Today, March 17, is a day of national holiday to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy. Schools are closed. In 1961, the centenary anniversary, they did not, however, holiday. I remember it well, because in that year I taught in middle school letters of Canino, a small town of Viterbo. On 17 March '61, then, we had lessons till eleven, then ordered the students and went in procession to the top of the country, to bring flowers to a monumentino dedicated to the fallen of the First World War. I was instructed to make the keynote address and I was afraid not to get sapermela: the territory of the feud was "Pope-King", then of Prince Lucien Bonaparte Napoleon's brother, then of Prince Torlonia, not even the birth Ente Maremma was rescued from a situation of common people miserable laborers. Talk to their children a great and generous mother country did not seem the case, I would not understand. I spoke then of the war dead, described them as young people who had left for duty in the trenches, putting aside their dreams: there were those who wanted to be a singer, whom the painter, who won a bicycle, who was a great striker. Real people, not statues. The guys I listened carefully, then returned to school in silence. It was a good day, I think.
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