Unless grave or urgent news emerges the rest of the day will be lighter fare, spleen having been vented.
Let me begin with a tale of two Americans, May Day 1965, Turin Italy.
This is a true story; names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Jack and Ann married in April 1965. Jack was in his late 30’s and his firm was doing very well, he found his soul mate, life was good. Jack had a surprise wedding gift for his pretty new wife, a Mercedes-Benz 300 SE Cabriolet convertible. Their honeymoon plans were for a leisurely drive from London to Venice, stopping where fancy took them. In London he apologized, but they had to divert to Frankfurt to take care of some urgent business, but they would be off to Paris in a few hours.
They arrived at the MB factory delivery shop where Ann was totally bowled over. This car is still a beautiful object of automotive art. The SE Cabriolet was the epitome of luxury at the time and more than a little ostentatious. The honeymooners didn’t care if it screamed “rich Americans”, they were in love and caught up in the moment…off they sped to Paris and beyond.
Jack and Ann arrived in Turin at Noon, the streets seemed very deserted, but that was a godsend for Turin’s maze of streets can be very confusing to navigate. Soon they were hopelessly lost having missed the connection to Milan. They slowly drove down ever narrowing streets into a working class neighborhood. They heard a band playing as they turned into a large plaza with a round-about with a dozen streets shooting off in all directions. The charming plaza was ablaze with beds of red flowers, a small reflecting pool at the center.
Jack pulled over next to the plaza as Ann scanned the map, deciding which street to take as all hell broke loose and tens of thousands of May Day Communist Party marchers arrived in the plaza. They stopped dead in their tracks, quiet for a minute. Then a man with a bullhorn screamed something in Italian, which Jack took to mean “Get them!” as something thrown bounced off the windshield and the crowd surged towards the car.
Jack never hesitated, looking over his shoulder, he threw the Benz in reverse and backed over the plaza, churning up the flowers, through the reflecting pool, making a “bandit” turn on the other side, tires screeching and sped off down a side street with a mob of angry people chasing, throwing debris and shouting.
When they stopped to catch their breath and look at the car many miles away, the Benz had a few minor dings and a clump of bright red tulips caught in the rear bumper. They laughed, hugged and got the hell out of Turin.
We heard this story when we accompanied them on a working vacation along the same route in the late 80’s. As we approached Turin, we toyed with the idea of finding the plaza and having a bite to eat nearby, but we were driving a rental MB and Jack has a very distinctive appearance, only slightly changed as his blond hair turned silver, we decided memories might be long.
I've always wondered what the Italian version of the incident must be, as they watched their plaza churned up by a foreigner in a car that represented the ruling class they so despise.