WORLDWIDE CROWNCAPS
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THE DESERT FOX

I

 

was nearly twelve.
I wore shorts only with the Boy Scout uniform.
My collection of half a thousand caps almost did not increase, because I was too ashamed to be seen while gathered them from the ground, so I remained quite indifferent when my mom decided it was time to throw them away.
- You're grown enough to think about what you'll do as an adult, don't you agree? -
I agreed, of course.
Or so I said, as I saw the protagonists of my table sport games facing their last race: jump in the trash!

Since then I was busy (without too much effort) to plan my future, but I was always tempted to pick up a crown, if I saw him winking from the curb.

Years later I found an old and rusted survivor; to escape the slaughter it had taken refuge, no one knows how, in a "Little Chemist" box; I decided to save it, even if its condition was desperate.

At the end of the sixties, after crossing the wave of existential protest, I decided that I would no longer be influenced by the opinion of reactionary people, and restarted my collection in the face of the world.
So I managed to convince my uncles to bring some caps from the trip they were undertaking to Africa, and after a month I had my first samples from that continent.
My interest was mainly kindled by a pretty Algerian cap depicting a stylized lion.
I took my decision: I'd have been a reporter of the National Geographic Magazine!
So I could have been firsthand experiencing the world beauties, and share them with anyone who loved nature; at the same time my crowns stock could became extraordinarily universal.
Too often, however, is life to decide what kind of life you're going to live, and my name always remained unknown to the National Geographic …

They would never have been repent enough!

NEITHER DO I, ABSOLUTELY!!!

But basically, my job allowed me to visit a little part of world anyway, and Algeria has been trampled as well by the soles of my shoes.
In the course of four months I've been crossing the dunes of Sahara in a Land Rover, or walking with instruments on my shoulders, bewildered by the immensity of red sand stretches, literally lost among a lot of identical horizons around me.I approached to its fickle and extreme weather, wrapped in polar clothes at sunrise, going then to get rid of my petals, one by one, just like an onion.
When my eyes were not involved with the telescope of the instrument I always explored the sand, hoping, in vain, to save from their destiny some trashed caps; maybe Ghibli, the terrible wind that moves the dunes, would have uncovered a crowned relic buried for decades…

In fact, something jumped out at Hassi Messaoud, an oil fields area swarming with thirsty workers; unfortunately, caps bore the signs of relentless sun, sand and time.

In the evening, back to the hotel in Touggourt, I found the reassuring fervency of the voices, sometimes incomprehensible , of the people, the manager's young sister-in-law with her bright smile, and lots of cool drinks just waiting to be opened!

On the balcony of my room a joyful and convalescent pretty fennec with a wounded leg was waiting for me to receive his daily meat ration and some not so appreciated caresses.

Also this country has indelibly marked the album of my memories, with experiences out of the ordinary.
We had to detect a strip of desert about 80 km long in order to study the route of a railway that, as far as I know, has never been realized.
One day our algerian driver, trying to return from the desert to the hotel, insistently urged by the foreman to go towards his right, drove in circle for hours, until we didn't know anymore in which direction the asphalt road was.
Salvation came with the appearance of a guardian angel disguised as a shepherd, who showed us the way to the road; the sun was almost down when the wheels touched the asphalt twenty miles further from the hotel.
That evening our faith in the providence reached its highest level!
There was, but for very different reasons, another memorable event: the sight of the first, tender attempts of a newborn camel to rise upon its long and uncertain legs, still wet after its birth.
The collection as well is full of memories from my lifetime in that immense country, and every time I look at a crown collected in Algeria it reminds me the melancholy and proud faces of the children posing in front of my camera.
They played with simple objects of their daily life, sometimes molding toys out of mud, but seemed to be happy just like having everything they need .
I wanted to teach them to play with the caps, but decided it was better not to feed the competition …
They certainly did not imagine that would have become icons of my most exciting memories, among the few pages of a "Once upon a time there was a crown cap …".
At the end of the mission I returned to Italy waiting for a new destination.
There were rumors of Colombia, Argentina, and even Fiji Islands…
Actually I'd be back in Africa, to know the Nigerian ancestral rites in that damp and chaotic city named Lagos.

 

Lorenzo


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