolo has a fenced in private garden. 25,000 square feet of it and with antique statuary and terracotta vases here & there. Lots of flowering trees & plants. The complex can sleep 11, has 3 Kitchens, a Laundry Room, a working pizza and/or bread oven, is furnished with an eclectic decor from the Contemporary to the Antique and with occasional decorative rest-stops at Vintage, plus enough plates, wine glasses and silverware, etc. for parties of up to 150… yes, and one was my 60th Birthday Party. 200 folk… and a Fish Pond with a frigging fountain spewing out of a wolfs’s mouth, to name just a few of Il Poggiolo’s priceless and truly charming attributes. A photo medley…
We will just have to see what the market response will be, won’t we? Well, once the real-estate ad is placed on the real-estate agent’s website. Wish me luck?
To sell or not to sell
Prologue
I have been stewing about this blog post for weeks & weeks now. There’s much to recount. Feels though like ancient history. The winds have since altered direction. A bit. To call up the episodes & facts below of the last six months seems water well under the bridge. Codiponte’s bridge too. Silly notion of Time & Event. And yet, an appropriate notion since, Codiponte is dialect for At the head of the bridge. Meaning, and this was a WARNING way back in the Middle Ages, you had to pay the toll to cross the region’s only bridge to get to anywhere else. I paid not with coin but with stress.
In the Beginning
About the time someone had found the ON Button propelling us from a rather chilly May… fires lit to take the chill out of a cold salotto. The Dogs insisted… to a Hellish June of daily +90F degree heat and for the rest of the Summer and on into Fall, my head was filled with revolt. I can’t do this anymore.
A Small Voice interrupted… What can’t you do anymore?
I replied… Well, for starters, trying to book the gardener for February only to learn he can’t OR just won’t show up until maybe June to help me cut back the rampant growth of practically every leafy thing in Il Poggiolo’s garden. I’m just one person. I can’t do it alone. I need help.
Oh? queried the Small Voice.
Yes. Or, hey! How about… it took our kindly Handy Man six months to fit out La Vasca dei Pesci with a fountain spewing out of a wolf’s mouth… I know, creepy concept. However, not mine. And, by the way, the wullaf is made out of terracotta so, it’s not as threatening as it sounds, maybe. Possibly not… and to place thick stone ledges to cap the pool’s crumbling walls.
Let us all be kindly reminded t’was You’s dearest wish for a shit dump once needed to accumulate the fertilizing bio-donations from the now long gone cows held prisoner in the bowels of Il Poggiolo’s cantine should be simply transformed into a romantic Fish Pond. Not a bad idea, actually. Congenial, even. Today, 30+ golden buggers with fins currently swim for their daily bread, so to speak.
Upon completion of these latest works, the Handy Man’s AND the Marble Man’s bills were fiscally shocking. All done for the love of You. So you’ll know.
Meanwhile, the breaking straw was a Summer Time Party for 8 becoming one for 28… suddenly overnight. I would be grateful if a certain un-named person might abandon his preference to globally invite and delegate tasks, and instead, actually break his back with what all falls upon me to traditionally do for these enlarged do’s. The List:
cleaning… even with the help of our wonderfully cheery Cleaning Lady… arranging & re-arranging various sleeping accommodations on and off site, discussing menu options with a local caterer… I will naturally slave over a hot stove for at least 50% of the faire… and doing the multi-grocery-store trips to load up on what cannot or, will not be done by someone else. For starters, stocking adequate supplies of toilet paper to white & red wines and prosecco…. of course!!!… for the impending crowd. And, transporting what all from the other side of the bridge up the several ramps & stairs to La Casa Grande’s bug-attracting Yellowish Green Kitchen. You said the color would and he was correct. Amen.
Ugh. 28 is a convention, not a dinner party. Went into TILT. Mostly thinking about those ramps & stairs with heavy and way too numerous-to-count bags of groceries, wine, water, and stuff. No, I can’t do it. I don’t want to. In the weathered words of The Wiseman… I’ve had enuf.
I found mental refuge dreaming of living in a medium-sized single story 2 BR 2 & 1/2 Bath house, with an ample yet, not crazily overwhelmingly large garden… for my adored Weimaraner… and in or, within walking distance to some partially civilized community, say, Sarzana. Or, hey! Pietrasanta. Walk out the gate and ecco!!! people. Ones you might have something in common with.
I thought I would share this fantasy and how to get to it with You. Turned out to be a very brief conversation held on Il Poggiolo’s microscoptic Loggia. Here is the dialogue…
Me… I am thinking of selling Il Poggiolo.
You… No.
The End
A short conversation. Got cut off before I could share The Dream. I was rather hoping for a round-table discussion. Italian is a conversational language. I thought, we could, at least, weigh the pro’s & con’s… openly, like mature adults, for instance. Or, seek avenues of solution, etc. Hell! We were seated at a round table. Let the talk roll. Nope. Got an invocation instead.
Typically with us, what was an argument to me was not to You. A tempest to one, a passing squall to another? Possibly. We moved on. Well, one did. The other stewed. Guess who?
Meanwhile, the gardener showed up… finally… on the 4th of June. He graciously proposed to work three, three-hour afternoons. Read… if an afternoon starts at 6PM in the evening. Too darn hot in June at any other time of the day. It would have been different back in February. But, why quibble? Water under the bridge, etc. In between his appearances were days to recuperate his strength… and his work-in-the-heat spirits. What about mine? I sweated too with his afternoon efforts of cutting & pruning. He chopped, I lugged. During the gardener’s R&R’s, I hauled, re-positioned, and compacted what was cut into 9 enormous piles of debris distributed about our 25,000 sq. ft. garden. Burned them all before the ban on fires took effect. And just in time. I labored before 9AM and after 6PM. Ditto for burning. Again, impossibly hot otherwise. Yet , it was hot even during the off-hours. The gardener and I had to chuck most of what was on my February To-do List. We kept to the Priorita’ Numero Uno of lowering the garden’s green privacy wall from the astounding height of… give or take… 6 meters = 20 feet!!! down to a less massive 3 meters = 10 feet of STILL NO PEERING EYES. However, it’s not that You sunbathes in the nude.
Some sketches
These stunning sketches were done on my iPhone with an index finger. Are we not impressed? Please also note: we did not summarily bush-whack the green barrier. We left certain flowering plants to grow without subscribing them to the 3 meter height limit: alloro, corbezzolo, olio fragrance, etc. Everyone should know the first name.
And, down at the ol’ Fish Pond, the Handy Man diligently worked away on our other infrastructure project. He was just the man to employ. Thoughtful and precise and detail oriented. I am none of those. Broad strokes, for me, man. He has proven himself consistently in recent years with several odd-jobs at Il Poggiolo AND, more importantly, he has shown himself to be super adept at solving IT issues. Can’t get away from those. What a boon. I only know how to turn the things ON or OFF. An addition to his many, he brought assistants. A logistical coup. He and his wife participate with a pan-European scheme of taking in folk willing to work in exchange for a bed & meals. The first crew were an under twenty-five couple from Dresden, Germany, traveling Italy with semi-truck sized backpacks. Poor things. Their one-day-only stint toiling at Il Poggiolo was to lug materials & equipment up all our ramps & stairs in the morning heat. They turned bright red from the exertion. They managed to maintain their Teutonically glistening smiles. Later on in the Summer, the Handy Man brought a strapping fellow from Perth, Australia. He too stopped by our parts while traveling the Italian peninsula. Thought it adventurous of him to be doing so alone. Asked and got his story: he was laid-off by the mines in Western Australia so, he rented-out his house and caught Qantas to Rome for a three-month tour eventually to meet up with his ex-wife. How nice. Our Summer is Australia’s Winter. I would have stayed put in Perth for a spell. Despite the company of assistants, the Handy Man was often absent. Bites of time, when he was obligated to be elsewhere with prior engagements, commitments, etc. or, like the gardener, simply exhausted by working in the extreme heat. He was lucky to have had some shade, the cool of the pool of water too. The gardener had a full complement of afternoon sun.
Some photos
To avoid Heat & humidity, The Dogs and I at mid-day would barricaded inside La Casa Grande watching Netflix, , reading, napping and worrying about should I or should I not sell il Poggiolo. The Dogs slept or pestered me for treats.
Then, in the midst of my reverberating hours of discontent, my sister sent me an urgent Whatsapp message… Come… now!!! This, was not twelve hours after she had previously informed me of our Mother’s sudden transferal from home, and in a dire state, to a local multiplex hospital in North Carolina USA. Within twenty-four hours I sat in a upgraded-to-Business-Class seat in an Airbus belonging to the latest iteration of Italy’s national flag carrier, ALITALIA, now called ITA. The government had knocked off a few capital letters to shorten the name? In the hope of improving the airline’s performance? No, idea. Oh! And, the new name is not pronounced… Eye-Tee-Aye but… Eeee-Tahhh. Just so you will know and avoid embarrassment. Anyway, the topic of selling Il Poggiolo was given a two week hiatus. Sort of. The notion still hung around despite my temporary relocation.
No more laps to do...
Have not had the heart to write what will be the last of the Driver’s License blog series post though I had thought a lot about it. Nostalgia had seeped in. Then the interruption of the holidays. Now’s the time…
I did it. I have an Italian Driver's License.
I feel pretty much the same. Well, I am 10 lbs. lighter. Gave up White wine in November.
After the day-after-Christmas, Santo Stefano… Boxing Day for any English about… I drove to Fivizzano… semi-illegally… to pay Baldo the last installment for schooling me in the arts of driving a car in Italy. Semi-illegally because, my Galloper SUV is considered by the gli Uffici di Motorizzazione Civile… the Italian Department of Motor Vehicles… to be way too big & powerful an automobile for a neopatentato to drive. To be in regola… legal… a FIAT 500 would be ideal. And, for the next three years too. This is silly. As a legally licensed driver… though carrying an American Driver’s L:cense… I was a neopatentato back in 1968. 56 years ago. Many years of driving. Chevrolets to FIATS. At one point, there was even a truck. Until I can plead my case for an exemption from such nonsense before some Italian authority or other, imagine me expressing il mio dispiacere… my displeasure… with the Grand Italian Gesture… in the general direction of Rome, the seat of the Italian State and its hapless departments… by taking the palm of my left hand and slamming it into the crux of my up-raised and slightly bent my right arm. Do note: this gesture is from the horse & buggy days. Hard to pull it off when one’s mitts are 9 & 3 on the steering wheel of a motorized vehicle.
Showed up at l’AutoScuola Fivizzanese and ably maneuvered my Galloper SUV into a parallel parking space right at its front door. I could see Baldo was inside fooling around with his iPhone. Got his toothy smile. He quickly asked if I had "been driving a lot". Had never stopped, was my candid reply. We laughed. Then, we went on to exchange a few words about our respective Christmases…
Baldo’s… he has a 4 year old son, named Leo. I met him once. I drove him to his pre-school at the beginning of one of my 30 minute lessons. Like his Dad, quite a character. Not afraid to chat-up an adult. Told me he’s got a girl-friend but, she’s difficult. Doesn’t do what he tells her to do. Italian mating. He made an impression. So, I was curious and asked Baldo, if Leo was happy with Babbo Natale’s visit this year? Not really, he said. The kid knew the disguised villager dressed in a Red Santa-suit was a fake. Leo informed his Dad that Babbo Natale only travels at Midnight and does not make public appearances at 4 in the afternoon for a Christmas party. Bored, the 4 year old trotted-off to mess with his PlayStation.
Mine… was watching our 5 nieces scream and holler and cavort around the Christmas tree in one of two LRs in our Genoese loft with the umpteen thousands of gifts You had lavished upon them… vintage hand-bags, years-gone-by designer dresses from Fendi & Armani & Alberta Ferretti, cocktails dresses too, and off-beat items of decor discovered hiding underneath tables at You’s favourite flea-market emporium near Genoa’s stadium. Like what twenty-something would ever want a pair of woven paglia lamp bases? Surprise! The recipient was ecstatic.
The visit ended with our respective plans for New Year’s Eve 2023, what with the Weather Colonel’s forecast for grey weather, rain & fog.
Not sure when I will see Baldo again. In bidding Baldo a Good-bye, I told him I no longer know what to do with myself in the morning, now that I am free from scurrying in my Galloper SUV to Fivizzano via back roads in time for my usual 9:30AM driving lesson. Said the Dogs give my funny looks like… Aren’t you needed elsewhere? Oh, but, get this…
as a principiante driver, I was well within The Law to traverse the highways & by-ways in my neck of the woods in my Galloper SUV… well, so long as I had a licensed adult driver with me as a chaperone. A role, I felt I could adequately furnished for myself, in light of those 56 years. God Bless, my tactic was never contested in an unexpected encounter with the Carabinieri. I am an Italian licensed driver now yet, I cannot legally drive the Galloper SUV. NO POLITE COMMENTS AVAILABLE.
Gave Baldo a hug, got into my Galloper SUV and semi-illegally drove back to Codiponte.
I was at a loss. I missed those lessons.
They were well beyond just learning how to parallel park a White Peuguooot all’italiana. Always the same streets, always the same maneuvers in the same spots… when the citizens of Fivizzano thought to co-operate by not taking up all the parking spaces, so I could nail parallel parking… rather, those 30 minutes were more often filled with variety, stories of local color, histories told by Baldo with much appreciation and charm and love…
heading past La Piazza Liberta’, Baldo saw an old tree on the left at the entrance to Fivizzano’s new & spiffy civic parking lot… nothing is more satisfying than a new layer of Black asphalt and painted White lines after so many years of dodging pot-holes and buckled pavements… and just before the town’s singular traffic light. He was reminded of its story…
the tree… today a massive plane tree… was planted hundreds of years ago. Maybe even a thousand years ago. Now it has several leafy companions making a shady alley to the junction with three bars. Each one positioned to the passage of the Sun: morning for one, mid-day for another and late afternoon for the last. Where in the World does such an arrangement exist? The morning one is my favourite. Friendly folk… flirty, if the tall guy is in attendance though he remains consistently immune to my smiles. Why do I even try?… and it opens at 4:30AM. Good Lord! Who’s up at 4:30AM, besides You heading to the hospital for a 7:00AM Roll Call? A good cappuccino can be had too and is often offered by Baldo, who holds court inside to chat and outside to smoke a cigarette before every driving appointment.
When the city began to pave its streets… after The Great Earthquake of ‘22… the workmen discovered the same tree’s roots had reached all the way to the parapets of Fivizzano, a quarter of a mile away. Baldo made sure I had absorb this fact. Satisfied, he went on…
The name Fivizzano actually derives from the Italian name for a fig tree… un fico… planted eons ago in the town’s center, near what is today La Piazza Medicea… famous for its Baroque fountain. Watch out: NO PARKING! As the local folk often do in these parts, the word fico slid into Fivo, then Fivi and onto to finish with Fivizzano. That ending, -zzano implies importance, its position in the realm of things. A bit of home grown history. Oh, and hear this…
just in case… I also learned that Italian Driving Examiners do not like to see one shift gears in mid-maneuver. Before or after, but not during. Two hands must always be at 10 and… OOOPS!… 9 and 3.
Continuing on through the traffic light, we both noticed a tall young man wearing a heavy khaki colored duffel-coat, a grey wool knit hat pulled down low over his brow, his gaze straight ahead, walking a quietly composed German Shepherd. Got his story while doing two-point inversions…
he lost his parents when very young. A tragic car accident. The poor child retreated into a near total muteness. Closed down. Raised by elderly grandparents, who naturally had their own grief & problems to contend with, and thus, did not offer much help. His isolation was confirmed. The young man grew up unable to care for himself, to learn a skill, much less hold down a job. He is singularly & solitarily devoted to walking his dog. Day in and day out. And on the same streets as Baldo and I drive on for my lessons.
Circling around and then descending down via Roma from the intersection at the three corner bars, Baldo let out a… Don’t hit that man! What? He’s on a sidewalk, Baldo! Just don’t hit him. He’s my uncle. Really? Yeah, mean as shit. This uncle was tall, somewhat portly and had a clipped manner of walking. His history was one of ticket giving. Used to be Fivizzano’s lone traffic warden. Energetically dispensed pieces of paper off a pad for every & all infractions. Mostly for persnickety violations. Baldo’s Dad was handed a ticket when the uncle noticed the Dad’s car’s back wheels were beyond the White lines of a parking space. Apparently, ended in a public quarrel. Never spoke afterwards. Baldo too had been a victim of the man’s traffic infractions largesse.
Many, many other histories to tell... Baldo even pointed out the apartment house where he grew up… but, onwards & upwards with my quest for an Italian Driver’s License…
The Driving Test was originally scheduled for the morning of December 22nd. Wonderful. Right before Christmas… in Genoa. Baldo had promised me an Italian Driver’s License before Capodanno… New Year’s. Possibility of getting it in early then? And, how so, if I don’t pass the Driving Test? Baldo said nothing more about it. The week of the test, I asked if the appointment stood. Nope. Afternoon now. Shit. During Nap Time? The Examiner, who was on duty for the Theory Test back in November, would also be the one to check my driving skills in a White Peuguooot. Baldo added that when the Examiner comes all the way to Fivizzano… right there, a great convenience, and I should be forever beholden to him for it… he likes to eat a good local pranzo, chat, drink White wine before traveling around with a couple of 18 year olds and a 71 year old ex-pat American. However, the new appointment time allowed me one last lesson in the morning of the 22nd to further refine the key maneuvers. I was told to be at the AutoScuola at 3:00PM. If I must, I will.
Nervous, I was at my preferred Corner Bar at 2:45PM. No Cute Guy. Saw one of those 18 year olds on the docket for the day’s Driving Test sitting on the little piazza messing around with his iPhone. At 2:58PM, I walked up the short distance to the AutoScuola. No White Peuguooot. Sunbathed across the street at the gate to the Casa Funebre… Funeral Home. 3:10PM… 3:22PM… 3:26PM… still no White Peuguooot. Another 18 year old joined the first at the door to the AutoScuola. 3:41PM… 3:46PM… 3:52PM… and suddenly, the White Peuguooot barreled noisily up via Roma, did a maniacally risky two-point inversion and, dodging on-coming cars, slammed-dunked the car into a poorly executed… but typical Italian stunt to avoid the art of Parallel Parking… parking in the school’s space at the feet of the two stunned 18 year olds. Out popped Baldo’s teenage daughter. Tight jeans, straight Red hair flying, her piumino jacket flapping. The two 18 year olds perked up. The daughter hollered through the wake of her arrival that Baldo was on his way. And off she skipped down the street and into the setting Sun.
Baldo bounced up via Roma at 4:03PM. Soon followed by the Examiner in his sleek blue Alfa-Romeo. He pulled the same stunt as Baldo’s daughter. Baldo hopped inside the White Peuguooot to correct the error of his daughter’s ways… ignoring the Examiner’s car’s iffy position. Probably for political purposes, and rightly so. I, as student, was about to be examined by said gentleman. No sense ruining the mood after a long & delicious lunch. Baldo indicated for me to take his place inside the Peuguooot and to be ready for the Driving Test. I followed orders. Somehow, and quite suddenly, we were four people inside: me, Baldo to my right, the Examiner in the back behind Baldo and Baldo’s daughter behind me. She needed a ride to work. OK.! Hop in. More the merrier. Baldo gave me the sign to drive off.
You know, there’s a rather valid reason for not conducting Driving Tests in the late afternoon, especially after 4:00PM in an Italian town, village, city. Stores re-open after la pausa pranzo at 4:00PM. People sprout from every direction. Mostly women. I had a Hell-of-a-time dealing with fuseau & pumino clad semi-wide signoras electing to go shopping and walking in the street rather than using any side-walk. The Examiner complained. I had to stay stuck until I could drive on the right side of the street without eliminating any semi-wide female pedestrians. Men have the Good Sense to delegate such tasks. Once liberated, I was asked to make a left turn…. thankfully down a quite street… followed by the request to perform a Parallel Parking maneuver. Discreetly done, I must say. This was quickly followed by the request to do a two-point inversion to then head back to via Roma. I made a left turn at the Stop. What transpired was a skeptical interrogation & comments made by the Examiner regarding a few details about me: had I lied about my age ‘cause I do not look like a 71 year old? Guessed I was really 55… What was it like to be born in Denver, Colorado USA? No different than being born in Des Moines, Iowa. He missed the joke.… Where do I live but, Baldo replied to this query… Codiponte! Where’s that?… and once done, we were at Fivizzano’s traffic light. I was asked to make a right turn and, lo’ & behold, we were at the intersection of the 3 corner bars. Dropped off the daughter, so she could head to the store where she worked. I was asked to make another right turn and to stop outside the AutoScuola. There commenced a little ceremony…
Baldo officiated… said I was an exemplary student, having taken seriously the challenge to do all that was necessary to successfully obtain an Italian Driver’s License… that I was a person of exceptional quality & gentility… and I was esteemed by one (Baldo) and all (about 14 fellow students)… and so, having already explained these important details to Signore Angelo, the Examiner present… Sono felice di dart questa… and Baldo handed me an already prepared Patente Italiana in una busta di plastica.
Done. And, apparently, pre-ordained. No argument there. I had actually been forewarned… una patente prima di Capodanno. Great!
So, I am left with closing by giving Thanks where Thanks is deserved…
The two Carabinieri agents for not arresting me, sequestering my Galloper SUV and socking me with a heavy fine. Instead, they kindly directed me to Baldo and from that point, I was on my way…
Lexotan… a universally recognized Italian miracle of tranquillizing drops… to see me avoid becoming a complete & total nervous wreck for such adventures as taking the Theory Test in messy Massa…
our dear sweet & generous Codiponte friends… she and her daughter both attended the AutoScuola Fivizzanese. And with her husband, the couple nourished my body with glorious dinners and my spirit with how to do it. Fell into two IMPORTANT messages: do quizzes until you cannot do another qwtz and just follow what Baldo tells you to do when behind the wheel of the darn Peuguooot. And, it worked…
My German friends… who remained steadfast through it all. They ain’t shoddy either in the Nourishment & Moral Support Categories and despite the fact that I had given up White wine…
And finally… Big Thanks to my family of You… Prince of My Heart… and all my incredible nieces and their respective & equally fantastic boy-friends/fiancees… who all had charted the same Driver’s License waters and had never ceased with their encouragement, understanding and support.
Thank you.
The End
Nearly the last lap...
Appointment with Driving License Destiny is in 12 days from today.
I had thought during the solid month between the Theory Test of last November 15th and the Driving Test on the 22nd of December, I would drive with Baldo twice a week. That should be sufficient. I know how to safely drive a car. From that perspective, I felt I could manage the Driving Test Challenge with a return to the exact same schedule when attending Theory Classes from the time I was nabbed by the Carabinieri back in July until I embarked upon Theory Test Super-Study Over-drive in the middle of last October. As you all know, that paid off. Aced it! So, Tuesday and Thursdays at 10:00AM.
Yeah, 30 minutes circling around Fivizzano. I hated it. Really hated it…
I don’t take instruction well… at all. Tell me what I am supposed to do… The Objective… LET ME DO IT, DAMN-IT!!!… The Execution… and then, you can criticize the heck out of whatever I did…. The Evaluation. I politely asked Baldo for this to be our procedure and I got an immediate…Non ci penso neanche, amico. No way, man. Kind of hurt my feelings. Offended. I do not take offense well… at all. Does this make me out to be an obnoxious person? I wanted to defend, to preserve my way of driving a car which I have done successfully for the last 53 years and with only so much as a fender bender or, two in that time. Surely that will do?
Instead, I was introduced to Baldo’s methods. He’s a foot on, hands waving, head shaking sort of instructor. Does not explain things either. WHAT IS HE DOING? Baldo would not allow me to independently drive the car. A weird sensation too, as I would gently push the accelerator to begin a maneuver and suddenly, I’d feel the car slow down or, even stop. Baldo did not like what I was doing and had depressed either his clutch, his brake or, both. No need for an highly animated lecture on how WRONG my attempt had demonstrated. Got that during his stealth manipulation of the crappy car’s pedals. This is demoralizing. What I wanted to avoid. Was forced to stick with demoralization. The Objective of Italian Driving Instruction has nothing to do with safely driving a car. Again, I know how to safely drive a car. Nope. It was audibly apparent, I did not know how to drive a car Baldo’s Way since… His Objective, the Winning Ticket here… is to get me to pass the Driver’s Test on the 22nd of December. The Examiner wants to see you drive a car as he/she/it/they want you to do it. I am thick headed. Comes from my Scottish roots, I have been told. On the third lesson, I went into Battle Mode. I was going to DEFEND how I drive. I CAN DO THIS! Sinatra’s Anthem, My Way. Drove right past obnoxious towards full-tilt annoying… for Baldo… I am sure. Truly, this was going to end badly. Nevertheless, the man would not leave me alone. As I wrote, thick headed. So, as the pendulum swings, I swung against his every and constant indication, criticism, repetition, etc. while making left and right turns, parallel parking, backing up, reversals, inversions, even just sitting at a traffic light. It was exhausting. Nothing I did met expectations. And, of course, not. I was intolerable. As we tootled towards the AutoScuola, Baldo cut short the lesson by 5 minutes, he braked the car and proceeded into an animated, spit-spewing hissy-fit, the gist of which was… If you insist on driving like you just did today, YOU WILL NOT PASS THE DRIVING TEST!!! He hollered the infamous word… BOCCIATO!!! Finished, he got out of the car, shut the door, and went into his office, probably to smoke a cigarette or, two. I extracted myself from the car… Thank God without instruction from Baldo… and was almost flattened unto a premature Death by an old man barreling up Via Roma in a noisy 1980’s White FIAT Panda 4X4. If you have time to honk, you have time to swerve, is always My Philosophy. I mumbled an ardent hope the geezer would run into a nearby lamp post and cut short his old man life. I also wished him the handy use of his Panda as a convenient coffin. The Fivizzano Cemetery is at the end of Via Roma. Can’t beat that, can you, now? My demise was probably A Suitable End to a horrible driving experience… and all of my own doing too. In hindsight. Inside the safety of my Hyundai Galloper SUV, I immediately called You. Hark! He answered on the first ring. He quietly listened to me tell My Story and then, in his reply, used his I am appalled at me tone of voice. I hate it when he takes to the Opposition. I drove home, caressed and hugged My Two Adoring Dogs, who were ABSOLUTELY THRILLED TO HAVE ME HOME ONCE AGAIN, unlike the Rest of the World, it seemed. Promptly crashed off the wagon of NO WINE by consuming an entire bottle of a chilly Vermentino, while watching Red, White and Royal Blue…
a cleverly done LGBTQ+ movie… Boy, have the Times since changed from my day: Gay was the standard cap-phrase… a story about the son of an American president falling in love with an English HRH Prince. Cute, heart-warming, and often truthful confection on Amazon Prime. And yet, it is also ruthlessly crushing in its media induced poor self-esteem, as one movie critic wrote, by watching Two impossibly beautiful men oogle each other for an hour and a half. And the two protagonists are just that: breathlessly beautiful and masculine. And, in addition to their extreme beauty, they can play the piano, sing, dance and wear tightly tailored suits to perfection too. Fuck.
I went to bed. The dogs followed.
Letting emotions, notions and other sensations settle, I decided for the next lesson, I’d take 10 drops of Lexotan… a miracle tranquillizing drug, the Italian Prozac. I normally only do 5…coupled with the uncharacteristic desire of… I’m going to be pleasant, amenable and attempt to have fun. I want to pass this fucking Driving Test!!! Yes, it was the drug. I arrived. Baldo was smoked out. We spent 30 minuti simpatici insieme. I properly executed all necessary maneuvers, with little assistance on the part of Baldo and for my part, all done with a smile and an easy manner.
Onwards.
Practise makes perfect?
Ahhh, embarking upon the last phase of Getting An Italian Driver’s License: the Practical Driving Lessons…
again, to repeat for the umpteenth time, the objective of obtaining an Italian Driver’s License is to pass the test. Whatever. That’s the game. The now relegated to Past History Driving Theory Test, passed on the 15th of November, and the Practical Driving Test is in my immediate future and scheduled for the 22nd of December, the Friday before Christmas!!! Lovely. Oh! But, Land’s o’goshen! The Driving Test Examiner comes to the AutoScuola Fivizzanese rather than for me to go to him/her at that mess called Massa.
My first Driving Lesson with Baldo was last Tuesday, the 21st of November. Just tell me the facts, sir. Just shy of a week from my much-acclaimed Victory in acing the Driving Theory Test with 0 errors!!! on the Wednesday before. Yes, I may be over-doing it in mentioning this stunninig fact so often. Excuse me. I am not often so thrilled.
The Driving Lessons lasts ONLY 30 minutes. You have to book the appointment the day before via a Whatsapp chat… which I hate. Cannot tell you how many times I… AND THE DOGS TOO!!!… have been rudely awakened at 11 o’clock at night because, some 18 year found his/her ON Button, when there wasn’t anything interesting on TV or, on any other device, suddenly remembers the need to book. Our Collective Bed-time is 9:00PM. Like boarding a B-777 for a flight across the Atlantic ast CDG Airport and the interminable Boarding Process 45 minutes before Departure Time, it takes the Man and two Dogs several hard earned minutes of negotiation to get Croesus not to scombussolare… upset… the bedding to the single bed, what with that usurper, The Anthea-person, occupying a Prime Position near to me up by the pillows.
Yes, the Driving Lessons are ONLY thirty minutes. Hardly enough time to fiddle with the mirrors. And, the first five of those minutes are devoted to Baldo finishing his cigarette and chatting-up some passerby before we squeeze ourselves into his AutoScuola’s White Peooogeot. A crappy car. No wonder too! What with the ebb & flow of countless 18 years grabbing its steering wheel at 10 and 2…. Ooops! Sorry. In Italy it’s 9 and 3. Don’t forget! The thumbs to the Heavens. Also, be not surprised to learn there is a Crucifix dangling above the dash-board of the automobile’s Black faux-leather interior. Shhh… it’s against the Law. But there you have it; Italy, again. But hark! The first annoying thing I discover is the Driver’s Seat does not go back far enough for my not-so-out-of-the-ordinarily-long American legs. Once the manoeuvre’s accomplished… done with the accompaniment of unintelligible grumps & groans, on my part… my knees end up parallel to the top of the the steering column. The first time, I looked at Baldo and he looked at me. I shrugged and he shrugged. And off we drove.
Now, I had learned from a previous unsolicited criticism from Baldo after he had witnessed my departure from a parallel parking space next to the entrance to the AutoScuola Fivizzanese to head home to the Love of My Animals…
I had gone to say Ciao! post-test Victory and to pick up my Foglio Rosa Patente B, a temporary Driver’s License… or, a Learner’s Permit, if you will… allowing me to drive legally any vehicle covered by the B License… even a farm tractor!!!… yet, mandatorily accompanied by a person, who has less than 65 years of age and has had a Driver’s License for more than 10 years. I am skipping those details. No one handy’s around who fits that bill. So, I am still driving illegally until I have a real Italian Driver’s License, promised to me by Baldo for before New Year’s. At which time, I will have to buy an Italian pip-squeak FIAT to drive for a year to be fully in accordance with the Italian Driving Laws for newly patented drivers. Yep, the Italian State doesn’t trust its newly licensed citizens to manage a car beyond a certain level of cylinders in the beginning of their careers as drivers. Might help if it changed the process entirely and focused on actually teaching folk to drive rather than to just pass the damn tests. But, I digress…
anyway… I did not IMMEDIATELY look to my left before preforming the other elements of the Entering Traffic Manoeuvre: after looking left, to look right, then, to use the turn signal, keeping it clicking with the forced submission of what is supposed to be the gentle touch of a right hand, while ones’ paws are at 9 and 15 to collectively twist the steering wheel in the desired direction to ease the car into the traffic flow. I HAD MADE A BIG NO-NO!!! A VERY BIG NO-NO!!! Baldo explained that practically anything I do with a car examiner entails first looking left. DON’T LOOK AT THE MIRRORS!!! Not until you’re underway. What? Sorry, there’s no other way to put this… I can’t fucking see to my left! The door & window struts interrupt the view. Doesn’t matter. Italian Automobile Protocol imposes looking first to one’s left as an absolute must. So, the rest of the lesson is for us guys to drive around Fivizzano for 20. minutes…. 5 already spent… and 5 more devoted to The Wrap-up… cigarette lit: You drive all right but, you need to pay attention to what I say about where, when and how to do things. Right. Look left. Yes!
A weird sensation came over me after Baldo’s Wrap-up, as to what these Driving Lessons were all about quietly began to infiltrated my thought processes. All we ever did with the subsequent lessons was to drive around on the same streets of Downtown Metropolitan Fivizzano. Never in the same order but ALWAYS in the same direction. It dawned on me at a Thanksgiving dinner…
an American friend, a sculptor, and married to one of my oldest friends, since I came to live in Italy, and who had also worked for me as an accessories designer during my long ago other life as a Fayeshion Designer, invited me to join them at a Thanksgiving dinner hosted by an Italian woman, the owner of a splendid country hotel near Pietrasanta. Think low, softly beige, stone farm-houses gorgeously renovated for paying guests, spoiling them with grassy lawns, olive trees, vineyards, patios and loggias and an Olympic sized swimming with cabanas plus communal sitting & dining rooms where meals produced by two chefs to keep everyone well fed. In the season. Oh! And there are horses and pigs and ducks and rabbits too. Now, I’ve been to other parties with my friends and they were encounters with bean sprout & almond salads and pasta with tofu & UFO veggies,, etc. Not this shindig! The turkey was succulent and beyond tasty. I had two large helpings. Normally, I avoid the turkey. The eclectic group of guests… all artists, mostly sculptors, which is no surprise being so close to Pietrasanta… had each brought a Thanksgiving dinner contribution which, were exactly what you would’ve wanted for such a dinner, and yet, the 20 odd dishes were made with interesting twists in flavours and presentation. Minimum of second helpings of all that too.
A few of the guests I knew and the start of the evening was… What have you been up to lately? Well, I was nabbed by the Carabinieri back in July… so, I have had no Life… what-so-ever… but to go to Driving School, study and with hopes to pass the tests and get an Italian Driver’s License before I die. Oh! For me too. Gosh! A shared experience…
a warm French woman, a sculptress, sitting across from me dove in with Her Story:
she was driving near Pietrasanta… Marble Sculpture Art Central… an Italian tagged car with a French Driver’s License and packing a Permesso di Soggiorno in Italia… the residency permit… of less than 10 years, when she was stopped by the Carabinieri. Merde! The agents did not like how her documents lined up. This is one of those essentially Italian notions which…. hopefully… most of the World does not worry about, ie, opting to check ONLY one doc is entirely sufficient and adding a… You may go now. What happened? No… Si puo andare ora. The Carabinieri sequestered her car and towed it off and took her to Carabinieri HQ under arrest. The next couple of hours were fraught. Well, until a different agent appeared upon the scene, and who was originally French. Quelle chance! He took pity. And, did what everyone should do… come to the rescue of a fellow citoyenne. He disappeared. Came back a while later. Said she was free to go and in her vehicle too because… the overly scripted Italian Law said she would have ONLY committed una grave atto contro la Legge Italiane, worthy to be arrested, had she held a Permesso di Soggiorn for more than 10 years. Nope. 8 years & 7 months. SAVED!!! Well, until she was sucked into the vortex of getting an Italian Driver’s License. Another story but, no time for that…
up piped a Swiss-American friend sitting next to me… another sculptress… who followed with Her Story:
the same, a duplicate, a Carabinieri carbon-copy! Baring a couple of details. Driving in Pietrasanta with an American Driver’s license in an Italian tagged FIAT van and carrying a Permesso di Soggiorno in Italia, when, lo’ and behold, there were the Carabinieri stationed at a gas station’s parking lot for a doc check. Van towed away to a lonely existence in a lot somewhere. The sculptress arrested and taken to HQ. They threatened throwing the Italian Law books at her… which I thought they already had by arresting her. Capista! The Carabinieri were thwarted by the same less than 10 year codicil. SAVED TOO!!! Well, until she was sucked into the vortex of getting an Italian Driver’s License which, she FLUNKED three times. You didn’t go to Driving School? Study the manual? Do qwtzes ad infinitum? Fret & storm the unfairness of it all? No, I did none of that except for the last. Oh! So hard to avoid stress. I know. I’m an expert at Fret & Storm. On her third attempt, she made two errors too many but, the examiners were tired of seeing her failing test after test. So, they let her pass, and get this… as a BONUS… they dispensed with the Driving Test too! Must’ve been really exhausted from looking at her face. NOW SHE WAS SAVED!!!
And my American friend… the inviter… added his tale to tell:
He was good. A year after gaining his Pemesso di Soggiono in Italia, following the Letter of the Law, he thought, I can do this Driving License thing WITHOUT going to Driving School… how could it be that difficult?… I’ll do it by myself. So, he read the Rules & Regulations Manual off the Internet, studied it and then took the test. Failed it. Had to wait a month before taking it again. And he Failed it again. Hmmm? Guess I better go to Driving School. Learned it’s not about learning the rules of driving or driving the damn car in Italy but, passing the tests. He Failed a third time. However… and what luck fellow readers… the examiners let him pass with too many errors too. My American friend thinks it was probably with the complicity of the Driving School owner. Once again, there you have it; Italy. Boy, the Times have certainly changed since then. No complicity. Just fear coupled with infinite studying.
Hearing this last story, it gelled for me. Totally. Unequivocally. Completely. Baldo was merely instructing me to memorise what, when and how to drive the streets of Fivizzano to…. ta-dah!!!… pass the frigging Driving Test on the 22nd of December. Got it. Let’s go do it!
End to Phase I...
I passed the Driving Theory Test.
Almost anti-climatic. Or, a false representation of actuality. Never mind. I passed it.
Didn’t take much time. May be 10 minutes for 30 questions? 12 max. When I had finished, I asked if I could leave. More like a desperate need to bolt. I was asked with a shrug to wait for the others to finish. Time to be polite, I said to myself. Painful. I was beginning to have dreadful, stomach sinking thoughts of failure: rapid-fire nightmares from missing to answer a question to wishing I had slowed down… considerably… read carefully each and every query before tapping the screen either True or False. No, not my style nor, my modus operandi. Why belabour the exercise? When all were quietly done… we were only 5 persons… the examiner called out each of our names and declared if we had passed… idoneo/a… or, not… non idoneo/a. The first was non idonea. She got up and slipped out of the room. Oh, Lord! The remaining girls were all idonee. I was the last. The only guy. Spears Forrest Charlton? Si, sono io. Idoneo. Said with a smile. Cosa? I looked straight at Baldo, who had remained with us while we took the exam, and exclaimed… Nooooo!!!!! Both Baldo and the examiner said… Si, idoneo. I rose and met Baldo half-way to hug him joyously. He grabbed me, gave me one of his toothy grins and escorted me proudly out and into the sunlight of… sonooo idoneooo!!!
It was a hard go.
The three of us, Baldo, a timid and be-speckled 18 year old girl… a child… and myself, arrived at the Provincial Bureau of Motor Vehicles early for our 9:30AM appointment. People were milling about blocking the entrance. A few were chatting amongst themselves, bantering about the Carabinieri. Ugh? The uniformed guards were protecting the entrance from any interlopers. No matter to Baldo. He coaxed himself past with his indomitable charm and quickly disappeared inside. Several minutes later he exited and came over to us with news: tests suspended. Before I could absorb that announcement, Baldo told us why:
apparently, an 18 year old, on his way to take the same Driver’s Theory Test as we were about to, stopped at an AutoGrill with his buddies driving him to Massa. They were laughing and jesting amongst themselves about having wired the test candidate with a hidden mic and ear pieces, so he could whisper test questions and have the correct answers given. Little did the merry band realise there were two Carabinieri agents listening to their entire conversation. These two agents alerted colleagues in Massa, who then sent a patrol directly to the Motor Vehicle Bureau. The unaware 18 year old entered the building about 20 minutes before us, showed his documents to the guards and was immediately escorted into the hands of the Carabinieri waiting in the examination hall. All came to an abrupt halt. Interrogation of the recalcitrant. Seems they arrested members of his party too. Cheaters never prosper, I suppose or, at least, I hope, could be the Lesson here.
Had no time for any of that. I was working on either throwing up, fainting or, both. I had forgotten to take my blood pressure medicine when I awoke at 5:00AM. in the morning. Made a caffe’ and reviewed my notes.
The physical discomfort phase of the ordeal had began with Baldo’s instructions to his troops… of two: no need to be crazed with nervousness, value your prep of classwork and home study, don’t get hung up on the questions you cannot immediately answer, go on and then return to them, remember the key words which secretly indicate a reply of False, and so on and so forth. Noted.
I hope what I am about to write will not unduly effect your fine opinion of Baldo but, he’s a crappy driver. An Italian. A few infractions: goes too fast, brakes too often… as per the previous note… rides people’s bumpers… which is spelled culi… fiddles with the radio ‘cause he’s got to have just the right tunes to drive by, admires whatever is outside his window… laterally and not frontally… and commits many other outrages of the Rules & Regulations of the Road and with bravura. We got to the place unscathed.
I am still… at this writing… in awe of what I have accomplished… theory test-wise. I can readily confirm: I busted my Anglo-Saxon tochus boning up to pass the official Qwtz in Massa. It required total focus and dedication and study… lots and lots and lots… and baring anything else on the calendar or, To-do List. Just kept at it, qwtz after qwtz after qwtz. Alternated them with trudging off to bed. Had weird dreams. Chinese with smoking tattoos. What’s that supposed to mean? Even lost weight. Stopped drinking White wine. Ditto for Red. Ate salads with icky end-of-the-season tomatoes or, fish-sticks in the oven for 15 minutes. NO MAYONNAISE!!! Plus, I stopped milling in the Kitchen after such depressing faire looking for edible trouble. A Training Regimen. Also, at one point, I managed to make You super-super, big-time, totally and thoroughly, angry with me, when I cancelled the Nieces + Boy-friend’s November 11th Weekend right before my date with driving Destiny. I suffered 10 days of Communication Silence. A black and lonely period for me. The Dogs started to miss him too. Never even replied to my Whatsapp messages. Yep, that pissed. We have since recuperated those lost days with a pleasant weekend here at il Poggiolo a Codiponte. There was sunshine.
I mentioned to Baldo my stiff neck might verify to at least 500 to 600 qwtzes done in the days leading up to the 15th of November exam date. Surely there’s a rock bottom? He patted me on the shoulder and said… No chance, caro. There are 8,000! Golly.
Later on Wednesday, I got a Whatsapp voice message from Baldo and at nearly 9:00PM at night. My Bed-time. It was garbled. Sounded like he had said I had made 6 errors on the exam, which is certainly non idoneo. So, I called him confused… Baldo? 6 errors you said? How’s that possible? You all said I was idoneo! Forrest! Caro… You’re the Top, you’re the Tower of Pisa… NO ERRORS!!! Golly.
The End?
Hardly. Off to Phase II, the practical side of learning to drive a car all’italiana. Starts on the 21st of November. And on the 22 of December I will go back with Baldo to Massa to submit to a Driving Test. Onwards!
Oh! And here is what I will look like for the next 3 years on my Italian Driver’s License promised for before Capodanno 2023. What a year.
Back to class...
Studying at home is lonesome. And, there are so many important distractions…
The Dogs. Distribution of Treats, being let out, being let back in, being let out again, desiring a massage of their Inner-Thai… don’t ask… or, head scratch, devoted attention, in general. Invariably, I loose my train of thought. What does the blue sign with 30 encased in a circle mean? Damn.
Someone would Whatsapp me. Then another and another. Like they just woke up and felt the need to catch up. Really? You would alternate Whatsapp-ing with actually calling me. Several times in the arch of a day of study. Oddly wanting to chat. Never does when working at the hospital. But absolutely wanted to, while on a two week R&R holiday to his family’s apartment… with an uninterrupted mozzafiato view of the Mediterranean Sea… above the crusty shoals of Alghero in Sardinia. I’m not a chatter. Oh! Found out what that sign means in between You’s telephone calls: minimum speed limit permitted. Now, if someone will only tell me what it means when a tightly uniformed policeman with the White helmet has his right arm raised to the Heavens, I’d be more than just pleased. I already know that it does imply that the Pope is in the neighbourhood. Sturm und drang.
Did loads of laundry because… Hark!… the sun’s out. We have had an unexpected and relatively lengthy onslaught of rainy weather of late. Past 10 to 12 days. Couple of major storms too. Garden is watered until, at least, the New Year.
Doing daily qwtzes and consulting the manual when WRONG… and putting aside feelings of annoyance and abandonment… still left me with questions needing personal clarification. I needed Baldo. I missed him too. Calling would not do. On the rare occasion I’d risk a call, I always had the knack of catching Baldo in the midst of a folk-filled bar. His voice lost with the surrounding noise pollution… in Italian.
Out-of-the-blue, Baldo called me! Kindly asked how I was doing, and then, quickly followed by asking me if I was having any problems with certi argomenti sui qwtz studying at home. Yes! Precedence at intersections. Practically got an Italian version of… Well, son. Come on in. I’ll do Precedence for ya’. A voice of Help. Terrific. I said… Yes! I’m on my way.
Am I? Doubts seeped in. Can I do this… this quest to survive not only the prep but, also pass the both the theory and driving tests… weighty enough… yet, there’s extra tonnage…
I think the Stars and the Heavens have it in for me. I might have mentioned this before. I’d be surprised if I haven’t. Here’s an updated summary:
1) nabbed by the Carabinieri, the reason for this episodic blog rant…
2) broke a tooth on a piece of bread crust at breakfast on Ferragosto. I found it not ONLY uncomfortable… having to always chew on the left side of my mouth… and upsetting to periodically spit out hard pieces of a broken tooth and filling… but also, morally and ethically unjust. Could not find an available dentist within a 50 kilometre radius of Codiponte. Had to wait two weeks for the nice Dott/Dentist in Fivizzano to get back from his Ferragosto vacation, like all the rest of his professional clan, to see to it. Promptly got socked with his estimate of €2,500 for a new tooth. ONE NO ONE WILL EVER SEE. And, especially me. Has to be made of titanium at that hefty price. Would crowd share be an option?
3a) suffered repeatedly from Heat Stroke during the two months of our now habitual Summer Climate Crisis heatwaves, searing temps above 100F degrees. And while I am at it… I sweat when physically over-heated. I REALLY sweated through all of July & August. Thus, it was absolutely guaranteed to have manifested major out-breaks of heat rashes in several zones in my Lower Sectors. I doubt I need to furnish any further details,. Correct?
3b) my blood pressure practiced its Up & Downs in the above same period. Felt my head would explode, lingering headaches in my frontal lobe… haven’t a clue as to what that controls but, I was more than my usual nervous…. plus panting, general malaise, irritability, shortness of temper, etc. Took the entire two Summer months and some extra days too in order to find the proper medicines and dosage, collaborating with my kind Dottoressa. Had to follow-up with apologies to all my Nearest & Dearest & Others.
3c) managed to scrape the top of my bare head on the cornice of the low pass-through which connects the Loggia to Casa Grande’s Yellow-Green Kitchen. You know Yellow attracts bugs? Darn thing would not heal. Bled all over three sets of pillow-cases and a few duvet covers too. The stains resembled Rorschach Tests of a certifiably insane person. Perhaps I was. I have seen my kind Dottoressa with another set of visits since, obtaining an appointment with a dermatologist without driving to Grossetto or Cremona…. both viaggi would have entailed entire days of travel to ‘n fro and in a car I am not supposed to be driving… smacked of being an impossibility. The last cream prescribed by my kind Dottoressa may have, finally, done the trick. Dare I say… It’s healed? No scabs. Sorry.
3d) Made the classic long-past-65 mistake of over-doing it at the gym. In particular, on the machine… or, is it an apparatus?… to do Leg Extensions. I suspect a lethal dose of too much weight coupled with too much enthusiasm shot the proper functioning of my left knee. By evening, I could feel the pain and with NO GAIN. Well, any gain experienced would be that enjoyed by the pharmaceutical companies, who manufacture the anti-inflammation drugs I have been popping morning and night since.
4) I quit drinking wine. Have had only two teeny-weeny glasses of White wine in the last month… to be polite at someone’s house for dinner… I swear it! Have slimmed down. I can slip on an L in a T-shirt. A near miracle. But, damn-it, the tummy remains, though reduced in square footage. Going to the gym was supposed to give the protruding element a kick in the right direction. Back to my kind Dottoressa, etc. Not to the gym for awhile.
and, finally…
4) my 14 year old Hyundai Galloper SUV is living through mechanical ill-health. It is heartbreaking. I love the car. One afternoon, it wouldn’t start. And, it wouldn’t start… and, it wouldn’t start. Had to call for help from our Mechanic: from the parking lot of the Carrefour super-market down in Gragnola, from underneath the Medieval Bridge below il Poggiolo where I park the SUV and, at the Water Kiosk next to Codiponte’s cemetery, a convenient stone’s throw away from our Mechanic’s garage. It’s behind the church. More convenience. On a spiritual plane. Our Mechanic initially believed the problem was with the state of the oil pump. Leaked a lot of oil. Took a week… WITH NO VEHICULAR SUBSTITUTE!!!… to get the contraption repaired and re-installed. Picked up the SUV one morning and, the following, drove off to the Lidl in Aulla to grocery shop. A critical need. For Dogs and Man. Wouldn’t start after I had bought out the store. Called You first. He suggested everything but, to call & disturb Our Mechanic and on a Sunday morning… a rainy Sunday morning. I called our Mechanic. He answered the call and came to the rescue and worked to get the Galloper running so, I could drive it back to the garage in Codiponte for further investigations and eventual repairs. At the Lidl, he had found a couple of wires within the guts of the oil pump which were frayed, etc. Thought that was definitely one of the tasks on the To-do List for the oil pump repair guy. Seems not. The Mechanic thought so too. He was pissed off. At one point in his travails… underneath a plastic raincoat draped over his head working under the SUV’s hood and in a downpour… he politely asked me if he could swear a bit. I said… Why, of course. Certainly. He let out a series of blasphemies in rapid fire starting with Porco cane!!!. The others consistently containing the word Porco are too…? Too…? Too ugly to print. On the Monday after the Sunday, got the word to come and get the Galloper… Tutto a posto. All set. Used the car a couple of times with no trouble starting it at all. Not a whiff. Then, I let the thing rest until yesterday, another Saturday, when I needed to head to an appointment in Fivizzano. It wouldn’t start. Then, it did. Drove immediately to tell Our Mechanic of the return to the recent problem. In the meantime, his son… manning the garage, told me his Dad had skipped town with his Mom in tow for some R&R in Egypt. Not any place I would care to be in at this moment in our ongoing Time-Space Continuum. His son took matters in hand. The Galloper started right up so, the recommendation was to bring it back in on Monday. Drove to Casola to pull money out of the ATM before driving on to Fivizzano. Flush with cash, got in the Galloper, turned the key, and it wouldn’t start. And, it wouldn’t start and it wouldn’t start, etc. Called the Mechanic’s son, who was not keen on coming up to rescue me but, he did anyway.. Tried his best. The rains had held off. Nothing worked. Drove me back to Codiponte, handed me the keys to his Mom’s FIAT 500 and off I headed to Fivizzano. Came back to Codiponte later and discovered a message from the Mechanic’s son that he had the car towed to the garage and to come by this coming Monday, when an electrical specialist will be delving into what is now thought to be an electrical issue. With all this water about too. What a Joy!
Onwards I trudge though my burdens are great.
I was late for class. Or, thought I was. Managed to avoid any Carabinieri, parked the FIAT 500 right on Via Roma and hiked up the street to the Auto Scuola. Baldo was outside smoking the umpteenth cigarette while canvasing the street in both directions. Gave me a smile when he saw me. I excused myself for being late. Gave the rains and afternoon traffic as excuses. Valid ones, I might add. He said I wasn’t. Well then, why are you outside? Waiting for you, Mr Forrest. Come on in! Then he said, patting me on my shoulder… I have good news and some more good news. Oh? You can take the theory test on the 15th of November and, if you pass, I can guarantee you’ll have an Italian Driver’s License before New Year’s! Golly. So soon?
Qwtzes
A Progress Report…
still studying at home for the Driver’s Qwtz. Feels like I spend all my time at it but,
there’s not much else to do…
since it finally has rained. Not an especially abundant amount yet, not a miserable amount either and, probably a very good thing too. Learning of recent deluges in California, Pakistan, Greece and Libya makes one wonder, if it will only be a matter of time before the Lunigiana is washed away into the Mediterranean Sea by an unexpected and massive micro-burst. Sorry about the oxymoron. Often unavoidable when describing an unsettling superlative. I’m not complaining though it is an odd sight to see my semi-grassy terraces look like mush. And to have muddy paw prints in the salotto. Inured to the terraces’ solid concrete appearance. Yet, three days of the H2O might just get us through to the next acquazzone, whenever that will be. Cannot count on the weather co-operating with one’s needs and/or desires. Better not to know and hope for the best. More rain due on Tuesday.
Injured my left knee being overly enthusiastic on a leg machine at the gym. I’m limping. Also, I am taking an anti-inflammation drug I probably should not be ingesting even at the recommended dosage of only twice-a-day. But, it works. And I am outfitted with a knee pad in a medicinally un-chic brown tone. Too bland to call it a colour. Naturally, il Poggiolo’s extensive network of ramps & stairs exacerbate the encumbrance of hobbling coupled with sensations of pain, especially, when trucking wood to the fireplace or, groceries from car to home. Oh, well… calling the dottoressa for an appointment to see an orthopaedic one.
And, no car. This, right after being made well aware of the presumed environmental danger my 14 year old Hyundai Galloper is coughing up on life & limb during a recent jaunt to Milan with an intermediate stop in Genoa. Dog deposit. Both cities are now aggressively signed and delineated against automobiles classed out and confined to minimal use in town as polluters straordinari. Back on Home Turf, the poor Galloper’s oil pump failed. Must have been the strain of the 80 km/h on the autostrade. Stuck with the trucks. Others can zip along at a 130 km/h. I now know this, thanks to the questions on the qwtzes. Speed limits are not posted unless they change from the standard ones of city, country to autostrada. Anyway, the SUV is really sick. I have written this many times and it warrants the repeating…
The Most Important Person in any Italian village, town, city is The Mechanic.
And that is where the Galloper is getting and washed by the rains in a parking space outside the mechanic’s capannone waiting for a new pump.
Oh! And today I know that the minimum speed limit on an autostrada is 80 km/h, unless otherwise posted. Reminds me, an appropriate aside…
Before being waved off the road by those two Carabinieri, I rarely gave notice to any of what has got to be… roughly speaking… the 11,256,271 posted road signs encountered on the highways and byways of this land I call home. Today, I actually know what they are, what they mean, for what purpose they have been planted where planted, and the consequences of their existence, such as, avoiding getting squashed by falling boulders, being rammed by a speeding commuter train or, driving off a cliff in a tight S-turn. I have not achieved enlightenment, and far from it… so, sorry to disappoint… however, driving in my 14 year old and polluting Hyundai Galloper has become a tad more entertaining and instructional in these qwtz days. Safer too.
In order to insure my dedicated qwtz study of the 278 pages of the Driver’s License manual and doing the qwtzes is not all for nought, I have developed a bit of a chip. Like ex-cigarette smokers, who have become rabidly anti-smoking, I have been transformed into an ardent proponent of obeying the Rules & Regulations of the Road. I never would have dreamt this possible before. And… EVERYONE needs to grab ahold of the same steering wheel too. No exclusions. I don’t care what their titles are either. Recently, You and I had a verbal tussle on the little highway which connects Codiponte to Civilisation. Back in 1966, it was a mule track. No kidding. We were in his 25 year old and polluting AUDI. At least it’s not a Diesel drinking SUV, like mine. Today, A Scourge of the Earth. Like any right-minded & traditional Italian couple on a Saturday morning, we were on our way to the sooper-dooper Lidl in Aulla to grocery shop…. for him, me, us. Our weekend fun. In the short space of less than a kilometer, I noticed You had broken a few crucial Rules of the Road. Excessive speed being il Numero Uno. I pointed this and the other infractions out to him. He did not appreciate it. Told me not to bother him, The Driver. I did not much care for his tone of voice nor la sua presa di posizione. I replied it was My Right as a Passenger to: A) insure my safety; B) safeguard that of the other drivers on the road; and C), if he’d change his uppity attitude, I’d worry about his, The Driver’s, safety too. Nothing doing. So, I had to clearly remind said Driver the posted speed limit… cause it’s different than the one you have to memorise… and, additionally, gestured towards the AUDI’s speedometer, to demonstrate his exceeding the speed limit by a dangerous 12 km/h. And, on a rain slicked road, no less! The cost of my dutiful attention and adherence TO THE DRIVING LAWS was to submit to You’s verbal hysterics for the rest of our journey to Aulla. 22.3 minutes of it. Could have been worse. Instead, had I been The Driver driving, naturally, I would have obeyed all of the many speed limits and other road signs, to do the trip in a pleasant and unriled 34.9 minutes. AND… we would arrive at the Lidl alive for You to shop the Bins of Chance in the middle of the grocery store. You likes to shop, browse, sift through stuff. I have to hunt down things in the Prepared Pasta Department.
Nonetheless, I am exasperated. May just forsake automobiles. I have dusted off my 30 year old non-polluting mountain bike, and if the rains hold off as predicted, I will start bicycling to the gym.
Ooops! Late Breaking News; rains are here. The bike ride will have to wait.
In the meantime, qwtzes, qwtzes, qwtzes, until I cannot do not even just-one-more or, my eyeballs will shut down. Why do they insist on the small print? Plus, the damn tests are timed! Overtime hits when the laptop’s screen suddenly goes blank for an instant… I can’t watch the clock, so to speak, and desperately attempt to decipher a poorly written and often cryptic qwtz question in… damn-it all to Hell!!!… AN ARCHAIC VERSION OF ITALIAN!!! no one speaks, much less writes. A rather pissy message pops out of the blackness with a window, implying I am somehow inadequate AND grossly delinquent too in the time allotted. Despite this, I rattle on valiantly qwtzing, qwtzing, qwtzing, as if my future would depend up on it. And, it does.
Of late, my days begin at 8:30AM with a strong IKEA bistro glass full of caffe’… No. 12 on the Richter Scale for coffee Intensity… and knock-off a couple of qwtzes right off the bat. Done, I review the errors made… if any and by luck… refer to the appropriate page and/or pages in the 278 page Driver’s License manual to mend my errors, and then, off I proceed, ruining my eyesight, increasing my gastric juices something terrible, and suffering the insistent headaches too, with more qwtzes, qwtzes, qwtzes. No rest for the weary driver’s license candidate.
I think I average about 20 to 25 qwtzes a day. I want you all to know that I do allow myself a lunch & snack break and, if nearing exhaustion or, frustration, a nap too.
Additionally, and on a more positive note, I now can knock-off qwtzes with only 0 to 3 errors. Consecutively. YIPPEE!!! There is a special and canned noise to back-up each & every result...
0 brings on wild applause and enthusiastic bids of… congratulazioni!!!
ONLY 2 mistakes has a male voice… by the sound of it, a very heavy smoker, like many others… approving my efforts with a resounding Bravo! Bravo!! Bravo!!!… just shy of a coughing jag.
Ce l’hai fatto!!!… You’ve done it!!! Warms the heart too, if I have managed only 3 errors. If the qwtz were an official one given in some dim governmental office in messy Massa, 0 to 3 would mean I had passed the qwtz and could merrily move to the driving-a-car lessons and subsequent driving test… in messy Massa.
But, occasionally… very occasionally… I have made 4 to 6 errors!!! Lord, God, help me!!!
With 4 you get a boo-ing noise from a crowd.
With 5 comes a message from NASA of… We have a problem, Houston. I’m sure the geniuses responsible for devising the qwtzes and the manner to divulge results thinks the NASA message is hysterically funny. It is and it isn’t. Definitely irritating.
And with 6 there’s a funeral march.
After that I do not care to remember. Mortifying enough to have made 9 mistakes… which I did yesterday at 2:21PM. Yep, timed by the ticking clock… much less putting up with the sounds of a firing squad.
Getting more than 3 sends me into spirals of depression and feelings of enduring FAILURE. Reviewing the disaster post-qwtzes, the red boxes alert me to the many dangerous errors, provoking in my head the commandment of… sei bocciato!!!… spoken by an ill-dressed functionary, if the qwtz were a real one given in that dim governmental office in messy Massa. To defend my difficulties, however, let me point out, the key reasons for making errors at all are…
A) I did not understand the question. Nope. Not one little bit. Doubts like… what are they actually trying to ask here? What Rule or Regulation is being tested? Let’s not be vague or obtuse, please. Is this a trick question? To which there’s never going to be a response EXCEPT from the Little Voice in my head. When in the territory of I-don’t-know, I just wing-it, defer to The Fates, and put an X where I think it might fly right. Then, I pray. But, my prayers are sometimes not answered. Must be ‘cause I am not a Catholic, do you think?; B) I didn’t understand the archaic Italian from the epoch of Emperor & King, Carlo Quinto, say, back in 1590 AD?; and C) every now & then, I can honestly admit to you, Dear Readers, I can lack knowing the material. For instance…
What is the speed limit for un’autoveicolo… a car… weighing in at no more than 3,500 kg on a highway, which is NOT un’autostrada… the precise term is una strada extra-urbana principale, colloquially called una superstrada by normal, everyday, breathing Italians… tugging a speed boat on a trailer, similarly weighing in at no more than 3,500 kg? I now know the correct answer is 70 km/h. That Red box told me so. You now know too.
Through all of the above, I dream to fly away from this Never, Never Land of qwtzes. Another fantasy is God, Himself, will come and alight upon on the face of His august creation, Earth, and ceremoniously arrange for me to receive A Special Dispensation under His supervision for my sequestered American Driver’s License to be, instantaneously, transformed into an Italian one. A plastic card too. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
I am not holding my breath. Instead, I will do qwtzes, qwtzes qwtzes, until I feel ready to call Baldo and tell him… Let’s go to messy Massa.
Home study...
Driver’s Ed at home…
not a big entertainment. Well, in between trying to absorb the Rules of the Road info I am not generally interested in but, I am particularly interested in to pass The Qwtz, I am KILLING a good number of flies… absolutely, the Scourge of the Earth. No scientist, environmentalist, naturalist or, other, can ever convince me of the importance of insects which feed on… oh! Gads. Never mind. My record Kill Rate, accomplished with my handy-dandy red plastic fly-swatter bought at the ferramenta…. or, hardware store… down in Gragnola, the town below Codiponte, is 11 KILLS in 8 minutes. Tiny dead bodies littered the terracotta flooring around my table out on the loggia. They are eventually swept-up and thrown into the fireplace to be incinerated in the evening’s fire. An appropriate end. But I am not finished! Nope. We are enjoying another season of stink-bugs. An invasion. Word has it they were a gift from all the Chinese imports into Italy in recent years. The buggers love nothing better than to strafe you on their buzzing flight from the folds of a sun-curtain to a sweater draped over an adjacent chair… again, out on the loggia. Also, I have to keep all doors and windows closed so the imports won’t invest our house!!! Just the other day, I happened to descend down to La Casetta to pull out a needed sweater… more controversy and from the Climate Crisis: it’s freezing here when the sun don’t shine and blazingly hot when it does. Replicates one of those scary episodes from Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone, from the 60’s… I interrupted a convention of stink-bugs nestled in my sweaters inside the armoire and around the window mouldings. Hoping to escape for a better lot of wool or cotton? Chissa? Comunque mi fanno schiffo!
What can I say? Distractions from one menace to another. Tedious tasks of violence of a bio-nature to those on the road. I mourn no Baldo. No Cana. No interruptions…
like the other day. Baldo was mid-stream with his Opening Remarks…
he was in merry Democratic mood. He had asked us which of two topics we would like to delve into for the day’s class: 1) Segnali di Indicazione Parte II (Indication signals, and it’s a whooper argument! or, 2) Gli Elementi della Patente (Elements of Driver’s Licenses, a major tome of confusional details)? An impromptu election was held by raised hands and 2) won… handily.
and then, WOOOSH!!! Baldo raced around the classroom quickly turning off monitors, the FIAT Tema mock-up, ALL THE LIGHTS… a relief too. I always feel tortured by fluorescent lighting... and brusquely told everyone to hush… there was a funeral going on at the funeral home across the street from the Autoscuola Fivizzanese. The 13 of us sat hushed in the dark. Baldo stood by his desk so he could periodically keep an eye on the proceedings via the carpeted corridor, a telescope to the World beyond though cluttered with containers for plastica, carte e indifferenzata. The amount of plastica always exceeds the capacity of any container. A Law of Refuse. Then, after several minutes, and just as abruptly, Baldo motioned for all of us to follow him outside to clap for the departing deceased. Literally, a standing ovation. Not much of a crowd of mourners though. We upped the numbers. We made more noise too.
I love the moments when Italians applaud… at funerals, weddings, baptisms and when not dragging-racing through town, waving the Italian national flag and honking the cars’ horns, after a win game of soccer match shown on a big screen TV… in a bar.
The flower bedecked casket ambled out upon the shoulders of six dark-suited and relatively burly men to the waiting Mercedes-Benz hearse… has to be a modified and elongated station wagon model with great sleek expanses of windows. A weirdly streamlined automobile. Like the deceased might want to get wherever faster? I guess, the expanse of glass also is to show to best light the bier inside so passer-bys can pay their respects by genuflecting the sign of the Cross. Sober White curtains were gathered aside to attest to its presence within. The hearse moved slowly away to our applause and off it rolled up Via Roma to the cemetery, conveniently located below the local hospital.
But, onto that day’s topic… le patenti di guida. I will attempt to be brief…
there are 8 types of driver’s licenses in Italy: AM, A1, A2, A, B1, B, B-Code 96 and BE. A World’s Record, I had erroneously assumed. Checked on Google to find out how many the US and its 50 States might have, arrogantly thinking a definite max of 3… Car, Truck and Motorcycle. Nope. There are 7! Meanwhile, back at the Italian piazza, the versions here each has its own special qualifications as to age, vehicle type, adding their power and weight parameters. Take that 8, multiply it by at least 4 vehicle types and you get 32 things you must get into your thick skull for it to be a possible query on The Qwtz. Sloughing off that notion, I gainfully discovered… on page 151 of the 278 page Italian Driver’s Education. manual… that I am aiming for a Patente B. Can’t say how I feel about it. I’ll let you know…. after passing The Qwtz. If I am successful, here’s what I will be able to drive… so you’ll know and take precautions…
a car, a van or, a truck up to 3.5 tons and/or can carry 9 available persons. I will also be allowed to pull a trailer, legally manoeuvre industrial vehicles… maybe Babbo Natale will gift me a fork-lift for passing The Qwtz at Christmas, do you think?… cruise the byways & highways on a 2 wheeled motorcycle or, even a 3 wheeler, and, the crown on the list is the permission to move about the land in some sort of agricultural equipment, in any size, shape or weight, my heart could possibly desire. A tractor!
However, I am not quite ready to conquer the driving world here in Italy. Must study, study, study the manual and do Qwtzes, Qwtzes, Qwtzes. Only just started the Herculean Full-Immersion Pass The Driving Qwtz Campaign last Monday.
At the start, I was effortlessly committing from 6 to 8 errors on The Qwtzes. Once, I hit 11! Sent me into a funk. Called You to commiserate. Sought & studied the appropriate material, where I had lacked sufficient enlightenment, in the manual, alternating with taking more Qwtzes, Qwtzes, Qwtzes. By yesterday, Thursday, I hovered at 3 to 4 mistakes. Only 2 on one! The Official Qwtz Game is 3 or, less, to pass. With 4, you are bocciato-ed. Progress, no? So, imagine my days spent this week… I sit and sip caffe’, out on the loggia, in our Fall’s heat & humidity accompanied by marauding flies, stink-bugs and, occasionally, the Dogs begging to take a turn with me in the giarden. 50% of the errors are silly ones: mis-understanding the archaic Italian… catadiottri, adibiti, scansarsi, ininfluenti… mis-reading sketches with itzy-bitzy, teeny-weeny details… like a micro-sized Yield sign… on a question of precedence or, just plain skipping over an important word in what to me is the WRONG placement for it to have made any sense. Ooops. Onwards until I feel secure and proven I only make 3 or less errors. Wish me Luck?
Like that famous proclamation at the end of the aria from Turandot, Nessun Dorme… Vincero’! Vincero’!! Vincerooooo’!!!
A Plan…
The 3:00PM Driver Education Class on a Tuesday, towards the end of an overly warm September. Lesson No. 17 for me… 8 more to go!
a sun-filled day senza una nuvola in evidenza. Bright Blue skies. Birds tweeting, and are ignorant of having their voices consigned to an X elsewhere. A warm breeze blowing off the Mediterranean Sea to sweep the Lower Lunigiana and on up the valley of the Torrente Taverone to the fair city of Fivizzano. Leaves rolling across vacant streets & piazzas. All is quiet and peaceful. Inside the Autoscuola Fivizzanese, students are seated ready & waiting for Baldo. I am in my usual chair, BIC and Black Moleskin notebook, entrambi prontissimi. We are unknowingly on the verge of learning Baldo has been side-swiped by disappointment in between last Thursday’s class and this Tuesday’s. It’s 3:04PM. We know the procedure. In walks Baldo…
1) What, no bounce?
2a) He sits down at his desk, removes his glasses and tosses them onto the desk, rubs his eyes…
and from that point on our Autoscuola class is not going to be like the others before.
2b) Baldo hangs his head low in depression. He goes back to rubbing his eyes. Glasses are picked up off the desk. He fiddles with them. To make a point? Baldo adds a few deep sighs, spies the clock… it has moved only 3 minutes ahead… and then, begins to tell us what are his woes…
of the 8 students Baldo accompanied the hour and a half to Massa last Friday…
and may I just say? It is a shitty little town, Massa. Has the traffic of a city. Piena zeppa with oneway streets & alleyways. Too many cars compound the inconvenience of getting around the place. You want to blow out as fast as you can. So, I have never set foot upon Massa’s principal piazza nor toured the minute Centro Storico. I do believe any charm Massa might have had… nestled against some lumpy low hills at the foot of the majestic Apuane Mountains… and we are talking about any vestige wiped away before the First World War. Confirmed extinct today. Replaced with a medley of ugly apartment blocks with balconies pieni zeppi with drying clothes & mops & bikes, scraggly trees along lumpy sidewalks and interspersed with McDonald’s, IERCOOP’s and mega multi-level shopping centri around the town’s urban margins. Massa is also the bureaucratic… administrative… HQ for the province we live in, la Provincia di Massa-Carrara. Makes part of the Regione di Toscana. Not the part that looks like an advertisement for planting cypresses on a road winding up a hill. Nope. Marble quarries…
Too bad the capital wasn’t put in Carrara. It wasn’t, probably, because…
A) that would be too convenient to allow us, Lunigianesi, to make a shorter drive from back-of-beyond to marginal Versilia in around an hour…
and B) above Carrara is a cove of Anarchists!!! At the foot of marble quarries galore.
Anarchism? Yes, a straggler political & cultural phenomenon which was A Trend on either side of the First World War. Another vestige reduced now to a fringe location in the hills. I have heard the remaining Anarchist contingent gets along well, are productive, peaceful citizens. Perhaps, we have been given an erroneous impression on Anarchism? Maybe. Concomitantly, the place, called Colonnata, is noted for a type of lardo… or, lard… which sends many people, proportionally a good many Italians… Dott. You included and enthusiastically so… into swirls of ecstasy bordering upon how I imagined what winning a ga-zillion €€€’s in a lottery must be like. But, it is edible! Lardo instructions? Why certainly… you take a piece of thick Black bread or, a slice of bread made from castagne… or, chestnuts, and is called La Marocca… either one lightly toasted, and then, you spread the lardo… as smooth as butter and just as creamy… and drip extra-vergine olio d’olivo on top., and there you go. Oh! Have a good Red or White wine on hand too. Please do not mention this to You, if you are in the vicinity. In Truth, I actually found il Lardo di Colonnata… it’s Official Title. Easy to trace… utterly delicious. The problem for me is: I put up such A Big Stink about even tasting il Lardo di Colonnata…
back to Mom, who feared, we kids would become ENORMOUS eating…. or, gobbling… the myriad culinary wonders out of my paternal grandmother’s South Carolina kitchen using lard… like her absolutely divine cornbread muffins… that I have never gotten over the maternal indoctrination and, unfortunately, it has cemented my reputation as rompipalle… or, a ball breaking annoyance. I eventually confessed to You, who replied… Oh! You don’t know what you are missing and goodie! More for me. A rough translation of his Italian.
Back to Baldo’s desolation…
ONLY 3 passed The Qwtz! Yes, a terrible bit of news. Baldo looked crestfallen… in the extreme. Said he had had high hopes with this latest crop degli allievi dell’Autoscuola Fivizzanese of resurrecting a poor record of Qwetz performance with too many bocciature… or, failures throughout the year’s Spring and Summer.
At one point, we heard the List of the Failures. One, was the singing Eppi Borfdai Boy and Class Clown, Cana, who was swatted down for maybe the third time. Gosh.
Baldo lent over his desk in our general direction, his glasses twirling slowly in his hands. He eyed us in silence. Then, he set about with sharing his newly formulated I-have-thought-about-it-and-this-is-what-I-have-come-up-with speech, adding: hear me and hear me good. I won’t lay out the details of the half-hour long sermon, however, I can shrink it down to two points, the gist of which are…
1) The Qwtz is not a joke. It’s hard. It’s serious. E’ un impegno grosso!… a big commitment! There’s a lot to learn and to memorise than with previous year’s Qwtzes. He said… I can help clarify any elements in class you are unsure about, it’s my job but, you guys have got to…
2) study, study, study, study, study. No two ways about it.
In reply to his caveat, I have devised A Plan…
On October 9th…
this coming Monday, and two days after my art show in Milan, iPadness, which I hope will be a stunning success. I feel I deserve it. Especially, in light of all my Time & Effort, those too of the IT technician and suppliers who lent a necessary hand, and without overlooking that the artwork is WONDERFUL. I can hardly believe they erupted out of my head and onto my iPad…
I will initiate A Herculean Full-Immersion Pass The Driving Qwtz Campaign.
1) I will endeavour to finish reading the darn AND dull Rules & Regulations of the Road manual produced by the Italian Ministry of Transport. A bureaucratic tome of 278 ******** pages. Even if it kills me or, sends me into a long post-study nap.
2) Now, if I have not mentioned this, and I don’t believe I have then, this might be the moment to reiterate The Sage Advice from many of those Friends & Family, who have conquered The Driving Qwtz in recent History. And, that is…
do as many of The Qwtzes as I possible can.
There are tons of authentic, real, true Qwtzes on several official Driving Qwtz websites on the Internet. Baldo sent me an app to the most official one.
If I can do 6 Qwtzes a day, and survive the quest without incinerating any of my brain cells or, falling comatose from boredom, additionally taking time to analyse my Errors, brush-up on any Rules to which I have made an Error, distilling the corrected info and continuing on, I will need a few weeks. The rest of the month of October, for sure. And, when I feel confident… A Winner!!!… and have knocked-off a series of Qwtzes with no more than 2 Errors, I will book the next Qwtz in Massa through Baldo. He gets to drive me there.
3) And, though I am still driving on an American NC Driver’s License which the Carabinieri think they have denuded me of… there are subtle legal questions: I am not illegal-illegal, only semi-illegal… I am forced to a) drive less and b) when driving, to stick to the back roads… I will buck up Little Buck-A-Roo, and regularly attend Baldo’s Driving School Classes in Fivizzano. A Morale Booster, if nothing else, and good for its sideline entertainment value since, Cana will back in class for his Attemp-To-Beat-The-Qwtz No. ???.
My Plan was presented and APPROVED by Baldo, as he smoked a cigarette in his office.
So, plan permitting… an Italian Driver’s License by Christmas or, bust!
Continuing Driving School Stories...
Right after my 71st Birthday on the 7th of September, my Autoscuola Fivizzanese World changed. It flip-flopped. Happened on the 15th of the same month. I should’ve known. How long have I lived here in Italy? You don’t have to answer. I certainly ought to have acted like an Italian, even a semi-Italian one…
When the New Year’s calendars come out towards the end of November or, during the month of December as Christmas gifts, Italians race through them to check where the important dates fall for the coming New Year. Seeking confirmation of any long weekends ahead with a well placed holiday on a Thursday or, a Tuesday. Option B would be to have them fall on a Friday or, a Monday. Here’s the list: not in much order but, you’ll get the gist. Please, read on…
naturally, we have the festive religious holiday of Christmas on the 25th of December; Easter is anywhere within the arch of March-April. Who knows? Da’ Moon do. A fickle holiday. Crappy weather usually but, artichokes are in season. Yippee!; the 31st of December brings us to that horrendous amateur night of Il Capodanno… New Year’s Eve. Even Codiponte goes wild with fireworks at Midnight and after interminable dinners. I have videos to prove both; Epiphany falls on the 6th of January and is a boon to any witches wanting employment by carrying hemp sacks full of treats for The Good and pieces of coal for The Bad. They’re heavy. I have a hunch the coal is supposed to be heavier but, I suspect otherwise. Anyway, I think La Befana… or, witch… is a scary personality. Ugly too. Bad teeth. We make someone dress-up in a cute though heavy Red felt outfit with a hot, itchy White beard attached to the face of the substitute Santa Klaus. The Italians make some female relative dress-up in a Black dress with blackened teeth, scuff-marks on her face and noisy clogs on her feet… with the hemp sack dragged close behind. You can choose which to have come to your Front Door; the 25th of April is Liberation Day… from the Nazi’s. From themselves is never in question; quickly follows the Commie Holiday, May Day, on the 1st of May. Red is the predominant colour for demonstrators crowding piazza’s to hear inspiring speeches about labour. Invigorating; June 2nd is the holiday to commemorate the founding of the NEW! NEW!! NEW!!! Italian Republic… after the previously mentioned Referendum of 1946. Am unsure just how many re-foundings Italy has had to suffer, since its first birthing back in 1861. The number of governments from 1946 is dizzying and does not lend an air of certainty to the country’s political History; the last three holidays can make for a really long holiday weekend… about every 10 years. Just this year, in fact, You was in Codiponte for an astounding 11 days of vacation, thanks to the distribution of April 25th, May Day, and June 2nd on the 2023 calendar; Assumption, on the 15th of August, is The Summer Holiday of Italy… a clarion call… TO THE BEACH, RAGAZZI!!!… when, actually, it is a religious holiday. Yes, to celebrate The Virgin Mary’s safe arrival in Heaven, greeted by a number of Very Important Persons waiting at its gates… God at the head of the reception line… and one terribly beaten-up son, poor man, and now god too; All Saints Day, on November 1st, which is paired with the Day of the Dead on the day after, when Italians, en masse, hit their local cemeteries in their FIATS to spiff-up the tombs and lay wreaths & vases of flowers for those dearly departed; and finally, the dates & days of the week for the closing of schools in June… usually on the 12th, and even if it falls on a Monday, and their re-opening… normally on the 15th of September. Ecco. And here we are!
I did not consult a calendar. I don’t own one. So, I was caught off-guard with Baldo’s Public Announcement of NO CLASSES at the 10:00AM hour, because of the start of the New Academic School Year. Ugh.
From that moment on, Autoscuola classes would only be at 3:00PM and 5:00PM. Disorientating! Distressing!! Dangerous!!! Oh, not so much for the class at 3:00PM. Who’s out at that hour anyway except Scandinavians and some wayward group of English persons, drunk after a cheap lunch? And around 3:00PM is about the time most Italian folk slowly realise they have to head back to work after la loro pausa pranzo... their lunch break… at home. But the 5:00PM is when the Carabinieri rustle themselves from a nap after a 4 course pranzo nella caserma or, for the younger agents, the gym, to start again their daily routines of patrols, road blocks, and cruising the surrounding land, keeping Italy safe, in their JEEPS. A FIAT product well supported by the Italian Civil Protection forces, I might add. Well, the Guardia di Finanza drive military Green FIAT Pandas. A lesser governmental agency. Thank God, the Carabinieri JEEPS are painted in a their signature Blue and have Red lights on the roofs. Easily identified from a distance. There are so many JEEPS on the roads these days. The Italian People are big supporters of FIAT products too.
Last week was especially perilous for your Hero… io! No classes at the 3 o’clock hour. Baldo had to escort several 18 year olds, candidates to take The Qwtz, to Massa. Not at all a convenient location for us residing in the Lunigiana. An hour and a half in a car going and an hour and a half coming back. Possibly grim in either direction. Or, grim going and elation coming back. About the same amount of time as to fly to Paris from Pisa’s airport. So, class was only at 5:00PM. Wonderful. I ran into two separate JEEP patrols keeping a watch… for guess who? I feared… and on the multiple back-of-beyond roads I must traverse to reach Fivizzano safe & sound. I did, thanks to seeing the Carabinieri first and a couple of fortuitous sides streets I could scoot down to avoid detection until a Safe Harbour of a parking space was found far away from circulating officers.
An additional note…
The corner bar is less interesting a spot at 2:45PM. A) no one is around. Maybe leaves tumbling in the breeze but, that’s about it; B) the afternoon sun shines directly into its Black & White tiled inner sanctum. I go anyway. C) No cute gals or Bar-guy. I am not that sad. Their Pink & Yellow-nesses are elsewhere. They can have a life. There are others I can flirt with. D) and this is on the plus side, there’s instead a buff-looking motorcycle fellow as The Bar Man during the afternoon & evenings until 8:00PM, at least. Formidable bicycle-bar moustache. Twirled ends. Bravo, man! Oddly though, his gentle manner is similar to a moderator of a kid’s cartoon show. Could be weird.
Other comments on driving class…
I have noticed Baldo sits more during the afternoon sessions. He has the weirdest executive chair. I forgot to mention it, in conjunction with the brief description of his desk… post-apocalyptic Vintage. I apologise. Baldo’s swivel chair smacks of theft, from the Klingons. Outer-space junk dealers? Doesn’t he know about them? Mean mamma-jammas. Risky. Very. Extremely so. They NEVER forget a slight. Just ask Captain Kirk. The recliner… or, rocker… which is in stark contrast to the desk under the cultural heading of Style… has a high back with strangely placed and lateral triangular holes… pass-throughs for cigarettes?… faced in a dead Red faux leather. The rest is in an equally dead greenish-Grey faux leather. Oh, hark! Excellent News though: Baldo can still bounce completely seated. Praise the Lord! Otherwise, I might fall asleep from Rules & Regulations of the Road lecture fatigue, if it were not for the chair’s bungees squeaking.
And, shocks of all shocks to date, Baldo has taken to wearing long panted jeans. Well, of course. The heat of Summer has been sent back to Africa… and God Bless!!!.. and has been replaced by the pleasant and much cooler temps of pre-Fall. Baldo looks less bouncy in them, however. He must have several pairs too. Sports a variety of ripped and torn ones. A few have appliques! And, he does tend towards the faded Blue cotton jean over the more sober Dark Blue. Do any of you know from where jeans originally hail from? I do and I am not telling. In the past, no one believed me or, bothered to listen to my rendition of the History of Jeans, which I still find fascinating. I stopped. Tough. You’ll have to Google it.
As for Baldo’s lectures…
I have detected a general procedure, now that I have trudged through about 12 or so lessons. Sadly, there are many more to go. The lecture’s structure reminds me a bit of the songs from Italy’s San Remo Song Festival held every year in the middle of February. A week long event.
I’ve done my time watching this event. Years & years of trying. It’s a marathon, requiring two elements essential to Italy… one is A Christian Virtue: great amounts of Patience… and there you have it; and the other is even larger quantities of physical &. mental Fortitude. That could be a plural. The show starts at 9:15PM… after the News on RAI3 and innumerable ads for tomato sauce, toothpaste, feminine hygiene, and that kind of stuff… and it rolls along until and often past 1:00AM in the morning. And on School Nights too!!! I’ve given up. Lack the stamina to be attentive to an exercise involving repetitive and ill-conceived songs performed by famous and not so famous Italian singers got to be too much. There is TEMPTATION: the thrill to see what the singers & musicians wear for their performances, interviews and parades. A glorious confirmation of the Italian bravura for fashion, bar none. Well, may be the French… mais ils sont tellement pleins d’eux-memes. The majority of the songs try to remain within the formula discovered from previous year’s winners of the Festival, and yet, escape them too. All start out quietly yet by the end, the singers are often bellowing until they drift off as the heavily-miked orchestra ceases to make a noise. They bow and leave the stage.. Next? Let’s review Baldo’s rendition… hope it’s not going to be repetitive…
1) he bounces in & out of the classroom, not uttering a word, turning lights & things on, surveying the surroundings, the students, sniffing the air for the receptivity to Driver Education.
2) He then sits down, counts heads, takes off his glasses, rubs his eyes, demonstrates a static position in his recliner. Meditating?
3) Baldo starts. Quietly, calmly, steadily. His voice throaty from constant cigarettes, eyeing his audience directly as he speaks. He explains what’s in store for our hour and a half lecture: the why’s, the how much’s, the when’s, etc. He builds authority with his stream of softly cadenced words. I feel Baldo’s ambition is to engage us so thoroughly to a particularity of the Rules & Regulations of the Road that he will gain entrance to some recess of our cerebral cortex without either a fight or, our falling into abject boredom with the necessary info. Ecco! Baldo proposes Le Distanze di Sicurrezze… or, the Driving Safety Distances. A meaty subject. Requires graphs & pictograms, sketched out on The Big White Drawing Board for our kind edification. Baldo continues. His voice gains power. For instance, it is important for us to understand how many meters you need in order to stop your car before it slams into and totally flattens the proceeding FIAT with an elderly couple heading to the supermercato on an autostrada, and when both automobiles are travelling at the same 90 k/hr. Hold on! Come to think of it, I maybe wrong here: I am not sure the elderly’s FIATs can break even 80 k/hr. Theirs is probably an old FIAT Panda 4x4 too. Has difficulty just starting in the morning. Maybe we are on una strada extra-urbane secondaria… a secondary road in the Italian countryside. Yeah, that’s it!
4) Anyway, Baldo explains…
Le Distanze di Sicurrezza has 3 vital components: 1) lo Spazio Reazione or, S.R… the time which eats the distance while reacting, ie taking your foot and putting it to the brake pedal of your vehicle… ASAP; added to 2) lo Spazio Frenatura or, S.F… the time it takes the brakes of your automobile to do their God-intended Job, ie STOP THE CAR… in the remaining distance to avoid vehicular catastrophe; equals the summary of 3) La Distanza Totale di Arresto or, D.T.A… the proverbial & cumulative figure when combining the two previous acronyms into one silly sounding one. Hopefully, knowing these actions will actually save everyone’s Life. What’s missing… in my view, and I believe it might be a more crucial component, is: il Tempo di Calcolare Molto Bene la D.T.A… or, T.C.M.B.D.T.A. Let us also not overlook il Quoziente di Stress or, Q.S… necessary for you to concentrate on calculating the above distance stuff whilst your car speeds a pace to send that FIAT into an alternative Time-Space Continuum. But neither are elaborated by Baldo. Guess it’s the moment to move on…
All the acronyms, pictographs and tables described by Baldo are a verbal & graphic distillation of a situation… just one of about a ga-zillion in the 278 page Rules & Regulations of the Road manual presented to us during the course of our Driving School education… to convey The Essential Tidbit, which we, as students, must take home and bury in a convenient location for future reference, ie for when we sit down to take the Qwtz.
The Math in the above example provokes a queasy stomach. I usually don’t eat breakfast so, my juices, subjected to the above explanations, were anxiously looking for something other than my stomach lining to feed on. Was that too graphic? Sorry. I also feel psychologically upset. Weak. I HATE MATH! Had the same reaction in the Third Grade. I may be safe in stating that I doubt anyone else in the classroom noticed my Paler than Pale countenance. Feeling their own unsettling sensations, I would imagine. Maybe not. They’re 18 year olds. Made of heartier stuff… I hope…
5) Baldo proceeds apace and with a new senses of urgency. He says there are deeper intricacies to Our Topic of the Day. What? More to memorise? Jesus! It’s not all as it seems, Baldo adds. I want to know where are the appropriate street signs? Wouldn’t that be useful? What’s another 10 or 20 when there are already 1,000? Baldo continues. We are now an audience to a more impassioned performance. His voice has a tinge of importance, of seriousness, perhaps, even of alarm. Gird our loins? The switch is somewhat akin to accidentally missing your turn and then you find that you are not in Kansas any longer. The tenor of Baldo’s voice develops a certain and higher altitude of coloratura, comes into a more definite resonance… HE’S LOUDER!!!!… embarking upon a sort of a mental deep muscle tissue massage… by the way, do those hurt?… to communicate to us, his students, the new elements necessary for fully understanding Le Distanze di Sicurezza. However, it is evident that he’s no longer on that strada! I sense Baldo has chucked the lecture aside. Maybe into la Corsia di Soccorso? He commences to interrogate us with questions sulle Distanze di Sicurrezze and taken directly from The Qwtz. Heaven help us! Each question is launched to a different student. Oh, Lord, no! Baldo bounds over to the Big White Drawing Board, scribbles a quick pic, and then, turns to ask some unlucky kid… or me!!!… what is the correct answer to the situation drawn? Students fall by the wayside with WRONG answers. Help, please! Each failure brings him ever closer to me. I attempt to look small and hide behind the girl’s locks in the chair between me and Baldo at his desk. No easy feat. I want to be prepared… for any eventuality, yet, I can barely keep up with translating Italian driving terms unknown to me, copying a quick-pic to figure it out and, contemporarily, stem the desire to pass-out. Throwing-up is not a viable option though there’s that too. Suddenly, Baldo veers off. Ceases his inquiry with the girl in front of me. I’M SAVED!!! Bless her. I will go and light a candle in the nearest church for her. I swear. She had answered correctly the Qwtz Qwesteeeon and that, apparently, stemmed any further interest Baldo had in interrogating the class. Now what?
6) Baldo’s voice drops. Precipitously. Cool, determined, distinct. Sweat beads upon his brow. His long jeans go limp… limper… limpest. Fatigue? Where’s Baldo going, I wonder? Well, he sits down for one thing. Takes his glasses off, rubs his eyes, bounces a bit in his rocker, breathes, looks up at the clock on the wall opposite. I hit my iPhone to check the time too. Says we are nearly at the end of class. I breath an enormous sigh of relief… that’s E.S.F. Then, slowly, Baldo raises his head and says… If you are going to remember one thing about Le Distanze di Sicurrezze, then, for the love of God, remember this…
and he then summarily throws out the S.R, the S.F. = D.T.A which I understood but hated to calculate and gives us…
another ACRONYM!!! In my shock… and mental exhaustion, fear, other… I miss it. I MISSED IT!!! G.D.M.F.S.O.B.!!!
Gosh, that felt good.
Now that I am at home, in the quiet, safety and tranquility of my home… our charming Tuscan farm-house currently in need of minor repairs after 14 years… sipping a very chilly White wine from the Versilia region of Italy, I cannot consciously supply you with deciphering my just furnished acronym written above. It’s translation is heavy, vulgar, terribly impolite. Oh, Hell! Let's throw in rude too. Learning what it means may cause you to think ill of me. I do not want that. I can say, sadly, it was written with Vengeance in My Heart. I’m a Southerner and our hearts are built that way. It’s what caused a Civil War. However, and with all due certainty, I can tell you, as a Helpful Hint, it happens to contain most of the popular American swear words and when spoken… in vengeance, spite, irritability, other… it rolls real nice & easy off the tongue. A very good American friend taught it to me years ago … when I had trespassed beyond what she considered to be Good Gentlemanly Behaviour, and it has remained with me ever since. Please accept my sincerest apologies.
So, like those crazed scientists seeking at all costs… in the billion-trillions $$$s category at several prestigious locations of Higher Learning in the Good Ol’ United States of America and elsewhere throughout the World, who have sought a singular, all-mighty packed formula to explain everything. That may have to be written as EVERYTHING… so too does this happen with the Rules & Regulations of the Road at the Autoscuola Fivizzanese. And I missed it. Damn-it.
Now, if you will excuse me, I want to get on sipping my chilly White wine. What did Scarlet say? Tomorrow’s another day! Sure is… I hope…
Eppi Borfdai To Iu!!!
A Baldo Birthday…
You & I hosted a party last year for my 70th Birthday. Seemed an important event to celebrate. We had hopes to duplicate the grand success of my 60th, coupled, as it were, with inaugurating our renovated Tuscan farm-house, il Poggiolo a Codiponte. Many had heard the stories of its four year resurrection yet, few had seen the results. So, invitations were sent, house all set & ready to go, we arranged mountains of food, tubs full of Prosecco & wines & beer in melting ice and a cute team of a singer & keyboardist to entertain our 200 guests wanting to bob up & down out on our aia… a farm-yard… until 4:00AM in the morning! Last year’s was less raucous. More sedate. We were older. Still, the 50 guests had a great time… or, so they confirmed… eating, drinking and dancing until past Midnight to the sounds of a middle-aged DJ playing 80’s dance music. Yep: Queen, ABBA, Elton John. All was cleaned-up and sent to bed by 2:30AM.
The question this year was… What in the Hell do you do for a 71st? September 7th fell on a Thursday. I thought to let the day come and go. No bother. No muss. No fuss. Such an innocuous number, 71. An inconsequential age. Let’s shove on for when I have accumulated more years. How about at 75? You would be up in Genoa, doctoring. I would be down in Codiponte with the Dogs. In the meantime, I began to obsess in wishing more the date would slip by unnoticed. Not so for others. The Family & Friends Group. Whatsapp, telephone calls, emails… all the social media abuzz with questions on how I was going to celebrate my birthday? My short answer was: Autoscuola at 10:00AM. You called me. The last to chime-in. He never seems to remember my obligatory appointments every Tuesday and Thursday for Driving Theory Class…
Oh? On Thursday? Driving School? Davvero? Che minaccia. But, it will be your birthday!!! Take cake and Prosecco to Driving Class!!!
You! They are 18 year olds.
So?
They don’t drink and if they do, which they shouldn’t then, not at 10:00AM in the morning.
They won’t care. They’ll love it. You’re an American. You should celebrate it with people. Do it!
Really?
Do it!
I don’t know…
So are you?
OK, all right, yes, I’ll do it. May I go now?
You hung up. Hate it when he beats me to it.
As luck… or Destiny, if you are acclimatised American living in Italy… would have it, there’s a wonderful fornaio… a baker… right across the street from Autoscuola Fivizzanese. Makes a phenomenal chocolate cake dusted with powdered sugar upon request, like a brownie yet yummier for a thick-shot of chocolate. AND, there’s a Carrefour around the corner for the Prosecco. By the way, it is the most expensive grocery store in a 100 kilometre radius. BEWARE!
My mental wheels began to spin. Paper cups? Napkins? Knife and cake server? A big deal. Guess I ought to ask Baldo if I might hijack the class for 10 to 15 minutes per festeggiare il mio settantunessimo compleanno. I sent Baldo a Whatsapp. In a matter of micro-seconds I got the Italian equivalent of a… Hell, yes!!! He added… another equivalent: Don’t worry about a thing.
Oh, dear.
I was bit nervous anyway. These kids don’t know me. Why would they? I’m a foreigner. An American one. I am 53 years older. I take notes. I ask questions of our Team Leader, Baldo. By some mystery, unknown to me and my nerves, I reply to his queries with the correct replies. I’m different. I have their individual weights just in my body fat. They seem weary of me. A Generational Gap? A Generational Chasm. A Gulf. The little party would be humiliating. I sought comfort. I called You, il provocatore of this imminent disaster. He didn’t ******* pick up!!! Damn. Now, I know it’s going to be mortifying. I turned to a trusty White wine chilled in our German refrigerator. Made in Naples too. The refrigerator.
On The Anointed Day, I arrived for class with all the necessary utensils & cups, and things carried in a decorator bag I had stolen from You’s extensive pile for such things, the freshly dusted chocolate cake, and a chilled bottle of Prosecco which, I had bought the day before at a discount grocery store nearer to home. Fine brand. About €7 cheaper than at the Carrefour in Fivizzano. A Franciacorta. Non e’ male.
What’s this? A table cloth? Flowers?? Music playing??? I know this tune.
No Baldo. Not a soul. An empty room. At 09:49:37AM. I quickly laid out what I had brought and sat down to look unassuming by playing with my iPhone. A convenient ploy. Kids straggled in sporadically. Heard several ask… the air or, anyone caring to listen?… What’s this? We’re having a party? Who’s got a birthday? I’d look up, give a nod of not being aware of anything amiss and returned to my iPhone.
By 09:58:13AM, the class… 15 on this particular birthday morning… had taken their seats to await further developments.
At 09:59;59AM, in bounced Baldo. He had his Public Announcer’s voice…
Attenzione tutti… per favore. We have a special occasion this morning. Our fellow student, Forrest, is 71 today and we have arranged a little something to help him celebrate. If you’d please, Cana? Come on up…
It was 10:02:00AM…
Cana is short from his last name. He is the Driving Class Clown. The Teacher’s Pet. Those two’s repartees are a great Qwtz stress reliever. The Autoscuola’s Floor Show. I’ve known Cana… Tommi, to me… since he was 4 years old kicking a soccer ball with his Dad out on the little street in front of their house in Codiponte. He’s a funny looking kid: short, stocky of build yet, with muscular legs… he is passionatissimo di calcio and plays for a local amateur team… has an explosion of curly hair up front and bush-whacked sides and is equipped with a mouthful of bright White teeth, shinning when he cracks a smile which, is quite often. Kidding from Baldo. I think he is rather an amazing individual… soon to be more so: unlike others in his age group, Cana is not afraid of people: adulti, ragazzi e ragazze, bambini, anziani, stranieri!!! Once, I caught a train for Milan and found myself unexpectedly sharing a berth with him and his Mom. Cana worked the carriage for nearly 3 hours talking sports, soccer, games, and more soccer, and with anyone willing to banter with him. He was only 8 years old.
Come on, Cana! Come on up and demonstrate you singing voice for Forrest…
Baldo flipped a switch and a kind of rock-a-billy version of Happy Birthday music started. Cana looked a Baldo, Baldo look at him and nodded. Cana started to groggily sing…
Stunned by the end of his performance, Cana shuffled back to his seat to resounding applause. I furnished the whoops.
Cake & Prosecco were served. I had just enough cups and napkins, cake & bubbly to go around.
Not a bad start for a 71st Birthday. Thank you, Baldo! Thank you, Tommi!! Thank you, classmates!!!
Driving Class got underway at 10:31:02AM.
The Baldo Show...
Let me do a sketch of Baldo for you…
he is tall, thin, often breaks into a toothy grin and has a distinct and very bouncy gait. This bounciness could be attributed to any number of things. List is long, however, so let’s just put it down to the trainers he habitually sports. (Please note the above left-hand photo). Frankly, hard for me to imagine Baldo ever wearing leather-soled shoes. He might cause accidents. The gift of trainers are they do keep one light on one’s feet. A Good Thing when driving in Italy too. How else can you swerve deftly from an Alfa-Romeo driving on your side of the road and at a high rate of speed? The other parts of Baldo’s Standard Uniform are short cargo pants... in beige, light grey or, faded green and worn 24/7… a short-sleeve T-shirt, washed to the point of exhausting the printed graphics across both their front & back, and Black framed glasses, propped on his head when not in use to see or, to make an important point to some kid at the back of the classroom.
Other details? Well…
he rarely shaves. Damn Italian men with their morning shadow, looking dangerous, cooly unkempt, contemptuous of convention, sexy. Apparently, when Baldo hits the local barber to shear his locks… frothy in front and clear-cut on the sides, as is the fashion of his 18 year old male clientele these days… he takes razor to face. A scrubbed look for others to admire.
And, a cigarette is rarely absent. Unlit when teaching or, driving with a student…
well, that’s not quite true. He does hang out the passenger window to blow cigarette smoke away from the 18 year old with his mitts on the steering wheel at 10 & 2…
and one is definitely lit the rest of the time Baldo bounces across the face of Our Mother Earth. He’s Italian, after all. Oh! There is one exception… a cigarette substituted by his iPhone.
You have an idea, no?
The Driving Theory Class is scheduled to commence at 10AM. Sharp, as in precise, does not exist in the Italian language. Sorry. Just the concept of being precise is iffy here.
10:05 AM, Baldo bounces into the classroom. He’s late. He’s not ready. The classroom isn’t either. He bounces around.
The Boys & Girls are pronti and have been since 09:59:59AM. Good kids.
The boys are seated to the far right… if slouching could be called being seated… and as far away as possible from the front of the classroom… and Baldo… as is physically possible, without extruding themselves between the iron rods of a window grating. A Black Block of NIKE. Hairy and toned from soccer short-panted legs spread wide apart… What? To air out their masculinity? Doubt they would ever dare to cross their legs. Maybe they can’t? Must have big ones, do you think? They are 18.… and their uniformly white ADIDAS trainers are propped upon the backs of the dinky chairs in the row in front of them. Nothing to write with. Nothing to write upon. Might conflict with la loro aria di disinvoltura… aire of nonchalance. The boys are ON but not by much. Or, so they seem.
The girls are ON. And, are decidedly in the minority, grouped behind me on the far left. I don’t know why. It just happened. However, I was seated first. Two or three have positioned themselves in front of me. Most have A4 notepads & click-to-retract pens. You can hear the nervous clicking during class. Fear of interrogation? Could be. NO PURSES. Jeans have pockets enough, I guess. However, their finger nails are perfection. Pink, silvery sparkles or, Dark Blue enamel, all the rage these days in the Lunigiana. The girls look primed for the hour and a half we all will be listening to Baldo.
He does not linger for long. He bounces back out of the classroom. Voices are heard from the street. Then quiet. Baldo bounces back in and flips a switch and bounces out again. A simple job well done? A monitor above his desk…
yes, an ugly wooden assemblage, showing signs of having been either in a war or dragged out of trash pile, and capped by an incongruous plate-glass top-piece Baldo slides back ’n forth when in idle. Decorating the remaining surface of the desk are a clear acrylic pencil/pen holder for his few marker pens… only in Blue… and a prestigious assortment of pointer-sticks in bamboo, wood, plastic, metal!!! Corporal punishment appears to be legal in this country.
The screen pops ON with menacing graphics. It settles upon a scary triangular sign. Red border on a White background and has Black silhouettes of kiddies dancing. I think they are kiddies. Munchkins, maybe? No, kiddies. Running away and fast too. Or, taking flight. That’s it! I would, if I could but, I can’t so, I don’t. In any case, an ominous vision. A preview of coming instructions? You bet. I will eventually learn it IS a WARNING children are in the area. Aren’t they always in Italy?
Different voices are heard outside the school’s entrance. Turned to still chat with whomever, Baldo bounces in and almost collides with his desk. Stops just in time. Braces himself. Absorbing the energy of his propulsion. Time to prep for the onslaught? Noticing something’s amiss, he bounces over to the wall with the 70’s FIAT Tema sedan mounted on a White board and flips its ON button. The automotive demonstrator becomes a temporary riot of flashing Red, Yellow… OOOPS. No. I stand corrected: Amber… and White lights, until it goes into a self-imposed hibernation. Dormant until called upon, I guess. That scary triangle stares out at me. Not enough to do? So, for spite, it glares from its superior position on the monitor upon High? I sip frizzy water to revive my Spirits. Baldo sits down at his desk. He surveys the room… slowly, calmly… lips moving counting heads. We are 14. Thinking, thinking, thinking. Composing his thoughts for his first salvo of the day’s instruction. Class starts. It’s 10:13AM.
Baldo wants to talk about speed limits… i limiti di velocita’. He warns us l’argomento will be definitely… and amply… covered on The Quiz. This last word is often mentioned. Of course. It’s the reason why my butt grows tired sitting in a tiny school chair for what will be the eventual number of compulsory… by Italian Law!!!… 25 in-class lessons I must attend. Ditto for the 18 year olds. Misery loves company? Guys & Gals are trapped by our mutual obligation. So be it. The Quiz looms on our horizon like Godzilla. The Italian pronunciation stabs me like a jolt of electro-shock therapy… Qwtz! Who needs a vowel when there’s a menace about? Baldo continues, seated.
His lectures aren’t dry rote, and Thank God! Fastest route to send us 14 into a deep, mid-morning snooze. Nope. Baldo elaborates the explanations with examples: True History, Personal Experiences, Sage Advice. Invented stories too, I suspect. Often causes him to rise and move with a couple of artful lunges… he’s quelled his natural physical exuberance for Driving Theory Class?… over to the large White writing-board to draw stick figures of roads, speed signs, maybe a building or two. No doubt, Baldo has had lots of practice. These sketches are quickly executed with a Blue ink marker. Less upsetting than Black. And Red might cause nervous break-downs. Or, hysterics, at least. I try to duplicate the drawings… for Posterity or, for studying at home. Yeah, right… but, no sooner drawn than they are immediately wiped away with a rag. Always more to sketch-out when one is dealing with the many, many, many Italian Rules & Regulations of the Road…
in walks a man. Elderly. Has to be speeding well past 100. Shuffles into the classroom a bit bent over against a non-existent gale. Mumbles about needing to renew his Driver’s License. Proceeds right up to Baldo’s desk… in the middle of the classroom. Baldo remains seated and stares at the man with a slightly bemused smirk. Says nothing. The mumbled message is repeated like a tape on a loop. Over and over and over again. The man then starts to point a finger towards the floor. The floor does not respond either. Could it? It’s wall-to-wall and nearly denuded of its original Caramel coloured tufting, rendering it permanently mute. Or, dead. Any notion… slim or otherwise… of having interrupted our Driving Theory Class has registered not upon this man. His mumbling deteriorates into noises of shock, outrage, ebbing towards protest. Like an approaching thunderstorm. But then, silence. Ran out of steam? All is stopped. No mumbling. No pointing. No listing forward. What’s next? The room is all hush. In the vacuum, Baldo stirs himself up out of his seat and shoots some… qwsteeeyonz. More electro-shock. I perk up. Baldo wants to know from the man: his mobile number, date of birth, expiration date of his Driver’s License, and age. Half wanted to raise my hand to say… 100. Didn’t. The man beat me to it. He’s 94. He looked at Baldo appalled. As if Baldo had broken A Privacy Law in the asking. Baldo looked at the man satisfied. Matters taken into control. Suddenly, spacial orientation of our shared Time-Space Continuum hit the man. He looked around at 14 quietly staring faces. Smiles, says saluti ai tutti voi, turns and leaves, listing in the direction of the school’s Exit. The End? Not yet. Baldo yells he will call the man on the day before he needs to come in again to do the paperwork. The End
The hush is shaken by giggles… from both sides of the classroom. Baldo’s motor is running but he’s not moving. Thinking? Yes, thinking, thinking, thinking… Where was I? Oh, yes. Speed limits for pulling a trailer.
A what? Really? A trailer and speed limits together? Is it important to know? Strikes me as a special interest. There’s the Internet. Or, how about this: when someone buys a trailer, they take a day’s instruction at the local Driving School on Trailers. To get insurance. There. Done. Let the rest of us get on with passing The Quiz.
I itch with rebellion. What ridiculousness is this adventure of Getting-A-Driver’s-License-In-Italy.
I feel terribly stressed. Like the Italian Driving World is pitted against me and my simple desire to drive legally in Italy. I am a 71 year old man, who was caught by the Carabinieri after nearly 40 years of driving around hither & yon of the Italian peninsula without an Italian Driver’s License but, with a very valid American one which, you can lease a car here with it. AND, DO I LOOK LIKE A CRIMINAL? I COME FROM A GOOD FAMILY!! I HAVE TWO COLLEGE DEGREES!!! And now, I have to go to Driver’s Education School twice a week to listen to a half hour lecture about speed limits and trailers? Guaranteed, minimal concern in the general scheme of things, ie, like driving A CAR. And yet, it might be asked on a 30 question Quiz. Gosh. So the Italian State can feel it has control, has done its bloody job and has gotten more taxes out of me by burdening me and others with inconsequential information? A form of terrorism. State propagated terrorism. Out of the fracas of my hysterics comes… You gotta know what you gotta know… to pass The Quiz. Gotta pass The Quiz. Gotta pass The Quiz. Gotta pass The Quiz. The joke is, what you gotta know will be DELETED soon after passing The Quiz. It’s why Italians are such terrible drivers.
I am resigned to know…
the other 12,000 types of Driver’s Licenses. Yes, I exaggerate. There are practically the same number as the number of fingers on my hands.
What motorcycle drivers can & cannot do… which no-one driving one ever obeys, in light of yesterday’s near collision with a helmeted teenage jerk-on-a-dirt-bike passing me and others in a curve. Bet that’s not on The Quiz.
Identify the many types of trucks, busses, motor-homes AND AGRICULTURAL VEHICLES!!!…Oh! and horse drawn carriages!!!… and their do’s & don’t’s. I guess I should be thrilled tanks, personnel & armoured carriers are not included.
And, the 5,323 other stuff less the above 3 subjects due to appear on The Quiz the day I’ll show-up to take it.
My head grows dizzy.
Again, to reiterate… all I want is to legally drive my 14 year old, dirty, Hyundai Galloper to the Lidl once a week without being further encumbered by the Carabinieri… handsome & hot though they may be to stare at in their tight britches and slim-fit Blue short-sleeved shirts holding a help manual and a tablet.
Is it too much to ask?
Musing upon the injustice of it all… after my storm. I should point a finger at the floor…
I am of the mind… The Italian State, harborer of the Ministry of Transport, who manages the roads, driving, and the cumbersome Rules & Regulations of the Road…
in fact, a new one was just issued last Monday, the 18th of October 2023. Fancy that!…
A) holds an insane mistrust of the Italian people; or B) HATES them with a vengeance; and/or C) believe they are totally devoid of Common Sense; and D) thinks the Italians are imbeciles.
My Dad used to say… Treat people like imbeciles and they will act like one.
Apparently, The Italian State cannot allow Personal, Individual Responsibility to reign. Nope. Only numb follow-ship to the State. And yet, Liberta’ IS mentioned in the country’s constitution. Too difficult to actually instruct people on how to safely & properly drive a vehicle. Tut-tut… of little concern, I am afraid. The Game is The Quiz.
Before I desist, there is a further act of annoyance: the menace… of stripping one’s mental gears… by insisting upon the use of The Official Terminology for The Quiz. I hazard to say, this sort of linguaggio dates back to when Italy was founded in 1861. Not even revised with the re-founding of the country after a protracted civil war following WWII and the subsequent Referendum of 1946. The King of 26 days was booted off his thrown. He went bye-bye to Portugal on a twin-engine Lockheed airplane and Italy got socked with a mean & nasty bureaucracy obsessed with Officialdom’s language. So, for instance, a turn signal in common Italian jargon is freccia. Quick, fast, easy. On The Quiz it is un segnale di direzione. Ponderous plus. GIVE ME A BREAK!!!
Let us not forget this bit of Truth: the Italian People love Rules & Regulations. Yes, they really love them. Need them, in fact. It’s a game to them. They look for holes through which they can drive right in between them. You cannot have holes without the other things, ie Rules & Regulations. The Italians have been conditioned by the bureaucracy of A) through D). Naked without. Unsafe too. And, uncertainty of who’s in charge? The R & R of the Road is akin to wearing velour exercise outfits to watch Italy’s Got Talent on TV in una poltrona, sipping boiled beef broth made by the nonna living on the floor below… the grandmother living below… or, calling their mamma 30 times a day. End of Rant
Baldo continues with i limiti di velocità’…
A mobile phone rings, startling we, the assembled. It’s Baldo’s. He picks it up and studies the illuminated screen, as if there might be Prophecy, while the thing screaches with a Golden Oldie tune…
Mamma. Si-si. Ma, nooo, Mamma. Siii. Si-si, certo. Lei ha detto che non si può. Va bene. Non preoccuparti. Si-si, va bene. Si, Mamma, si. Okayeee, Mamma. Cosa? No-no. Si, si. Ciao, Mamma. Ciao-ciao-ciao. Si-si-si-si-si…
She hung up on him?
I’m worn-out. I look at the clock on my iPhone. Still more to go.
Back to the speed limits. They are not posted. Nope. You have to know them. Mentioned previously, you are responsible for knowing, even if you don’t know you don’t know. Got that? That’s Italy. Inside out. However, if what you are supposed to know, you know, ie, the speed limits in any applicable area of city, country, planet, etc., not to fear, the Authorities do post any variations. Yippee? What a relief. Mostly at curves so, you won’t go flying off into the wild Verde-Bianco-Rosso-yonder you hadn’t expected to visit: crashing into a multi-family home, clearing out several Chinese stores fronts, off a hiiiiigh cliff.
Baldo is on the verge of explaining some subtlety of our day’s speed limit instruction…
Oh! My!! God!!! Who are these folk? A young family of three comes on through, like the place is a thorough-faire to a supermercato: a Mamma Bear, a Papa Bear and a little 3 year old Baby Bear, sucking on a ciuccio… a pacifier. A noisy entrance. Baldo stops to hug the pacifier sucker. Ends up hugging & kissing the other two. Then, the little one goes into his grasp, is put back down and runs all about the room. The young adults are massively, thickly, ornately tattooed. Now, if I had been at that tender age of 3 and my mother had thought it fit to emblazon herself with even one tattoo, much less to cover every portion of her 5’-4” body, I would have broken into a frightful BAWL to end all bawls, have wiggled FREE of her grasp and attempted to FLEE to Canada. Ciuccio in tow… for something to suck on in moments of distress. From where do parents under 25 get the money to spend hundreds and hundreds of €€€’s on such graphic and corporeal displays? They have a child!!! What about her college education? Then, head to the beach for a day of sun n‘ fun? Not cheap either. Accruing a deep, dark, enviable tan. They are Italians so, they do not burn & freckle like any Good Anglo-Saxon would. Hey! Don’t they see? Italians are classically myopic. The tan HIDES the message. KILLS the impact. Not to ignore, their legibility? After spending the equivalent of a Mercedes-Benz and on ink? Ain’t it a poison?
A couple of similar examples of tan & tattoos.
However, the little family reunion of Baldo’s niece… we discover by Public Announcement… her significant other of more than 9 months duration, I suppose… as I spied no rings… and child, a familial grouping ideal for a contemporary altar piece, have given me an idea to beat the qwtz! I am seriously contemplating tattooing the entire speeding section off the Italian Rules & Regulations of the Road manual. Both arms and legs and, maybe even my White-wine nourished tummy. That ought to do it. An added plus is the Italian Driving Theory test givers will never know. Nope. Never. Ever…
a word to the wise: Italians really only look at three things: one, which I can share with you, are the shoes you have on. Please take note.
Oh, Look! Our hour and a half are up. Gosh, golly. So much fun. So much information. Where’s the bar?
First Impressions... the Autoscuola Fivizzanese
Help me out: I can’t decide just what special element of the Autoscuola’s classroom makes me Gasp & Swoon the most? Might it be the board & batten panelling? Has always left me with an uneasy sense of what it must be like to live in a mobile home. Or, could it be the wood’s slightly soured cognac colour? They say age adds character. Then, lots of character. But, the caffe-latte diamond shaped ceiling tiles are decidedly Vintage. You know? Must be those manly beams. So hard to decide. However, no time to muse…
Did you get a load of what’s been bolted to the walls? Lord! Mother!! Mary and the Baby Jesus too!!!
I don’t remember ever having had to study so much stuff for an Illinois Driver’s License. Happened at Summer School before I turned 16 in September of 1967. Class was once a week: 30 minutes to study The Rules of the Road… a slide projection entertainment coupled with a hand-out of a 25 page shirt-pocket sized pamphlet with the same information in picture form and big print. They were distributed indifferently by our teacher… a football coach moonlighting… to the 39 other soon-to-be-16 year olds, frothing at the mouth to drive Daddy’s Chevrolet; and another 30 minutes for actually getting behind the wheel of a late model Pontiac donated by the local dealership. A scary machine. In 1967, Detroit became enamoured for the soft-touch, floating accelerator pedal. 70 mph in the beat of an eyelash, if your right foot even so happened to hover close to the thing, much less actually applying pressure to it. I knew this from previous personal experience…
We lived on a private lane, Fisher Crescent Lane, in one of those innumerable northshore suburbs of Chicago. So, I would get in my father’s late-model Buick Le Sabre… a slick automobile in a fantastic & lustrous blue-green paint… and drive around the quarter mile loop, picking up kids screaming to catch a ride… Come on! Frosty’s driving…
Yes, I was called Frosty. Lasted from birth to shortly after I turned 16 and had a Driver’s License to prove my age. An adopted aunt, Kay Britton… her husband was naturally called, Uncle J.D…. he was my Father’s solid Right-hand Man at the company they worked for. He was the smartest man I have ever known. Rubik’s Cube? Solved it in 37 seconds! Then he went off to fix himself a dry martini at the bar back when houses had such nooks. Those two adoptees spoiled us. Well, Auntie Kay did mostly. Gave me my first cigarette… a Benson & Hedges… my first flute of champagne… always a chilly Piper Heidsieck… and taught me to ingest Beluga caviar spread with butter on a chic-y cracker encrusted with bits of rye without making an ugly face. Oh! And she told me to stop wearing socks… especially, white ones… with my loafers. Said it was a grotesque notion of fashion she could not tolerate. Very California in her tastes. One grim Chicago day, Auntie Kay suddenly felt the need to rebel and did so, summarily declaring the “y” at the end of my nickname murdered & buried for posterity, and proceeded to call me, Frost. Met with almost universal approval… bar one. Frosty was imposed by my mother. Thought it cute. It wasn’t. I was a downtrodden kid hearing too many times to count classmates sing, Frosty, The Snowman. Out of tune. Still rings… distantly… in my head. Again, out of tune. Additionally, besides Mom thinking it was cute, Frosty, was approved by my 4 Star Brigadier General grandfather, whose best friend in The Entire World… Head Coach at the University of Colorado, where The General was also a regent… was called Frosty, short for also bearing the name, Forrest, like me. Thankfully, the new nickname stuck until I stopped despising, Forrest. Took 10 years. But, I did it. In the meantime, my full name of Forrest Charlton Spears… sends Italians into a twirl of Oh! How prestigious sounding… was much abused by my mother, when circumstances dictated by-passing Frosty, usually after she had discovered some gross infraction on my part, such as, bringing home a very sorry Report Card. Once her storm had passed, Frosty was restored to use. Anyway…
One day on tour in the Buick Le Sabre, I drove up the driveway to the Bush Family Complex of mansions… tenants too on the private lane… yet, no relation to those later Bush’s. However, I can say, the Senior Grandmother Bush, who lived in Mansion Number 1 (top house in the above photo), was equally as frightening as that white-haired woman married to the 1st Bush President and mother to the little dippy Bush 2. Kids and dogs trailed behind trying to catch-up to get on board. Space for all, kids! In piled a bunch of under 10 year olds with a couple of their dogs. Put the car into D for Drive and off we went. However, at the very same moment of departure, the two dogs got into a fierce and rather noisy dog-fight. Startled, and suddenly overwhelmed with driving AND having to separate the two combatants, plus any child in between… talk about over-load… my right right foot just happened to grace the accelerator pedal instead of the brake and in no time I had cleanly obliterated an entire 20 foot long boxwood hedge at the entrance to the fierce grandmothers son’s Mansion Number 2 (middle manse in the above photo), a sprawling Tudor monstrosity. Family of 7 kids. The place had wings. I am sorry to report to you all, I did not go and immediately make known the disaster to a Responsible Adult inside the Tudor sprawl but, elected to go home… post haste. News travels fast. No sooner had the Buick been put to rest in the garage than… Forrest Charlton Spears!!!… was heard to shatter the Peace of Home and Fisher Crescent Lane.
P.S. My Dad went out and bought a previous year’s Ford station-wagon in pistachio green. Who has a car in that colour? Must’ve gotten it at a good price. He felt it a safer bet… Ford and the particular model he drove home with was a bit behind the fashion for the latest pedal-tech. I was also discouraged… mind you, not prohibited. The Times were different back then… to drive around. Our maid was sometimes inducted to be my Automotive Chaperone riding shot-gun to shoo and/ or threaten the chasing hordes… of any type.
The high school I was attending at the time I turned 15 for a Learner’s Permit was crazed about actually driving an automobile. Rules & Regulations were secondary. Signage? Basically: STOP, YIELD, and a bunch with arrows, and even better, countless indications written in English: ONE WAY, DO NOT ENTER, WRONG WAY, SPEED LIMIT 15. A definite bitch for people who do not understand written English. Tough.
In Italy, you have to know signage AND everything remotely attached to car, driving, streets, insurance, etc.…. AND I MEAN EVERYTHING… all up on those classroom walls. Appears to be a lot of clutter but it ain’t to Baldo. It’s his mission to explain.
Now, I can happily relate I did manage to make it unscathed to the next theory class.
The Hump was totally out of the question. I came via back roads from Codiponte until I reached the infamous Highway 63 upon which lurked those two Carabinieri agents. Did it for a mere 1/2 kilometre and then veered off to the left… oncoming traffic permitting… to slide down another back road un-repaired with shitty asphalt… lots of pot holes… to sneak up to Fivizzano from below and behind. Un-noticed. N’er a Carabinieri. However…
Tuesday is market day in Fivizzano. All the parking spaces are snatched-up by 8:00AM in the vicinity of the Autoscuola. Luckily, my stealth routing had brought me to a shady street with… Hark!!!… spaces available and just a 10 minute walk to class. Early, I stopped to sip a cappuccino at one of 3 bars gracing the main junction of Downtown Metro Fivizzano. A hot bed of activity on a Tuesday morning. I go to this one particular bar because the staff are young, smiley, and have either pink or yellow hair. The cute ultra-tall bar-guy, who is utterly indifferent to my flirting, is included. Yellow’s for him. Then, I climbed up the short distance along Via Roma to the Autoscuola Fivizzanese. Had to squeeze past a pack of 18 year old boys gathered at the entrance, like gnats. So, what? It’s not cool to go inside, take a seat and wait for class to start? Apparently yes, and not a second before, as a solid black block of NIKE. The girls breeze right on through and into the inner sanctum of the classroom, their long straight hair trailing their behinds in crotch-threatening short short-pants gripping young thighs. Do the guys bother to take note of this pulchritude? No. They chat while staring down at their iPhones. Our civilisation may be doomed.
Sat down and was struck silly by…? By…? Well, by the unexpected interior arrangements. Starting with the 26 coloured posters of cartoon depictions for street signage, engine parts, search & rescue administrations, vehicle types, railroad crossings… one is even named after a saint, Croce Sant’Andrea. What can I say? It’s Italy. My favourite, and especially after witnessing Baldo in action flipping levers to turn certain lights on or off, of a mock relief of what I believe to be a 1970’s FIAT Tema sedan. An ugly vehicle. The Electric Light Show is to indelibly mark the cerebral cortex of 18 year olds about the intricacies of which light serves which purpose in prep for the menacing Driving Test on the horizon. By the way, there are 3 purposes. For everything with 4 or more wheels. But, I don’t care to elaborate because, I actually don’t remember. Must consult my notes.
I do want to talk about the Autoscuola Fivizzanese classroom furnishings…
An esteemed friend once remarked after a few days visiting with me in Italy that what the country really needs is to add 6” to all its dimensions: door heights, parking space widths & depths, grocery-store carts, chair widths, to name a few. The later is particularly galling. An hour and half sitting in the Autoscuola’s seat designed for midgets borders upon entrapment. Maybe, manslaughter. No room to squirm. Causes cramps. Practically impossible to extricate oneself once contained within its miniscule confines. The width, length and height of my 215 lb. body, one nourished on the American notion of 3 square meals a day, of which one rigorously must consist of a meat item, some potatoes and a perhaps, by a fluke of the wayward cook, a vegetable, the other two meals are obligated to be high in carbs & fats… does not correspond in any way, shape or, form, to the ergonomics of said Autoscuola chair … with the flip-up writing tablet. There maybe another term for tablet. Tray table comes to mind but, it seems incorrect. Nearly impossible for me to artfully slip out of the chair without taking victims. And, to have upholstered the 30 or so chairs with a knobby lip-sticky salmon coloured fabric so stretched to the end of its elasticity over the black metal frame, it is either nerve wrenching or, the mark of a ID genius. However, the fabric also clings AND attaches its linty fall-out onto my dark blue jeans. The Responsible Interior Design Person could be Baldo’s wife. He may not be married. Did not see a ring on the indicative finger. His mother, perhaps?
Before I push on… you must forgive me… I am more than a bit of an alternative kind of guy in my design tastes, as my Dear German Friend discovered upon You’s and my first encountering the interior confines of hers and her husband’s historic Tuscan farm-house… board & batten paneling to the nth degree in every room, on every floor… and more than likely installed in the same epoch as the Autoscuola’s… but… but… but, the black plastic tape holding various Autoscuola chair parts together is sincerely a charming detail to warm my renegade aesthetics. Ad hoc is my call sign. The slick surface of the tape clinging tightly to arms & legs defies, perhaps, the basic Laws of Engineering. A wonder and that it has lasted… resisted… for so many years of stress. Marvelling at the thick beige strips of tape is just the distraction I need as I attempt to deal with the stress of memorising what’s-what with the 5,323 signs & info off the 26 posters as the Baldo Show starts. Oh! He just sat down at his desk.
Sig. Baldini... Autoscuola Fivizzanese
A God-send.
Fleeing the scene of my Carabinieri disgrace, and noted by many, I headed North turning right onto the driveway leading up to the local hospital, the site of my original intent for the day. I stopped and Google Map-ed, Autoscuola Fivizzanese. I had a general idea it was on Via Roma, a bland, almost desolate looking street climbing along a ridge from Centro Citta’ Fivizzano towards yonder peaks, the Apennines. A brief word about streets & stuff in Italy…
Back in the Olden Days… after the Fall of the Roman Empire… Italian towns were either perched on top of hills or surrounded by fortress walls. Defence tactics in Troubled Times. The Italian peninsula was ripe & easy pickings for marauding bands of Huns, Visigoths, Lombards!!! Oh! And not to forget Saracen pirates and gangs of home grown thieves canvasing the countryside for prey. Lucca is probably the most famous Italian walled city, however, there are thousands of others in Italy equally charming and/or, more so. Montagnana, for instance. You eat & drink splendidly. There are Palladian villas spread about nearby. Etc. The wall option had gates and each were traditional named for the town you would reach… preferably traveling by daylight… passing through a particular gate. All roads lead to Rome too so, 99 out of 100 times, there is a Porta Romana… Rome Gate… and the street’s name to match: Via Roma. Ecco! Fivizzano’s Via Roma is a numbing affair: straight, tree-less, with mini-sidewalks, shoddy or empty stores, and an array of architecturally anonymous apartment buildings and houses in mild pastels of salmon, Tuscan beige and rose. Smack in the middle of this urban context is Autoscuola Fivizzanese. There’s a single street sign cluing people to a Reserved Parking space for the autoscuola.
Continued on up the drive to pick up my blood work results, and then drove over to find Sig. Baldini on Via Roma, Fivizzano Massa-Carrara, Tuscany, Italy, Europe, Other. The Dogs were ready for home. They had had enough.
Found him lounging inside a small hatchback idling on the Reserved Parking spot, though half his body was dangling outside the car. Must’ve been for his cigarette smoke. The other occupant was a wispy-looking 18 year old manning the steering wheel. Hands, 10 and 2. The 2 would be 14 in Italian. Looked terrifically bored. Also, the kid was entirely of black: black hair, black framed glasses, black short-sleeved T-shirt with some unidentified black mess emblazoned at chest height… a re-evocation of Punk from 40+ years ago? Vaguely recalled lightning bolts in yellow and orange and red… and black shorts in a black FIAT. He’d gotten black down pat. Contrasted with his never-seen-sunlight parlour. Couldn’t see his shoes but, I bet’ ya they were white Adidas. Brand of choice for Italian boys under 25-er’s these days. I also would bet ya’ a good many Euro’s his mother dresses him and does so with her preferred Italian Mom uniform colour: black. For her, it would be: black floaty tunic-top over black leggings and black strappy sandals with a 10” thick sole and tiny silver sparkles glued where space and/or straps might allow. If any one thinks Civilisation is going down the tubes, it’s this dressing in black, which is doing most of the pushing. However, I didn’t need to distress myself further with the blackened neo-nato. I turned to the dangling man wearing a faded red Coca-Cola T-shirt. No surprise, actually. It was Sig. Baldini, in partenza for a 40 minute tour with the neo-nato and, more gloriously, the owner/operator of the Autoscuola Fivizzanese. He asked me if he could be a service… a rough translation from the Italian… waving a lighted Marlboro in the direction of the stencilled sign on the school’s store front window. Glass needed a good wash… and perhaps, disinfection too…
Yes, signore, if you are Sig. Baldini.
I am indeed… and who are you?
Forrest… Forrest Spears.
Piacere. You’re an American?
Yes. It’s my accent, isn’t it?
Pretty thick. Your Italian is good. What can I do for you?
I need an Italian Driver’s License… ASAP. I got nabbed by the Carabinieri a half hour ago. No Italian Driver’s License. The officer strongly suggested I come and speak with you to know what getting one would entail.
Time. Some money. That’s later, however. Patience. It isn’t going to be a quick thing to do. What have you been driving with?
An American Driver’s License.
Of course. Sorry. You live here, you have a residency permit?
Yes, for nearly 40 years. We’ve a house in Codiponte now for the last 14 years.
How old are you?
Soon to be 71.
Caspita! You don’t look it. Are you sure?
Well, I might’ve been able to prove it to you had the Carabinieri not taken my American Driver’s License.
Feeling a little naked?
A bit, but mostly, I am feeling my 71 years.
Well, I have to tell you, you’ve been lucky. OK… give me your mobile number and I’ll connect you to the school’s Whatsapp chat. You’ll start with theory… Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10AM or at 5PM. Your choice. About 20 lessons is the circuit. The practical driving lessons come after you have passed the theory test. I doubt you will need much for the driving part. I am guessing you have been behind a wheel since you were 16?
!5 with a Learner’s Permit.
How are you going to come here? You can’t drive legally now, you know?
Yes, that was made very clear by the Carabinieri. I live alone. I have to drive. I’ll run the risk. Take back roads to avoid patrols or road blocks.
Well, forget the hill roads from Codiponte to Fivizzano. The last road is closed for bridge work.
What? Where exactly?
Above Fivizzano.
Hmmm… well, I guess I’ll leave the car and walk down.
It’s going to be a long walk. And it’s hot out or, have you not noticed? You never know with you
Americans.
Oh, I’ve noticed. How long a hike?
I’d say… 3 to 4 kilometres. Maybe more.
Nothing to do but tough it out.
See you on Tuesday?
Yes, sir. At 10AM.
Look out for the Whatsapp and just follow the instructions.
Thank you, Sig. Baldini.
Folk call me, Baldo.
Thanks, Baldo.
The Dogs and I went home. N’er a Carabinieri in sight. Whew!
I licked my wounds with bastoncini di pesce… fish-sticks… for lunch. The Dogs got hotdogs… their absolute favourite treat. They do not have to be told to sit. You thinks I am poisoning them. Too many spices and salt. Bad for their digestive tracks. Weimaraners hanno digestione delicata, Forrest! I think doggies biscuits are a poison. Billed on the outside of the plastic packaging as wholesome nourishment for all types of dogs. DO NOT LOOK AT THE INGREDIENTS.
I started to worry. Road scare. Carabinieri hiding everywhere waiting… waiting to nab me… again. Arrest, Fine, Deportation. The State absconding with our homes. And… I hate change. I just want to be left alone… do my art…with the Dogs always present and You on the weekends. This is not how I imagined my Summer of 2023 would be… damn-it!
During Nap-time, the Whatsapp arrived. The notification squeals were so annoying. No Peace. 10-12 messages and alerts all afternoon. Italians love chats. They cannot not conversate. Is that even a word? They love “sochial medeeah”, Fasseboook, Teeek-Towk, etc. Reminders of these media ploys exist are rife on Italian TV, radio and websites. Often times written in English bold enough to upset your wide-screen TV’s spirito e anima.
I worked on worrying.
On the anointed First Day of Driving School, I rose early. Felt that repeated caffe’s would buck me up for attempting to be stealth in an old, beat-up Hyundai skirting detection on my nervous way to Fivizzzano by going over The Hump on a series of asphalted mountain tracks until… as previously warned by Baldo… I cannot go any further, due to bridge work. Gotta walk.
Drove and drove and drove up and across The Hump and just as I felt near to Fivizzano… excitement of nearing The Big Town?… I ran into huge cements barriers painted with red diagonal stripes cutting off any progress. Beyond them, there were some sweaty, dirty looking men labouring along side a tall jack-hammer contraption spewing oil & fumes and beating the be-Jesus out of a bridge’s pavement. Hmmm. No space even to park. Damn cement blocks! And with barely room enough to turn around too. I got out of the car to better survey the situation. The clock was running. 9:39AM. A woman passing-by stopped to asked me what I was up to? I said I was thinking of leaving my car and walking into Fivizzano. I had an appointment there. She scoffed. It’ll take you the rest of the morning to get there. And if you do park here, the vigili will ticket you. I Vigili are Municipal Police in dumpy uniforms. Large thighs and protruding tummies do not help their uniform’s look… of Authority. They point and write out tickets. You don’t need to look beautiful to do that. Or smart. Whereas the handsome Carabinieri are an advertisement for Italian Law & Order in their get-up. Go back the way you came is my advice. Suddenly a white FIAT Panda with two unshaven young men skidded to a halt, apparently, to join the conversation. Nope. One, the fat one not driving like a maniac, had a question. He waved his tablet in the air to announce this. Asked if the road just up the hill a few yards away would lead them to Fivizzano? The tablet says yes! The woman said… No, not in your FIAT. It’s a dirt track… after some houses. But, pointing to me standing next to my old, beat-up Hyundai, he might be able to. Decision made. Off sped the two, grinding the FIAT’s reverse gears as they went backwards up the hill until they could managed a reckless manoeuvre at the road where my hopes of getting to Fivizzano in time for auto school met the local road we were all on. Happily out of danger now from those two renegades in a white Panda…
FIAT Panda’s are cult cars in Italy. Not all. A few. Mostly Panda 4 x 4’s. A simple boxy vehicle yet, they do grandly scream UTILITY!!! far beyond their size and demeanour. 70’s & 80’s version. A cracker box on four off-road tires and able to tackle all sorts of roads. Not terrifically fast. Never were envisioned for autostrada’s. Who cares? I want something which can tackle dirt tracks, up, down or all around. With Dogs. And remain in one piece. I want one. Badly. Military green, please. Bloody expansive. Everyone wants one. Cost today is 10 times what they once cost new. Genius car. To start one, you have to prime the engine with an internal rod. Builds biceps. Otherwise, a no-go. FIAT still makes them. Not the same. The cult models are exemplary products of a Soviet Five-Year Plan. In fact FIAT consulted with the Soviets to build a People’s Car. Today’s look like they have taken to an all carb diet and little exercise except to take nonna e nonno to the supermercato Sabato mattina.
I consulted Google Maps. Not a particularly clear representation of any road leading from YOU ARE HERE to HERE YOU WANT TO BE. Not in Default, Satellite or Terrain modes. I remained valiant and decided to try. Can’t miss the First Day Of Driving School. Certainly not. The patchy asphalted track slid quickly down through an encroaching thicket of woods towards a small group of white-washed stuccoed houses. Late model Audi & BMW SUV’s parked in iffy spots. Foreign tags: D for Germany, NL for Holland, DK for Denmark, of all places. The track became barely wide enough for my old, beat-up Hyundai after the first group of houses. Then, the track became dirt and it introduced a chaotic array of twists and turns…. hair-pins spinning past 270 degrees… and through more woods. More clusters of shoddy vacation houses. Ditto SUV’s. Road had deep ruts, like from an ancient wash-out and then, it just stopped. No! It disappeared. Hell!!! I could go no further. Google Maps told me the road was to the right. What? Through a crawl-space between two houses? Nope. How do I get our of here? Meant 10 minutes of inching back ’n forth and back ’n forth and back ’n forth to get my old, beat-up Hyundai SUV turned around and head up the way I had just come down. Hopefully unscathed. The clock had stopped. It was 10:13AM. Class had started at 10AM.
It would have needed another 30 minutes just to make it back over The Hump and to hit the risky State Highway 63… nightmares of Carabinieri at every turn. I drove back home. Along the way, in a shady spot, I stopped and sent Baldo a Whatsapp of my no-show. Sorry. Immediately got a Tranquillo and a thumbs up. He must’ve been mid-stream with his lesson. Darn!
I nurtured my First Day of Autoscuola… a Failure… with a prosciutto cotto e formaggio grilled sandwich, potato-chips and a watered down Coca-Cola. Called You to share the morning’s adventure and took a nap. Thursday is soon to come. Fall back and punt but not on Highway 63.
Nabbed... an instruction manual
I was nabbed by the Carabinieri.
The Dogs were with me.
It was a bright, sunny and oddly mild morning in late July. I was on my way to the hospital in Fivizzano to pick up my blood work results from the previous week. I am at the age now when I am often at the hospital in Fivizzano for one thing or another. All the Staff knows me. Many come from or, live in the village of Codiponte where I call home too… with the Dogs, and You-know-who on the weekends. I am, despite my earnest efforts to work on my accent speaking Italian… alter, might be a good verb here… glaringly American. Crowds automatically accumulate around me. The Italians are fascinated by us Americans. What’s not to like? Well, perhaps A Bad Question these days. Or, I suspect the Italians are afraid of missing something imported from America or, yet unheard of and possibly useful from the same source. Courting me might give them the jump on their fellow citizens. Chissa? There are also rumours circulating I am related to Britney Spears, poor twisted thing. I wonder who spread that? The Carabinieri based Casola in Lunigiana, Codiponte’s administrative Mother… a mini-capital… often drool and certainly touch pack to ask how Breeetneeey is and will she ever come to Italy? Couldn’t say, boys. Not any time soon. She’s busy with her divorce. You might like the video on YouTube. Involves lingerie. Apparently, the two man squadron of Carabinieri… from Fivizzano… who flagged me down with la paletta rossa at an intersection of an innocuous side street just before the big curvy bridge, had not been informed of my supposed illustrious connection. Little shared communications between Le Forze della Protezione Civile? Seems so.
I was a lone duck.
Before I go on, let me mention a few pertinent aspects, which may serve in reading this blog post…
1) Any encounter with Authority in Italy is always… ALWAYS catastrophic. The Good News is there are degrees of catastrophe. Did you know this? I didn’t when I first came to live in Italy almost 40 years ago. Regardless of the degree of disaster, it’s best to: a) GO WITH THE FLOW; b) DO NOT CONTEST ANYTHING; and c) DIVULGE AS LITTLE INFORMATION AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN!!! These procedures are far & wide easier for the Italians to manage than for an American encumbered with two Weimaraners or, other foreign persons about… with or without accompanying animals, boy-friends, other. Starts in pre-school, to be terrorised by interrogations conducted by la maestra, who’s interested in hearing only The Right Answer. Continues on until the little tykes grow up to a full height adult Italian… males generally at 6’ (182cm) and females around 5’4”(164cm). No more totally squat Italian people… as they attempt to extricate themselves of years & years attending university. Bad enough high school… or, liceo… lasts 5 interminable years. Each generation of Italians are thus well versed in staying mum.
I might add...
a sociopathic sideline to the above is, a sort of Italian Mental Reasoning, if you will: a) you may not personally know the person interrogating you, etc.; b) you can only hypothesise what he/she/it will do with the info you have mistakenly blurted out; and c) as a consequence, your life may suddenly be forced to make a hard left turn. All can be conveniently condensed into the following Universal Italian Declaration… YOU CAN’T TRUST ANYONE BUT FAMILY. Take note.
There will be further ones shortly. Be patient… A Virtue. Hang on… another yet, Lesser Virtue because, it requires physical & emotional skills not often available. And, be alert. End of the Virtues.
I stopped my 14 year old Petroleum Blue Hyundai Galloper SUV as instructed.
The Dogs went ape-shit.
I have been working on this unfortunate canine behaviour through the auspices of a Dog Trainer, a Dog Whisperer, thanks to YouTube… un sussurratore di cani… since suspended from my service. The cause? 40+C degree heat raging in my adopted land. Would it make any difference if I were to write 40C = 104F? Appointments were scheduled at 7AM, in the frigging morning. Only time temps were tolerable. Bright, sunny and oddly mild days of late June were sideswiped by successive African Heat Waves and given names of Greek mythical characters. That combo’s a mystery, I know. What was that fellow’s name who carried dead folk across the River Styx? For instance. The necessitated early hour meant I had to arise at 5AM, give or take some, in order to have time to resurrect Body & Spirit with several cups of Intenso Caffe N.8, and to elevate those of the Dogs with an early breakfast of croquettes & canned dog-food. Yum-yum. They were more than delighted. Afterwards they usually run into the garden for a few minutes to attend to their bio-needs followed by retireing to their respective sofas for a rest. Enormous surprise on Wednesdays & Fridays for my dear Creatures around 6AM… Let’s go! That’s the official statement.
Would you like to know the unofficial? I am happy to tell. You-know-who is totally ignorant. Mum’s the word…
I got fed up being told I was doing it/all/everything WRONG. And as the pendulum swings, practically nil right. The Whisperer’s admonitions espoused while I was being instructed to do silly little exercises involving doggie biscuits, such as, tossing them onto the scrubby turf of a bug-infested field abutting an autostrada became too much. All of it. There’s more…
The Trainer’s body-language and tense tone of voice conveyed a creeping sense he thought I was a total idiot and completely inept at handling a dog, much less two. His instruction was conducted with one-dog-at-a-time. Maybe for convenience sake… his, certainly not mine… since, my life is attached to two-dogs-at-a-time. I fantasised suggesting a meeting in Downtown Metropolitan Sarzana, a hip Italian town, so I could hand him the leashes of my two Dogs and see him try to trot around the main piazza tossing doggie biscuits hither & yon. To inspire and educate? No, to bait and control, more like.
The Dogs and I are now adjourned indefinitely in the interior cool of Il Poggiolo as heat-wave after heatwave sear steadily, continually… outside.
Inside the cool & dark… it’s manual air-conditioning, it works wonderfully and it costs nothing, folks!… I discovered an Italian woman… un sussurratrice di cani. Fountains of curly hair on top of an anorak and a dog on leash… via Instagram. I bought her program. What SOLD me? 1) She spoke only of what to do, not the myriad of what-not-to-do’s; and, the basis of her Dog Training Philosophy to successfully change the behaviour of an errant dog/s comes is to do it in small doses. Start with leash work in a protected area and slowly graduate to ever larger spaces until, when enough progress has been shown… mostly to understand why my pockets are packed with doggie biscuits… and go out into the great big world outside. Simple. We’re working on it.
However, the woman loves to talk. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. What Italian doesn’t? The Italian language was designed for conversation, though it initially was built as a written one. Dante. But I don’t have all day. Nor the inclination for 24/7. Emails arrive every day. With videos. Offers to upgrade or buy dog stuff. I may bag it and resort to white wine and leisurely strolls with the Dogs in il Poggiolo’s 25,000 square feet of garden. Dogs are thrilled when they hear me call… Let’s go into the giarden.
And before I forget… these Dog Whisperers must be in the pockets of the doggie biscuit manufacturers, liberally dispensing their edible products anywhere and as often as possible.
Meanwhile, the Carabinieri hosting me at the intersection which I now fear to tread near illegally…
The Dogs elected to watch once they got it I wasn’t going anywhere else soon.
I had to ask permission to get out of my SUV. It was given and, immediately, I was on a one-to-one with the older of the two Agents in Service. The Carabinieri Command are rigorous in maintaining a buddy system, usually pairing a more mature Agent… squeezed into his Dark Blue britches & Black boots & short sleeve Blue cotton shirt decked with various patches… with another and much younger gay porno gorgeous hunk Agent… who’s also squeezed into his Dark Blue britches & Black boots & short sleeve Blue cotton shirt decked with various patches… but, Bless The Lord… fills the uniform out splendidly. Italian men. Nice legs. Soccer. Beautiful skin. Olive oil.
At this point now, we must proceed with the real meat-ball & spaghetti of being stopped by the Carabinieri at a un posto di blocco. However, a couple of informational pointers…
A) Extreme politeness is essential. Italian Formal Form. Lei. The Carabinieri do not want you, nor do you want them to be your best buddy. Si, signori… No, signori. Stop. Good Luck with their English… Mayee eyee hav yeur documentz, pleeez?
B) There are no discussions. Etched in marble, this one.
C) The Conducting Agent asks the questions, you reply. Do not dally.
And the first question was to convey into the hands of the more mature Conducting Agent the car’s documents and mine. BEWARE: you may never see these ever again. This applied to my State of North Carolina Driver’s License. Confiscated. I got a receipt. Lucky me. The confiscation was probably supposed to be a catastrophic act on the Agent’s part. Hardly. Once back home, I got on my laptop, surfed to the NC Driver’s License website… Department of Motor Vehicles, actually… and promptly ordered a replacement. I had stated Stolen… in Italy. 10 days later, the new license showed up at the local & scuzzy bar of Codiponte… Le Poste Italiane are furiously reluctant to deliver mail to my address. It’s easy to get to. The mostly female couriers make a pit stop at the bar, dumped the mail, down a caffe and hit the road back to HQ… and this after my dear & aged Mother had dutifully driven to the local US Post Office to mail the darn thing … to Italy.
You may know this… the Italians have a genius gesture to celebrate a victory of this sort and is far more demonstrative than that vulgar English single-finger thing. While musing upon the laptop’s screen of…
Your North Carolina Driver’s License has been successfully ordered. It will arrive in a few days. Thank you for visiting the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles website. Have a blessed day.
What?
I instinctively raised my right arm and simultaneously crooked it in the general direction of Fivizzano and slapped my left hand into the right arm’s bend. BAM!!! Message sent. Fat lot it will do me though. I am still illegal. Cannot drive legally in Italy anymore with a North Carolina Driver’s License. Fine. Feels good anyway. I’ll live dangerously. You have to as a foreign resident… in Italy. I hope & pray to the Mother Virgin Mary I won’t get stopped at another Carabinieri road block.
The car’s docs come in a dog-eared and sun-bleached green plastic pouch… must be the age and not the sun… full of every insurance receipt from the car’s birth, ditto for the tag’s renewal and the vehicle’s matriculation booklet and a stained instruction manual visually hinting it has never, ever been look at. I certainly haven’t.
The more mature Conducting Agent seemed satisfied and returned to the open hatch of his FIAT/JEEP patrol car where the gay porno gorgeous hunk Agent was busy fooling with stuff. Paper. Booklets. Tablets.
The real fun was underway, yet, it must be confirmed…
D) All Italians love documents. The fancier the better. Functionaries of the Italian State in particular, ie Carabinieri, judges, toll-booth jockeys. Must drive them wild these new-fangled plastic credit card sized driver’s licenses, health cards and Permessi di Soggiorno… a residency permit.
Like a game show, I waited the results of the investigation into my documents. This is THE REAL GAME OF ITALY. The objective is to see if what one doc says, balances out with the info of the others. Didn’t take long to know…
I had been caught.
I was driving a legally registered car in Italy. Tag and tax and insurance, all up to date. Good boy. However, punching into their tablets my full name, the agents discovered my Permesso di Soggiorno was unlimited and issued many, many years ago. Doing the Math with the help of a Carabinieri HELP manual, The Regulation said I should have already been driving around Italy with an Italian Driver’s License. I wasn’t. Ah, hah!!!
The more mature Conducting Agent strolled over to where I was standing attempting to maintain my Weimaraner’s cool demeanour. He assumed his VOICE OF AUTHORITY.
We have ascertained that YOU HAVE DONE WRONG. You are in conflict with Italian Law.
Why have you been driving without an Italian Driver’s License? THE LAW SAYS YOU MUST HAVE AN ITALIAN DRIVER’S LICENSE BY THE END OF THE FIRST YEAR OF YOUR RESIDENCY.
I feigned ignorance. Lame I know but, you must remember…better to be brief.
I have to stop here. I will be brief. In Italy… the responsibility to know stuff… any stuff… all stuff, no matter legal, cultural, Catholic, and even perhaps what a Kardashian wore to Wembley… is YOUR TOTAL RESPONSIBILITY. The Italian State will try to do its best but, it’s a lot of stuff. Are we to take pity on them? Anyway, the onus is on YOU. Another note.
So, now forward again… this part of the adventure brings us to a crucial legal point which separates us Anglo-Saxons, British Empire, American Declaration of Independence, etc. from the Italian State which, for thousands of years, has been repeatedly pillaged and raped and conquered by successive foreign groups, from marauding Huns to one of the most influential and equally devastating, Napoleon. His Little Italian Adventure in the early 1800’s brought a new notion of Law to the Italian peninsula. Basically, Nappy wanted to subject the Italian Peoples with his NEW! NEW!! NEW!!! AND MODERN TOO!!!! Code of Law… the Napoleonic Code. Yippee? What a meglomaniac. His self-named Code is in two parts… as I have understood it:
1) Every Italian law, thanks again to Napoleon, is minutely written to include any AND all possibilities of infraction, so there is NO QUESTION that when you are declared guilty by un giudice, you are. This fits well with the Italian’s instinctive fear of being fregati… ripped off, tricked, the shame of fraud, etc. But then, and since we are talking about Italians, they read all the fine print,… one of the few peoples in the world to do so… seeking any void in the ponderous laws, which would let them get away with murder and/or, infractions of the road.
2) However, and I probably should have put this as Numero 1… YOU ARE GUILTY UNTIL YOU PROVE YOURSELF INNOCENT. Please note: YOU must prove YOURSELF innocent. Good Luck. Again, the Italian State stacks the cards against it own citizens. And, Americans can sue their government. Italians cannot.
All of the above is illogical to me. Maybe to many of you too. The obvious… to me and any other Anglo-Saxons about… ridiculousness of this point-of-view irritates. It’s not fair. And, furthermore, it creates a shitload of problems because, any accusation has the weight of condemnation. How about that?
Wheres… WHEREAS Anglo-Saxon Law is based on precedence. Our laws can often be pretty darn specific…. purposes of graft, probably, to protect those illustrious creeps over in the United States Congress… but, for instance, Thou shall not commit murder can be replied with… It depends… and there you are. Can be a mess though. Enough.
Suming-up... no way getting around it. I was nailed.
The next 20 minutes of my ever shortening life was spent nodding to the dictates from the VOICE OF AUTHORITY. He had soften up a bit once he knew he had me. OK. And, I actually did not find this encounter unpleasant since…
I was lucky. The two Agents could have arrested me and socked me with up to a €30,000 fine. I got one for €100. I paid it immediately to get a discount. Nice, no?
I was amused the two Agents had to study the Carabinieri Self-help Manual… both the paper and tablet ones. Thought it rather endearing. I mean, what Italian can really fathom the country’s interminable Rules & Regulations AND its legalese? Another blog post perhaps.
And, the two Agents were polite to me. I was calm, polite and well behaved too. We found ground to put up with each other. Plus, I was impeccably dressed with really cool Premiata trainers never seen before by either Agent. Of course, I had bought them in the same place as my Driver’s License. Ha!
Thus, I was given a bit of kindly advice by the more mature Conducting Agent to head subito… forthwith… to the local driving school in Fivizzano and talk with its owner, Sig. Baldini, about what will be in-store for me to procure an Italian Driver’s License, and before heading home temporarily protected by a slip of paper issued by said Italian State Official, the more mature Agent, allowing me to this one deviation. After that, I must walk.
While I was away...
I went to Rome. Five days. Two and a half with You, and another two and a half with an old American friend. A recent widow. Plays bridge. Played a lot on the cruise ship she left to meet up with us in the Eternal City. If you are a fan of History, you probably know that Rome has been invaded, sacked, and despoiled a number of times. Visigoths to Charles VII of France to those creeps from the last World War. A long & wide arch. The latest is Mass Tourism. A voracious river of folk. You can’t or, wouldn’t want to image what Rome is like today. Happily, the city still stands… eternal. Meanwhile, back at our Genoese ranch, the Dogs were left with a substitute filling-in for our usual dog-sitters. The two brothers went to Spain for a cousin’s wedding.
Two unexpected things occurred at il Poggiolo during my absence: it got hot and it rained. I had mowed the lawns and weed-whacked where the mower cannot go at some point prior to my departure on a Freccia Bianca train… the Italian TGV… and in preparation of our gardener re-seeding the terraces he had re-built last year. Winter, its dead leaves, lack of water and the drying winds from Siberia… Thank You, Mr Putin?… had ravaged our grassy landscape. Mowed and whacked, everything looked clipped and orderly. Hopeful.
However, I have came back to this…
Forgot to mention the 10-Day Weather Forecast: rain, thunderstorms and, occasionally, heavy stuff until the middle of the last week of May. It’s the Moon’s fault, if you follow the Phases of the Moon.
Bumper crop of grass, I’d say. Weeds, pretty little wild flowers hovering over leafy and equally wild stalks and massive clumps of an insidious cow grass, intermittently graced by what we really want in the category of Grass: Zoysia. We may never get it. A combo or climate change, my occasional bouts of laziness and let me throw in Madam Moon too.
I was amazed. So green, so tall, so abundant. Wish my bank account were so. Power of Mother Nature, when heat & rain are mixed. In our case, suddenly. The welcoming scene alarms my sense of that phrase, clipped and orderly. However, deep down inside me, there is a rebel and having grass shoot up nearly 15 cm in the space of a long weekend has brought it out. I’ll have enough time to enjoy, perhaps even contemplate the transformation for the next 10 days. I have forewarned You. Due in at any moment. Oh! And it’s raining now. Pazienza.
Forgotten photos of il Poggiolo...
The wreck of a house cleaned-up before the four-year re-build…
Spring 2022, when travelling resumed after two consecutive years of Covid-19 Lockdown…
When an Italian friend heard I was going to be in Charleston, South Carolina, where she lives half the year with her American architect husband… of some note, I might add… and the other half of the year perched with him in a terraced villa-with-pool high above the Mediterranean Sea outside Genoa, she asked if I might like to give a talk to her Italian culture group, the Dante Alighieri Society. They’re everywhere in the world, like mushrooms in forests after a rain. I said, No. A typical knee-jerk reaction. Probably hadn’t had a glass of white wine yet. Always improves my receptivity. While I am at it and FYI…
Do not hazard to chat-me-up before I have given the International High-sign that I have sipped dry my second cup of coffee of the morning.
The Italian friend did not take my reply as even remotely acceptable. She remained undaunted. Adamant. Pursued a change of heart with the following flattering enticement… Hey! You could tell the story of your fantastic house in Tuscany. The members will eat it up. You’re living The Dream, you know? Yes, I’ve been previously informed…
A cousin of mine, alighted in fair Codiponte from Addis Abeba on his way to his home in Boston after attending a three-week international conference on Health Care, took one look at me leaning against a beat-up and dusty Hyundai SUV with our Weimaraner hanging out a back window and parked below il Poggiolo, only to holler… Look, dude! You’re living The Dream. Have not been able to shake it since.
The tide did eventually turn in the desired direction on the Italian friend’s fantastic flattery. Still, I equivocated for an extra few moments for dramatic purposes. I like suspense, especially when I have fatto una brutta figura… have embarrassed myself. Yet, perhaps, I just wanted to savour the reverberations of my No before relenting with an enthusiastic… Yes! Actually, the clincher was I had had a congenial idea sprouted during negotiations between that No and Yes! An idea on how-to. What was it? Well, I could draw My Italian House Story with Magic-markers on a big newsprint pad while simultaneously projecting pictorial documents, ie photos, from my vast archive off my laptop. By the way? Where could those photos be?
When did you last take a photo with a roll of film? I haven’t since 2009 with a handy-dandy pocket-sized Olympus film-camera dangled from my neck. Bought it just before You & I had purchased il Poggiolo. I was interested in shooting trash & billboards along the streets of Genoa. Found a better subject personally documenting every phase of restoring the wreck of a Tuscan farm-house we had put money on towards a second life as Our Home in the Lunigiana. How Times have certainly changed with the advent of the iPhone and its camera. Happened mid-stream through our adventure of funnelling €€€’s to builders, electricians, plumbers, painters, etc.. The hard-core construction photos, however, were in print-film and I wanted them for the more mouth-watering part of my talk in Charleston. Somewhere in the house were piles of them. Eureka! happened when I successfully unstuck a drawer of a desk in the Casa Grande, the main part of il Poggiolo.
What a shocker. Apparently, I had DELETED them from my memory. I had to sit down. Then, a question barrelled to the fore as I leafed through the pics… What were we thinking?
Taking a large step backwards to 2009, I want to share a few glimpses of what You saw on his first visit to il Poggiolo a Codiponte on a cold Saturday, the 10th of January 2009. I had had my first visit on the previous Thursday, ridiculously forgetting the Olympus in Genoa. We made an offer after the tour that Saturday and it was accepted on the Monday after…
A second salvo from a overlooked photographic Memory Lane were the those pictures taken in late May of 2009 after the Builder’s Boys had cleared il Poggiolo of all the trash, litter, debris, filth, and icky other stuff… in and around the house & courtyard… and had carted it off to A Somewhere I don’t ever want to know about…
2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 were the years devoted to re-building il Poggiolo…
And now for you to see the fruits of those labours or, what the dream is all about…
And so, a tasting of the past and present, of forgotten and remembered, of a house and home, il Poggiolo a Codiponte.