Collodi

While I was in the midst of receiving a "higher education" (aka college), Middlebury's administrators were dishing flak towards Wikipedia for not being a proper source from which students could cite because... well, because of it's wiki-nature. Namely, how anyone can alter/edit/create posts without much credibility to back it up. I can't disagree with this practice, however thankfully I'm not a student any more, so frankly I don't care about how legit my sources are when I cite the following! Wikipedia is the bee's knees and it offers a cornucopia of information like this little blurb about Pinocchio.Pinocchio is a fictional character that first appeared in 1883, in The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, and has since appeared in many adaptations of that story and others. Carved by a woodcarver named Geppetto in a small Italian village, he was created as a wooden puppet, but dreamt of becoming a real boy. Pinocchio is often a term used to describe an individual who is prone to telling lies, fabricating stories and exaggerating or creating tall tales for various reasons.Yes, Carlo Collodi. Of Collodi, Italy. Of... oh, probably 20km away from my Lucca, Italy home. Presumably the town wasn't named for him while he was actually living there in the mid-1800s, but you never know. Anyway, with such a pillar of any American (and probably Italian) youth's literary upbringing just a quick jaunt away, I took to the bicycle and rode in search of the origins of Pinocchio!...Actually that's nearly entirely a lie. Rather, I was riding with Tejay the other day and when we were in the foothills just north of Lucca, he said something like, "You may notice that this entire town is dedicated to Pinocchio. (Yes, I had.) That's because the guy who wrote it was from here."Yes, tallest in the WORLD.And lastly, Collodi from a nearby climb.Everything in this town is dedicated to Pinocchio. Restaurants have corny names or puns with Pinocchio in the title, there are more postcards and toys than you could even imagine. But in truth, I think that all makes sense. I imagine the guy who invented the freakin' fishing pole probably has everything in his hometown dedicated to his fame as well.