“In 2009 Manifattura Caprotti closed in Albiate. A few years earlier Esselunga had sold its management to the textile group of the Albini brothers from Bergamo, retaining ownership of the walls of the old factory. (…) However, when the Albini family decided to put an end to production, the disappearance of so many jobs in Albiate was a dramatic event. Although my family no longer has anything to do with it, it is therefore natural that the mayor Filippo Viganò visits Bernardo to try to limit the fallout on the town. Our father’s reply arrived at the town hall offices in a letter dated 6 April, (…). The factory and the burnt jobs occupy thirteen lines, because a large part of the text is dedicated to another issue that evidently nags our father much more: the cemetery. (…) my father reminds Viganò that he had previously written to him to criticise the way in which the cypresses that adorn the cemetery were pruned. (…) He does not limit himself to theoretical advice, he explains where to go to observe cypresses that are really tall and straightforward, as they should be: ‘(…) Enclosed you have a 20,000 euro voucher for a trip to Sirmione and Garda, where municipal officials, administrators, the gravedigger and above all some pseudo-gardener will see what cypresses look like’. (…) For the record, it should be pointed out that no one has ever gone on a trip to Lake Garda with the 20,000 euro. Not the mayor, not the administrators, not the pseudo-gardeners, not the ‘Gravedigger’, a recurring figure in Bernardo’s letters to the mayor.” (pp. 303-304).
