The Future of a History Major

Yesterday we got geared up to do some wandering around Termini area to get acquainted but ran into Fr. and ended up helping on grocery runs, which are adventures in themselves. We returned to the scene of the catfish attack to buy meat and fruit and veggies. Fr. struck up an amiable conversation with an enormous Italian butcher with big teeth who laughed loudly as Fr. joked and he pounded a pig’s back into pork chops. I was pretty impressed, if you couldn’t tell. I can understand some Italian if I can’t speak it, and I gathered that Fr. told him that he was a professor of history teaching art history and history to us, the students who didn’t speak Italian. The man laughed and said something about history; my mind immediately filled in that he must have said that he was a history major, and my little pansy history-major heart sank as I watched his neck-thick arms smash into the bloody meat. My life as a butcher flashed before my eyes; I might have to specialize in salami. I asked Fr. later and what he actually happened was that Fr. said that he was a professor of history and that the butcher was a professor of meat. He replied that he could tell you the history of meat, NOT that he was a history major. I was rather relieved. The butcher’s companion was from the Philippines and spoke some English; the market is pretty wild. I love walking places and hearing 2,3,4 languages rattling around at once amongst all the food. When we got to Carrefour, the tame supermarket, all the clerks hollered hello to Fr. They remember him, since he orders so much food that he was able to convince them to deliver it for us so that we didn’t have to carry it all in suitcases every week or so. The ladies call him Profesore instead of Padre because professors are considered higher ranking than priests, so it’s more polite. When he was director of the Florence program he was thus Directore, and sometimes even Reverend Director if they got really fancy. So that’s interesting.