Angels Sometimes Wear Bathing Suits

It was the mid 1960s.  My father, a technical representative for an aerospace company, had been assigned to work with the US Navy in Naples, Italy.  Because it was to be a long stint the whole family moved with him to Naples.

The first year we lived in the actual city of Naples.  However, four rambunctious American boys living in a city of apartment dwellers was not working out well. At the time of this story I was the eldest at 13 years old, Paul was 11, Mike was 10, and Jeff the youngest at 6 years old.  My parents would soon have a fifth son, Mark, born while we were there.

My father found a villa to rent several kilometers north of Naples.  It was in an area of summer villas for the better off Italians.  In the summer it was a populous and active area.  Wintertime was all together different, with just a handful of year round residents, mostly other foreigners.

We lived in a compound containing several other villas and a swimming pool.  We were less than a kilometer from an area with wide, sandy, Mediterranean beaches. It was an easy walk from our villa, and one that we made often.  Just outside our compound was a lake, Lago Patria that was surrounded by undeveloped land good for roaming.  It was a perfect place for boisterous boys. Like many of the houses in southern Italy the villa had a flat roof. A staircase from the second story led up to the roof where my mother hung laundry.  In the summer time, we would occasionally sleep up there. I would lie there at night gazing at the stars, tracking the occasional shooting star and fantasizing about alien spacecraft.  Perhaps that is why I developed such an interest in science and science fiction. I have many wonderful childhood memories centered on the two and half years we lived here.

Childrearing in the 50s and 60s was different. On non-school days, my mother would feed us breakfast and lunch, and then she would tell us she did not want to see us until the next meal. We were free to roam and do what we wished, hopefully staying out of trouble. I do not remember any police, but over our childhoods there were several trips to emergency rooms. Oh the joy my parents had raising five boys.

Summer was all but gone, but the rainy, cool winter of southern Italy had not yet arrived.  The Mediterranean Sea was still very swimmable.  Since school had started back for the Italians as well as for the American school ran by the US Navy, there were not many folks around.   We four boys decided to go to the beach.  As always when we did this we told our mother that is where we were going.  She really did not have many worries as the beach was popular and lots of people there as a rule, many who knew us. The Mediterranean in this area is ordinarily very calm.  There were usually only gentle, small swells.  It was also reasonably shallow out from the beach area as there were many underwater sandbars. You could walk close to a 100 meters from the shore with only occasionally having to swim between sandbars.  Once on a sandbar, you would often be less than knee deep.

This particular day was cool, windy and overcast. A strong storm would be coming in the next few hours. When we reached the beach no one was around. The accustomed gentle swells were gone, the sea and wind had whipped them up to small breaking waves, more interesting than scary to us. We three older boys decided we wanted to go out to one of the sandbars that was some distance from the shore.  We knew it would be a little much for 6 year old Jeff, so I admonished him to wait for us and play on the shore.  I should have known better.  Even at 6, Jeff was demonstrating what were to be lifelong traits, stubbornness and impulsiveness.  He certainly was not going to listen to his older brother who was, after all, only 13 years old.

Thinking I had Jeff safely situated, playing in the sand at the water’s edge, the rest of us took off for the sandbar.   Getting there was not an issue.  Once there we played around for a while.  I’m not entirely sure of the timeframe, but probably 20 to 30 minutes had passed since we left Jeff on the shore.  In this time, either the storm had gotten closer, or the tide, strengthen by the incoming storm, had turned.  Whatever the reason, the trip back to the shore had suddenly changed into a battle with the current of water running strongly against us while it was also deepening.  My brothers were having a hard time swimming on their own in the newly powerful current.  Being 13 and in the middle of the growth spurt that would propel me to over 6 feet, I could still touch the bottom. Walking, I could fight the current better than swimming.  Both Paul and Mike had grabbed on to me and I began my struggle back to shore.

I have no concept of how long it took, but in my memory it was just a little bit short of forever. I remember being scared.  Not so much for myself, but for my brothers.  What would happen if they lost their grip on me?  What would happen if suddenly the water became too deep for me to walk?  I was not a strong enough swimmer to get all three of us to shore by that method.

I did manage to get us back, but when I got close to the shore I realized my mother was there.  She had had one of her premonitions and rushed to the beach in the family station wagon.  Jeff was lying on the shore looking like he had been worked over by all three of his older brothers. Unknown to us, Jeff had tired of being on the shore and decided to follow his big brothers to the sandbar.  In the tumultuous sea he had gotten into trouble.  We were totally unaware of this as we were engaged in our own combat against the unsympathetic sea. My mother quizzed Jeff, but she never got a totally coherent story.  The best Jeff could tell her was that there was an Italian gentleman walking on the beach, saw him in trouble, waded out to bring him back to shore, and continued his stroll.  When my mother arrived there was no one on the beach, we did not remember anyone there when we first came.  Since he would be walking on the water’s edge, any footprints would have vanished. My mother concluded that either an angel had passed by to save Jeff from the sea or perhaps had touched someone to be there at that exact necessary moment.  The thought of a male Italian angel assumedly wearing the common skimpy bathing suit that passed for a Speedo in those days, I find both amusing and very reassuring.  Angel or paisano, it certainly had the feel of divine intervention.

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