How often does our mind go back to the happy years of our childhood? I see myself as a child while I walk to school alone with my backpack. Back home after class, a good plate of soup awaits me that I eat with my sisters and my parents.
My poor parents were always dreaming of seeing here my two brothers who emigrated to Venezuela. They wanted to seek a better life but above all to help the full family.
Thanks to them and to the economic boom too that exploded in these post-war years, we had a fridge in the house and then, with great joy, the television also arrived. On Sunday, my mother prepared a special lunch rich in spices, her ragù or meatballs. I used to steal some of them from the cup before she finished frying all for lunch time.
Nowadays I see how the poor dishes prepared by my mother: broad beans and chicory, parmigiana, stuffed eggplants and many others, are proposed today by great chefs in the best restaurants around the world. I continue my journey through memories seeing myself again. Sometimes I remember how I played with my little friends in the street, under the watchful gaze of my mother from the window.
How I was the happiest boy while playing hopscotch and then got tired of this game after a round dance where we played hide and seek. After some decades the technology came, and slowly we lost our simplicity. The games that taught us solidarity, altruism and the beauty of being together have given way to the individualism of modern games.