Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
logy that they have, they fix your problem and you go home. We are all dead men who are
being given a second life.”
A thought as sobering as it is profound.
“But I want to tell you something else. I had my first surgery when I was only forty-five.
When you go home, you need to realize that nothing is the same as it was before. We aren't
warriors any more. You have to leave that all behind you. You can have a normal life, but
you need to let go of proving how strong you are. You let the other guy pass you, you drive
steady and with no stress, and you get there a little later. You can still hoe in your garden
but you do ten meters, not forty like you used to. That's all.”
It's starting to sink in that I will not be able to push myself to my limits in the ways I used
to. The other day when Dr. Furiozzi was discharging one of my recent roommates, I under-
stood clearly how the advice applied to him, but Salvatore has helped me see that it also
applies to me. Good as the replacement parts may be, they are never the same as the origin-
al manufacturer's equipment.
Furiozzi:
“You, Piero, how old are you?”
“Seventy-four, Doctor.”
“And when did you retire?”
“When I was fifty-seven, like everybody else.”
“Then what the hell are you doing still driving around heavy-equipment? It's time to act
like a pensioner. Buy yourself a newspaper in the morning, and go sit in the piazza. Play
a hand of cards. Feed the pidgeons. Find yourself a nice 18-year-old girlfriend like Ber-
lusconi. He's seventy-two. You know that all they do is sing together all night; you can do
the same. Do you understand what I'm telling you? Your days of truck driving are over, for
your own good and for everyone else's.”
Piero understands, but he laments that it will drive him crazy to sit around all day. Furiozzi
wonders what to do with this guy. Then, a couple moments later, he comes up with an idea.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search