I was working on a new component for Etch that I named Section Intro Brindisi. To complete the content, I added a featured image — the same one used for this post. This is the Monument to the Sailors of Italy (Monumento al Marinaio d’Italia) located in Casale across the harbor from downtown Brindisi. The photo brings a flood of memories from my early teens when my dad was stationed at San Vito. From walking along the water watching fishermen pull octopi out and tenderize them on the concrete, to the pizzeria that sits at the top of the stairs, to the ferry that traverses the harbor every half hour or so (maybe 15 minutes), this is one of the best memories of my life.
Our apartment was about a kilometer away, and I could walk there in my mind right now. Past the house Pete Alt lived in, past the candy store, down past the apartments where Brenda and her family lived across the park to our apartment. The building with 100 buzzers, which was ripe for dumb American kids playing “ding dong ditch ’em.”
Looking the other way would be the Roman pillar marking the end of the Appian Way before boats crossed to Constantinople and beyond. Occasionally, large cruise ships like the Georgius would be docked waiting to take tourists to the Greek Isles or up the Adriatic toward Venezia.
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