North of Naples pt.2: My friend Beppe & Teano
One of my favorite things about Italy is the warmth and kindness that I find in nearly every situation— I can’t tell you how many lovely people I met each and every day, and this area was no different. While following the trail of my own bisnonni in search of clues about how any Venticinques ended up in the area, I struck up conversations with as many people as I could.
Thanks to this lovely cultural standard of friendliness, I was not only able to talk about the WeAre25 project, but people were eager to offer help and advice. And for the first ever, people actually recognized the name and were able to recall others in their own community whom they knew. On many occasions, the person I was talking to would grab the attention of someone else (sometimes even on the telephone) to help track down the name and details of a Venticinque, often someone that they vaguely remembered. It usually sounded something like: “Ah yes, I remember an older man who lives just outside of his town… what was his name? My cousin knows him and I will ask him. Wait here because he’ll be back in a few minutes….”
To my excitement, these conversations of recognition started happening more and more, and I quickly noticed that Teano, a small city near where I was staying but which was not yet on my radar. One day I headed into town, winding through the hairpin turns of the stone streets as sheets of rain poured down all around me. I stopped in a piazza at the center of town when I saw a group of men gathered there. After some surface chit-chat, I was given a name and an address for a Venticinque (if you can call “just outside of town past the big restaurant, there’s a butcher shop where you can ask for him because he lives nearby” an address). I set off as the rain increased, but as I approached the destination, I had to stop an turn around; the torrential rain had caused a flash flood, and the road was impassable. Hoping to wait it out, I ducked into a cafe so I could get (yet) a(nother) coffee. While I was there, I ended up in a conversation with the mother-daughter owners, who enthusiastically told me about a Venticinque who lives by the Teano train station. I headed straight there hoping to catch the mystery man and, as I pulled up, I saw the most interesting character emerge from the station. Trying to avoid making him feel like he was being ambushed, I jumped out of my car to catch his attention and…
Twenty minutes later, Beppe & are were fast friends. We drove to the nearby home of Nicola Venticinque, an engineer and well-respected man in the community. I wasn’t so sure about showing up unannounced, but Pepa assured me it would be fine. And as it turns out, it was— Nicola was lovely and interested in the projects, and he offered to collaborate with me next year— he said I could do portraits of his family, and he would assist me as much as possible with research in the area. Fantastico! Sadly, he had to run before I could set up for even a quick portrait, but we made plans to meet next year. [Update: We did! Check for the stories from our 2019 visit.]
Beppe and I left and headed back toward the train station, where he showed me his pen of over 80 chickens, hens, and roosters— absolutely amazing! We then walked down to the local bar, where we sat at a table and talked until long after the sun went down and night was firmly set upon us. It turns out that Pepe is an incredible man, a window of 40 years who has 3 daughters and has recreationally studied psychotherapy for the past 20. He delivered a long and heartfelt lecture to me about how I am never, not under any circumstances, trust Italian men: never listen to their sweet words, he said, because all they want to do is… well, I need say no more. With his permission, I recorded our conversation— something I will return to, I’m sure, many times for a smile.
We said our goodbyes under the stars, and I honestly can’t wait to see him again. We formed a true bond that night, and I’m so happy to have met him and to now call him a friend.
