Practise makes perfect?

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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!


Back to class...

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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?




Home study...

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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…

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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...

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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…