Sicily

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Country Walkers is located in Williston Vermont. We signed up for two weeks with other guests who were total strangers. They were from Vancouver, Carmel, DC, New Jersey, and even Missouri. There were fourteen in all. It’s probably like going on a cruise with no boat. Not the way we typically travel. For the same money we can stay in Mexico for fifty days but Sicily sounds fascinating.

Do not get me wrong. It was perfect. Five star hotels and thousand year old farmhouses. Mauricio and Orietta, our guides, were just perfect also. Dad called me Also, mostly when he was mad at me. I think it was Also. Sicily is simply stunning. Mount Etna, the Greek/Roman ruins, the resort towns of Taormina and Cefalu. Arab castles and Arab palm trees.

Dale Carnegie said, “Talk in the other person’s interest.” Tried it. It didn’t work. On a hike, one woman said that divorce was a sin. She went on and on. Did she know that Sandy and I were on a trip celebrating fifty years of marriage?

Word passed around that one of the guests was a retired Colonel in the United States Army. She was erect, friendly enough, but a little shy or guarded. One night I am sitting across from her at one of the first class dinners, which is not my style. Hmm what to talk about? Finally I say, “During your service, did you happen to come across any Navy Seabees?” She gets this big smile on her face and says, “I love the Seabees.” He turns, he shoots . . . OK then, but with the other guests, nothing much developed. Please no more eggplant, but gracia.

The other guests were certainly well traveled. For one woman this was her sixteenth Country Walkers trip. Another had just done the Amalfi Coast and then came south to join us in Syracusa for two weeks in sunny Sicily, making it a four week vacation for her. When I say well traveled I mean Europe. Mexico got the cold stare look. Louisiana -- Say what? Colombia, nada, nothing. What is a national park? Nothing in common. Dale Carnegie would have been hard pressed in this situation. He would have just given up.  How To Win Friends and Influence People just was not working. If he did this trip he would NOT have written his book.

When it comes to the fancy dinners every night, I am clearly out of my element and I tense up wondering what are they going to serve me. It was sort of like wondering what the galley was serving in Boot Camp in freezing Chicago. Shocking, I know, but painful for me. I am pretty sure that grinders and french fries were out of the question. I have common sense on stuff like this. After more than fifty years being in cold weather, when the smell of food is in the air I am eighteen again, in ranks, waiting outside for our company’s turn at the mess hall.  

On the next to the last night, I just cannot small talk about college or banking or religion anymore, and bow out gracefully from the winery tour and the dinner with seventeen utensils and even more entrees and waiters.

We are at a lovely hotel that is also, -- there’s that word again -- a winery and olive farm. I decide to go to dinner with myself for the highly misunderstood and maligned pasta and meatballs. Red wine, please. For my dinner partner I will choose a book from the hotel’s extensive library. The library is great, but only if you speak Italian. I find an Eatalian map book and actually get lost in it for over an hour. Italy is fascinating. There are so very many town names that ring bells for me. Rappolo, an ensign from the Navy; Corleone from some movie, Pachino, Croce, Lazzaro, my financial guy. Island of Women or in Italian, Isola delle Femmine, where the three baseball Dimaggios came from. 

The town that the family Viscariello is from is called Compana. They have the Mamma Mias restaurant chain in our South Shore. Aiello the name of a thriving food store in Quincy. Donna Buccheri’s family emigrated from Buccheri. Rich Busa’s mother and father came from little towns around Messina but never met until they both settled in Everett Massachusetts. YCMTS up. Messina is also a large construction company in the northern Berkshires. Puerto Vanari means Port of Venus at the southern end of the Cinque Terras. My Polish Cioci Blanche married an Italian with the first name of Pelligrino. The village of Potenza -- Sarah Potenza rocked the Ninigret Festival in Rhode Island. Albano, a name from Adams. Falcone, a builder in Marshfield. Floridia -- close enough. The town of Nicosia. Years ago I built a pool in Weymouth for Mrs. Nicosia who couldn’t swim.

During my perfect dinner, at one point loud and clear, I hear a man’s voice from across the room say in English, “It took me three months to complete my swimming pool.” Are you kidding me? I ask Carmen for another glass of wine.

From the very same table, a little bit later, a woman’s voice, probably Italian, says, “In Spanish breakfast is desayuno. In New York it is Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Diamonds for breakfast?”

Then even later, the Eatalian woman trying to push the Mount Etna tour on the man and woman that are obviously a tourist couple. More than likely they are from the States.

I am now warm inside and outside and am heading back to our lovely room. As I cross the room I hear a woman say, “Sir.” I keep walking but she says it again. She motions for me to come to their table of four. She is the significant other of the couple that I think are a couple. They are the same people that I overhear every once in a while.

The woman of the couple says to me, “I was waiting for dinner and observed you seemingly lost in a book. Stopping to take notes. May I ask you what you were reading?”

I answer her question and then tell them all the short bursts of talk that I have been pleasantly overhearing for the past hour or so. I explain the connections.

“You, sir, spoke about how it took three months to complete your swimming pool.” In the Boston area, I built 1181 of them. They cannot believe that with Boston weather families are building that many pools.

Next I turn to the Italian woman and talk about diamonds for breakfast. I cannot believe that I overheard that statement. On Clarke’s Island off the coast of the town south of us is where Truman Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I am rolling after two weeks of blind stares, yawns and blank looks.

Next the Italian woman says, “These folks are from Denver, and are wondering if they should explore Mount Etna.”

“Oh my god,” I reply, “By all means YES.”

I take my leave and stroll back to our room smiling.

He turns, he shoots, he scores.       

Thanks Dale.

p.s.

Perhaps the longest hike/walk the Country Walkers took was between Isola delle Femmine (Island of Women) and the city of Palermo. Roll your rr’s when you say Palrrrrmo. It was fun to learn that the baseball and fishing DiMaggios migrated from here to San Francisco, and that there is more than one Isla Mujeres. Our hike was along the coast, right along the Tyrrhenian Sea. It looked very much like the Greek Islands, but without the pure white buildings. It was eight or ten miles long.

Seventy nine year old Anne from Carmel was lagging behind. I was in no rush, and besides, she and her sister Carla Dean were fun to talk to. So I stayed with them. For further safety, our guide Mauricio stayed with us also. We were constantly reminded that Anne is fourteen months older than Carla. We came in last but why hurry. This photo was taken along the route to give you an idea of what it looked like.

Later at dinner I was asked if I had found the hike difficult, having come in last of the fourteen of us. DIFFICULT! I was caught off guard. Having over 54,000 running miles plus on these old legs, including many 26.2’s (. . . including 8 Bostons -- my last one was in 1996 was the 100th BAA) and a few 100’s and 50’s, with a ton of 30-40 mile training runs, and compared to my solo 200 miler across Massachusetts, “Did I find an eight mile hike DIFFICULT?” Did I fail to mention that Anne is fourteen months older than Carla Dean?

I read stickers on cars. They tell you all about people. Where did they send their children to college: “My $$ and my child goes to blah blah college.” Where have they traveled: “Aruba.” I would always, when on sales calls for swimming pools, check out the future clients’ cars. That gave me an idea of their financial status and told me a lot about them -- size of familia, etc. Refrigerator calendars also tell you things such as who else are they having over for their other bids, if any, and when. Back to car stickers. Have they been to the Nantucket Airport or Alaska? What kind of dog do they have? Do they hug trees? Did they vote for Hillary? Who invented liquid soap? And why? OK, OK, I made the last one up, but after all it is my blog, and there is no law against it. Is there?

In Palerrrmo I asked a shopkeeper on Via Emanuelle what time the opera across the street started. He did not understand English so I pointed to the opera house and sang “la la la.” He said, “Oh! OPE-er-ahh.” Not “ah-pera.” but as in Opera Winfrey.

This Sunday morning I was playing traffic crossing guide for my daughter Kezia’s frozen yoga class. It was 1 degree at 10 am. I stood at the top of our driveway and reminded people to stay on the sanded parts on the icy, steep way down to The Treehouse. Laura, daughter of famous Marshfield storyteller Jay O’Callahan, has a 90.9 sticker on the back of her car. You see many 13.1 and 26.2 stickers on cars around here because of the Boston Marathon. Tom Donovan’s neighbor was making a statement with his sticker that says 00.0  

It turns out that Laura’s sticker is for a Boston radio station but a little farther into the conversation she casually mentioned that she had indeed run a marathon and also rode a bicycle across the USA -- twice. Wow! Awesome. Holy cow! In the service they put medals on your chest or chevrons on your sleeve. Cajun / Zydeco dancers wear tee shirts from Louisiana dances, or festivals, or New Orleans or Baton Rouge, or even Lafayette restaurants that they have been to. And then there are the Emmys and Oscars and oh yah, the Super Bowl. Some people even write personal blogs or have face books, whatever those are. I cannot afford a dog or a face book. Enough about me. How did you like my halfway complete blog?  yCANmtstuffup

Roberto Baconi