A beautiful place.... for the Fiat and its many uses

In Italy, panorama viewing counted as a bonafide activity, as much as going to the theater or out to dinner. In fact, the question, "Vuoi andare a un bel posto?" -- Do you want to go to a beautiful place? -- was the Italian equivalent of the American boy's invitation to a drive-in movie.

No viewpoint was left unmobbed by groups of friends and pairs of lovers, especially on summer nights. Whereas the average American viewpoint might be surrounded by safety railings and interrupted with signs warning you not to get too close to the edge, and etched display boards narrating the view, the Italian scene featured clumps of viewers perched on a low parapet gesturing wildly while talking amongst themselves, and passionate couples on the verge of writhing themselves right over the wall.

On any night of the summer, the road up to a viewpoint was lined with cars. You had to park way down at the bottom of the hill and walk up. The first time I was walking up to one of these viewpoints with a group of friends past all the lined up Fiats, I noticed that many of the Fiats were wiggling. I mean visibly, unmistakably, hilariously wiggling. "Ragazzi. Ma queste macchine si muovono." (Hey look you guys. These cars are wiggling.)

Then I noticed that many of them had newspers taped over the windows. It turned out that even up here the scugnizzi had found a way to reel in a few lire. The scugnizzi (the gn is pronounced as in lasagne) were the street urchins of Naples, unschooled and uncorralled, running around everywhere fulfilling invented needs and holding out a dirty hand for coins. You could barely turn your head around Naples without seeing one. A tram would go by and there'd be one attached to the back of it like a tree frog, for a free ride. Out here on the hilltops they approached occupied parked cars with newspapers and tape in hand, selling the scarce commodity of privacy. In a culture where an apartment of one's own was hard to come by, people had to make do.

So those were the entrepreneurial scugnizzi. But then there were the bad scugnizzi -- doesn't every population have its rotten apples? A favorite stunt of the evil ones was to slink by in the darkness and light a match to the newspapers covering one of the wiggling Fiats -- causing the occupants, no doubt at the zenith of their wiggling, to come bursting out of their car in a semi-clothed panic to attack the flames with their cast off apparel or whatever was at hand.

Coming soon: Favorite Italian pastimes within the Fiat milieu

OK, the votes are in: We'll be staying in Italy and moving ahead with a combination of the first three choices.

My! For a bike blog, there sure is a lot of interest in what goes on inside of a car.

Seat Belt Usage in Italy, Part 2

In the early eighties some nebulous Italian entity got it into its head to impose seat belt laws.

Some of you may be familiar with the rules-are-made-to-be-broken mentality that permeates the Italian culture. You sophisticated ones will recognize that I am not just spreading slander about a whole population of people. I am merely addressing a well established phenomenon. I can't explain where it comes from. If you look at one Italian at a time, you find the whole range of people types, just like any other population. But for some reason, when you put them all together on a long skinny peninsula, you get mayhem. The Italians discuss this endlessly amongst themselves, and they can't explain it either.

At first, the seat belt laws were taken no more seriously than other laws. Another opporunity to break a rule sent the whole population into squeals of hilarity. But then something happened -- something so freakish it was almost creepy. The authorities had the audacity to actually enforce the seat belt laws.

Rumors spread wildly about people being pulled over and fined horrendous amounts of money for lack of a visible black band stretching diagonally across their bodies. More and more people had a story of their own to tell. It wasn't long before it had happened to someone you knew.

The people were outraged. The further south you went, the more outraged you found them. All over you could overhear animated conversations about how ridiculous it was. On people who drove an older car, namely everyone, it placed the enormous burden of having seatbelts newly installed. In Naples, they wouldn't hear of it.

Leave it to the Neapolitans to come up with a solution. A cottage industry sprang up there that produced knitted sweaters with a black diagonal band across the front. You could buy a sweater for each side of the car, the driver sweater with the band going one way, the passenger sweater with the band going the other.

You and I might wonder: "Wouldn't it be more hassle to put on a certain sweater every time you got in the car than to just put on the seat belt?" But you and I would be missing the point -- the micromanagement, keep-your-laws-off-my-body, don't-tell-me-what-to-do, POINT. So there.

I'm not sure how Italians today, almost thirty years later, feel about wearing seat belts. Perhaps they've come around; maybe they put them on automatically, without even thinking about it. Maybe an Italian will write in and let us know...

Meanwhile, think about whether you want to keep hearing about Italy in the seventies. I could cover:
Other uses of the Fiat 500.
or:
The search for privacy in an overcrowded nation.
or:
Lines used by Italian boys to lure girls to secluded areas.

On the other hand, if you're bored with all that, you could ridemyhandlebars back onto the MAX train for a peek at my longitudinal study on:
Heterosexual Mating Rituals on Public Transportation

You decide.

The History of Seat Belt Usage in Italy, Part 1

I know that among those of you who are American, the thought at the forefront of your minds as you've been reading these last few posts has been: "Are they wearing their seat belts?"

The answer, as you might guess, is: Not.
Or, more accurately: What seat belts?

Did those cars even come with seat belts? I'm not sure what Fiat was doing in those days. But if cars did in fact emerge from the factory with seat belts, the belts were so unused that they withdrew into the recesses of the seat's crack within a few weeks of purchase, never to be seen again. Until.

(more later...)

The downside of Italian Cliff Driving

The trip down from the ski resort a couple of days later unfolded at a remarkably accelerated pace from that on the way up. The Italians didn't worry about the possibility of rear ending anyone on these roads, since in a typical example of Italian style team work, they all drove at exactly the same speed.

Every few kilometers there was a pullout carved into the wall side of the road where the carabinieri would pull people over for speeding. (Don't ask me how the logistics of this would work on a skinny two-lane cliffside road -- I have mercifully forgotten.)
Since they couldn't pull everyone over, they would randomly nab whoever was speeding by them when they finished issuing the ticket to the previous person. Luckily, on that particular afternoon, that was us. Though Elvio was visibly bummed, I on the other hand felt deeply grateful for a fifteen minute interval in which death was not a serious possibility.

The cop takes Elvio's license and walks back to his patrol Fiat. Elvio turns to me and asks if I have any cash (something he never, ever did, he always paid for everything). I check my pockets and turn up 5,000 lire (about $5.00, which would've been 15 or so in today's money). He adds it to some cash of his own and finally the cop comes back and hands Elvio a ticket through the window and tells him the name of the nearest obscure mountain village where he can pick up his license when he shows up with the absurd amount of money written on the ticket. Elvio asks the cop if it would be cheaper if he just paid it now. The cop executes a shoulder shrugging, eye rolling, hand gesture combo, accompanied by the Italian version of the word Duh, which I can't possibly reproduce in writing. Elvio hands him the cash and the cop walks back up to his car and retrieves the license.

In Italy the road cops take your license away when you commit an infraction and you only get it back when you show up with the money for the fine. This means that after issuing a ticket the cop watches as you drive off without your license, thereby committing another infraction. Such is the logic of the Italian mind you've heard so much about. (Things may be different today, but why would they be?)

Elvio revved up the washing machine and we resumed puttering down the hill at a much reduced speed, along with other drivers slowed down by the increasing frequency of the carabinieri along the road. Elvio said that besides saving a scandalous amount of money, we'd also spared ourselves a long road trip back to find the indicated village where we'd have to disturb some lone employee of a carefully hidden motorized vehicles office who would rummage around a while looking for the confiscated license and would eventually tell us to try again another day.

Next: are any of these people wearing seat belts?

Cliff Driving, continued...

While the Italians are famous for slowing way down at the table, that doesn't happen on the open road. Is it a backlash from having to drive bumpety-whippety-jerky style the entire time they're in the city? Maybe. The reason hardly matters -- the effect is an insane level of risk.

Are the Italians afraid on the little mountain cliff roads? No they are not. Why not? because on each curve there's a convex mirror mounted on a pole, making it possible to see what's coming around the corner. Why worry? What more could you need?

Since the way to Roccaraso was uphill and we were riding in a Fiat 500 washing machine, we didn't go horribly fast on the way there. That gave me plenty of time to gaze out the windows and take in the stupendous views of the terrain we might land in if we or the opposing drivers failed to make one of the curves. Against a foreground of crosses and memorial shrines marking the departure points of previous travellers, the expansive panorama was made fleetingly more expansive at periodic breaks in the masonry guard rails.

Next: the down side of the trip

Cliff Driving

Italians are skilled at building roads on the sides of steep cliffs, having developed infallible methods over the centuries. (Did you know that a bunch of Italians were brought over here to Oregon to build the Old Columbia River Highway?)

The mountains of Italy are snaked with these roads, barely wide enough for two cars to pass. On one side you have a cliff going up, and to the other you have the cliff going down. If you depart from the road, those are your options -- into, or off of. You might think that with that kind of margin for error, the Italian would become, at least temporarily, a different kind of driver, but you would be wrong.

It's too late at night for me to go on, but at least there's your introducion. To be continued....

In case you missed it......

....the link to La Donna é Mobile? The one that I provided in the post about Elvio? In case you think you're not familiar with that opera -- I'd bet my left earlobe you'll recognize it when you hear it. (Elvio had a way better moustache, and needless to say, I'd never go out with anyone in those pants....)
Here, I'm giving you another chance, before we move on to cliff driving. Turn up the sound so you can hear it -- unless you're at work, in which case turn it up so everyone can hear it.

Crazy but not stupid

The one precaution we took was for Elvio to park the motorcycle down the road by the church when he came to pick me up. We may have been born yesterday, but not the day before yesterday. We could safely hypothesize (see? safety wasn't the absolute furthest thing from our minds) that for him to come roaring into the courtyard of our building on that thing would be unpopular with my parents.

They weren't microparenting enough to notice that on some dates we strolled out of the courtyard on foot instead of puttering out in the little Fiat. My parents had way too many kids, most of whom were misbehaving horridly, to focus in on any of my innocuous details. They were much too other-preoccupied to wonder, Hm, where's Elvio's car? Why would he choose to park out on the street where it's impossible to find a spot when he can be guaranteed a spot in the courtyard?

I'm lucky that since we usually went out in groups, the motorcycle wasn't the default mode of transportation. I'm lucky that he probably shared that thing with his two brothers, so it wasn't available as much as it could have been. I'm lucky that when we went up to the mountains to go skiing, the vehicle of choice was the Fiat.

Up in the mountains, quite another kind of safety challenge was underway. While far away in another hemisphere tourists were flocking to Acapulco to witness the famed cliff diving, Italians were engaged in an even more extreme sport, known only to themselves and the occasional scared witless American.

Come with me to the cliffside roads of Italy and experience the chilling wonders of Italian cliff driving.

The other vehicle

The thing I loved fourth most about Elvio was that he was not unduly preoccupied with being a man-man. Gender roles were all a big joke to him. He was prone to burst into song, usually mock opera, changing the words from Joe Green's Rigoletto, "La donna é mobile," which meant basically women change their minds at the drop of a hat, to "La donna é un mobile," which meant woman is a piece of furniture. Everything was lampoon material, including trends, social mores, male competitiveness -- and the like.

That's why I found it so peculiar to discover how crucially important it was to him to own a motorcycle the size of a horse. Equally perplexing was how he could've afforded such a thing in his sketchy state of employment. Somehow he acquired the thing and began showing up with it when we went out by ourselves. It took every ounce of his strength just to push it off the kickstand, but once he got it rolling, he was in hog heaven. There was no mention of helmets. What was the use of being on a motorcycle if your friends wouldn't recognize you roaring by with your hair flying in the wind and a girl on the back?

In reviewing my mental strategy for consenting to passenger-hood during my Italy years, I now recognize that it's exactly the same attitude one adopts when climbing into the buggy of an amusement park ride. Does one say, Where's my helmet? Does one say Do you have a license for this? Does one say Have you had safety training for this? No. One hops in willy-nilly with the unquestioned assumption that if this thing weren't safe, it wouldn't be allowed to operate.

So that's what I did. I hopped on, willy-nilly. I trusted the Italian driver to know how to drive like an Italian. Today I wouldn't. Today my mature mind would go further, and notice that Italians have ambulances and hospitals and graveyards just like everybody else, and that would be an indication of something.

We did take one small precaution, however.....

Elvio and his vehicles

Elvio was my buddy during the Naples years. The thing I loved most about Elvio was that though everyone thought he was My Boyfriend, he was in reality: Not My Boyfriend. The thing I loved second most was that as long as everybody thought he was My Boyfriend, he had the decency to be handsome, molto simpatico, and hilariously funny. He was thin, but not in an anorexic kind of way. He wore a perpetual look of amusement on his face, had thick wavy black hair, and a compulsion to twirl the corners of his mustache between his thumb and forefinger.

Grazie, Elvio, for being there next to me so that all those tiresome other boys would look elsewhere.

The thing I love third most about Elvio was that having him made it possible to go out with the person I really wanted to be with, namely Lucia. Lucia had become horribly unavailable to me since she'd started going out with the loathsome Paolo.
This way I got to hang out with my two favorite people, Lucia and Elvio -- though unfortunately nothing could be done about having to endure Paolo.

Elvio had the car that most other Italians had then, which was a Fiat 500. Though these Fiats were the size of washing machines, there was no limit to how may Italians could stuff themselves into one -- at which point they would roll up all the windows to protect against la corrente, and light their cigarettes.

Later I can explain how it is that half the population of Italy was conceived in these cars. Remind me. But at the moment the topic is vehicular safety -- which I would gladly continue with presently if not for the fact that I've run out of time.

Cultural Attitudes toward safety equipment in Italy

My friend Carla was visiting a few years ago. She stayed at my apartment and used Portland for a base to travel out from, usually by herself, which was gutsy of her since she doesn't speak a word of English. For a few days she went up to Seattle and took the obligatory ferry ride. While waiting for departure, she stood on the deck watching the scene on the dock. She saw a hefty woman ferry worker standing there, holding a line, getting ready to push off. When she got back to Portland, Carla made a great show of itemizing the safety equipment that bedecked this ferry worker: Hardhat! Life vest! Flashlight! Whistle! Construction boots! Radio! etc. "If this were Italy," said Carla, "if the passengers on an Italian ferry saw someone that prepared for disaster, they would stampede off that boat so fast!"

To the Italian way of thinking, what could it mean but that the dock workers knew something they weren't telling?

I often think of the Italians as I'm layering on my gear, and I can hear them laughing from across the big water. For more about Italians on safety, I could tell you about Elvio.

How I learned to drive

Actually there are two parts to this story: 1. Driving Lessons, and 2. Driving Practice.

As for learning, there wasn't that much to it. I knew beyond a doubt that I didn't want my parents teaching me. My mother was a self-avowed non-teacher, and my father drove like a maniac -- and I don't mean that in a good way. Not like one of the colorful Italian maniacs I was discussing yesterday, but more like a general, all-purpose, universal, one-size-fits-all, certifiable maniac. A hazard to humankind all over the globe for the entire span of his career. I don't say that out of disrespect, but out of respect for the truth. People can have their faults, but after a certain point it's one's duty to warn others.

I could say a lot of good things about him, but at the moment the topic is driving. My mother tells a story about a Neapolitan traffic tangle in which a madman leaps out of another car and prances around my parents' car in a rage, wielding a hatchet. Even the first time I heard the story, my reaction was that the man probably had a good reason.

When I was about 32 he ran a stop sign through a busy street with me in the passenger seat. I looked to my right to see three lanes of cars screeching to a halt beside me. Pop didn't notice, but continued merrily through the intersection without a scratch.

I suddenly realized for the first time that I had a choice. I don't know why it took me that long. I made a silent vow never again to ride in a car that he was driving. I never told him that -- it would have hurt his feelings -- I just silently arranged it.

Next I'll do part one, Driving Lessons, and after that I'll do part 2, Driving Practice. Part 2 is a little hairy -- some of you may want to close your eyes.

Why I didn't learn to drive

My last teen years were spent in Naples Italy, where I held these truths to be self evident:
1. To drive there successfully, you have to be insane.
2. If you're going to be the perpetually frightened passenger, you will become insane.

I slipped into the role of the relaxed, unfrightened passenger, and kept my sanity. By the time I actually turned 18, driving age in Italy, I was majorly not interested in taking the wheel. My parents were fine with me being stuffed into smoke-filled Fiat 500s with six or seven Italians and being driven around by maniacs. Neither I nor my parents worried, because clearly these people knew how to drive like maniacs correctly -- unlike the occasional American or German driver seen on the streets, immediately identifiable by their attempts to drive cautiously, causing near accidents right and left.

I left Italy at nineteen to attend university in Oregon. I lived in the dorms and had no need or desire to drive anywhere. When I eventually moved off campus I got a bike. By this time I'm about twenty, so now you know why I hadn't learned to drive thus far. I thought I was safer not driving -- until I travelled about a couple thousand miles southward. That's where I changed my mind.

The next episode will reveal: Why in the end I finally did learn to drive.

Standing in the rain learning about water

I went on a bicycle field trip on Saturday. I want to show you just what Oregonians will do. You put on an event that involves spending several hours under a downpour, and that’s educational, even, and people not only show up, but stick with it to the bitter end.

This would not happen in Italy. If people saw one raindrop when they got up that morning, that would be it. If they showed up and it started raining later on, they would run for cover (some even emanating a scream while doing so) and/or grab any item whatsoever to hold over their heads till they could get to shelter. Then at the first break in the rain they would flee, back to their dwellings.

The reason I know this, and the reason I often compare Italians and Oregonians is because I happen to have spent most of my youth in that grape land, so its people are with me always. Not to mention a few other peoples in whose countries I spent the rest of my youth and some of my adulthood.

The rainstorm that was predicted for last weekend finally arrived this weekend. Being a long-time converted Oregonian, I went on the field trip anyway. It was called Cycling the Well Fields. At first I thought this meant that our fields were “well” as opposed to “ill,” but I soon figured out that the two words go together, and the word “well” is a noun being used to modify the word “fields” to indicate the kind of field they’re talking about. In summary, it was a tour of our drinking water system in Portland and how it works. I have lots of pictures. Today’s just the intro. More tomorrow.