My 96-year-old aunt, Virucha, told me this as we walked around the block in Buenos Aires that was once the quinta of the Pagliere clan (the block surrounded by Corrientes, Sarmiento, Gascón, and Acuña de Figueroa). In front of my cousin’s shop was a sign that said something like: “No dejar canastos en la acera o la calzada”. She saw that I wasn’t completely familiar with the words, so to illustrate she told me the following story.

[Virucha, mi tía de 96 años, me contó este chiste mientras dabamos la vuelta de la manzana que antiguamente era la quinta de la familia Pagliere (la cuadra entre Corrientes, Sarmiento, Gascón, and Acuña de Figueroa). En frente de la fábrica de mi prima Lucila Ballester (que diseña y hace trajes de baño de mujer), la hija de la tía, había un cartel en que estaba escrito: No dejar canastos en la acera o la calzada. Virucha vió que no conocía muy bien las palabras, así que para ilustrarmelas, me contó la siguiente historia.]

Una española se muda, con su gata, a Buenos Aires. Le pregunta a un vecino “dónde podría ir a pasear con mi gata?” “Bueno,” le dice el vecino, “el jardín botántico es lindo y ahí hay muchos gatos.” Entonces, un día la española lleva su gata al jardín botánico.
Un gato del jardín se acerca a la gata y le dice, “Qué tal si vamos a pasear por la vereda?”

La gata le dice, “no se dice ‘vereda’, se dice ‘acera’.”

“Bueno,” dice el gato, “qué tal si vamos a la calle?”

La gata le dice, “no se dice ‘calle’, se dice ‘calzada’.”

El gato, un poco harto ya, está casi por irse. Ahora la gata le dice, “Qué tal si vamos a coger un ratón?”

El gato le dice, “No se dice ‘ratón’, se dice ‘rato’.”

In cleaning my office, I came upon the business card of Antonio Balsemin, a card he handed me after he gave my son and me a ride in his taxi during our late summer 2001 stay in Rome. It was a very enjoyable taxi ride. He is outgoing, talkative and clearly a man of many interests. I let him do the majority of the talking since my Italian is passable but has no depth.

Though he happens to drive to be a Roman tassista, really he’s a writer. His passion in life is writing in his native dialect from the Veneto region of Italy. One gets the sense that it is partly to preserve his own past, but it also has a larger purpose.

He realizes as many people do, that in the past hundred or so years, the diversity of local cultures is disappearing as individual cultures and languages die. However, he does something about it. By writing in his own language he keeps one tree alive as the larger cultural deforestation goes on.

Check him out at: http://www.antoniobalsemin.it and check out an article written about him the same month he gave us a cab ride and a fascinating conversation.