9/08/11 Aquila: The Pain of Destruction; The Weight of Years

After yet another delicious meal with Maurizio and Antonietta, it was time to go.  Next stop, Aquila.  The original travel plan had always included a stop there to visit dad’s old friend Renzo, the same guy he did his Giro d’Italia with so many years ago.  They’ve maintained regular if infrequent contact over the years but this encounter would prove to be the most difficult of all.

Departure and Arrival on Dad and Renzo's Giro d'Italia

  



Our first challenge was to find him.  Renzo, or don Renzo as he is known here, has been a Catholic priest for over fifty years.  The church of Santa Maria Paganica in Aquila has been his parish, his home and his family for the last thirty five years.  More accurately, I should say was his home.  The earthquake that shook the city of Aquila to its very foundations in 2009 also brought don Renzo’s church to the ground.  The largest in the area, it was reduced to ruins in mere seconds.  The residence attached to the church survived, as did Renzo.

The phone numbers we had for him no longer worked, and we didn’t know where he lived.  To complicate matters further nobody seemed to know how to get in touch with him.  There were also rumours that he had experienced a series of medical setbacks including a stroke.

Sometimes when it all comes down, it comes down hard…really hard.

After many phone calls and half answered questions we had a phone number and an address.  Dad called the number and was greeted by a shallow voice.  At first don Renzo didn’t recognize the caller, but once dad began speaking in their native dialect recognition was swift.  Dad made arrangements for a quick visit; Renzo was ill and the city was still in ruins, we didn’t want to impose.

We approached the city from the North side along the highway and from the outskirts you could see the damage begin to increase in severity.  Houses with cracked walls, some tumbled to the ground, some still boarded up, and new construction every now and then; evidence of people putting a brutal event behind them and rebuilding.  We found Renzo living on the third floor of what used to be an office building which had survived the quake because it had an anti-seismic construction.  Mom suggested she and I wait a few minutes before going up so that dad and Renzo would have a few minutes to say hello.  When we eventually joined them we were greeted by a ghost.  Renzo was a white as a sheet, his voice shallow and shaking.  However, his face still bore its characteristic roundness and his eyes brightened briefly when he saw us.  Unfortunately, the darkness soon returned as he recounted for us some of what happened.

Old friends find happiness...briefly

Speaking from the pulpit





The quake had struck during the night and Renzo woke to find his church destroyed.  Still in shock, he remembers being hit in the chest by a falling stone.   What followed over the next few days was a recovery effort that only cemented the fact that everything was destroyed.  Tonnes of stone had rained down destroying anything below.  Renzo and a few others set up camp in the piazza to protect what was left, but in reality, there was nothing.  Looters resorted to breaking into the church residence to steal an automatic polenta making machine…like I said, there was nothing.

Dad tried to shift the conversation to something more positive a number of times, but each time the discussion returned to the destruction.  It’s impossible to ignore it when it surrounds you.  Renzo appears to be a man alternately consumed by despair and hope.  Despair over the loss of everything he knew and was secure in.  That church was his home, his friends and his family all in one place.  Hope in the possibility of rebuilding what is gone.  Despite what he may say one the outside, on the inside I’m sure he knows that rebuilding is impossible, and certainly not within his lifetime.  The government put up the money to stabilize what is left of the structure, but the diocese and the Vatican have been stonewalling when it comes to the topics of money and reconstruction.

Politics in the Catholic Church?  I’m shocked, shocked!

Rezno began typing his expose of what’s been going on, his problems in dealing with his superiors…only it was taken by one of them after he caught wind of it.  Renzo is old school; having typed the manuscript on a typewriter, it was his only copy.  He’s tired and broken from all of this; who has the energy to write it all over again?

Censorship in the Catholic Church?  I’m shocked, shocked!

And even if by some fortunate turn of events, dare I say “miracle”, the church would be reconstructed in short order…who would come?  Aquila, and especially the hardest hit area around Santa Maria Paganica, is a ghost town.  Renzo holds mass each Sunday in his apartment; the only two parishioners in attendance are two old women, one blind, and one deaf.  The parishioners who once lived there have made their own tough choices and have moved on, leaving behind what was once familiar to rebuild in a new place.  There’s little hope where one can’t find work.

Even the undertakers have moved away.  An old woman called Renzo looking for help.  It seems that her recently dead husband’s coffin has been laying out in the open for a week; there is nobody at the cemetery to entomb him.

And still, among the despair there will always be those who refuse to leave.  Like the couple celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary who insisted on renewing their vows at Santa Maria Paganica.  “But the church is in ruins, there’s nothing left” don Renzo told them.  The couple didn’t care, they were insistent, and eventually they renewed their vows amid the rubble…and maybe even the corpses.  Yes, corpses.

Hundreds of years ago, when members of the aristocracy died, the families sometimes insisted they be interred at the church so that they could avoid the common folk in the afterlife and be closer to God.  When the walls of Santa Maria Paganica came crashing down, so too did the bodies of these fortunate souls.  Problem…there were too many of them.  Not all of the bodies were reflected in the church’s meticulous records.  Normally this wouldn’t be cause for concern, but a cold case in Italy was recently solved when the body of a girl missing for twenty years turned up when a woman was cleaning a long since forgotten church attic.  Let’s just say that with all that’s going on, Renzo is stressed that the carabinieri (police) may come asking questions for which he has no answers.

As for the suggestion that Renzo pack it in, leave this mess for the Vatican to handle and return to Northern Italy to retire: he politely declines, and I understand why.  He left “home” fifty years ago.  Everything is different; he is different.  The friendships he once had, weakened.  His family has mostly left for other parts.  Even within his country, his arrival in Northern Italy would be the arrival of a stranger.  In short, it’s unthinkable.  Better to stay in Aquila amongst the constant despair and brief sweet glimpses of hope.

Renzo’s attention was diverted for a while.  We flipped through old photo albums together and finally managed to focus on the good times for long enough to lift the sombre cloud.  We gathered for a photo.



The guy in the middle... not real.



9/08/11 Fake Wine Snobs

Before our early afternoon departure for Aquila, we managed to fit in a walk through the city centre of Macerata and a visit to a winery in Pollenza.  While at the winery, we marvelled at the scale and grandeur of it all.  Everything was so calm and serene there; vines grew along rolling hills and the activity of the winery was largely confined to underground rooms for reasons related to maintaining the purity of the wine.  This calmness made the atmosphere pure as well.

With the exception of the wine offered at Maurizio’s house, the vini di casa (homemade wine) here was not to my liking.  The samples we enjoyed at the winery made the vini di casa seem even more substandard.  Many old school Italians complain that purchased wine is full of conservanti (preservatives), as if the natural compounds used to stabilize wine were carcinogens or petroleum products.  This is just as ludicrous as suggesting that prosciutto shouldn’t be eaten because it is also full of one particular conservanto…salt.

The bottom line on homemade wine is this: the well-known European tradition of adding Gasosa (Sprite/7-Up) to your wine is indicative of at least one thing…your wine is terrible; and of possibly a second…you wouldn’t know a decent glass of vino if it smacked you in the mouth.

9/07/11 Random Photos and Videos #11

Video - Driving on Sasso Tetto

Video - Rally Sarnano: I Love This Road!



Who knew dirt could look this serene?



The first "Spinone" that I've ever seen other than our "Rocco" 





Strange...the guy in the centre is wearing a NASA cap.

Italian streets; French car.  Sacrilege!



9/07/11 A Fantastic Dinner

A few photos of a fantastic dinner at an agritourism restaurant.  Everything was made in-house.

Why bother?  The menu changes daily.

Flat bread

Salami, Bresaola, Capicollo...delicious



Aged cheese with honey... it's a hit in Canada too!



Trippa (cow's stomach)

Liver, heart, and kidney stew.



Arrosti misti (mixed grill)



Dad, Maurizio, Marco, me, Antonietta, Mom



9/07/11 Back to School



Ancona - In Miniature



We exited the highway and drove to the university on a road so rough and pot-holed that if you closed your eyes you’d swear you were driving through a minefield.  Dentists should install these roads near their offices to loosen people’s fillings.  School was starting in a week and the university was abuzz with activity.  Even though post-secondary education has embraced the technological age, all official paperwork must still be submitted in person displaying the proper stamps in order to be stamped once again… it’s all very official you see.

While we waited, I was asked more than once if I was graduating as well; “no, I did that thirteen years ago”.  Since nobody has figured out my age here, they looked at me as if I was some childhood prodigy…I said nothing and just smiled.

Marco’s paperwork was submitted and my unceremonious return to school was over; brief indeed.  Marco offered a short tour of Ancona during which we came up with an anti-graffiti strategy that we really think could work.  Any young person caught defacing public property would be shot on site.  When outraged and distraught parents would demand an explanation for the police’s unspeakable violence and abuse of power, the explanation would not be the expected “because they were breaking the law”, instead it would be “because you were poor parents”.  Evil laughter filled the Clio’s small interior.



Smile for the graffiti elimination strategy



Setting up for the Pope.  He's like Polkaroo... I missed him again!

Eastern bloc sandals... WTF?!

We started the return trip taking the long way along coastal roads and secondary highways.  Marco displayed a driving talent that is likely common here, but definitely rare back home.  After all, there’s decrepit women in their eighties here still driving stickshift!  The smell of burnt clutches hangs thick in the air.

9/07/11 High Speed Graduation Run

Marco needed to go to his university in Ancona on the Adriatic coast to submit some paperwork in preparation for his upcoming graduation.  Rather than catch up on much needed sleep with an afternoon nap like almost every other sane person in Italy, I decided to join him.  After all, another city meant another checkmark on my “cities visited” list, which I’ll admit is extremely informal.

And so we hit the highway, a two lane superstrada, in Marco’s nineteen year old Renault Clio with no air conditioning on a scorching hot day.  Wind in our hair and engine screaming we passed 120 km/h.  The car began to shake in protest, but Marco ignored the warning signs.  Soon, we reached 130 km/h, engine screaming even louder and its body shakes more pronounced if that was even possible; Marco was unphased.  At 140 km/h the car settled down and found its groove.  The engine was still screaming as I loudly commented that I had never gone so fast in a car this small and this old.  Marco laughed as he pressed the pedal into the old faded carpet and touched his man parts (just a touch) for good luck (click for video).

Funny at first...

...but then the shakes got serious.

Marco checks his pulse; we're still alive!

As the scenery blurred past, I was lulled into memories of a time when I had gone even faster in a car almost as small but not nearly as old.  My brother Paul had a Plymouth Horizon (a Dodge Omni clone).  Looking back, I think of it as a birth control car because it would be next to impossible to get lucky driving that thing.  I remembered a day when time was of the essence, but I can’t recall exactly why; whatever the reason, Paul and I had to make a round trip to somewhere within a half hour…it seemed impossible.  I remember hitting 170 km/h in that car.  Shaped like a brick, and more importantly, wearing a Plymouth badge you would have never dreamed it could reach that speed; but it did.  I swear.

In the time that it took you to read that last paragraph, Marco and I still hadn’t reached top speed.  He closed his window slightly, perhaps to lessen the deafening wind noise, or perhaps to improve the aerodynamics.  Since I’m recounting the events in real time, I still have a few moments to recount another small car story while we wait for the Clio to hit terminal velocity.

I had come into possession of my brother’s ’79 Chevette which sported a “nearly” dark blue paint job; “nearly” because the touch-up paint used on it over the years never quite matched.  Let’s call it the ghost leopard spots style of auto paintjobs.  I was eighteen and in-between one of my many cars, or “shitboxes” as I lovingly refer to them, and my brother had agreed to let me use it for as long as I needed to.  The windows were tinted dark enough to get you shot by the police were it not for the fact that no criminal would be caught dead driving that thing.  In true beater style, the stereo was likely worth more than the car; a speaker box with fifteen inch subs and a monstrous amplifier that drew so much power it caused the headlights to dim at night ensured the mirrors never provided a clear view of anything.  I’ll likely go deaf in the future because of that car.

It was the spring of 1994 and I was on my way home from school with U2’s bass heavy Zooropa album pounding away.  As I turned off the 401 to the 400 North I put the pedal to the floor but couldn’t get past 110 km/h or so.  I figured there was something wrong with the car and kept my foot planted.  The faster I go, the closer I’ll be to home when this thing blows up.  Sound reasoning, no?

My head began to pound from the deafening combination of wind noise and bass so I turned off the radio at the Rutherford exit, some twenty kilometres to the north.  The engine was screaming, but since the car had no tachometer I didn’t know that I had been redlining it in third gear all the way up the highway.  It may have been a shitbox and Chevy’s poor answer to the Asian auto threat, but that car could take a beating.

Back to the present where finally Marco and I had reached the limit.  Terminal velocity; 145 km/h of pure fear.  Rejoicing momentarily in his triumph, Marco eventually let off and settled in at a shaky 120 km/h.  Relief washed over me.  I had survived and Marco would live to see graduation day.

9/07/11 Touring Le Marche – Rally Car Style

My sleep was wholly insufficient and it was my own fault.  I had set my alarm to go off at an ungodly hour so I could work on my journal; it’s not easy keeping up with this thing.  It turned out to be a waste of time since the words weren’t coming to me.  Worse still, now I was awake and could fall back asleep.

Maurizio had planned a drive through the rolling hills of Le Marche.  Here they call them dolce colline or sweet hills (Marco offering the literal translation).  My parents rode with Maurizio in his car; Marco and I in the abused Ford Focus.  Without the weight of the baggage and a third passenger, the Focus was noticeably peppier…nimbler without actually being nimble.  I used this to my advantage as Marco and I hung back from Maurizio.  We would stop to take pictures and then blast through the corners to catch up.  I asked Marco if my driving was scaring him and I believed him as he calmly said “no”.  I didn’t know it yet but he had his own mean driving streak hidden away behind his unassuming exterior.

We made our way through a number of small towns and eventually reached our isolated destination: an abandoned and decaying house in the middle of nowhere reached by a dusty gravel road.  This was the birthplace of Lisa’s mother.  My mom had heard much about it over the years and had promised to visit.  The property is now owned by an English couple who have renovated the house next door to spend the summers in; but the birthplace of Lisa’s mother remains ignored, its only residents being  a few stray cats that scrambled through a rotting wooden door as we approached.  We didn’t stay long; there wasn’t much to see from behind the fence.  Instead, we drove to the town of Sarnano a short distance away.  Like many picturesque towns in the area Sarnano is perched high on a hill with a town centre composed of steep and narrow pedestrian walkways.  I can’t imagine anyone who lives here being fat, the very act of walking out of your house is exercise, especially given today’s unrelenting heat.



Lisa's mother's house



The narrow streets of Sarnano

Not just narrow...steep too!

We stopped for a quick and much needed coffee before proceeding to our next stop, the top of the mountain.  At first I thought that we were just going to a lookout point, but Maurizio liked driving on the mountain roads as much as I did; it was a race to the top.  These were some of the best roads I had ever driven on: smooth, twisty, steep and relatively empty.  Taroko park in Taiwan last year was more impressive, but that was Space (Ryan) doing the driving and not me.

Reaching the top, we stopped to take in some air.  The sky was quite clear and Maurizio pulled out his binoculars to show us the sea which could just barely be made out over the sweet hills.  We drove over and down the other side of the mountain on a road much narrower than the first stopping to see birds of prey floating on wind currents and then diving quickly to make a kill.  Another stop to drink from a mountain spring: our parting refreshment to go along with the cool air.

  

Our two-car convoy returned to the house just in time to eat lunch.  The only thing I remember about it was the pasta Antonietta had made.  Egg noodles with a simple olive oil, pancetta and mushroom sauce with some garlic and parsley.  Marco offered some criticism on his mother’s cooking and I smiled widely as I told him that he had to be crazy to criticize an almost perfect dish.  The reason for my smile?  I could see myself saying the exact same thing to my mother; offering my take on what others would see as a perfect dish.  It’s a game we play with each other, only that my mother’s criticisms of my food are vicious to say the very least.  She’s just upset that I won’t let her cook in my house…she has a tendency to rearrange everything to the point that you can’t find anything.  This messes with my mind and undiagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder; I can’t have that.  This nervousness of mine is a constant source of laughter for mom…how cruel.