"The Feast" is that of the Patron San Vincenzo Ferreri and of the Madonna of the Rosary, which every year is celebrated on the first Sunday and Monday of August. For us who spent the whole year in town, without seeing the rest of the world, the Feast was the most important event of the year. Who, as a child, hasn't spent some time watching the workers who set the lights and the stage in the square? And who hasn't climbed on the stage to run around or to play hide go seek under it?
I stood there for hours to see it completed from nothing.
And it wasn't even the stage that we see today! No! It wasn't the structure built with metal tubes and wooden boards. The stage was "The Stage".
It was a cross between a gazebo and a Merry-go-round. You know, those XIX century gazebos in the public parks like we occasionally see in films? And those Merry-go-rounds with the little horses that go up and down?
It was all lit up with hundreds of lights up to the top of the gable that covered it. Around it there were the rails, which on one side were choreographic, but on the other side they hid what was taking place on the stage.
The stage was colorful and celestial when I think of it now.
In fact that Stage was the entrance to a magic world!
On the first Sunday of August people woke up at the music of the band, which marched in front of our houses, and we rushed to get dressed to follow the band. Today few are the children that run after the band.
The memory of the band is, for me, strictly attached to those times, and for this reason, every time I hear a band playing I get a knot in my throat.
Sometimes I even get the urge of running after the music.
The funniest thing I remember in this moment is that often the little girls of about the same age ended up wearing the same dresses the day of the feast!
Not because the mothers had planned that before, but it happened that those who were unable to go shopping out of town, bought the dresses in the town square from the same traveling cloth merchant who had only a modest selection. The fact is that on the occasion of a Feast, I went out happy with my new dress and I found at least two other girls of my age with the same dress! Even of the same color! I remember that mine was red with white polka dots!
Beh, it is a small world, but Fallo was even smaller!
