My children often make fun of me. “Dad, you have already told this story a thousand times.”
And in fact here in the hotel, especially with returning guests, it happens between a chat and the other to remember the “old days.”
That time we are talking about Easter was so low that, at least in the evening, he still wore his coat.
By “low” we mean in advance of the calendar, since it is a recurrence that has no fixed date every year.
Despite the drizzle and the climate, there was a situation of “sold out” or almost.
I was was at the bar when the door opened and a guy with long curly black hair came in, got out of a battered 500 (old generation). He was desperately looking for a room.
There was actually a small free room but … A lonely customer, with long hair, with that car. I didn’t trust much.
I got pitying myself, hoping I won’t have to repent.
“Please, stop, we will house you”.
That person later said that he had a broken-down car because his was being repaired. That he would then take a taxi to get out because he had to go to a place where he needed to make a good impression.
He had to go to the Moulin Rouge, one of the hottest clubs of the Garda night. The singer Christian, an up and coming, would perform there.
Christian was him, the one who performed in the checked coat.
A wonderful boy, whose story had made General Fernanda, my mother, fall in love with him.
He became a friend of Brione, grateful because we had pretended to believe in the “history” of the car and because the dinners offered by Fernanda were very welcome.
How did it turn out?
That my mom at the end of the season looked for an identical checked coat to give me.
And that Christian, who returned to Riva after several years, on the occasion of a Vela d’Oro that I helped organize, remembered everything.
But absolutely everything, so much so that he told me as soon as he saw me near the stage. She was a very emotional reunion
He had become really famous. In those years he participated in several Sanremo Festivals and had earned the nickname of Julio Iglesias “white”, for his warm voice and his romantic lyrics.
We remember him with great affection, he who knows that one day life will not offer us the opportunity to see each other.
