Page 52 - A Life - my Live - my path

School - my youth

I wasn't a good student. Not that I didn't have the ability, but
I only thought about playing, far from any thought of work.
My parents didn't pay much attention to me. It wasn't really
customary in a small village in Abruzzo to put the emphasis
on studies when the day-to-day reality required you to do all
the routine work needed to ensure the minimum.
In practical terms, this meant that in 3rd year, when the
teacher gave me a dictation of around ten lines, I made
between 10 and 15 mistakes. In August, I had to take a
remedial course in arithmetic. Everything was very average.
In comparison, my sister, two years older than me, was
always top of her class. She was brilliant!
For me, life was simple. I went to school and tried - when

I wasn't distracted - to understand and memorise what the
teacher was explaining. I'd go home, drop off my schoolbag
and almost immediately go out the back door to play in the
meadows intended for that purpose. About fifteen of us kids
would get together to play marbles, ball games, build kites
and other games of the time. The geography of the place lent
itself well to this. Two meadows side by side, enclosed on two
sides by the miner’s community, on the third by a workers'
housing estate and, on the fourth, by a large field with cows.
My parents were relaxed.
Things were different for my sister. As the girls couldn't
go out, she came home, had a snack and went to her room to
study.
I tried to pretend that my results of 55%, sometimes 60%,
were just memory and knowledge, but I have to admit that

40