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CHAPTER NINE
The romantic springs of Potenza frequently recur to my memory, with the reminiscences of picnics, field festivals, dances, carnivals, student concerts, in which I took active part, and little love affairs, the last one ending tragically with the death of the one whom I had idolized in fervent little sonnets and whose loss I mourned for a long time.
After I left Potenza, my attachment for the Vecchione family increased with distance. I went to see them at every opportunity and their dinner table was always set for me. When my finances permitted it, I always remembered them, next to my family, with adequate proofs of my affection.
Visiting Potenza for the first time again in 1921, I felt a deep void in my heart as the old couple had passed away in the preceding couple of years. Their children had gone to Naples and fallen into distressing poverty and illness. I did everything in my power to help them morally and financially, but it was to no avail. Why was fate so cruel to such a fine, wholesome family?
Going back briefly to my school record in Potenza, I received both the gymnasium and lyceum diplomas without final examinations, as that was a special reward given to pupils who had high average marks during each year of the course. I had also enjoyed the privilege of privately tutoring a few boys in Latin, French and Algebra, for which I gained a little pocket money, but most of all the satisfaction of seeing those boys break their inferiority complex, after helping them over certain basic hurdles.
The requirements of the lyceum and upper gymnasium were rather exacting and many pupils had to repeat classes or drop out. Only two of us came unscathed through the entire eight year period: Tordela and myself. In the third year we were joined by Ernesto Papa, who was repeating the class through carelessness, and by Manlio Molfese who came from another school.
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Papa and Tordela were both from Potenza. Papa was the eldest of a bevy of ten. His mother was a school teacher and his father a civil employee. The refectory table was always in action. I particularly remember the large bowls of kernel corn with which Papa’s mother often treated us, after study period.
Tordela’s family were the honest, simple, white-collar folks.
Tordela, Papa and Molfese were about three years older than I was. At the beginning, they tried to hen-peck me, but didn’t get the upper hand. We became the four musketeers, “all for one and one for all.” Our financial and living status being nearly equal, we studied together most of the time, compensating each other’s deficiencies and planning our little strategies. Allow me to boast that we spearheaded every class, in study as well as play.
Our history teacher, Pietro Fedele, as proudly recorded at the outset, remained one of my life-long friends. In an article published in 1929, he reviewed his teaching experience at the Lyceum in Potenza, recalling the impressions left on his memory by some of the pupils. “I can see the keen eyes of Anthony Campagna. He was restless, always ready to propound questions, easy to enthusiasm, but who, at times, closed himself in thoughtful concentration, so as to interpret his destiny and make plans for the future.”
The four of us enrolled at the University of Rome – Papa in Medical School, Molfese in Engineering, Tordela and I in Law. The University of Naples was more popular and nearer to our homes, but we couldn’t resist the lure of the Eternal City.
Papa had gone to Rome for the last year of lyceum. Brainy and studious he won a scholarship four years in succession, a most unusual achievement. In due time he married and made his residence in Rome, where he became a prominent Doctor and Professor in the Medical School.
Molfese, owing to his eccentricity, shifted and switched from Engineering to Law and back again, finally becoming the head of the Civil Aviation in Italy, where he introduced many original ideas.
Tordela, because of his timidity, ended in a bureaucratic career which gave him the security he always sought.
After graduating, the three of them established permanent residence in Rome.
The fourth member of the team was to be led far from his charted course, into a whirl of events which will be here notes in their early developments.
Before closing my Potenza memoirs and of my residence in the Court House Building, I must recall a facetious sidelight.
The evenings, especially in the spring, being more or less devoted to romance and merrymaking, I formed the habit of rising at dawn and going to do my homework in one of the vast courtrooms. There I also found it easy to memorize by reading aloud. Thus, with time saving, I developed also a steady, confident voice which was helpful in classroom recitals.
From my childhood, my father had resolved that I was to be a lawyer and I grew up with that idea. Therefore, I decided to make the best of it and started to attend some of the trials during the last two years of my residence in the Court Building. One of the cases impressed me so much that on the following Sunday I went to the same Trial Room, put on a cap and gown belonging to one of the judges and imagined that I was the defending attorney. I visualized the three judges, the jury and a large audience, and delivered a passionate oration! When I stopped, two arms grabbed me and held me tight. It was my dear old friend, Vecchione, his eyes blinking and watery. He told the story to judges and lawyers and I became the pet of those learned jurists. My father was extremely excited when he heard of my little frolic, which, of course, he took quite seriously. I repeated the performance several times, behind locked doors, and it was a stimulating experience that left some live roots.
Next: Chapter 10
