Is That All There Is?

In Memoriam Truman Peebles

1912 - 2021

There was a tragedy yesterday, outside our house.  My wife and carer returned from a walk to find a wood pigeon stretched out stiff in the porch, with two flightless squabs expired beside her.  Something, most likely a crow of some sort (I nearly said of some kind), had attacked and slain the adult in the nest, which had been barely concealed above our front door.  And the adult in falling had caused the two immature babes also to flip flop to their deaths.

Sad.  Yes.  But a tragedy?  Not strictly.  Life has to end somewhere, and not all terminations are anything but the natural process of the universe, which is at all times in motion, flaring up and dying down.

Consider the butterfly.  The splendid Red Admiral.....

Having survived earlier stages of existence (egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, etc) the adult butterfly may live for some months....  Some months. Maybe a flurry of nights and days, some sunny, some wet, some cold. And then?  Extinction.  

What is expected? 

And it isn't much different for the Painted Lady, despite its migrations.....

Or the Small Tortoiseshell, though some adults will survive winters and perhaps live for nine months (I nearly said moths).....

So what is my point (I hear you call)?

Well, to be a duck-billed platitude, I just want to say that life has its limits, and not one of us has yet managed to break out of this world alive.

So, although I report this with great sadness, it is not a tragedy that my dear friend Truman Peebles will not be celebrating his 109th birthday this summer, at least not in person.

Truman, who I have mentioned in previous pieces, will not be partaking of a Jack Daniels old No.7 Tennessee sour mash Whiskey this evening.

Truman died, aged 108, just the other day. But while my instinct is to mourn, I know the right thing to do is to celebrate (even if the two states are not mutually exclusive).

The family lives on.  Memories survive.  Friends go about telling stories.  The influence resides.  

As I have recorded elsewhere, Truman was born in 1912, in New Jersey.  By the time I hit the light of day he was already a father of three.  When I was four he sailed from the US of A to take part in the foundation of the Food and Agriculture agency which became part of the colossal United Nations agencies in Rome.

When I first met him, thirty-something years ago, at a dinner at the home of Mario and Catinka Cassola, next door to us in Il Quadrifoglio, he was already retired.  I noted the bootlace tie, held in place with a stylish silver clasp.  At that time he would have been a sprightly seventyish - the age I am now.  He then lived in a hut in the garden (where they grew avocados) of his friend Nazareno, who owned the successful Grotta Azzura restaurant in the village of Trevignano.  I recall his regular joke that Nazareno's biggest challenge in the mornings was to decide which of his several large motors to drive to his restaurant (a bare mile away)....

Truman's own car failed him not long after, and, since we had moved into the village, I took to being the chauffeur on our occasional outings to neighbouring villages for dinners in quiet, rustic trattorie.

These outings were an education for me.  At the time Truman was studying (at Fielding, I think) for a PhD and our conversations were the friendliest of tutorials.  If I understand anything of psychology it is most probably down to those comfortable and enlightening evenings, quaffing vino sfuso and indulging in the niceties of la cucina laziale, served, sometimes, by the sexy daughter of a the padrone of a tiny trattoria in a side alley in Sutri, or by the chuckling grandmother who tended the fireplace in Barbarano Romano.... 

And then sometimes we would eat at La Grotta Azzura, where for years Truman dined every Thursday, cared for in generous terms by Nazareno, and often surrounded by family, and by beautiful women.....  

We left Trevignano in 1995, to bring our children up nearer to their grandparents, but Truman remained a surrogate grandad to our girls, and a great friend to the last.  When I left, I remember saying that I would not be able to join him for his ninetieth birthday party, but that I would be there for his hundredth.

And we made it.  Indeed that was a great party (please see a separate blog piece) and he was in superb form that night, passing for a man a good decade or two less than the anagrafe would allow.....

It is hard to believe that that was nearly ten years ago already.  Of course the years began to tell, and he was less quick on his feet, and the recent scourge of the pandemic affected both him and his family in that contact and interaction were limited and he needed to be cared for by professionals.  But the last time I saw him he was as bright (almost) as ever.  I called on him at his little apartment in the old part of the village, up the steep steps to his front door one hot morning.  I knocked on the door and, after some shuffling he stood before me, dressed in a ten gallon hat and a sort of dhoti, beaming welcome.  We agreed a meeting in the evening and sure enough we met on time, drank Jack Daniels and continued on to a convivial dinner.  As ever, conversation was focussed and from time to time his eyes sparkled with mischievous fun.  

If only time could stand still, and we could meet again.

We cannot escape the sadness that falls around us when friends pass.  But then we have to remember the good times.  I write this with a tear in my eye, a glass of Jack Daniels on ice in my hand, and Peggy Lee singing Is That All There Is?

As I said before, "Hey, that's my wife!"

Is that all there is, is that all there is?

If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing

Let's break out the booze and have a ball

If that's all there is

Songwriters: Leiber Jerry / Stoller Mike

XXVII

I envy not in any moods

The captive void of noble rage,

The linnet born within the cage,

That never knew the summer woods:

I envy not the beast that takes

His license in the field of time,

Unfetter'd by the sense of crime,

To whom a conscience never wakes;

Nor, what may count itself as blest,

The heart that never plighted troth

But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;

Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it, when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

In Memoriam A. H. H. 

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Truman and Hannah in 1991 (that's him on the left!)

With love to all the family and wonderful memories of a top friend.

For more....

https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2012/09/tesserae-5.html

https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2012/08/trevignano-romano.html

TESSERAE - 5 - One night in Trevignano

“Oh, when the saints....!”

The party was due to begin at 8.00pm.  Being Italy, we knew it would be late, so, exercising British decorum, we make our way to the cobbled heart of Trevignano Romano at about ten past eight….. To our surprise, however, the jazz band is in full swing, rattling out “Muskrat Ramble” and every seat is taken, with only jostle room in the tiny piazza below the village church.  It just shows – Italy always can never be taken for granted!

Truman Peebles, the man of the moment, sits regally in the front row, his weathered Stetson proudly signalling his presence.  This is a very special occasion.  Despite the grumblings of 97 year old Salvatore, who cantankerously claims that he is the oldest man in the village (having been born there), this is Truman’s night.  100 years old and still going strong; sharp of mind if a little slow of foot; fêted by the whole village, with old friends and family gathering from all over the world. 

Truman came to Italy with his young family on the SS Lucania in 1951, as a founder member of the Food and Agricultural Organisation in Rome.  Then, when he retired, he moved out to Trevignano, fifty kilometres north of Rome, to share a house with the writer Victor von Hagen, since whose death in 1985 (about when we first met him) Truman has lived on his own, sallying forth several times a day for coffee at Ermete’s bar, or a meal at La Grotta Azzurra, where he dines with owner Nazzareno every Thursday.

 

The band, a group of Roman friends, launch into “On the sunny side of the street,” with gusto.  Two tiny great grandchildren start to dance, provoking a tirade from the leader who proclaims that children should never be allowed. Ever! Truman stands to take applause as they break into their finale, “Oh! When the saints….” cornettist Aldo giving a fine imitation of Louis Armstrong, with a Roman accent (Ah! Whan ze scentz….) 

 

Truman with Roisin (on his right) and Dympna



Then the music ends, and the crowd presses forward to shake Truman’s hand, kiss his cheek, wish him long life…..  In the adjoining piazzetta, outside his house, trestle tables have been set up, piled with goodies, and we join the throng.  Typically, there has been an attempt at control and many hands thrust forward tickets.  But the authority soon gives up; we have no tickets, but, with smiles all round, I come away with plates of rigatoni and pizza, hunks of foccacce, and tumblers of vino.  

Around 11.00 the Mayor arrives, flanked by splendid officials, and presents Truman with an engraved plaque commemorating his centenary.  A belly dancer appears, and is joined on stage by assorted revellers.  The sky is inky, the ochre walls echo disco music and glow with summer warmth and orange light.  We sit with Truman on the steps outside his flat, the crowd fluttering by like starlings, until, way past midnight, it is time for us to make for our beds.  The old man waves goodnight.

“I want to be in that number…..!”

Trevignano Romano



Bar Ermete Dal 1931 - Piazza Vittorio Emanuele 8, Trevignano Romano

No one knows precisely how many people live in Trevignano Romano.  When we lived there in the eighties and nineties the received wisdom was that around 2,500 people lived there in the winter and that that figure might rise to as many as twenty thousand at times in the summer.  The most recent (2008) census figure was 5,819 but many of those will not be permanently resident.  Since we left, about fifteen years ago, there has been continual building, but sites have closed, with unfinished villas scarring the landscape, property sales have flat lined for many months now, and affitasi (to let) signs flutter like flags on many balconies.





The sun going down from La Casina Bianca

Trevignano Romano is a picturesque village about fifty kilometres north of Rome.  It sits on the shore of Lake Bracciano, a bottomless (some 170 metres deep, but even Jacques Cousteau failed to find the deepest point) lake which fills a 30 kilometre round volcanic caldera.  The village is dominated by the remains of an Orsini castle (destroyed in 1496 by one of the Borgia family) and a forested volcanic cone, known as the Rocca Romana, to commemorate the shrine the Romans created on its top.  Volcanic activity is still very much present in the area, with a derelict hot-spring spa at Vicarello (about three kilometres from the village) awaiting multinational corporation agreement on its redevelopment.

The wonderful traditional trattoria at Vicarello

Until the second world war Trevignano was little more than a fishing village, and metalled roads did not reach it.  Then, in the fifties, market gardening flourished and the villagers prospered by getting up early and trucking their produce into the Rome central markets in the early hours of the morning.  The fertile volcanic soil was perfect for tomatoes and salad crops, beans and leaf vegetables.  For a while, until the coastal strips to the north and south of Rome caught up, there was a boom. 

La Chiesa dell'Assunta - with 16th century frescos from the School of Raphael

When, inevitably, that faded, the village was on the map, Gianni Agnelli’s Fiats were everywhere, the roads had been tarred, and Trevignano became a desirable place for holiday outings, then second homes, and then even commuters.  Instead of being a tight jumble of close-knit dwellings around the church, with the occasional villa along the shoreline, cement began to pour, and the march of apartment blocks away from the medieval centre began.



A Carnival Parade in Trevignano - Italia da vero!

It is still lovely, much lovelier and much less sprawling and overcrowded than Anguillara and Bracciano, the two other lakeside towns (both served incidentally by a railway line into Rome) and we remain very much attached to it.

 

Celebrating a centenary

We have come back for a few days to celebrate the 100^th birthday of one of its favourite citizens.  Although American by birth, Truman Peebles has lived there since his retirement from Rome’s Food and Agricultural Organisation forty years ago.  His long white hair and flowing beard make him stand out from the crowd, and when our children were little his resemblance to Father Christmas was too good not to exploit.



Truman Peebles - 100 years young

In those years, we used to meet him on his daily jog along the shore, or see him swimming in the morning in the stillness of the lake.  Nowadays, although he still lives alone in a first floor flat in the heart of the centro storico (historic centre) he moves a little slower, and jogging has slowed to a gentle shuffle.

Hey, that's my wife!

Old friends greet us in the piazza, and in their shops.  My anglo-saxon reserve is surprised by the number of kisses I exchange, but it is all wonderfully friendly.  I have my hair expertly cut by Alberto; discuss photography with Loretta, property sales with Pietro and Mimmo, politics with journalist Paddy (whose wife Dympna has become involved with local campaigns) the flux of tourism with Nazzareno, the expectation of grandchildren with Sandro, and the passing of the older generation with the family at La Casina Bianca.  Amanda has a lengthy and involved conversation with her friend from the shoe-shop, which includes him telling us about how modern tomatoes don’t taste like they used to, how he and friends once feasted on an enormous capon with skin like leather, and concludes with him showing us a pair of boots his father made, specially adapted to the unpaved streets at the time.

My father's boots!

During our stay, on this occasion in a beautifully positioned Bed and Breakfast, (http://www.laterrazzasullago.com/), which really does have a splendid terrace overlooking the lake; we laze on the beach, swimming every so often to keep cool, climb to the castle remains, and through the hornbeam, turkey oak and chestnut woods to the ruined medieval chapel at the 612 metre high summit of the Rocca Romana(the village is at 173 metres above sea level).   From here you used to be able to see a panorama of the lake, including the castle at Bracciano and the aeronautical museum at Vigna di Valle (where flying boats on route to Egypt and India from London used to dock for Rome in the 1930s), but the trees have grown and it is only sparkling glimpses now.  Man’s best endeavours are only temporary; the world of nature reclaims its own. 

Hornbeam growing from a volcanic bomb

Next to the chapel is a great concrete slab, with four rusted iron sockets set into it.  Here it was once intended that a great cross would stand; I hear the words of Shelley in my head, “Look on my works….” But I do not despair.

The medieval chapel atop Rocca Romana, arising from a Roman shrine

We descend, and dine with Truman at La Grotta Azzurra, one of the oldest and best restaurants in the village. 

It is a perfect evening and with a full moon rising, a glass of local wine and a plate of royal perch nothing could be finer. Under these conditions, 100 years seems nothing.  It doesn’t really matter how many people live in Trevignano.  It matters how people live – and like this, you could live forever!



Tramonto over Lake Bracciano

http://www.trevignanoromano.it/inside.asp


Prequel:



Truman in 1991 (that's him on the left!)