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<< people of colma yesterday

PIERANGELO SPADACCIA (by Roberto Morbelli)
 

Actually, he was a smart guy. You couldn’t but love him!
I remember him, a few years older than me, blonde, but, above all, he had the genes of his mother’s family and played almost all musical instruments; his drawings were impressive (on the wall and the ceiling of the oven in Villa Maria are still visible some ‘graffiti’ signed by him.
It was specialized with drums, and, together with Claudio Ariotto, he taught me to play the guitar.
We played Duane Eddy, the Shadow and the Beatles and early successes of Equipe 84. His enviable voice allowed him to enchant many girls at that time.
 

The Fantomas

He was the chief of the band. He was just a step behind Anita who, even then, showed the chromosomes of the leader. At the point that we were allowed to smoke the first cigarettes "Fiumitricina atteragis", as an alternative to "Balena", only after its approval, in his hut built in the woods of Villa Maria.
In summer, he helped his father in the building activity; in the evening, I waited for him to spend a few minutes before dinner, sitting on the steps in front of my house, listening to his band’s adventures. I was 3 years younger than him, and the difference between me and him was only given by experience, basically sexual, real or invented.
Pierangelo knew how to catch our attention, mine, Franco’s, Piero’s, Claudio’s and Gianni’s, the youngest: he told us what he wanted to become.
We built a rope cable, with Remo’s rope (my mother wanted me to eat it), from the terrace of Villa Maria down to the garden. Then, he took the guitar and we all felt on a stage with hundreds of fans. As he could play so well!
 

The marble plates on the pillars at Villa Maria still show the signs of carbine compressed air that he taught me to use.

How many times he gave me a dressing down for being too arrogant to my mother … he acted as the brother which both of us didn’t have.

He confided me of unpaid love or hindered by the families and I felt proud of being the refuge of his problems. Today, they just deserve a smile.

He was a strong boy and he could go wherever he wanted if, that summer afternoon, he was not betrayed by his killer, the River Po.

I was at college in Tradate, and my father came to me on a working day expressly to give me the news, that I had just learned from a letter by Luisella, not filtered by the Rector. I remember that he cried, he loved him as well.

Dear friend and teacher, I will never forget you.

PIERANGELO SPADACCIA (by Anita Rosso)
December 25, 1948-June 1, 1967

Maybe it was the newfound peace after years of dark and terrible war, maybe we were a sign of renewed hope in the future, the fact is that in that year, 1948, in Colma six children were born.
Three males and three females; the first, in January, Sandro, myself in June and then Germana, Ornella, Beppe and finally, on the Christmas day, Pierangelo. It was certainly the record of birth for our small community.
We went all together to the primary school, in Garriano; nobody accompanied us down towards the Cappelletta. We were relaxed and free to make troubles. The school bus had not yet been invented, but we didn’t feel the need for it.

We shared everything, school, leisure, disputes, games, summer evenings, frozen feet, snow puppets, cherry trees on which climbing to steal, catechism classes at Castello d'Uviglie with Sister Anna Maria, missionary of Consolata. She waited for us on the door, worried about our constant delays, but, as you may know, in spring we had to stop here and there to collect primroses and violas or to turn somersaults down the slopes on tender grass.

Then, some moved to the town; times were hard, our parents had to scrape for a living. And so the group grew fewer. In the morning, the ones remained gathered in Roveto to catch the "corriera", the bus to Casale, for high school. Morning and evening, winter and spring. In holidays, even those who had moved came back and the group increased again.

Pierangelo - First Communion

Now teenagers, we spent our summer at Villa Maria. Pierangelo had a great passion for music, playing the guitar, harmonica, but the drums were his love. How many afternoons and evenings spent in the garden playing the songs of the Beatles, Equipe 84. In the sixties, in the late afternoon the radio was tuned to "Yellow Flag". Then the first record player, and in the evening danced in the lawn of the "oven" at the sound of "The house of the rising sun", "A chi" and many others.
The need to be together, to share feelings and passions … this is how the "club of intellectuals" was born. A room in the Castle of San Bartolomeo, given by the Ariotti family, where even in the bad season we could get together. We organised our first New Year party there. Then, the first motorbikes, first loves.
Pierangelo was full of life, he played in a band, had a girlfriend and attended the high school.
His anxiety for living was stronger than ours, perhaps a presentiment. Some still studying, some already working, all chasing our own destiny.
Pierangelo’s destiny waited for him on the banks of the Po, in that warm 1st June '67. The great river had not mercy of his young life, not looked his 18 years full of hopes, led him away in a moment. It came back to our minds that someone said "who dies young is dear to the gods". But in those days, still shocked, we hated the Gods who had taken away a part of our lives.
 

First Communion – People of 1948