Adelio Ponce De Leon, writer, Diana correspondent and journalist for over 60 years passed away at the age of 96. - In Memory of Adelio:
The bad news hits me early in the morning, as soon as I get to the office and it's one that takes your breath away. The moment we inevitably thought about, but which in our hearts we all wanted destiny to postpone as long as possible, has finally come and, as far as we can believe we are prepared, reality is instead of a strong, implacable disorientation, sour.
And as often happens, one immediately goes back to the moments spent in company talking about hunting, snipe, hunting policy, hunters, experiences lived with a shotgun on his back a little everywhere, from the rice fields of Lomellina and the Novarese, from the Brabbia swamp and from the Bardello lake of its native places, to the swamps and forests of Eastern Europe, Turkey, the North, chasing long beaks, ducks, geese and queens.
And then the war, the troops, the gazelles of North Africa, the imprisonment, the escape, the gold medal of the Resistance, a life rich beyond measure of events. I did not have the opportunity to go hunting with Adelio, mostly for reasons of a personal nature, but without a doubt to be able to discuss it with him yes and even several times.
Obviously without forgetting his books, which have accompanied me since I was a child who took his first steps on Diana's paths together with dad Alessandro. The first of those volumes that I had in my hands was “Momenti di caccia”, published in 1962 and recovered by my father on a stall in the square when I was ten years old.
From that day, as I was able to write in 2007 in the preface to Adelio's book "Vices and virtues of the hunter", I was literally enraptured by his narrative arts, which prompted me, once I obtained the first, coveted license, to go in search of everything that had sprung from his typewriter.
The volumes then accumulated in my library but not in vain, as sometimes happens with books we buy not knowing why, which will then lie never open and never read: those of Adelio, on the other hand, read and reread a hundred times, now almost they no longer close, so much have they been probed, meditated upon, traveled by the gaze in the chasing of words and vivid events and situations told.
Then came the day when Adelio spoke to me in a new way, proposing that I reflect on the possibility of running for the presidency of the Snipe Club for a series of reasons that it would now be useless to list: a proposal that pleased me so much, but also it caused me some concern, because who could lightly take on such a role at the head of the oldest Italian dog-hunting association, which has included among its ranks extraordinary characters of the hunting and hunting dog industry of our country?
As it was, as it was not, the challenge was taken up and for six years we worked together with a group of friends to revive the somewhat tarnished fortunes of the Club, to the great satisfaction of Adelio, who did not hesitate to show him as honorary President after almost twenty years (from 1965 to 1984) of active leadership of the association.
I remember so many social lunches, conferences, debates, more or less formal meetings, where the occasion of his company became a source of lively exchanges of ideas and jokes.
In May 2010, during the Recognition Day, the Province of Milan awarded him the Isimbardi Prize, dedicated to personalities distinguished in Milanese society for particular work and dedication in favor of the community and almost unique, among the winners that day, took the microphone for to thank with his ringing XNUMX-year-old voice and the unmistakably pronounced "r" which I believe will remain among his distinctive features at least as much as his hats and stained sticks.
Others, of much longer and more assiduous familiarity with him, will be able more fully to retrace the life and events of Adelio. I just want to conclude with a fraternal greeting to a writer, a journalist, a hunter, but above all to a man who has given us a lot, hoping that the Almighty will allow him to continue chasing snipe in the green prairies of the sky, while down here we will jealously cherish the memory.
Goodbye Machine gun and thank you very much for the many teachings you have left to us poor "prehumans" who nourish your same passion.
Massimo Marracci