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other products. The smell that came from pastry shops was tantalizing. There were bakeries which emanated a warm aroma of freshly baked bread, and coffee shops filled the air with the smell of roasted coffee, espresso and warm milk The fruit markets spilled their display of fruit and vegetables into the sidewalk and offered oranges, prickly pears, bananas and dates rarely seen or available in Fallo. The street vendors sold warm pane e panelle (fried chickpeas pancakes on fresh bread), sfingione (the Sicilian pizza), fried fish and steamed octopus.

I got to know the city, the city streets and the city life, especially on Saturdays when I had to participate in the school organized parades in our black shirt Balilla uniforms. Usually these parades lasted about two hours and we were dismissed around eleven o'clock in the morning in different parts of
Palermo. Regardless of distance I always walked home with friends or alone. I crossed different sections of the city, the zone near the harbor, the central elegant section, the section near the Cathedral and Porta Nuova. I was fascinated by the "Vucceria" the market place with its thousand smells, the din of the vendors, the live fish tubs, the huge
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swordfish or tuna on marble tables, the cases of fish displayed on beds of sea-weeds. I felt drunk with these experiences and became more and more aware of the amenities of city life.

In May, 1940, my father came to Palermo to say good-bye to me for he was leaving for the United States where he was going to work for the Italian Pavilion in the 1940 New York World's Fair. A month later the war broke out between Italy and England. There was a feeling of tension everywhere. Soon British reconnaissance planes were regularly coming from Malta over Palermo. In two instances the Italian Air Defense opened fire with antiaircraft artillery which had been placed on top of many buildings near the harbor. It was the end of the school year and my family decided that since the city would eventually become a bombing target it would be safer for me to return to Fallo. So early in the summer of 1940 I went back to live in Fallo.