Amalfi, Italy. October, 1984

I’ve always admired busdrivers able to maneuver difficult turns in tight spaces. In Harvard Square, in Manhattan, or here among the many hairpins along the Amalfi coast. (I took this photo looking straight down from my window seat on the bus. Yikes!) The local bus from Sorrento to Amalfi carried not only tourists like me (and like the British matron who kept saying, “I fancy an Orange Crush,”) but also many schoolchildren on their way home. (It functioned, I learned, as the official schoolbus.) As we tried to make a tight squeeze through a tiny town square, it soon became evident that there was no way past an illegally parked car. The busdriver got out, went into a nearby store, then a bank, and eventually emerged with a woman, the car’s owner, who prepared to move her car to the cheers of the kids chanting, “Brava, Signora Fiat Uno!” A skillful maneuver, a memorable moment.