Today I was walking with Attilio to the post office because he’d lost his glasses and needed to not mess up a transaction.

As we walked past the area of the ‘Polifunzionale’ – a ‘multi-functional’ building where the post office is, just by the modern church – he told me “You know, back in the day I used to plough all this area of land with my horses. See where the church is? that was all my family’s land, and only we could give permission to build on it.”

“What about where the Polifunzionale is?” I asked.

“Well that land was ours too! all the way to down over there” – and he points towards the area where today’s A&E building is “This was all ours, and it was part of our orchard. The ‘orchard of Paradise’, these islands were called. Oh but you can’t imagine how much food we grew! we had peaches, figs, apricots, almonds, nuts, vines…our wine, it used to get exported! that’s how much we produced. We made an excellent primitivo: 18%! can you imagine?”

No, I can’t imagine. There are still vines growing wild in some of the areas where vineyards were grown, but they’re unkempt and the fruits are too sour to do anything with them. Some people still have vineyards and produce their own wine, but only for personal use. And I’ll tell you, it’s pretty damn good wine!

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