Original lyrics written by Barry Arthur Cotton.
Foreign language translations created with AI assistance and edited by the author.
Music and vocals generated using AI tools under commercial licenses under platform use terms.
It was the spring of 1980. Chiseko was pregnant with our son Nicholas and was staying with Hugh and Helen in Lawrence, Kansas.
I was in Saudi Arabia on a contract to write a training program for Gas Plant Operators in Ras Tanura, and I was applying for a few jobs even though ARAMCO had offered me a position.
Marcello, an executive at an Italian refinery construction company in Rome, contacted me to fly me to Rome for an interview. On the morning I was to fly to Rome, I checked in at the airport in Al Khobar, gave the agent my passport, and he went into an office area behind the check-in counter.
Time passed; my flight was being called, and no agent, no passport. My flight took off! No agent! No passport!
When he finally returned to the counter. “What the hell!” I said, “I just missed my flight!”
“Mafi muskilah” (no trouble), he said, “We’ll reroute you.” So, I was booked, Saudi Airlines to Beirut, where I would catch Aegean Airlines to Athens, have a 6-hour layover, and catch an Alitalia flight to Rome.
So, I called Marcello in Rome and told him I’d be late. He said, “No problem, a friend and I will pick you up at Leonardo Di Vinci and take you to dinner and then the hotel.”
I landed in Beirut to chaos. The runway was being shelled.
As the plane taxied to a more distant runway, a flight attendant called out my name and led me to the rear exit and said, “Run to that plane over there!”
So, I caught the Aegean Airlines flight to Athens. On the flight, I sat next to a British expat working on an oil rig near Dubai. I told him my story, and he invited me to his place on the beach near Athens. “After all,” he said, “You have six hours to kill.”
So off I went. He got out ouzo, cheese, and olives, and we drank for four hours. By the time I made it back to the airport and caught my flight to Rome, I was feeling pretty good.
Marcello met me at the airport, led me to the parking garage, and to a very small car, then pushed the driver’s seat back so I could get in the back.
Sitting up front in the passenger seat was a drop-dead gorgeous Italian beauty.
Marcello introduced her. “This-a is mi mistress. My wife-ah, she’s ah gone to Napoli cause-ah her mother, she ’s-ah dying again. Everyone south of ah Rome is BATSO! (Slang for insane).
Oh, my god, I thought… I slipped through a cinema portal and landed in a Felinni movie.
Marcello’s mistress was charming and spoke excellent English.
They took me to one of Rome’s oldest restaurants and did all the ordering. Our waiter was old, skin and bones, and had one of the deepest frog-like voices I have ever heard.
Absolute perfection in the Fellini-esque script unfolding that night. For antipasto, Marcello ordered La zuppa di Fagioli Roma (Roman Bean Soup) … my god, it is the best soup I have ever had.
Anyway, I stayed in Rome for three days, was offered a job, but ended up declining because of the currency restrictions on getting lira out of Italy and the tight rental market, with landlords keeping their properties off the market in protest of government rent laws.
On my return to work in Saudi Arabia, I stopped by the central train station and an espresso bar for coffee before taking the train to the airport.
When I got back to Dhahran, I read that 10 minutes after I left the espresso bar, it had been bombed by the Brigata Rossa.
Perfect ending to living a Felinni movie, right?