Christmas, 1964, three or four missionary families collected in Pisa for an annual fellowship celebration. Little Drummer Boy, Silver Bells among songs to be sung. Participants included ten (or so) kids, ages 9 to 17 (or so). What do you do in the morning after breakfast, before the big dinner that afternoon? Mainly, you send all the kids on mission: Go somewhere for a walk, and don't come back any time real soon. Thus, we wandered hither and yon for a while, empty streets (holidays, right?), closed stores (no tourist mementos, no pasticci to be had!), cold, overcast skies. Then Joe Mike said, Let's go to the tower. So we went, cousins, friends, brothers, sisters, little brothers and little sisters in tow. Finally there at Piazza del Duomo, we did the obligatory running on the deserted lawns. Tiring of that, we found the door open at the base of the tower, so we stepped inside. (I mean, this was half a century ago. Little more than. Nobody to stop anybody, holidays, remember?)
Unlike others' experiences, perhaps, our assumption was the circular staircase's invitation to rise. The moment of truth came almost to the top when, for reasons that escape me now, you had to leave the inside staircase to the outside colonnaded catwalk way up there, and circle your way around to the other side. From that other side you could get back inside to continue the final ascent. But at critical junctures on that catwalk there was no railing. It was you, worn sloping-away-from-building catwalk, and not very thick air. Mother earth's arms 170 ft. below held no warm welcome to us. Don't worry: Nobody fell off or died, either direction, not even a little kid, so it was OK in the end. (Did worry at the time. Not sure if parents ever found out details of the mission.)
Continuing.
At the next-to-last level, huge bells hung, one each in an archway (can see them from the greens below). You could stoop under a bell and go to the outside railing once again, you could also take the last set of steps up the topmost columns and enjoy the view. Which we did, of course. But the wild thing was this: as we ducked under the bells, it struck noon. Christmas Day. And believe it, noon's fury struck with all bells. They clanged on and on, joined by bell towers throughout the town. Clamping hands over ears, you could only barely reduce the peals impelling through your core. We laughed, or maybe even cried, as surprised as dismayed by the relentless drumming. Short story, we made it back home mostly safe after being gone long enough, in time for the feast.
Now, in my seventies, sometimes it seems that, indeed, I picked up a memento of that Christmas past - a little, silver ringing ever in the background of an old brain's wakefulness.
