From the age of sixty on, everyone in Paganica remembers Corrado Cimati for his athletic build, above-average height at the time, his love, ready-made smile, and charm as a movie actor, in fact he never tried to decide where to shoot, but which of the women liked very much.Her age and the others Moreover.
After high school Corrado had arrived in Parma to pursue his undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of the beautiful Emilian City, then graduated with full marks and honors with a thesis on “Chronic Pulmonary Insufficiency Musharraf A. Italo Vaccari”As the historian of Il Tempo reported on L’Aquila’s page, the news that thanks to the remarkable results of his studies, Dr. Pellsbury immediately offered Cimati consulting services for livestock products in the provinces of Abruzzo and in the provinces of Rieti and Terni. Corrado successfully worked in that company, but then found another satisfactory job in Rome, always in the same professional field but in the pharmaceutical sector, with promising career goals. However, what I love, which made him choose to study at a prestigious university, is veterinary medicine, but not from narrow prospects.
So in 1969, after he married Gina, his life partner, he decided to emigrate. Undoubtedly, a pioneer of the current immigration that sees graduates and researchers out of Italy for the graduate world.
Corrado and Gina embarked on a trip to Australia – for them it was also their honeymoon – arriving after forty days sailing in Sydney, where their uncle was in the interior of New South Wales AdrianoHis father’s brother, Arnaldo, owned a “farm” on a large plot of land. Soon after acclimating with his uncle, Corrado soon moved to Melbourne, where he found a large Abruzzo community and many Pagans. Italian qualifications were not recognized, he began working in various sectors, before graduating again in veterinary medicine at a local university, after the course he followed in Parma.
Of course, in the graduation exam, Corrado was the most intelligent. So much so that he was soon assigned to a state veterinary clinic where he worked for several years, until he decided to fulfill his aspirations: to open his own veterinary office. He opened it in a beautiful Victorian house, with a large garden around it, bought it in a residential area of ​​the city, and appropriately renovated it as a home and veterinary clinic on the ground floor. He practiced his profession there, in cooperation with his wife Gina in the secretariat, until the age of 81, until he decided to retire and close the studio, also because his two sons, Adrien and Samantha, chose other career paths.
Corrado has always maintained a strong relationship with his family in Paganica, with his sisters Rina NS Silvanaand with his brother Vittorio, who passed away prematurely in 1989 at the age of 51. He fueled the relationship with periodic phone calls for news of the family and Paganica, to update ancient traditions, including culinary traditions. In fact, there were frequent requests for old family recipes that he looped around the stove. A bond with roots also expressed in a part of his home garden, which he turned into a vegetable garden, growing vegetables and legumes for the needs of the family, sometimes using seeds somehow obtained from Paganica, such as the famous and typical bean varieties.
In August 2005 I went to Australia on a cultural tour (Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart) led by the President of the Music for Peace Association of L’Aquila, Giuseppe Luzzi, with Cappella Ars Musicalis Choir directed by M° Jose Maria Sioto. When we arrived in Melbourne I took the opportunity to visit Corrado and Gina, in their lovely home.
I was led by two pagan friends who also live in Melbourne. Silvio Moro so Russian imdio. It was a beautiful afternoon for memories and updates on the events of the homeland. Then we met again the following evening in the great hall of Club Abruzzo, one of the three Abruzzo associations in the Australian capital. The choir gave a concert there, while I in my institutional capacity brought the compliments of the municipality of L’Aquila. It was a wonderful cultural evening, and a great passion ended with joy, during which I met other pagans – Tonino de Polis, Pasqualino Ioviniti, Marino Ciofteli – and many other immigrants from L’Aquila.
Revered and appreciated for his sincerity and originality in his friendships, Corrado Cimati has left a prominent mark in Italian society in Melbourne, and especially in Abruzzo. As a strong mark he left in Baganica, in his native community. And also because from a young age he showed his multifaceted talent, not only in his studies. His father Arnaldo, in early summer to late fall, took his agricultural machinery out of the shelter. It began with the threshing of wheat, barley, and wheat, and a tour of the threshing machine with a hot-headed Landini tractor, with its mighty thunder, was a real sight. The team of workers in the machine service, of which Corrado and Vittorio were part, toured the plantations, first in Paganica, and then in the neighboring villages, threshing opium (heaps of sheaves) of wheat and barley.
Then we went to the cities of Upper Otterno, Montreal and its environs, where the harvest ripened later, until late August. At the end of the threshing season in the large garage, formerly the stables of the Doge’s Palace and restored as a civic center thirty years ago, the threshing machine returned and an unusual corn-picking machine came out: an old Mercedes that Arnaldo had adapted, depriving it of the passenger compartment. Driven by car engine. Arnaldo has achieved it all with his creative mechanical skills. This car is really nice, with the lantern headlights and the always polished long green snout. We practically ended up shelling corn in October, and we walked around the farmsteads hanging out to dry. Meanwhile, plowing the fields began preparing them for sowing wheat in November, or for planting new crops in the spring. Then there was also the mill that was still in operation on the state road towards the sanctuary of Apari and Gran Sasso, where they went to grind wheat and corn for the relative flour.
In all these mechanical matters, Corrado, who stayed away from his studies from June to September in the months of greatest commitment, was Magna Bars in running the business, along with Dominos, his father, Arnaldo.
After the harvest season in the fields, the family business started the butchery business, from November to April. They prepared sausages, various bacon, bacon, bacon, cheeks, and any other real specialty in ham processing. The Simati family had a very gentle butcher, Setimio, who took care of preparing the meat, while the whole family was engaged in the auxiliary work, which required a lot of him in the slaughter. Every year, slaughtered pig rosary feeds the meat production chain, presented with the best quality and flavour. Donna Isildi, Arnaldo’s wife, in the adjoining shop on the ground floor of the Simati house, near the Mother Church and the town’s main square, with her remarkable kindness and grace, served this delicacy to loyal customers of the whole region.
Another activity that involved Corrado before his departure for Australia. Near the village of San Giacomo, a few kilometers from Paganica, he set up an innovative poultry farm, chickens and laying hens, which was the height of employment, especially for his sister Rina and Silvana, when thousands of chicks were born from incubator machines and had to be taken care of before they were all sent for sale . This rustic memory of Corrado Simati, of his pre-immigration profession, will seem unique.
I think if he could find out about it or read it from there, he’d be happy with it. In fact, he had a special interest in the agricultural world and peasant society, a great love, the source of that authentic culture from which he derived those human values ​​that he brought with him to the oceanic continent.
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