For years, my grandfather told stories about his village: the tree, the church, the men in the piazza. It was this reason that his son, my mother's brother, my uncle, decided to make the trip to Italy.

So, I found myself close to the bottom of the boot, in a part of the country that is probably more like West Virginia than Rome. Simple, rustic, and somewhat impoverished. I had no map, no guide, and no understanding of the dialect. I could find no one who spoke English. In fact, I could barely find anyone who could understand me when I said “parla inglese?”

Myself, my uncle (mio zio) and my aunt (mia zia)--heretofore known as The ZII--arrived in Cosenza, the biggest city in Calabria, where we got profoundly lost.

“Excuse me, can you tell us how to get to Serra Pedace?” “Sempre diritto (straight ahead),” they would say, pointing left. We would go left, get lost, then stop.

“Excuse me,” I asked one man, “can you tell us how to get to Serra Pedace”? “Sempre diritto,” he would answer, pointing right.

At one point, the ZII even asked a nun. She talked for five minutes, in Italian of course, gesticulating madly both right AND left. Humbly offering, from time to time, those two magic words: “Sempre diritto!”

I think I know why my grandparents left Calabria.