On the day when the researcher had to use the instrument, Piero and Umberto made the tests to detonate the firecracker just 2 m above the GC. After Piero's transfer to the CNR in Padua (Umberto moved too), I began to attend his laboratory, one of the few that had available the legendary ZAB 2F, a high-resolution and inverse geometry instrument to perform MIKES and CAD MIKES. I met Pietro Traldi (but all we have always called him Piero) in 1975 at the 2nd School of Mass Spectrometry, held from 9 to 12 June, 1975, and organized by the Mass Spectrometry Group of the Italian Chemical Society and by the Institute of Chemistry of Milan Polytechnic, coordinated by Prof. Antonio Selva. [Extracted from the article]