In the begining...

In the beginning…
Written in July 2008

My earliest memory dates from when I was a few months old, I was sleeping in my parents’ room at that time, (that’s how I know my age…) I raised my head and saw both my parents fast asleep, it was a warm morning and I looked around me and saw a lady bug on the sheet… I put my hand on his path and the lady bug was now walking on my hand… I looked at him and smiled. This lady bug came to see me very often and we played for (what seemed) hours in the early mornings.
In French lady bugs are sometimes called betes a bon dieu… which translates to the good god’s beast, that was my first encounter with God, or the notion of God in our lives… God at that time was that cute little flying insect that keeps me company by walking on my hand…

Some twenty eight years later, I was walking amongst olive trees in Jerusalem, with my very pregnant wife and we sat under a tree to rest… it was a quiet day, quiet as only Jerusalem can be on a shabbath and suddenly came a little lady bug and rested on the very pregnant belly…
I told my wife Orit that the lady bug was the baby inside her belly and, a few days later I was standing in Hadassah Hospital smiling at Gal… and she smiled back, and I took a dozen pictures of my Gali’s smile…
To this day Gal is my little lady bug and I am sure that on my next trip to Jerusalem I will find my lady bug… “or the good god’s beast”… I will find my lady bugs either in the park… or in the angel smile of Dahlia or Tikva… my third generation lady bug.

At eighteen, I was living in Milano working in a TV factory as a test technician; it was my first real job… the salary was lousy barely enough for a young man living away from family… it was therefore natural for me to be interested in the strikers picketing in front of the company next door to my job.
Being the first time I was confronted with pickets, I tried to find out its implications and repercussions to other factories, including the one I worked in…

The young man suggested I come by the party regional headquarters and get some more information. Having nothing else to do, I went to the HQ the following evening… I soon discovered that to get the “real scoop” I had to join the party… so I joined the Italian Socialist Party.