I still remind you of dumb starts. Everyone left on August 1st, there were no saints! Those who left in July were a bit strange people, halfway between the snob and the lazzarone, those of June, then, we don't talk about it!
If you left in June, either you were rich enough to have a house in the mountains or by the sea (and then you spent the summers with your grandparents) or you were so poor and sickly that you ended up in a terrible "climatic stay" organized by some priest or some school. Say what you want but to me "climatic stay" has always seemed to me something halfway between a place of torture and a hospital. And so nothing, the "normal" ones left in August, the first of August of any year.
Down the shutters, outside the "Closed for vacation" signs, on TV advertisements by Tassoni and cornetti and some news reports that talked about heat and deserted cities (which are the same as now).
At home the days before departure was a precise and unchanging spectacle that began with the lunches made in the cellar. Today they would call it a tavern, a local hobby or, better still, open space, but I still call it the cellar. It was the only cool place in the house and Mum used to prepare lunches on the wooden table that could give Dad a little refreshment after the morning on the building site. It was a competition to fill the fridge: there was no water, coke, mint, beer that could moisturize that sunburnt, dusty skin. It was "good times to uncover roofs, pull down facades, fix tinsmithery." said the customers and designers, but the faces of the workers after sunny days on their backs told another story.
Anyway, July went by, slow and blinding... but it went by. The house gradually emptied the storerooms, put the plants in the garden, stacked "things to take with you"as if we never have to go back to that house again.
I remember the first exodus on theblue Alfetta. Daddy used to say "Alfetta duemila" every time and to me, who grew up looking anxiously at Space 1999, it seemed as if that 2eemiiiillaaaa was something science fiction! The three air vents, all those lights on the dashboard, the back seat with the armrest, the briarwood and that steering wheel that you used your whole hand to honk, seemed to me just one step lower than the Enterprise.
In the trunk, Mama could fit the house, including the television, the fan, the meat sauce pot, the beach games and, of course, the suitcases. There was a method, she knew it and no exceptions or objections were allowed, the car loads like this! Daddy came back on July 31st, found the house ready, the car loaded, two girls ready with Barbie's suitcase on the Alfetta's seat and a wife organized with a thermal bag for the Trip: something sweet and something salty to eat in case of nausea, fresh drinks and fruit juices for the little ones.
You'd wake up early "so we carry on while the girls sleep." and in a limbo with no time or space, you dressed, pulled up the bed, closed and checked every tax, tap, contactor and away. I closed the gate, Dad at the wheel. He was my age today while I was writing, maybe a few years younger. He was beautiful.
When Dad was driving, I was quiet. I never thought that something bad could happen to us, but going through those journeys today without seatbelts, airbags and abs and at the speeds that the Alfa engine gave us, I get a bit shivers. But in those first days of August of any year, in that car that was a little spacey, above those seats made of real fabric and not fake leather, there was my whole world: mom, dad, my sister, my Klin bear, Barbie's clothes, the TV in the kitchen, the fan and the pot for the meat sauce.
The rules were clear: all the way to the Galleries, then stop at the first motorway service station. On the way back, a long drive to Brescia, then the motorway service station. My sister and I couldn't wait to get there. Sleeping wasn't enough to make those hours go by. We played a little bit, we counted the cars (whoever saw the most with a foreign license plate won), we listened to the tapes in the cassette player (then walkman, then stereo).
At the Tower of Bergamo you were really on holiday, the factory sheds were no longer there and you could feel the silent melancholy of Dad when he passed by his land in Bergamo and then gave way to that of Mom, when at the exit of Verona South we read on the sign "Legnago". Then no more. Away the melancholy, inside the desire to arrive, beware of the Galleries and stop! It's almost a holiday. The thermos, a ride inside the motorway service station without buying anything."because they cost a lot and they cheat you"and the shifts to go to the bathroom, so you don't leave your car unattended.
Just when you could see the signs announcing Venice and you were already there at the umbrella in the fourth row, always in the fourth row, the real exodus began. The transhumance. In the morning it was getting hot, there was no air conditioning, the Alfa roared its disappointment with every shot. First and stop. First, second, stop. Down all the window to do the last race with the Germans queuing in the van in the first lane. When you started seeing people with their engines off and doors open, it was the end. You were, inexorably, coming to Mestre. All with the same idea of making the smart start, when it's cool, all thinking about moving on while the girls are sleeping.
One year remained in history. Legnano- Caorle, 376 km in eight hours, four of which spent together with the other intelligent people queuing in Mestre. I remember that at a certain point Dad rolled down the window and started talking to the guy in the nearby car. And he was laughing, talking, like he'd known him for a while. And he did! He was the plumber's boy, also cleverly queuing in Mestre. Because together with the TV in the kitchen, the meat sauce pot and the fan, in those early August of any year you could really take away a bit of home and country that you would have found as a neighbor of umbrella.
Those who went to the sea were all there, between the Mestre tollbooth and the Adriatica, some brave people went as far as Roncobilaccio... in line. Then there were those who left for the South, but they were a separate category. They left at night. They left! Finding them in September wasn't guaranteed, but if they came back, they always brought a gift of vegetables and good food. Exodus and counter exodus.
Today I saw that Alfetta again in a museum in my town and soon it will be the first of August of any year again. I will travel on that motorway leaving at an intelligent time, traveling in a safe car in my safe life, I will retrace with my mind the stages and half stages that have always marked the journey, on the back seat will sleep my son, I will have a cooler that I will not even open, because 376 km I do them in a pull, because those Galleries, are little more than an underpass, because in Mestre there is no longer a tollbooth, but an intelligent passer-by. But always and forever, I will think about that space Alfetta, full of all my world and thinking about how much "baggage" I lost onthe road, I will feel a little bit dumb, travelling in my intelligent car.
Laura, journalist and speaker, found inspiration aboard a blue Alfetta 2000
