Why not Switzerland?

I think only New Zealand would challenge Switzerland in a competition called "where I would live if I could, not counting the U.S.A." But I wonder. . .

Varese is very close to Switzerland - about 10 miles to the border. People go there to shop all the time, and the Swiss come here. Like in most border situations different things are cheaper on different sides of the border.

CaJacob is a Swiss name (as is Straub, Susan's last name). I spent a year in high school in France but very near Geneva, so I visited Switzerland often, and have several times since. In a word, for me, Switzerland is difficult.

Switzerland is very small - a third the size of Ohio. It would be the 42nd largest U.S. state. It has about 7 million people, double the population of Oregon, 2/3 that of Ohio. It would be the 12th biggest state in population. This means that it has a very high population density, all the more so for the fact that about half the country is mountainous.

Despite a very warlike history - they were famous mercenaries - these days the Swiss like to stay neutral. They just joined the United Nations in 2002. They are not in the European Union. They are not in the Coalition of the Willing, although I think the Marshall Islands are, and I know Italy is.

Although an old democracy, they are not exactly progressive. Women just got the vote in 1971. (Swiss-like little Liechtenstein held out until 1984!)

The country has four native languages: 64% of the people speak German, another 20% speak French (they call the line between the two regions the rösti trench, after the delicious hash browns that the German-speakers love.) Another 5% or so speak Italian, in the area near Varese. About 60,000 speak Romantsch. CaJacob is a Romantsch name - "Ca" = casa for "house", so "house of Jacob." I have visited our ancestral village and people there actually do speak the language and hardly any German or anything else. But I'm afraid Romantsch's future is bleak as an independent language.

This Italian canton, Ticino, is isolated by mountains from the rest of the country and has strong affinity with Italy. Ticino, with about 300,000 people, is on the Southern slope of the Alps and has a much nicer climate than the rest of the country. It is startlingly beautiful. Big, deep, blue lakes, clean-looking mountains - stunning. So a person might wonder: why not live here? Italian restaurants and Swiss toilets? Doesn't sound so bad.

Not so fast. Ticino has a bit of an identify crisis, it seems. Are we Swiss? We don't get the respect from the French Swiss, much less the German Swiss. Are we Italian? No, not really - much too untidy for us.

Switzerland has a lot of rules for a democracy. I joke with my German friends that Germany is the place where "everything that is not forbidden is mandatory." Well, the more I learn about Switzerland the more that label seems to fit better.

Here is a partial list of common rules in Swiss apartment buildings:

- Linen must be aired on a specific day.
- No loud parties, and your neighbors get to decide the definition of "loud."
- No toilet flushing after 10 p.m.!!!

The list goes on.

But it's not that simple. We spent a fun weekend with Susan and Barbara Straub's old friend Chris Luisi in Zürich. Yes, it's true, I got what I have to believe was a scolding from a gentleman speaking Swiss German about how I parked my rental car. I'm still not sure what I did wrong, although I'm sure he's sure. But Zürich is nice, not just efficient, or beautiful, or logical. It's nice. Human-scale. High quality. Walkable. Excellent transportation. You could live there, if you could afford to.

Still, I'm finally ready to admit that my friend Jim Caldwell is a neater person than I am. There must be others. With that chilling realization I must face the very real possibility that Switzerland might not, after all, be right for me. 

Great moments in Italian - American history: the final deliverable

. . . after what must have been weeks of work, the relief was finished. I've seen it, while sitting back in a chair in the Oval Office during one of my many meetings - no, but I did get to peek in twice, thanks to my eldest daughter's spelling prowess.

Look carefully at the two images. Apart from being white and not having the surrounding text, notice anything else?

The plaster relief has fifty six-pointed stars. The "official" version has five-pointed stars. This issue is actually addressed elsewhere - the original spec for the very similar Great Seal of the United States does not specify five or six points, but tradition has held five.

I'm pretty sure the spec that the Italian artist was using did not include this detail.

(And this would be delicious rumor-fodder for the many, many conspiracy theory websites that claim the New World Order is being orchestrated from within the White House. You see, the Star of David also has six points, and the number of the Beast. . .)

This little story has an important message for those of thus in the software industry, as well as for those who get paid for creating anything for anybody else any time. 

Great moments in Italian - American history: the specification

The best stories are true.

This is a picture of the Presidential Seal of the United States. Each president has the right (and, I assume, the budget, although I think this might come from donations) to redecorate the White House. President Ford didn't like the fact that the Seal was in a carpet in the Oval Office, subject to wear and tear and grime. So, he commissioned that a plaster relief of the Seal be created in the ceiling of the Office. After what must have been a thorough search, an artist from Italy was retained to create this. (I don't have his name, but I will spare no effort to find it!)

Continued above. . . 

A touch of home

Mirella has watched a lot of Baby Einstein videos and the Noggin network in her life. Susan took the considerable trouble to record several hours of Noggin (starring Maisy the Mouse, Connie the Cow, Miffy the Rabbit, Oswald the Octopus, you get the idea), and we bought this little DVD player. So far the baby hasn't been bored by the repeats and doesn't mind spending some time most days in watching DVDs from her portable play pen, or up close. 

April 1944 - continued

I found the "war diary" (http://www.norfield-publishing.com/449th/wardiary.html) of Lieutenant Damon Turner of the 449th Bombardment Group of the 15th Air Force. Here is his entry of April 25, 1944:

"Today's mission was abortive. When well on the way to Varese, Italy, the Group encountered bad weather and returned without bombing. Some of the departments have organized softball teams. Those inclined toward athletics have every opportunity to pursue their interests. The Eyeties look with amazement on the effort expended in developing baseball diamonds."

When I was stationed in southern Italy we called the locals "Ee-tals." I checked with Geoff Haley, whose brother Paul is stationed in Iraq. I knew that there must be a mildly derogatory name that our troops use for the locals, and it turns out to be "Hajis", apparently after the turban-wearing Sikh sidekick of Jonny Quest.

This little entry captures so much for me. In England, in North Africa, later in in southern Italy, these airmen lived life where building a baseball diamond was a priority. In England, they rode bikes around the East Anglia countryside.

Then, at the crack of dawn, the pilots, navigators and bombadiers, in other words, the officers, would muster in a big room. They would be told the target of the day. The news would be met with groans or maybe half-hearted cheers. Imagine the rumor mill that must have been churning in those days. Earlier in April 1944 the 15th Air Force had conducted murderous (on them - close to 50% losses) raids on oil refineries in Romania, had flown all the way to bomb Vienna, and so on. You have to assume that few if any had ever heard of Varese until that very morning.

The crews (about ten in all, the rest being gunners) would clamber aboard. The group would take off - lots of racket, smell, general commotion. Probably a plane or two on average of the thirty some would abort the mission for some mechanical reason.

Then, hours of silence. The majority of the people stationed there would not have been flyers: cooks, MPs, mechanics, clerks. The missions probably averaged eight hours or so - quite a bit of time to work on a ball field, write letters home.

Then, someone in the tower would signal the groups return. They would look and begin instinctively counting. . . we've seen the movies.

That night, probably some empty bunks. Some letters to write home. How could the Colonel find new ways to say "your son's plane was seen to be hit by enemy flak. Although no one actually saw any chutes, we were all a little busy at the time and there is a good chance. . ."

Del Kenyon's family probably got such a letter.

The case of the missing adorable little hat - Part II

After the park, we walked into the pedestrian area. One of our favorite activities is chasing pigeons. Then, on to a pizza place that Liane Croce, our landlady, had recommended. In the pizza place I noticed, to my horror, that the little hat was missing. It wasn't stuck in Mirella's hood, or in any of the 31 pockets in the stroller. I was very afraid that we had lost it in the playground, which was a little walk back uphill. I cleverly remembered having taken this picture, which clearly shows the hat present in the cathedral square, on the head of its rightful owner. So we retraced our steps and, sure enough, there it was.

While walking home I happened to notice the same hat flying, not tumbling, out of the side of the stroller. Circumstantial evidence and various eyewitness reports (well, actually, only mine) suggest that this was not an accident but the local questore seems reluctant to prosecute. 

The case of the missing adorable little hat - Part I

Andate via!! is Italian for "Honey, why don't you take the little one and get some fresh air. Please, take as long as you like."

So I walked Baby Girl down the the public gardens, which has a fun playground with a little train one can ride (not so little that it can't haul me around), and, as you can see, a playground.

Please note the adorable little hat on our favorite swingset tester, and see the following entry. . . 

Soccer is big business

There is a big debate about which country's soccer league is the strongest, with Italy, Spain, Germany and England as contenders. The big teams have the largest sports merchandising revenues in the world, and pay the top salaries to attract the best players from all over. When the national teams of Brazil and Argentina assemble for the World Cup and other big competitions most of their players fly home from their club teams in Europe.

Here a shop features jerseys with the names of Milano's current heartthrob strikers: Inter's Adriano, a Brazilian, and AC Milan's Shevchenko, a Ukrainian. 

Fan violence Italian style

Fan violence is in the news: Artest and the Pacers. Clemson versus South Carolina. I remember high school in the 60s - there was some serious violence, often with an ugly racist element.

We've all heard about soccer violence - up to and including deaths in riots in various otherwise civilized European countries. Tobias Jones in his interesting The Dark Heart of Italy (thanks Aunt Jean) introduced me to the worst example I've heard of. In 2001, some fans of Inter, one of the two Milan powerhouses, (a)stole a motor scooter from a fan of visiting Atalanta, (b)somehow, nobody can or will explain, smuggled it past legions of police into the huge San Siro stadium, (c) set it on fire and (d), chucked it over the rail of the upper deck on to the lower deck which was fortunately empty. By the way, this was at the end of the match, with Inter comfortably ahead 3-0.

Corriere ran a piece on this and other charming incidents this week. In another, fans of Roma's Lazio team unfurled a banner that must have been 30 feet long, in two rows, that said: "Auschwitz is your country and the ovens are your homes."

Even for the Italians, words fail.
 

Taste of Varese

Like many towns, Varese has a monthly open-air market featuring "artisianal" products from around Italy. Here Virginia Paroni, who, like her husband Ezio, has been a big help to us in many ways, is shopping for olives. 

Power shoppers

We walked several miles to a store Susan had heard about. Mirella and a young Italian colleague patiently waiting, watching store-provided cartoons. She handles these long treks in the stroller very well. 

Milano's mall

The entrance to the Galleria, just opposite the Duomo. Beautiful marble floors, expensive stores, excellent people watching, especially while navigating a stroller. 

Going Gothic

We had lunch on the top floor of the Rinoscente restaurant. Note the ornate Gothic architecture of the massive Duomo, just across the street. We met a nice woman from Iran here. 

Second cutest baby in Europe?

We met Maya, from Berlin, in the Milano Duomo square. 

First train ride

Varese is within commuting distance of Milano. On Saturday, 11/20/2004 we hopped our E line bus to the Varese station and rode in to Milano on the private "Nord" line. This was Mirella's first train ride. 

Texas - Italian history

Susan is from Texas. In Texas, young people take, starting in grade school, Texas History. As I understand it, the history of the rest of the U.S. kind of goes into the "Fertile Crescent" group of obligatory but boring chapters before you get to the good stuff, i.e., the Alamo (remember the Cottonwood)?

Well, here's one for you Texas History (Lone) stars out there. Benito Mussolini's parents named the cute little tyke back in the late 1800s after Benito Juarez!

"O" the humanity

No, you cannot convert English into Italian by simply adding an "o" to the end of the word in all cases. However, it does work in some amusing examples. Here are a few, plus a sprinkling of other fun-sounding words ending in "o".

resto - the rest, your change
corno - horn, ice cream cone
blocco - block
lardo - cured pork fat, like bacon with no streaks of meat
squallido episodo - squalid episode
spruzzo - spray
struzzo - ostrich
oroscopo - horoscope

. . . and a current favorite

stinco - shin, or shank of an animal. The famous osso buco is a recipe for veal stinco 

Night of the Living Deadbolt

Becky and Gino dropped us off late after a fun evening at Virginia and Ezio's apartment. Neither Susan nor I could open our door. We both realized that if a thief had climbed in through a balcony window the first thing he (OK, OK, or she might do would be close the deadbolts from the inside. So, we called Becky and Gino to ask them to pick us up and strategically withdrew. After spending the night (Baby Girl got major quality time with Luka and Sophie, the pets, and with "Ba-ba and Dio") I met Liane Croce, our landlady, and Massimmo, the locksmith. A couple hours later all was well, although no one is sure how the deadbolt took on a life of its own.

Massimmo, a nice guy who speaks good English, is on his way Monday to L.A. for a kung fu session with his "guru."  

Recon of the North Face

The North Face of via San Vito Silvestro 82, in Varese, Italy, presents a classic problem, kind of like the one Clint Eastwood faced in The Eiger Sanction, where his normally emotive features were mostly hidden by a dorky climbing helmet.

From Base Camp at 281 meters, the classic route leads across the "balcony" cornice, a rappel down an 89 degree incline known as the "facade", then across the summit field to the 32 cm "Mirella Step" and into the Rosty e Frosty Pizza e Gelato shop.

Rumors of a "backdoor" route using the stairs or elevator from #4B would require a lengthy trak around the entire building and are to be considered impractical without a large team of native porters. 

Why the fascination?

I'm not a hawk. I'm a dove.

I spent four years in the Air Force, during the wrong war (Viet Nam). Not convinced? Please read A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan and let's talk. There have been other wrong wars, declared and undeclared, before and since. (By the way, doesn't the Constitution say "Only Congress declare war?" I guess the Patriot Act trumped that little technicality.)

By the way, I was nowhere near a combat area and the scariest things that happened to me were when my swivel chair got all squeaky and when the air conditioning broke in our "compound." Well, actually Sergeant Benvenides in Basic was pretty scary and he definitely happened to me.

By all consensus, World War II was a "good" war. The Italians were definitely the bad guys. But, as in all wars, "The Italians" included babies, grandmas, pacifists, dumb conscripts and, yes, Mussolini, blackshirts, zealots, war heroes, cowards, and all the rest. The human side of this B-24 / Varese story is very, very interesting to me however. Thanks to being here and to the Internet, I will speak (electronically in one case) to human beings who, through very little choice of their own, were tied together on a day in April, 1944.

Vern Kennedy, a 76 year old former Pan Am pilot knows "Del" Kenyon of the crew, and expects to see him tomorrow at an emphysema support group they both attend! He will pass on my comments and hopes to get more information.

The operational report

Here is the verbatim operational ("S2") report from the mission of 25 April 1944:

DATE: 25 April 1944

TARGET: VARESE, ITALY - AIRCRAFT FACTORY

29 B-24''s took of to bomb Varese. 17 dropped 43 tons of bombs on marshalling yards at Ferrara, Riomaggiorie, and Piacenza.

FIGHTERS: Ferrara hit, bombs fell short at other targets.

FLAK: Slight, inaccurate, heavy at all targets.

FIGHTERS: 26 enemy aircraft attacked. After 30 minutes, attackers broken off by P-38's.

CASUALTIES: 2 B-24's by fighters, 10 chutes seen to open. 4 B-24's missing. 6 received minor damage by flak. 2 crew members wounded by flak. 2 crew members bailed out of #205 as plane went into a spin. Our Claims: 2 ME-109's, 1 FW-190 destroyed.

***

This explains why Varese was targeted just five days later.

The crew lost over Varese on 25 April 1944

No longer faceless. Rear Left to Right, Adolph Ramus - Gunner, Joseph Leohowicz - Gunner, John Green - Gunner, Joseph Camera - Radio Operator, Joseph Goree - Gunner; Front Left to Right, Robert Barry - Pilot, lmer Proctor - Co-Pilot, Alex Dier - Navigator, Warren Miller - Bombardier. "Del" Kenyon, who's memoir I found, was on leave.

All but one, probably co-pilot Proctor whom Kenyon saw severely wounded in flight, survived by parachuting from the plane and spent the rest of the war as POWs in Germany. 

Warren Miller

Warren Miller, the bombadier on the Varese crew. He was trained in the same small base in West Texas where Geoff Haley and I studied codebreaking and endless games of pinball. 

In formation over Italy

Formation flying was dangerous on its own, much less when being shot at. 

B24 over Northern Italy 

Attacking target

Bombs from B24s of the 450th Bomb Group striking a town (maybe even a target) in Northern Italy. During the air war in Europe, over 95% of bombs dropped by heavy bombers landed more than 5 miles from their target. 

Alpine logistics

Italy is a country of almost 60 million people. As a keystone member of the European Community, it depends heavily on road and rail communication with the rest of Europe. As the satellite map shows, the Alps present an almost perfect barrier between Italy and the rest of Europe. (This is why George Lucas was apparently so impressed by Hannibal's invasion of Italy across the Alps with elephants in tow).

Tourism alone is huge. I read on a BBC that one in ten tourists worldwide visit the Alps! Every few years Italy enforces speed limits more stringently (everything is relative) and causes a furor in Germany.

This also explains the network of massive tunnels piercing Mt. Blanc and others. This is very controversial. The tunnels are dangerous. Several have head-on traffic and the Mt. Blanc and St. Gotthard tunnels, the longest road tunnels in the world, have each been closed for months after horrendous fires following head-on accidents involving trucks. These long closures were documented to significantly improve quality of the nearby, fragile environment. And the European countries, including Italy, are much more politically "green" than the U.S.
 

Update - shot down over Varese

On October 31 I posted a note (Distant rumblings) about our very block in Varese being bombed by the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. I mentioned that one plane was lost on April 25, with it's "All American" crew, who probably considered it a "milk run."

After more research, I found this memoir from Gunner "Del" (at least according to the Germans who created his POW ID card) Kenyon. And yes, they thought it was a milk run. . . Check out his journal at http://www.geocities.com/vmken/450thBG.html.

***

30th Mission

My 30th bombing mission was my longest, one year and five days. Damn, what an exciting flight that was! Target, Varese, Aircraft Factory, Milk Run. "No fighters, no flack. Just drop your bombs and fly home." Of course, I knew they were joking. Take off time April 25, 1944, 09:02.

"Pilot to crew", is what I heard. "We're going to take a ride in this big ass bird." So, we're cruising along about 180 mph at 18,000 feet. About an hour from target I lowered the ball turret and climbed in. That's when everything went to hell. I heard the pilot scream "Fighters 12 o'clock!" Then we were hit real bad. Sounded like someone hit us with about a 100 feet of heavy chain. I looked out to my left and saw someone sail by my turret. I thought to myself, I sure hope I don't know who that was. (I did know... it was the co-pilot with his leg shot off below the right knee) I got out of the turret and opened the door to the bomb bay. Looking toward the flight deck through a red mist I saw the sitting on the catwalk ready to jump. The red mist came from all the blood that was leaking out of him. One of his arms was all shot up and I thought I saw some holes in him. Made me real nervous as I knew that bullet holes allow the soul to escape. I went back to the waist and told the waist gunners to open the camera hatch and get out. I put on my chest chute and headed for the camera hatch that's on the floor in the back.

The tail gunner was almost to the hatch facing me, when that big ass bird went up on its right wing in a hard right turn, throwing me to the floor on my face. I was struck by centrifugal force --couldn't even get on my knees. The tail gunner fell on his back and I could hear him screaming. He was stuck as bad as I was. I thought this is it. I'm going down with this damned thing.

By really stretching I managed to get a couple of fingers hooked to the lip of the hatch and slid out. I was off oxygen too long and woke up tumbling backwards and I didn't remember to pull my ripcord to open my chute. I was all curled up and my mind told me that I was stuck up there. I glanced down and saw this shiny thing on my chest then I remembered that's what opened the chute. I yanked on it and the chute opened. With a 28-foot chute and being pretty light, I didn't know if I was going up or down having nothing to Judge movement by. I really thought I'd be up there for the rest of the day.

Looking down, I could see three trucks coming along a road full of men. When they stopped some of them jumped out and started to shoot at me. I could hear the bullets buzzing by me. Poor shots --lucky for me.

I was on a hillside about a mile above them. I buried my chute with one dog tag, then took off up the hill and headed for some brush and trees hoping to hide out until dark. It didn't get dark and it wasn't long before a guy came up to where I was hiding and put an automatic rifle to my head. Geez, this is the end for good old AWK (Adelbert W. "Del" Kenyon)! I don't know who was shaking the most, him or me. He probably thought I was armed, I wasn't. More men showed up and slapped me around some then drug me down the hill. Some of the other crewmembers had also been rounded up. Don't know why they were so upset we weren't going to bomb them. I guess they were sore at us for bombing their factories, airfields and everything else.

A little later they turned us over to the Germans. We ended up at Verona and we were put in solitaire for three to four days and interrogated. After a long train ride we ended up at Stalag Luft III and I became Kriegsgefangenen (prisoners of war) 4213. 

Meeting point

Piazza Monte Grappa has this big fir tree ("la pignone") in the middle. It is next to the "pedestrian area" - cars mostly forbidden - and is a common meeting point. It is also a main bus stop. Finally, on those few occasions when we've rented a car, it has always been a relief to see la pignone because it means that we weren't hopelessly lost after all!