Memories, by Sergio Mainella

Memories
by Sergio Mainella

I've been asked to tell some episodes about the old Speleo Club. I thought I could write down some anecdotes instead of talking about the explorative or the scientific things, being sure that others will write on the last ones with more wisdom.
Of the numerous stories we had in many years of activity, I've chosen some that characterise our first years. They can give an idea of the wit that moved us at that time, better than many others.

1. Sleepless Night

    I was dead tired, I went to sleep in my tent, making myself comfortable on the rucksack I used like a pillow.
    I slept badly through all night, although I really needed some sleep, suffering of a sudden dreadful headache.
    When it was dawn I recovered. My mind started to work again and I found, beside my rucksack, a pair of boots of my friend Selleri. They were soiled with rancid grease and emanated an unbearable stench.
    That morning, Pierpaolo had to look for his boots all around my tent. He found them among the grass, thirty meters far.

2. The Nightmare

    One night a loud scream woke me up. It was given by a young speleologist that was sleeping in my tent.
    During the day, when he was going on the ladder for the first time in his life, climbing up a pitch that was 100 meters high, he realised that his belay rope was entangled in the ladder below him and so it was like he had no belay at all!
    He was living again this episode in his dream and thinking he was falling down...

3. The Bridge

    To end the speleological course of 1960, or maybe it was 1961, we organised an excursion to Creta Rossa cave.
    We got on the bus late in the morning and we arrived at the foot of the mountain at 3 in the afternoon.
    It snowed a lot and, while we were climbing up, we encountered more and more snow. Around the middle of our ascent the snow was one meter high.
    The first group that had to track the path, it was dark and the high snow hid the landmarks, lost their bearings.
    We were divided into groups of seven people and shared the materials but, due to the situation it ended that the weight was carried by the old ones.
    We reached the refuge, where we planned to pass the night, after two in the morning and, as we wanted to come back to Roma in the evening, we decided to go placing the ladders and ropes in the cave as soon as possible.
    The first team left the refuge after a short pause to eat something. Me and Baffo were in that team.
    Going down the cave, we reached the first deep sinter pool, a little more than one meter wide. Beside it there is a narrow ledge. It is necessary to walk on it to reach the other side of the pitch.
    Me and Baffo noticed that the beginners hesitated and, maybe because they were tired, did not want to walk on the ledge.
    All at once I see Baffo stretching flat on the pool. He told me: "C'mon Se', let'em pass".
    In fact they all passed on him and we continued the excursion.

4. The Fast

    During the summer camp at Consolini cave, a corvée bought a kid for dinner.
    That very afternoon they went down to Carpineto town, telling they would be back at dinner time.
    When they got back, they found that the camp was quiet and the fire was going out. In short, they realised that their mates ate all the kid and went to sleep drunken.
    They were angry. While two of them started shouting to wake up the guilty mates, the third revenged himself pulling off all the stake pegs from the tents, that fell down on the sleeping ones.
    Of course only one tent remained stand, the one of the three. Nobody attempted to touch it.

5. The Swindle

    In the 60s, Frenches and Spaniards organised a speleological campaign to the "Pierre Saint Martin" cave.
    Giorgio, Gianni and me were invited by the Spaniards to join the expedition as geologists.
    We left Italy around fifteen days early to reach Pamplona to see the Fiesta di San Firmin.
    Leaving the camp site to reach the meeting place where some trucks had to take us on the Pirenei mountains, good Giorgio - God bless him! - told us: "I prepare the sacks and arrange well the weight of the materials".
    Arrived at the main camp, after five hours of marching on the mountain, we found that Giorgio carried a sack that weighed barely the half of ours...

6. The Piglet

    To return the favour we invited the Spaniards to the campaign of Pozzo Consolini. They came in two.
    One morning one of them was walking through the camp pulling a hammer in front of him. He picked it up and pulled it again.
    With the last throwing he hit a piglet that was grazing with others around our tents under the beeches of mount Semprevisa. The hammer hit the piglet between its eyes and killed the animal.
    We discussed a lot with the swineherd because he wanted ten thousands liras for indemnity and wanted the keep the victim. After long negotiations we came to an agreement: we paid five thousands liras for the piglet.
    As we were setting off the camp, we went to Fiuggi and had a banquet at Igea boarding-house, owned by the parents of our mate Severa.
    That is how the annual ritual of the Piglet Banquet started and went on for twenty-eight years!

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