In a small village in the land of Abruzzo, GIULIANO TEATINO in the province of Chieti, located between two valleys at the top of one clayey spur rises right at the end of this, almost wanting to take flight towards the blue Adriatic sea, the paternal house where I saw the light in a rather unusual way ... I will tell separately ! From here began the extraordinary adventure that, step by step, led us to Rome. You see the map of these places .
The native village
Images of other times . ... The black and white!
The image of my village. seen from the highest peak, just immediately the ancient access door, at the height of the town hall, the road - Via Roma - then continued descending rapidly, with two churches , one on the left and the other on the right (semi-destroyed), the Post Office with the public telephone, and ended right at the end in a large open space where the buildings that were part of the houses of paternal grandparents and ours, and from which two paths branched off which, bypassing the spur, descended and from which the peasants came up on feast days.
The roadbed was made up of pebbles placed at best, with bricks at the bottom vertically to form a herringbone that collected rainwater towards the center, like a small canal, to make it flow towards the clearing at the end of the road , but which became a small stream in winter!
And on this steep descent, with wheelchairs self-made wooden three wheels with ball bearings, we threw ourselves at full speed, and inevitably the front wheel sooner or later got stuck crushing our hands, and destroying our racing cars ....
The table of the Russian doctor ....
Panoramic view of the village of Giuliano Teatino after the landslide of 1844 , which destroyed half of the town during the night. So much was the rain that fell for days and days, that the clayey part of the ground slid towards the valley floor, destroying all the houses except one, which miraculously remained intact, but at the bottom of the valley! And via Piave disappeared
All the right side of Via Roma slipped downstream. You can see a bell tower and a tower. Of these I have no recollection, probably destroyed during the war ....
Speaking of war, all the inhabitants were displaced in Teramo where, so that I will tell separately , father and mother met .. and it was the beginning of an adventure that lasted a lifetime, and beyond.
This is the view from the western side (saved from the landslide that brought down the whole eastern part) of the part of the town called "Fuori la Porta", because it is located beyond the arched travertine door which is right on top of the left side. Here, on via Piane, there was the Tax Officer, the Grifoni, the ice cream bar of Cascione in a vaulted room (how cool from the cave !!), the grocery store where I sometimes sent myself (with Mum's apprehension) to buy spaghetti (long to break wrapped in half with a sheet of yellow paper) .
In front of it was the butcher shop of my friend's father Toto ', Camillo's oven (his son went to elementary school with Mamma and became a great chemical engineer), the slaughterhouse a little hidden behind the oven.
But above all the wall with a smooth smooth concrete surface on which we kids played with the clay shapes taken from the source that was at the end of the road that can be seen going down to the left. They were modeling themselves some kind of clay cups and banging them hard face down
This is the old spring, from which a very fresh and thirst-quenching water came out.
And being the only possibility of supplying fresh drinking water, our dear and unforgettable Angiolina (serving food and accommodation .. !!) did nothing but load basins and basins (copper ones but inside .... ..) on the head from the source at home for everyone's needs .. and we were many !!!
This is a paragraph. Click here to edit it and add your own text.
Here we took the clay to then play with it on the wall. They made cups, or cups, of various sizes and made themselves "explode" by throwing them with force from the open part against the surface of the wall, and the opponent had to repair the gash with his clay .. more the gash was large and the more you were good.!
​
Speaking of drinking water, I will tell you this episode of my dear Santa when he was a child. In fact, one day progress brought running water directly into the house through the pipes of the municipal aqueduct. They set up a nice wash-house with a big tap on the wall, from which the water to drink finally gushed .... Well dad absolutely did not want to drink that water, which according to him (it was bad because it "came out of the wall" .. .....
Giuliano under the snow
Although located at a relatively low altitude, it often snowed and abundantly when the bad weather came from the sea, that is from the distant countries of the East .... And there is an old saying that goes like this: When lu nuvule comes from mountain, pia the hoe and go to lu guadagne, when lu nuvule comes from the marina, pia lu sacche and goes to lu muline.
This is the complex of buildings that were part of our various homes. all at the end of the country. The beautiful courtyard on which they overlooked was partly covered by a pergola of bluebells which in summer gave us a refreshing shade, and under which, after dinner, we all recited the Holy Rosary together, while on the opposite side rose two beautiful mulberry trees secular. And under one of these my dear grandfather Nicola, called Nicoli ', had tied a goat to get milk for me, a sign of love and ingenuity of a unique and unforgettable man as it was for all of us.
But about him, about the grandparents, I will talk to you separately in more detail.
​
And who can forget the spectacle of the rising of the moon down towards the sea. At dusk, a beautiful red fireball emerged from the sea and rose into the sky. And we enjoyed this show from what we can consider the last outpost of the country, which unfortunately during the war was used by the Germans to place their long-range howitzers during the famous battle of Ortona . Which caused tremendous damage to our family, and which I will describe separately in more detail. And of this enchanting position, from which you could admire the valleys, the vineyards below, the sea, I remember the perfumes, the red moon, le fireflies.
Memories of the paternal house
When I was a child, the whole façade on the right was completely covered with ivy .. just think the branches as thick as trunks had also penetrated inside the large hall on the first floor, which was accessed from the main door by means of a finely covered staircase. On the right you can see the arches of a ruin that has remained so until today. And from this side you can see our "bridge of sighs" which joined the two wings of our houses. and in the one on the right I lived with my parents, Lidia and Francesco, and my little brother Ezio. And I remember that in a room, through a very narrow spiral staircase you climbed the "dovecote", from where, when I was sick, the grandfather took a pigeon and Donna Annina made us a very good broth that helped me to heal (ant, a garden and a vegetable garden, lovingly and expertly cared for by the grandfather, also called "Sciorillo"
And the path to go down to the valley towards the countryside or farms entrusted to sharecroppers (the Soccio) the "Vallone" side passed right under this "arch". And when on Sunday and on holidays they went up to go to Mass or to the Cellar, the peasants stopped here to change shoes, and put on the good ones of the feast day.
I also remember from here we descended and then went up on the other side of the coast to go to the Madonna della Neve district, on the occasion of the feast dedicated to her. And I was going home happy because they had bought us the flying propellers (tin propellers who slipped into a twisted rod, and threw themselves hard upward. But inevitably after three or four take-offs, the propeller was irretrievably lost. And we kids, now experts, we made it up with the tin of cans of peeled tomatoes.
Here is how the complex of buildings that were part of the birthplace looks today, at the end of Via Roma. But I can assure you that back then it was all a riot of flowers, fruit trees, perfumes, looms for tobacco leaves left to dry in the sun, of wooden spase where the tomato puree thickened in the summer sun to become a preserve, the real one ... the one that a spoon was enough to season spaghetti for everyone ... in short, a real Paradise. The buildings were not white, but brick, the classic color of the houses of the time. And in the clearing that can be seen at the back, partly covered by a pergola of bluebells, and with on the right two large mulberry trees around which the procession of the Patron Saint St. Anthony of Padua turned to return to the Old Church (another thing of which I will speak to you separately), I played with a piece of wood, with sand, and with the imagination .. which was then our real playmate.
To the right one of the ruins was a small chapel. The landslide brought everything on the right of Via Roma down to the valley ..!
And speaking of spaghetti .. I will tell you separately how they were forced to eat them once they returned from displacement!