It’s Me—Giuseppe!

One of my fondest memories of visiting the Piemonte family villages in Northern Italy is the year Uncle J and my brother K went with Hubby D and me. The last time Uncle J had been in that area was as a young boy of eight or so, having traveled there in the 1930s with his immigrant mother and aunt. While his mother and aunt spent many months selling the family homestead and taking care of other legal affairs, Uncle J wandered the Alpine foothills with no thoughts of the school he’d left behind in Illinois or of the school in Colleretto he might’ve attended to broaden his education, an unfortunate judgment error on the part of his mother since Uncle J didn’t finish out third grade before going to Italy and returned too late to begin again in the fall, setting him back two whole school years. It was the 1930s immigrant way.

During our turn of the 21^st Century trip Uncle J had several people he wanted to visit—one an elderly aunt now in her nineties who didn’t know he was coming to see her but did remember him as a young boy. D, K, and I sat in the aunt’s dining/living room, and listened to Uncle J and his aunt talk about the passing of this relative and that. When she brought out the customary box of family photographs, we three outsiders excused ourselves and drove twenty minutes to Monte Piano for a return visit with a distant cousin on my maternal side and to show K the eleventh-century house where our grandmother spent her childhood, a safety hazard now and uninhabitable. Cousin P explained how he and his sister often carried large stones up the mountainside each school day, building necessities their father used to stabilize the old structure where they too had lived as children.

On this particular visit the widower P was living next door to the old homestead, inone-room apartment, part of a two-story structure similar to an old-style condominium. As with all Italians who feel a connection, he invited us into his home for a glass of homemade wine. And while we were there I couldn’t help but notice his two posters hanging on the wall—one of Great Britain’s Princess Diana; the other of Marilyn Monroe in her well-publicized calendar pose. Nice. Awkward but nice.

The next day Uncle J wanted to visit a boyhood chum from 70-plus years ago. “Do you think he’ll remember you?” I asked, trying to let him down gently.

“Why wouldn’t he,” Uncle J replied. “I remember him.”

So, the four of us stood outside a two-story building and Uncle J called out his friend’s name, just as he’d done when they were kids. A door on the second level opened. Out came an elderly gent, white-haired and slender. He leaned over the rail and squinted while observing us below. “It’s me—Giuseppe!” Uncle J said, using the Italian version of his name.

His friend smiled broadly and immediately gestured for us to come upstairs. What followed was a round of vino rosa and the promise of endless stories, during which D, K, and I once again excused ourselves, leaving Uncle J to reminisce with his friend while we sought new memories of our own.

D and I often compare notes about our separate childhoods and how we always stood the yard of friends’ houses and called out their names rather than knock on the door or ring the bell. Telephoning in advance—no way, although we all had home phones, in my case an 8-party line after moving out of East St. Louis.

Yes, it was the Age of Spontaneity, one that still existed in Italy a few years ago. But not to the extent it once did. Nothing stays the same forever. We have now entered the Age of Advance Planning, where every encounter begins with an electronic device, usually a text message and agreed upon time to meet.

What about you? How do you connect with friends and family?

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Photo Credit: Gran Paradiso, Piemonte Region, Italy: L. Giacoletto