Cars – Part 1: The 70s and 80s
The other day I was parking the car in front of my place and I thought of how much I actually like driving. Especially on my own, no passengers… so that I can sing and also let my brain wander, think, remember, plan, come up with ideas. Odd, huh? Then I started thinking of the first car I had, the first car I drove or the first car my parents had when I was a baby. Indeed, when the brain wanders, it does wander for good.
The first car I remember was my parents’ Peugeot 104. We called it Carolina (pronounced ‘carolee-na’ in Italian) and it was of a very light blue chromed-metal color. We moved to Tunisia with that little car. I have a bunch of photos of the whole family stuffed in the Carolina: around Italy, on holiday at the mountains (Dolomiti)… We even toured in the oasis and the Tunisian desert. I remember we got stuck in some desolate little village in the far south of Tunisia returning back from the desert, looking for a mechanic. Some part was broken, I don’t recall which part though, I was maybe 8 or 9 years old. But sure it was a very funny experience, although I bet my mother wouldn’t define it the same way.
Another nice photo of Carolina was taken in Kerkenna. We were there with one of my father’s colleagues and friend and his wife. They had a Lada Niva they bought before being deployed to Tunisia as well. That day in Kerkenna we were driving on the very flat beach and Marino, my father’s friend, started making loops and turns, supposedly trying the 4-wheeler. He got stuck in the sand after 3 turns. Our 2-wheeler Carolina saved the day. Not before having taken a photo of the stuck Lada, however.
We only had one real accident with Carolina. That was in Tunis at a big crossroad near the Passage supermarket that is (was?) in the same neighborhood of the Pizzeria Ai Parioli (they had the bestest Pizza with tuna in the whole town!) and the theater where I saw “The Empire of the Sun”, with Christian Bale and John Malkovich. I was already a movie fan not even 10 years old. Anyway, that day my mother was driving back home from dropping a friend home after a tour in town where we accidentally met Giulio Andreotti (yes, I even shook hands with him, sigh) and someone passed a red light. My mom stopped and the guy behind us splatted his car on our rear. No one got injured, just Carolina had a flat tire and some badly crushed part, we couldn’t move the car from the center of the crossroad. My father still jokes it was all Andreotti’s fault because da man is hunchback and that doesn’t bring good luck, haha.
The other accident-non-accident with Carolina happened in Milan, early 80s, before moving to Tunisia. My mother was parking in front of our building and I absolutely had to show her something on the comic book I was reading. “Hey mom, look!!!” and put the whole magazine in front of her. *Craaaasssshhh* Woops, mom hit the streetlight. The damage wasn’t big at all, but the doorman was cracking himself up. If you recall that day to my mother, she’s still pissed at me.
The very first car I probably got in, in the late 70s though, was my grand father’s Renault 4. I loved that car because the gear wasn’t sticking out from the bottom part between the seats, it stuck out from the front. That was so cool, I thought. The car was bright white and the interiors where dark-khaki leather. Grandpa decided to stop driving in the mid-80s because of his diabetes. He believed he could be dangerous for others, so he stopped driving. When I see old people driving like Mr. Magoo, grrrhhh, it really pisses me off they don’t understand they can harm themselves and others too.
Back to the Tunisia years, Carolina died in ’88 and my parents bought a dark blue Peugeot 405 Station Wagon. Wow, that was really *huge* compared to the Carolina. Thus we called it Carolona (in Italian, -ina means ‘little’, while -ona means ‘big’). How clever, huh? A year later we moved back to Italy with Carolona on the ferry. I don’t have many memories about Carolona, just that we had the Tunisian license plate and it took quite a while in Italy to be given the Italian one. Ah, bureaucracy, red tape, call it whatever you want.
(to be continued…)
