Places I have lived..Part II

Logically, if you title one of the entries as Part I, there must be at least a Part II. Summer 2008 was a memorable one for me, hard to believe it was two years ago! I visited three of my childhood homes. When my family left Roma in 1971 we moved to Scandicci, Firenze and lived in Scandicci until 1976. When we arrived in Scandicci in 2008 the very first thing I did with my children, dad and nephew, was walk to the Saturday market, which was right across the street from our apartment in Via Ugo Foscolo No. 5. My best friend Giovanna lived in the apartment complex next door, No. 3. Giovanna and I used to spend just about every afternoon across the street in the field next to the Marketplace. I remember Giovanna's mom sitting at one of the benches with the other mothers, knitting away. American moms didn't do that, at least my mom. My mom would have stood out amongst the Italian moms as my mom looked like Doris Day and didn't know how to knit. I remember one of the other neighborhood girls (I think her name was Elizabetta) supplied us with flour and water to play with, and on a few occasions she even supplied us with an egg. Talk about hours and hours of entertainment! And to think that now days we look for ways to entertain our children!! I tell you flour, water and an occasional egg.

Let's back-up here and go back to the market. This is nothing like the farmer's markets one experiences here in the USA. The general atmosphere is loud, bold, colorful and smelly. Not all bad smells, but peculiar smells at times. Loud, because the vendors are always trying to out do each other and will literally come up to you yelling (a friendly italian yell) holding fruits and vegetables trying to get you to buy from them. If you're looking to make chicken for dinner and want to perhaps get it fresh at the market, they will kill it for you right there before your eyes, but you will have to pluck it. I will never forget the day that my friend's grandma brought a rabbit home from the market, I thought it was soo cool that she had brought back a pet for my friend. We played with this rabbit for about a week or so, and then....it was gone (I am skipping some details here, because I actually unwillingly witnessed bunny foo-foo's fateful end)! Yup, it ended up on the dinner plate accompanied by roasted potatoes and salad. At the market you may also purchase books, sweaters, shoes, various clothing, materials, undergarments, produce, spices, you name it..it's not all blood and gore. To think we lived across the street from all of thids!!

The Circus - another interesting fact about the field across the street from where we lived. Once a year the circus set up their tents in that field, the circus literally came to town and camped out right next to us for a couple months each year. Giovanna and I became friends with some of the circus kids, and I remember our moms would not allow us to go into her caravan, we could only play with her outside, she didn't look dangerous to me. Circus people in Europe are a little different than one might imagine circus people in the USA, they are for lack of a better word, gypsies. This is when my fascination with gypsies started (More stories about that later). I even remember losing my very first tooth at the age of 5 on the opening night of the circus, must have been circa 1974.

I have included a couple pictures I took of Via Ugo Foscolo No. 5, these were taken in 2008. Somewhere I have some from the 70's. I will have to find them and scan them. Unfortunately, the field across the street is no longer there, it's a concrete slab.

As I am writing this so many other memories are flooding through my brain, but I can't possibly write about them all right now..it's getting late and I need to spend some time on my new obsession... book three of a trilogy.