Under Vesuvius: A Reflective Travelogue in Verse and Prose

By Richard Haffey

Under Vesuvius: A Reflective Travelogue in Verse and Prose traces a 2016 vacation in and around Sorrento, Italy. In the spirit of the Grand Tour and Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad,
the author writes about sights and sounds of the Italian countryside, shorelines and islands around the Tyrrhenian Sea, from Naples to the Amalfi Coast and the islands of Ischia and Capri. Under Vesuvius celebrates life in what feels like a magical land of cliffs and flowers, olives and lemons, evidenced by locals met along the way. It simultaneously discovers and contemplates lessons from the region’s long past peoples and the places and edifices they left behind, whether still incredibly above ground and undisturbed for two millennia in Paestum, or sadly buried for as long by Vesuvius in Pompeii and Herculaneum. This book urges a consideration of faith, art, sacred spaces, friendship, honor, witnessing truth in the face of abusive secular and ecclesial authority, the holiness of a person’s name, and the relentless, devastating effects of lead toxicity on unsuspecting victims two millennia ago and in our current day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664169371

Richard Haffey

Richard Haffey is a freelance writer and environmentalist from Connecticut and Cape Cod, where he and his wife make their home and enjoy their children and friends.

Book preview

Copyright © 2021 by Richard Haffey.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Cover photo: Reproduced with permission of DepositPhotos.

Map credits:

Map captioned Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, with Monte Nuovve, Arso and La Solfatara reproduced courtesy of Dunedin Academic Press from Volcanoes of Europe, Second Edition.

Map of Tyrrhanean Sea reproduced courtesy of Reunion Technology Inc. for World Atlas.

Rev. date: 09/13/2021

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Preliminaries

Agenzia Italia Travel

Antiquities

2016

The Mainland

Pompeii

Herculaneum

Marie

Sotto Voce

Museo Bottega della Tarsia Lignea

Cooking School

Sylvia in Paestum (Poseidonia)

Buffalo Mozzarella, in a Word

Mistaken Identity

Natività

Here and There

Frescoes in Amalfi

Ravello — Villa Rufolo

The Islands

Capri

Six Days In and It Hit Me

Anacapri

The World Beneath My Feet

The Phoenician Steps (Anacapri)

Blue Grotto

Ischia

Jet the Rain

Have a Seat

Bourbon Prison

Chiesa del Soccorso

Another Time

Naples

Bourbon Plunder

A Sunday Walk in Naples

On to Market

The World in Time:

Dr. Giuseppe Moscati and the Church of Gesu Nuovo (New Jesus)

20th Century and Then Some

Uniformity

Fire

Vesuvius:

Vesuvius:

Endpiece

Mitochondrial

Epilog

Smithsonian

Aftermath

Windows on the World

By way of an explanation, of sorts.

The Cast

Time in Their Words

Words in their Time

Windows on the World

Acknowledgements

To John and Mary

without whom this journey

and this book would not have happened

To Kathy

without whom my journey

would not be happening

and would not have its meaning

Scan2021-02-15_113800.jpg

The Bay of Naples and surrounding points of interest featured in Under Vesuvius.

tyrrhsea.jpg

The Tyrrhenian Sea fills the volcanic basin from Sicily to Sardinia

and to the west coast Italy, with Mount Vesuvius

centrally located on the mainland shore.

Introduction

I went to Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast with a seething cauldron roiling beneath my emotionally-neutral outer landscape. My adult lifetime adversarial relationship with abusive and intrusive authority flared in the months before and would have produced a thoracic thermal image if the TSA used such screening tools when I boarded the plane for Italy. Naively, I thought I was leaving all that unpleasantness behind in favor of a vacation in a land of lemons, art, and precipitous seacoasts. All this was so. Except for Vesuvius.

What remains of Vesuvius today is less than what it was before the eruption in 79. Nature can not expend so much energy and not wear part of itself out. Apparently, neither could I. In 2016, who knew?

I teach industrial safety and health classes. Several of them are about exposure to lead in the workplace and the home. While lead in paint is the most prevalent topic, there are other sources. Regardless of the source, there never was anything in human biological development that required lead as a nutrient or necessity for bodily function. Iron, zinc, and magnesium, yes. You see them in the ingredients on your daily multivitamin container. But not lead. In their oversight of human health and in the interest of advocating for protection of human health, federal and state governments exercise their regulatory authority to limit a person’s exposure to the harmful effects of lead. The lead in my blood was not from the most commonly medically proven routes of entry — ingestion and inhalation. The lead in my blood resulted from my unfettered passion as a teacher. One recent hour-long module, inserted into my lead classes for professional consultants and contractors, invoked Vesuvius and the eruptions in 79 AD. It was entitled A Tale of Two Cities: Herculaneum, Italy and Herculaneum, Missouri. In it, Vesuvius’s heat and smoke and pyroclastic rock rained down death on the frightened citizens of a bayside resort town. Similarly, the infamous Doe Run primary smelter, and the mining of lead to feed it and its predecessors, rained down death and illness on the unsuspecting citizens of a riverside industrial enclave. I made no apologies to Dickens. Nor to a remiss EPA.

I taught about this and other more recent findings that demonstrated how several governmental regulations, limiting levels of exposure to lead, were inadequate and not as health-protective as once thought, and as codified in law. These were not in the stipulated curricula proscribed by state laws dating back to the mid 1990s. I was told to stop teaching current facts and accepted truths. I was told to teach information that was two decades out-of-date and sorely misleading. I refused. I was de-accredited. I thought I left it all behind on the gangway at JFK. Apparently not. The data indicate that the half-life of lead, deposited in a human’s long bones by leaded blood circulating there, is forty years. My passion runs bone deep.

                            I chose to write in open lines

                            the cadence of my voice and mind

                            some truths that you might find

                            and others you may leave behind

Preliminaries

Agenzia Italia Travel

(Ridgewood, Queens, NY)

Not easy finding street parking in Ridgewood,

but only one circuit of the block got us in,

across and down from Paola’s travel agency.

For all the decals and stickers on the glass door:

cruise and air lines, credit cards, associations, banks,

it’s hard to see inside from the bustling sidewalk.

The shared storefront also allots window space:

home improvement, taxes, accounting, and travel,

with signs, stenciled and in neon, lettered and ship-shaped.

Entering the shop’s a trip, even before you travel.

Street noise and sidewalk voices thick-glassed away,

travel posters convey you to continents portrayed.

Asbestos floor and ceiling tiles, likely, size and all.

Leaded paint alligatored on ceilings and walls.

A narrow wending from street to Paola’s desk, midway

deep within the landscape, the store trek displays:

Grey metal desks — calendar blotter-topped and paper-piled,

manilla-filed, thick ring-binders — bolster cubicled aisles.

Cabinet-stuck post-notes seem disarrayed, thumb-tacked

bulletins, on cork and plaster splayed; pink-squared call backs.

Phone after phone, lit buttons, solid and blinking; receivers

lie on their sides, holding music on low, with overstretched

wires dangling off the desk edge, wanting for some carabiners

from climbing posters of Half Dome, K-2, and the Matterhorn.

Paola focuses her way right to our folder, as unflustered

as she is leading twenty gawking tourists amid huge crowds

at St Peter’s, the Coliseum, or walking half-leaning at Pisa.

The only thing that shakes her is our hands, before sitting.

Alitalia, there and back. Twelve days. One hotel, Sorrento.

Vouchered day trips, land and sea, coast and inland,

concierged for four; bonded drivers, guided tours.

Amalfi steps to Naples streets. Paola’s vetted all before.

Antiquities

Before environmental work and safety training,

I worked a decade in publishing — religious publishing.

There was a person then — name of Peter Li — Chinese.

But big — over six foot big — over two hundred pounds big.

Built a business in Dayton, out by the Wright brothers.

Most always I saw him in a jacket, shirt, and tie;

lookin’ the business of being a success was Peter.

Told me once — through a wrinkle-eyed smirk — set under

his broad flat forehead and wide round nose — a guy

tried to sell him antiques in New Hampshire once.

Pete stops, leans in, asks me — "Know how old the thing

was?" I shrug. He busts out loud laughin’,

"Two hundred years. From the very beginnin’s

(he said it like John Sterling, big innins) of the

Republic." Pete waits a moment for effect —

‘cause he was always good at making an effect —

"I’m Chinese for heaven’s sake. Two hundred

years. An antique?!" Then we start walking again.

Another Lee — Thomas — different spelling —

built one of the oldest wood frame houses

in Connecticut back around 1660. Still here.

Near where I live — in Niantic. Straight-sided,

boxy, three storeys, dark brown walls; restored

with funds raised by descendants of the family.

On the property is another house — East Lyme’s

Visitors’ Center — two storeys. Many stories.

Here’s one:

Seven, maybe eight, times we did a field trip there.

Once a year, state-funded, for local health staffers.

We taught them how to protect kids and moms

from lead poisoning. Hundred thirty over the years.

Tested paint, water, dust, soil. Gloved, suited; safe.

Called a comprehensive lead hazard inspection.

Hands-on instruction. Lots of attention. Just three or

four students per instructor. Intense. Whole day.

All doing. No standing around watching.

Each took two tap water samples — first draw, then flushed.

(What could have spared a bunch of kids out in Flint.)

Each composited soil samples from the drip line.

(What proved old smelters poisoned Philly kids.)

Each did three dust wipes on floors and windows.

(How Rochester learned upstate NY kids weren’t safe

using HUD and EPA and CT legal lead-in-dust levels.)

Samples secured, containers labeled, lab docs done.

Each tested paint. Walls, doors, windows, floors,

ceilings, stairs, cabinets, closets. Multiple spots.

Two or three different instruments each. XRFs.

Wonderful things. Started out ore-finding in mines.

Radioactive source. Fluoresces and excites elements,

tracks movement and identifies their chemistry.

Bingo! Found gold or silver for miners. Lead for us.

Students drew floor layouts, noted test locations,

recorded lead levels, wrote reports in class next day.

We taught them what to do. How to do it. To value it.

The mantras: Find lead. Get it out. Make homes safe.

Like I said, more than a hundred thirty town/city staffers

over the years. Twelve to sixteen in a class.

Translates to a lotta kids. A lotta moms. A lotta homes.

Last class was two months before I was under Vesuvius.

Next work day after that class, state says we can’t teach

lead any more. Teach 1990s rules or nothing.

I left lead’s antiquity at JFK. Went to see Vesuvius’s.

2016

The Mainland

Pompeii

Today I walked along the

hobbling stones of the very roads

that citizens and slaves trod in Pompeii.

My feet felt the ruts of wagon wheels

worn into those stones so long ago.

My eyes took in the muted frescoes

on exterior walls and narrow walks

that looked upon those very roads.

I could not hear the voices from then

but stood backstage and viewed

two theatres once resounding,

amphitheatrically, the songs and words

of operatic and dramatic and comedic

investigations of the meaning of life.

Floors of the rich, tiled in whites and blacks,

called to mind vestibules in Brooklyn,

but with smaller tiles and patterned elsewise.

These remain, but not the rudimentary

floors of shopkeepers, whose empty urns

still stand, as if ready to offer hot food

to wanderers and theatergoers alike.

Theatergoers, who moved down a frescoed

corridor of images, that stoked a

readiness to be entertained, or to

resurrect their recent laugh or sob.

Who can fathom that, in this venue,

this year, others will pay 350 euros

to sit on those same few marble stairs,

or on the restored stone of the region —

tiered so high the sky smiles down

on late summer’s eves — and hear the

voice and keyboarding of Elton John,

or the pounding, light-infused chant

of Pink Floyd, making new these walls?

How could these artists of today have

ever dreamed, while young, they would

play to these audiences in this ancient

place of hopes and aspirations, buried

deep by ash and heat and earth’s own

respiration, looking down at the

aspect of gods and laws and trade

busying themselves in Pompeii’s forum?

What of other little boys who had

run those roads and dodged those wagons,

and later, grown, sat in those places of power,

and reclined to feasts after days

of judgment and praise — lifting gods

and lowering men — proud citizens they?

We saw the cells where slaves and criminals

housed, while being schooled in the arts

gladiatorial, for the entertainment

of the masses and a chance at freedom,

or death, whichever became their fate.

Cells of those whose fate was to be left

locked behind, as heat rose and

gases choked and ashes flew and fell

to rise ever higher, ’til they reached

the ceiling of those cells, ’mid yells

of foreign tongues, unanswered and ignored.

Startling now, for what we know,

these Pompeiians are judged advanced

because with lead pipes they brought

themselves running water to their homes

(for those rich enough to do so)

and corner fountains for hauling

home in urns, or slaking thirst

right there with leaded water,

marks a height of civilization.

And are struck in awe by we

who see the same disenfranchised

in Flint Michigan treated to like-

sourced water for hearth and home.

Corner fountains where port-bound

sailors met their mates to look for

release of pent-up fear and frustration

from their time at sea, so known to be

available in parts of town marked

by phallic street signs, and housed

in two-storey storied rooms, where

tongues from the whole rim of the

great sea were not needed to say

what was desired or for hire,

‘cause pointing at phallicized frescoes

took the place of spoken words.

Who knows what this Vulcan temple,

rising high above that of Jupiter

down below, would have appeared as

in the morning or afternoon or evening

to forum-walking shoppers and merchants.

Or to politicos, making plans for expansion

of influence and betterment of their lives

and protection of their treasures, brought

from the sea or urged from the soil?

Who knows the faces: first of concern,

then worry, then fear, then smudged

with grit, arising as the ground

shook those several days? Mothers for

their children, husbands for their wives,

merchants for their trade and toil.

Slaves preparing traveling provisions

they deeply suspected they’d never taste.

What temper of the gods provoked by kith

or kin, or evil import of deeds unknown,

would shake the very ground beneath

unsteady fleeing feet of beasts and man?

What tide-defying swells bode badly

for the seasoned hands onboard, who knew

the time had come to sail, without

the wind if need be, breaking back

the bow-beating waves with bending oars?

And this before the coins and jewels were

pressed to palms to take onboard the

awestruck sons and daughters to be spared,

and toss to tempest waters casks of oil

stored and bound for shores beyond.

What mischief down in earthen bowels blew

then the ashen weight of ages skyward,

belched and blossomed fold upon fold of grey,

to darken days of blue, and cover all the

land and sea as far as eye could see, then not?

And still continuing well past blanketing,

‘til shapes of things were lost, then hidden,

unrecognizable to disoriented wanderers,

no longer bent on fleeing, but meandering

in despair and denial: why did we wait so long?

Herculaneum

I wonder if, at night, these haunted souls

patrol the streets I walk upon by day, amazed

that such a forceful flash of nature’s power saved

the stone and wood and bones, upon whose strength

and sweat sat and rose a city of such ease.

And what behind that ease? From whose toil tallied

sums so immense, that families spent a seaside summer?

But why haunted? And why patrol? Yet to find the others.

Still encased below later ages’ commerce and worship and homes

of their own, not purposed to yield to secrets beneath

the years and stone and the mud; that rock hard foundation

of their blossomed realization of agriculture, culture, nurture.

Not enemies to be encircled,