ALWAYS READY FOR BOTH

By FERDINANDO FREGA

After having written twelve books of autobiographical fiction-non-fiction, I had taken some time to rest my mind and body, but from many quarters I am urged to develop and write number twelve, and accepting the challenge does not seem really difficult to me, but I feel an absolute duty towards all those readers who know me to say that I will put all my effort into it.
I have never been a writing professional, even if the production times would have followed my abilities and not a random order, as often happens with those publishers who offer incentives and adequate financial advances, as a habit of encouraging their writers in the production of new works.
The title was not easy to find, the theme did not have to be complex, the quality had to represent the best, because the latest work of every author is always the best, and on a winter evening as I was preparing to rest I had a enlightenment, this is how the title "ALWAYS READY FOR BOTH" was born, talking about a free boy who is never busy, living in his own solitude even when he finds himself among many.
Thinking and Understanding were my two nourishments for living, without them I would never have left home, never deal with topics that are not known, it would remain a truth told between friends at the bar, which will give surprise and reflections on how a child was able to manage “ALWAYS READY FOR BOTH”.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 6, 2024
• ISBN: 9781446159378

Book preview

PREMISE

After having written eleven books of autobiographical fiction-non-fiction, I had taken some time to rest my mind and body, but from many quarters I am urged to develop and write number twelve, and accepting the challenge does not seem really difficult to me, but I feel an absolute duty towards all those readers who know me to say that I will put all my effort into it.

I have never been a writing professional, even if the production times would have followed my abilities and not a random order, as often happens with those publishers who offer incentives and adequate financial advances, as a habit of encouraging their writers in the production of new works.

The title was not easy to find, the theme did not have to be complex, the quality had to represent the best, because the latest work of every author is always the best, and on a winter evening as I was preparing to rest I had a enlightenment, this is how the title ALWAYS READY FOR BOTH was born, talking about a free boy who is never busy, living in his own solitude even when he finds himself among many.

Thinking and Understanding were my two nourishments for living, without them I would never have left home, never deal with topics that are unknown, it would remain a truth told between friends at the bar, which will give surprise and reflections on how a child was able to manage ALWAYS READY FOR BOTH.

THE BIRTH

My family consists of a mismatched pair of parents, Mum at 18 years old and Dad at 29 years old, a 13 month old girl and I who was born in the month of February, as a current habit strictly at home, I am weighed with the help of of a scale, normally used to weigh fruit, but the only real way to certify the weight of 5.8 kg, black in colour, cyanotic on the face due to delayed birth and wrapped in the Placenta, so called lucky shirt.

Child who cries perpetually due to nervous hunger, and the only method to calm him is to assist him with copious quantities of food at all hours of the day and night.

The bottles served with milk and biscuits are without nipples to make the food flow out as quickly as possible.

At every visit from relatives and guests no one misses an opportunity to pinch me in the cheeks or legs; then I only have one uncle who is used to seeing me at diaper changes and flipping me off by telling me: whose is this? I look at this bastard, but he knows he is mine.

On turning one, all the relatives play bingo on a large table, and I am abandoned on a highchair with some magazines. I started eating the magazines out of nerves, but as soon as my mother noticed she immediately ran away to take them from my hand and my aunt, of little intelligence, had the idea of letting me play with a whole panettone she had just purchased weighing 1 kg.

There was immediately a silence that reassured everyone a little, and when it seemed like I was catching my breath, my mother had the instinct to return to me and look on the ground for where the panettone was.

The whole family was looking for the panettone and the drama was triggered, mixed with anxiety, and understanding which hospital.

I should have been taken to, to avoid further complications, but the doctors, despite ascertaining that it was not normal for a 12 month old child to be able to eat a 1kg panettone, they certified that my state of health was excellent and that they would have to learn to live with me who was not normal.

Difficulty in managing this child and at the age of three I was sent to a municipal nursery, whose owner was called Maria the SHEEP, due to the history of the Mother who sold sheep in the village, with the highest recommendation from my mother to use her method, open hand slapping with the sound still in the ear.

There was no way to protest because we all knew what the answer was, but what struck me was receiving slaps without warning for not having committed the crime, only because the bad intention was forewarned, and it had to be punished.

In the five years of age two facts need to be told: near the beach house there was a playing field, my father gave me his 850 fiat car to do laps around the field, clearly only one gear and with three cushions to see the road, but the wives of my father's friends get excited, a five-year-old boy could do what 10 35-year-old women couldn't, they wanted to learn to drive a car and their husbands were not inclined, but the game began with damage to the mechanics and curses directed towards me without boundaries.

The result was that after ten days there were ten cars driving around in the sports field driven by their wives, who had threatened their husbands with throwing them out of bed.

I could not immediately understand this statement, I was a child, but after some time, a friend told me that wives would make a union agreement not to make love with their husbands anymore.

To make sure I did not miss anything, that year I had tonsil surgery, and I was running away from hospital injections done with syringes that they were boiled to be reused and the needles were made of steel, my poor ass suffered the pain of hell.

Summer everyone at the seaside, the local fishermen invite me to take a boat ride at night to fish for saury; they filled the first boat and returned to shore, I wanted to get off the boat, but they forced me to stay, citing the fact that what happened was the result of my presence, for many weeks the whole village ate fish.

That year I was in my mother's shop which sold fabrics, and I had a bar near the shop with the owner who every time he saw me never missed an opportunity to offend me.