Pino

Pino and his friend Enrico were having dinner on the terrace, and I joined them for company. I completed my blogwork for the day while they visited in Italian. (At one point I heard Pino tell Enrico that I couldn't understand what they were saying.... which apparently, some of it, I could!!!)

We three then had a terrific Google-assisted conversation as the band in the next piazza started playing.

Pino is 63 and has been retired from the Genoa port since age 41. (WTF!) It's called a 'Baby Pension' because in the pre-Euro Union days in Italy you could retire after 19 years and 1 day. After EU, laws were changed, and there are no more Baby Pensions to be had.

It's nice not to work, but things have also gotten more expensive and the pension hasn't kept up, so Pino takes on private clients and he does their rooftop gardens -- planting, pruning, irrigation. He loves it, so it's not really work.

He lived on a farm on a hillside 15km from Genoa for 30 years, until 3 years ago when he sold it and moved back into town. He had goats, sheep, chickens, a veggie garden, and lots of land. But maintenance on steep land is expensive and physically hard -- better when he was 30 than 60.

As we talk he rolls his own cigarettes, including a filter.  When's the last time you saw that?

He has a deep voice and is constantly taking off and putting on a pair of white readers, which wrap around his head and clicks together magnetically on the bridge of his nose.