Empoli, 16 June 2024 – At the extraordinary age of 102 years old (turned June 12th), Finish Curci he got a taste for it and this year too for his birthday party treated herself to a nice sidecar ride. A tradition that is repeated because last year too the ‘grandmother’ from Empoli went for a ride on the scooter and then blew out the candles at the Brotini pastry shop in San Miniato where a delicious cake was waiting for her (also offered this time). This year, however, everyone was at the table at Avis where around thirty of her, including friends and relatives, had reserved a nice surprise for her. Fenzi arrived around 12pm with her elegant white hair blowing in the wind and her standard glasses. Her light suit, red nail polish, she got out of the sidecar, lent by Massimiliano De Bartolo’s Retro Sidecar, with ease even though she broke her femur in August a year ago. “They operated on me and that leg came back perfect, if anything the other knee hurts”, she confides smiling. His strength is tenacity. His 101st birthday had been preceded, a couple of months earlier, by a delicate surgery to implant a pacemaker due to symptomatic bradycardia. The operation was performed in the cardiology of the San Giuseppe hospital with a positive outcome.
She herself has always faced life head on. She is originally from Olevano sul Tusciano, in the province of Salerno, and arrived in Tuscany many years ago. Having lost her father when she was young, she worked in the fields in Battipaglia, then in a tobacco factory and finally made gift items. She married twice and was widowed twice. She had no children. However, she never lost her smile. She now lives with her niece Carmela and her husband in Via Cristoforo Colombo, in Ponzano. She is autonomous, she still does a lot of things on her own and loves to crochet, “without glasses, because they bother me”, she is keen to point out. “I stopped cooking fried rabbit which tasted great to me. Unfortunately – she explains – now I barely feel the flavors of the dishes and therefore I also have less appetite. But I’m not complaining. I’ve had a lot from life.” She has a lot of people who love her. “I have so many grandchildren and great-grandchildren that I don’t even remember the number – she says – and a brother who will turn one hundred on June 29th. He still lives in Battipaglia with his daughter”. Sprint also arrived to pay homage to her grandmother mayor Brenda Barnini who gave her an orchid and a parchment on behalf of the municipal administration. Barnini herself didn’t miss the opportunity to take a ride in the sidecar. “It was a really nice surprise,” said the wonderful 102-year-old, thanking everyone before sitting down at the table while the delicious smell of ‘Neapolitan’ ragù already wafted from the kitchen. The lightness with which Mrs. Fattiva Curci faces her advancing age is a hymn to her life. “Every day I say to the Lord “oh, if I have to live, let me live well and if I have to die, let it happen quickly and without suffering”. Best wishes grandma and always full throttle.
