The Scooter Centurion

“They will have to pry it out of my hands, even when I turn 100.”

With a big night ahead of us, a seven course dinner and wine pairings, our group decided that a bit of “exercise” was in order.  We took taxis to the top of the hill above Cortona for a few minutes in the old castle and a brief stop at the Basilica di Santa Margherita.  As we took our first steps down the hill back to town, we understood why the minivans strained on the assent. It was steep.  How hard could it be walking down a hill?  Was it a hill?  It suddenly looked like a mountain.  In dress shoes on steep cobbles worn by centuries of wear and tear, it was indeed perilous.  Moreover, we were no longer young and spry.  Being in our fifties on average, we believed that we were in good shape, but the descent was slow going for fear of slipping.  We were humbled by our attempt at exercise.

A distinguished woman a bit older than us was leaving her house near the top of town with an electronic scooter.  Given the steep grade, I feared that it would slip from her hands.  Surely she was moving the scooter left behind by one of her kids, or grandchildren, or great grandchildren.  Flashing our group a gleaming smile, she jumped on the scooter and rode breezley down the hill.  We had a quick conference and agreed that if she were our mother, we would take the keys away immediately.  Still, she was fearless, happy, and in complete control.

While we didn’t have time to exchange a word, I wondered about her life.  Clearly this was a woman that had seen a lot over her 80 or so years.  She appeared to be of the town, not a transplant, not a tourist.  We had encountered a lifelong resident.   Maybe, she had experienced as a child the hard years of rebuilding following the second World War, and then Italy’s economic boom in the sixties and seventies.  In the nineties and early two thousands, she saw the town blossom following Frances Mayes’ bestseller, Under the Tuscan Sun, and the corresponding movie.  More recently, Cortona received a small pop in notoriety when the comedian Conan O’Brien came to town with his straight man sidekick Jordan Schlansky, and the memorable speech on the steps of the town hall.  The stories she must have to tell about this city with a rich history predating the Romans.

As luck would have it, the next day we bumped into the Grand Dame on her scooter, not far from the steps where Schlansky gave his speech to Cortona.  We were able to stop her and chat for a bit.  Her eyes sparkled as she explained that she drives up and down the hillside town, everyday, and in a dress.  A dress!  Even her shoes showed a command of style that was foreign to me.  Rather than the sturdy, orthotic shoes of the elderly, and candidly rather than the sturdy shoes I was wearing, she was sporting a fashionable pair of leather loafers.  Unthinkable on the uneven and slippery cobblestones of the upper streets.

As we talked, this bella donna (beautiful woman) from another age said something that I struggled to translate.  She explained that she was not 80 something, she was 97 years old.  That put her as being born in 1924 and gave a new perspective to all she had lived through. Having seen so much of life, she had a radiance that I have rarely encountered.  As we parted, she talked about her love for her scooter.  Perhaps friends or family had suggested that she might be…a bit too old to navigate the steep and curvy cobblestone streets on a scooter.  I certainly struggled to navigate them on foot.  She assured us that she would never give up her scooter, “They will have to pry it out of my hands even if I turn 100.”