Men in Coats: Looking Good in Piazza San Giovanni di Dio

I have fond memories of Saturday mornings more than a half century ago, when my father would take me "downtown"--downtown, that is, in the sleepy suburb of Des Plaines, Illinois.  We would go to the hardware store and the bank, where he seemed to know everyone.  In that dignified way he had, he wore a sport coat. 










I see something of him, that desire to present oneself well, to look good even on a Saturday morning, in the older men of Piazza San Giovanni di Dio, far from the center.  We were renting close by, on via Palasciano, and I couldn't help but notice the attire of these older, doubtless retired men: sport coats to be sure, less often a suit, commonly a tie, now and then a dressy cap, sometimes, today, a trifle corrupted with jeans and tennis shoes.  The age of mannerly dress, now long gone for most Romans, kept alive by these elderly gentlemen.  Bill