My Twenty Years in Italy

David Scott

Description

The author describes how an ignored alarm clock led to meeting the love of his life, and eventually three children. He shares his experiences doing business in the Common Market, communist countries, the Middle East and Africa from 1961 to 1980. This book is based on lengthy Christmas letters widely shared with family and friends annually from 1961 to 1980.

Sujets

• Personal Memoirs
• Biography
• Autobiography

Informations

• Publié par: Outskirts Press
• Date de parution: 02 novembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781977259516
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

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My Twenty Years in Italy How Opera and Skiing Changed My Life All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2023 David Scott v2.0
The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.
This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Outskirts Press, Inc. http://www.outskirtspress.com
ISBN: 978-1-9772-5951-6
Cover Photo © 2023 David Scott. All rights reserved - used with permission.
Outskirts Press and the "OP" logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: How it all began in an Italian neighborhood
One: 1961: Luca Pacioli Accounting, The Tax Audit, and the Merlin Law/Berlin Wall Misunderstanding
Two: 1962: My Lucky Day and Our Honeymoon in Greece and Turkey
Three: 1963: Paris, Spain, Amalfi Coast, and a tour of the Alps
Four: 1964: Sardinia, the Palio, and the Venetian Regatta
Five: 1965: East Africa
Six: 1966: A Change in Status and A Visit to Naples
Seven: 1967: Gary arrives - Complete with dual American and Italian Citizenship Papers
Eight: 1968: Labor problems in the Naples factory and business in Israel
Nine: 1969: Valeria arrives, Gary starts school, travels from Capri to Hong Kong
Ten: 1970: Exploring Russia
Eleven: 1971: Gary’s first day of school, Sicilian Fish Soup, and doing business in communist countries
Twelve: 1972: Visit to Orsara Di Puglia and Pickpockets in Naples
Thirteen: 1973: Au Pair troubles and more adventures in Sardinia
Fourteen: 1974: Robin arrives and a trip to Nigeria
Fifteen: 1975: Nigeria and the Two-Step Viper
Sixteen: 1976: Jordan to Timbuktu
Seventeen: 1977 - Business in Saudi Arabia, Vacation in Sardinia, and the Houseboat Adventure
Eighteen: 1978: Lydia becomes an American, Claridge’s Hotel, and Yemen
Nineteen: 1979: Are there crocodiles in Lake Como?
Twenty: 1980: Bulgaria
Conclusion of my 20 wonderful years of working and living in Italy
Acknowledgements
This book is dedicated to my beautiful and talented wife Lydia Vergani whom I was fortunate to meet and marry 60 years ago. She is as beautiful today as she was when I first met her at the early morning bus stop in the Piazza of the Sforza Castello of Milan.
I am grateful to my older daughter, Valeria Scott Laitinen for her editing and organizational help in completing this book and sorting through our photo albums to locate the images that support my story. I also appreciate the editing work of my younger daughter, Robin Scott in the early versions of the book.
Also, I extend my thanks to my friend and teacher of computer technology Nancy Little. Without her help in understanding the rapid growth of computer technology I would have not been able to complete this project.
Last but not least my thanks to Maia Laitinen, my granddaughter, for her expertise in proofreading the final manuscript.
David Scott
Introduction: How it all began in an Italian neighborhood
This book is a collection of twenty annual Christmas letters written from 1961 through 1980 for relatives, friends and classmates from my Harvard College class of 1951 and Harvard Business School class of 1953. It covers a great romance, three children and a fascinating career in international business.
The story of my exciting twenty years of living and working in Italy as an adult has its origin in the first 7 years of my life. We lived in an Italian neighborhood on the north side of Chicago, half a block from the beach on Lake Michigan and about a half a mile south from the Edgewater Beach Hotel. This area was not far from the headquarters of the famous Italian American gangster, Al Capone. In our apartment building lived several families of Italian descent who had recently escaped from the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini.
Our Italian neighbors were proud of their Italian heritage and believed Mussolini to be a disaster. They were pleased that in World War I Italy had been allied with Great Britain and America. They were impressed that my father had driven an ambulance as a soldier in the English army, allied with the Italian army at the Battle of Caporetto. That famous battle was on the Austrian-Italian front, south of the Brenner Pass. My father had been wounded when an Austrian shell hit his ambulance. An Italian soldier, Corporal Dante Fiorelli, had pulled him out of his burning vehicle and carried him to an Italian field hospital saving his life. My dad honored Mr. Fiorelli by naming his second son (my brother) Dante.

Young Dave (standing) with his mother, Eva, and brother, Dante
Because of that episode, I was welcomed as part of the Italian gang of kids in our neighborhood. Most of them were very musical and the boys had no inhibitions on singing anywhere they happened to be, whether walking on the streets or in their apartments. From time to time they, and their fathers, would burst out singing Italian songs at the top of their lungs. I learned some of their beautiful songs. One of the songs I particularly liked was Funiculì Funiculà, about going up in a funicular ski lift to the top of a mountain. I also liked the song about the Bay of Naples and fishing near Sorrento.
We moved out of that jolly neighborhood when I was seven and I missed my enthusiastic Italian playmates with their lack of inhibitions. On one wall in our Chicago apartment, we had large poster of the Sestriere ski area in the Alps between Italy and France. It was a beautiful picture of the mountain ski area and its famous 15-story round cylinder hotel. In the foreground was an attractive smiling couple on their skis. The girl had beautiful blue eyes and blond hair who looked very happy. She was smiling at her handsome escort. In the background was a funicular cab on its way to the top of the mountain crowded with skiers. When we moved out of Chicago to the northern suburb of Winnetka, we took that poster with us and pinned it onto the wall in our staircase landing. I looked at it every day.
My father was a professional musician, a concert soloist, and later became a piano and voice teacher. There was classical music constantly in our house, from Mozart to Donizetti to Verdi to Beethoven and Puccini. I started taking violin lessons when I was 4 years old. I was particularly fond of Vivaldi and his compositions about the four seasons. Because of those early music lessons, and competence with the violin I was offered a scholarship to the private school in our suburb - North Shore Country Day School. They needed a violinist in their orchestra and my complete fully paid scholarship was from the 8 th grade through High School.
When I got to college as a freshman, my musical background resulted in a lucrative part time job. First tenors were in low supply for the Church Choir. My voice hadn’t changed yet and, while still a first soprano, I was hired by the church to sing tenor at the Sunday morning services in the Harvard Chapel. The pay was excellent and covered the cost of my annual college room rent for each of the four years of college. This job exposed me to early Italian church music which I enjoyed as much as the later Italian opera. With the help of an English student, Arthur Shurcliffe, and Herb Lobl as stage director, I co-founded the Winthrop House Gilbert and Sullivan Society, producing Trial by Jury , H.M.S. Pinafore , and Yeoman of the Garde . We used the Winthrop common room and rented folding chairs for the performances to packed houses. The G & S club later moved to Agassiz Hall and still draws full houses for its performances.
At that time World War II had ended with the defeat of Germany and Japan but the war continued with the Chinese Communists under Mao advancing into Korea. I volunteered to join the Regular Army in October of 1946. My Army unit was stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Half of the unit was sent to Korea and half was kept in reserve at Fort Dix. I was in the half that was trained as part of the reserve and experienced no battle action. After a year and a half at Fort Dix, I was discharged as a Staff Sergeant with a sharpshooter designation. My score at the rifle range was so high I thought the soldier to my left was shooting at my target.
After finishing my formal education, a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy in 1951, and a master’s degree in Business from Harvard in 1953, I decided to accept the challenge of Horace Greely who said in 1865 "Go west young man to seek your fortune." Following his advice, I purchased a 1938 Plymouth Coupe with a rumble seat for fifty dollars and headed west to Denver, Colorado. The motor of the car could start with either an electric starter as well as a crank, which was a useful as a back-up for cold weather. I realized what a wonderful climate Denver had with 300 days of sun. In just two hours one could be in the Rocky Mountains with good hiking, antelope hunting and skiing. A Sunday lift ticket at Winter Park was $3.00. If you had the time and money, a lift ticket at the excelent slopes of Aspen was $5.00 a day. There were also several rivers with rapids for canoeing within 2 to 4 hours of Denver, and with a group of friends we had fun running the rapids of Colorado.
To satisfy my musical interests I was delighted to find in Denver a semipro Grand Opera Company. It was founded by several businessmen who hired Dr. Antonia Brico, a talented musician and orchestra conductor, to produce full costumed and trained grand opera for the Denver public. This group hired one professional opera singer each year that increased the quality level of our enthusiasti