mercoledì 24 luglio 2013

Sports.

I miss sports. Let’s be clear : I still watch sports of any kind on TV, luckily for Aiste, who isn’t hooked on TV and who can then take a break because in front of any sports programme I become a fossil. What I miss, is doing sports myself. I’ve always felt an attraction to sports in general and, to tell you the truth, I was quite good too. I’ve played a lot of soccer more than anything else, but also sky and golf. I’ve so many stories to tell about soccer. It was a way for me to top the salary I made working in my dad’s business. The clearest memory : the call I got from the « Mister » (for me capital M Mister is Tom, please other friends/misters, Popi and Maurizio above all, don’t take offense). A few years before I had stopped playing professional soccer, that is for money, and I was playing amateur soccer : in those championships you get a lot of kicks but no money, but you have the considerable advantage of playing with friends. The Mister asked me to go play for Suzzara, the team he coached, in the « eccellenza » championship with the goal of becoming professional. For me it meant jumping 5 categories at once and I didn’t know if I was up to it, but I did it for the Mister. Result : we made it to C2 series, and I got to play the crucial match, in Sottomarina. Talking about skiing, I never understood if it was the excuse for taking trips with friends or the other way around. Anyhow, I’ll never thank Dad enough for « forcing » me to learn skiing when I was 4. Strongest memory : (please friends from holidays in Selva di Val Gardena and San Martino di Castrozza don’t take it bad) : off piste skiing at Cervinia under the circulating ropeway with my Dad, my brother and the guide, a friend of dad’s, who worked at the weather service there. From Plateau Rosà to Plain Maison, passing through Cime Bianche. I felt at one with the ski run, which wasn’t actually a run at all, because we were going through fresh snow, obeying to the strict instructions from Mr Guidetti, considering the constant danger of ravines. Unique sensations for a 10-year old boy who, for a couple of hours, felt he had the words in his hands. Golf. The sport of my old age, I thought. Tried it in L.A. in 1984, and it was love at first sight. Back in Italy I enrolled in Verona’s Golf Club, feeling lucky because it was close to Mantova. But I saw at once that I didn’t fit. Fellow members from Verona were jerks and didn’t accept me because of my town of origin. I lost interest. Then I met Aldo, a guy from Verona but with a totally different attitude, and golf started to affirm itself in dozy, lazy Mantova. I don’t have to search my memory much to find the most moving instants that golf gave me. They are also the memories of my last holidays before the arrival of « the bitch ». Biarritz and Marbella, the two places where those wonderful holidays took place. But they are still open sores in my mind. And not because of you, Nick and Adriano, but because of what they represented in my life. I can’t think about the spectacular greens with breath-taking views, nor about the unforgettable dinners, especially at Rekondo’s in San Sebastian, with that magnum of Petrus, the smell of which still intoxicates me today. The only memory is that horrible morning, when I got up and I couldn’t speak clearly. I thought I was hung over from the night before. I didn’t know it was the beginning of the end for me.

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