Back in the mists of antiquity, I lived in Sicily for two years. Because there was no housing on base, we lived at the beach in the upstairs apartment of a duplex. Our landlord sold baking supplies all over the eastern and near middle part of the island. But because we were off base there was travel time to and from every day and travel time for me because the working, Naval Air Station, part of the base was separated from the part that clustered together the more dependent oriented fascilities (school, commissary, exchange, rec center, library).
As a consequence we saw a lot of Fiat 500s – referred to locally as the cinquecento (Italian for 500) – on the road. They weighed virtually nothing, indeed, I once saw a 6’2″ tall, 225lb man lift a car with a driver in it by himself move it out of the way so traffic could get around (the driver was being a real jackass, honking, bumping, and in general acting pretty much like drivers would act now if they thought they could get away with it).
On Saturdays I’m usually out doing errands and today I had occasion to be at a local shopping mall when a 1970s era Fiat 500 in black with a big fat racing strip in the flag of Italy’s colors painted down the back over the engine cover (it is a rear engine car) pulled out into the lane in front of me. Seeing it lifted my mood and made me smile.
Leave a Reply