When you are at the green table, the torments remain dormant. As if anesthetized between a game of broom or ladder forty. «Play don’t think about anything else». At the clubs, any afternoon is good to collect what “gnaws inside”, all it takes is a little patience, between one “hand and the other”.
Dino Finotto, 74 years old, can be seen at the Way Assauto club almost every day. He worked as a building contractor and now that he is retired he continues to work hard. He doesn’t just play cards.
«I’m a gardener and florist here – he says – it’s not easy to set up such a large club. Here everything works thanks to volunteering. There is no profit.”
The place, once an after-work club for Way Assauto employees, boasts 1,600 members, the highest numbers among those in Asti. «We could use some help from the Municipality – he says – they should take care of the greenery and prune the trees.”
He proudly points to a large plane tree near the gate and the monument to Remo Dovano, partisan and worker of Way-Assauto after whom the club is named: «Here we have a centenary tree». Then he says: «We have told the Municipality several times that they have to come and cut the plants, only the other day a large branch fell, if someone had passed by they would have killed it».
They are almost all retired, but on the weekend you can find someone who is still working. «I keep spitting blood – says a worker from Johnson Electric, formerly Gate, while he sits at the gaming table – I want to enjoy Saturday, since I don’t go to the factory.” Bruno and Arturo, pensioners, have a drink at the club bar. Arturo is worried about his daughter with a mental disability: «She broke her arm and I don’t know how to handle it. I have been alone for forty years, fortunately my son is there to help me. I lead a life with a bitter taste in my mouth and sometimes tears in my eyes.” He started working early and a few years ago he left the business to his son. “On the second day of school I already had my tracksuit on,” he says.
There are those who keep everything inside, and those who occasionally tell snapshots of themselves. Rosa Avigliano, from the «Sempre uniti» club, prepares coffee. She listens and gives advice. Then she too has some torment. Which? «There is little work, the structure is large and there is a lot to do. It’s difficult to keep up with everything.”
At the Nosenzo club the courtyard is full, games are played around the tables and the city’s problems are discussed. Donato Ciola is waiting for his friends to play a match. With 42 years behind him as a worker in Turin in the aerospace company Avio, he looks at the world of work with concern. «Who works in Asti? – he asks – Now that practically all the factories that existed have closed: Way Assauto, Morandi, Weber. Many have relocated, many have been bought by large foreign companies such as Way Assauto, purchased by the Chinese.” Beyond work, what “gnaws inside” is the state of public health. “I had to book the thyroid test, they scheduled it for me next year in May,” he says. Having arrived from southern Italy, he has lived in Asti since 1972 and has two children: “Two months ago I became a grandfather for the fourth time.”
Among the regular visitors to Nosenzo there are many grandparents. Michele Bava is concerned about the maintenance of the streets: “In front of my house there is a broken pavement and it is full of weeds, you can’t pass with a stroller.”
