ONE PHOTO, ONE STORY
A photograph sent to the Col Maòr in the winter of the Olympics, and a «thank you» to a seventy-eight-year-old committee member
In March 2006 Belluno had just seen the Turin Olympic torch pass through, and the Col Maòr had given it the front page. On page 5 of the same issue, beneath an article on the scarecrows of the Salce countryside, there was a box headed «Impara l’arte…» – «Learn the craft…». Inside was a photograph: a vegetable plot closed by wire netting, autumn trees and a few maize plants so tall that they towered well above the fence.
The photograph had been sent to the editors by Ernesto Barattin, a member of the Group’s committee, to show off «his recent harvest».
«Learn the craft…»
The box, signed with the initials «M.S.», played on the news of the day. «These are Olympic times», it said, so it was best not to look too closely into methods; but the editors would really have liked to know what «good Ernesto» gave his corn cobs «to make them grow so enormously».
Those plants brought to mind the «canne gargane» of the «legendary “Ceri” Sommacal»: a memory the Col Maòr took for granted among its village readers, and one that would need to be pieced together today. And since the article alongside was about scarecrows, the joke wrote itself: if they had to match the size of the harvest, Ernesto would need planning permission.
Then, jokes and «anti-doping» aside, the tone changed. The Col Maòr congratulated Ernesto on his field and on the passion that, despite his age, he put «not only into the craft of the countryside, but also into all our group activities». It closed: «Thank you, “nòno”!!!» – grandpa.
The Group’s «nòno»
When that issue came out Ernesto was seventy-eight: he was born on 28 October 1927. He had been a member of the Group’s committee since December 1993 and would remain so for many years, becoming an honorary committee member in 2014. The nickname «nòno», used affectionately by the editors, has stayed with him in the pages the Group has dedicated to him since his death in 2016.
The Col Maòr’s reports often show him with his sleeves rolled up: in the work of the «veci muratori», the old bricklayers, at festivals, in the Group’s initiatives. The 2006 photograph adds a different, homely touch: a man who, at almost eighty, still worked the land with care and was proud enough of it to want to show his friends.
Maize in Salce’s memory
The box about Ernesto sat next to an article on the scarecrows of Salce, from the «pupot» of the Vare di Canzan to the hunter «Cirillo» built in Angelo Carlin’s field at Spin. «Now that wheat crops have almost died out», the author noted, scarecrows had become a rarity.
Maize, by contrast, has left many traces in Salce: in the instalments of «Quando tuti se avea ’na vacheta» and in the photographs collected for the book on the Group’s 60th anniversary, where a caption recalls the gathering, in 1967, of small maize cobs to be sent abroad. Almost forty years later, Ernesto’s photograph shows that crop still alive and grown with passion.
Help us complete the story
We do not know where that plot was or who took the photograph. Nor do we know who «Ceri» Sommacal of the «canne gargane» was. If you remember Ernesto’s plot, have other photographs of his harvest or know something about those legendary canes, please write to the Gruppo Alpini Salce. Every memory will be collected and checked.
📚 From the papers of memory
- M.S., «Impara l’arte…», and A.D.P., «L’arte spontanea dei campi», Col Maòr no. 1, March 2006 (in Italian), p. 5.
- For his biography: Ernesto Barattin, in the MEMORIA People pages, and the sources cited there.
