Why not a tractor?

We went to a trattoria/pizzeria recently and pulled into an empty parking lot.  It might have been 6:30 or 7:00, but the Italians eat late and we were one of the first ones there that night. I don't recall any other vehicles there except maybe a scooter and definitely a tractor.  But you know, as odd as it may sound, I really didn't think that much of the tractor parked outside the front door.  There is a lot of farming and agriculture around here, and as one of my earlier blogs will attest to, the farming is pretty well woven into the fabric of society, at least once you get outside the downtown area.  So ok, there's a tractor in the parking lot.  Now, this is a full-size, working tractor, mind you, maybe a John Deere, maybe a Caterpillar, I don't know, but ok, it's a working tractor, you get the picture, no big deal. Maybe it's parked there after a day of work, maybe somebody will be using it again tomorrow.  Whatever.

Toward the end of our meal, we had a chance to see the owner/operator of the tractor.  This older gentlemen strolls out of the trattoria and climbs up into the cabin of the tractor.  The guy must have been 80 years old and he was wearing a sports-jacket that you could tell was both worn and well-made, a vest, shirt and tie, slacks, and some well-worn dress shoes.  He gets up into this tractor, fires it up, and drives away, presumably back home after his meal and cafe (probably a "cafe corretto" which is an espresso "corrected" with grappa).

And no one would have thought another thing of it.  By this time, there were plenty of people there, plenty of people who had pulled up in their beautiful Alfa Romeos, Land Rovers, or whatevers.  And this old guy, I'm going to say 80'ish, just hops up on his tractor in his full-blown evening wear, and drives off.  Ho-hum.

We're writing this blog in an attempt to capture and share some of our experience here.  There are countless things like this that happen everyday that just become a normal part of our life over here.  For most of them, you notice, register, perhaps appreciate, and then move on.  But these subtle little things provide the overall context for life here, and they are important if not for their subtlety.  I'd like to write about them every once in awhile and maybe preserve a bit for posterity, therefore, we now have the story of the man who gets gussied-up on a Saturday night and drives his tractor to the neighborhood trattoria.

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