1938

With Ted Thorne having most kindly taken over this column for me in my absence, it may well have occurred to some of you that the least Briggs ought to be able to do is to send in a report on his life and times a Firenze as a shortterm ex-patriate.

Well, let me describe one day.

A couple of Sundays ago it was a beautiful day, as the vast majority of them have been, and I went to church, at San Giacomo's, a) because it's the only English-speaking church in town, and b) because Giacomo is my name in Italian, and my name while I'm here (though many of my fellow-parishioners looked some startled when the very nice minister's wife introduced me as "Giacomo Briggs").

I went to church by bus - one bus and then another - and it's lucky I started an hour ahead, because the maybe 20-minutes riding time took just about that hour, since buses run pretty infrequently here on Sunday, on the presumably proven theory, I suppose, that more people go to work than go to church. As a matter of fact, it seems to me that during my going-on two months' stay here, day in and day out and not just Sundays, I've spent a lot of time waiting for buses; and it further seems to me that, if you're not in a hurry, as I've tried not to be, there are worse ways to pass your time than waiting for buses, in this lovely city. Generally public transportation here is excellent.

The household where I've been living, an apartment, is only two blocks from the municipal football (as in soccer) stadium, and Florence plays at home alternate Sundays, and there was a home game on the day I'm describing.

Molto affollato as in plenty crowded was the bus I finally got on, but a good-tempered banner-carrying crowd. I seem to remember garlic on New York subways, but I've noticed it not at all here. And fellow-riders are mostly very kind and courteous to people with canes.

While I've been here I've gone to one game, and darn near froze to death (good football weather, as in football, it was that day, and the game ended in a disappointing 0-0 tie), but on the Sunday whereof I write I'd been invited to dinner with an Italian family who had been host to a Dartmouth student here studying Italian last fall. The family are thoroughly delightful and simpatico folk, and it was a completely heart-warming experience - another star in the crown of Dartmouth and her foreign study programs.

Other guests added more Dartmouth connections, as one was another member of last fall's Dartmouth group, who has returned and is now studying at the Universita per Stranieri at Perugia, and another is a foreign studies product who is currently traveling through Europe during his Dartmouth term off. (I forgot to mention that San Giacomo's, the church I attended, provided classroom space for the Dartmouth group in its undercroft last fall and will do so again, I believe, this year.

Furthermore, the chairman of the church's board of trustees told me when he learned from whence I came - home town, not college - that the now installed bell in the church tower was bought from a Maine antique dealer some 20 years ago. Where in Maine. Damariscotta! How small the world is!

Friends and family write and inquire about my contact with and reaction to the "Italian political upheaval." Without head in sand I can honestly say that I'm hardly aware of it, and far more importantly, for better or worse, it seems to me that the vast proportion of the populace doesn't know or care either. It's an oversimplification, I know, but still a person could almost say that, in Florence at least, the working people work - and very darn hard; the University students demonstrate and protest, from time to time; and I don't know what the politicians do, through their activities are reported at length in many newspapers and posters and flyers. I dutifully watch II Telegiornale della Sera most every evening and sometimes I get the gist, and sometimes not even that.

Secretary, Box 187 Damariscotta, Maine 04543

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