Living in France
When I was in high school I made a list of all the things I wanted to do before my fortieth birthday — forty seeming ancient at the time. On that list was “live in France and learn to speak french.” Other items on the list included:
-live in Hawaii
-learn how to surf
-learn how to do a handstand
-have sex with a bosomy Italian actress
-live in New York
-learn Chinese
-make a movie
-become a millionaire
-have sex with a cheerleader
-learn how to juggle
-learn how to sail
-live on a boat
-travel the world on a freighter
-learn boxing
-get a nose job
-learn woodworking
-have sex with a buxom french actress
-write a best selling novel
-go to West Point
-run a five minute mile
-own a motorcycle
-have huge biceps
-learn guitar
-have hair like Elvis
I have accomplished many of the goals on that original list although a number of them were achieved after the age of forty. I notice that absent from my list is anything to do with saving humanity or social justice. I have always been a little suspicious of “do gooders” who talk a lot about social justice unless, of course, if they have followed the talk with action: for example, liking doing a couple of years in the peace corps or tutoring disadvantaged kids who need it. Giving money, while nice, is not enough—especially if one is well to do. Talk is cheap.
In any event, I have a new list - things to accomplish before I’m eighty— includes only a few of items:
-become an advanced hand tool wood worker
-learn yoga and mindfulness to deal with a neuropathy
-stay regular
-take a walk everyday
-buy more tools
-don’t drain ‘the nest egg’ buying tools (e.g, leave something behind)
-find a way not to be annoying at the end of life
Needless to say, I’ve abandoned some items from the original list (get a nose job, have hair like Elvis, have sex with a bosomy Italian actress, get a motorcycle).
Back to my France adventure—PART I
After graduate school in 1970 I moved to Ottawa, Canada to work for Bell-Northern Research as an associate member of scientific staff. I was 24. Debbie Harris my girlfriend at the time who I mentioned in an earlier story moved there with me. I had promised Debbie that after 3 years in Ottawa, I would quit and we would live in France for an unspecified period of time. Debbie had previously spent time in Aix-en-Provence without me and she fell in love with the place. So after three years at Bell-Northern Research working on picture phones (deserves its own story — see picture), I gave notice at BNR and flew to Paris with Debbie in the winter of 1973. (Winston the cat gave us a going a away present by peeing in my suitcase right before the flight.) My dad had a fit about this move. He was sure that I would never get another job and that I was throwing away a great career. He was wrong. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done. I had a great three great years at Bell-Northern where it seemed like every third person was named “Gord.” My Canadian colleagues threw me a big going away party and gave me a pipe and beret as a going away gift.
I was certainly excited by the prospect of living in France but I suspected somewhat cynically that a lot of the so-called beauty of Paris was exaggerated. I thought that there would be a few blocks of picturesque buildings on the Seine and the rest would urban ugly. And indeed, I remember the bus ride from Orly airport into Paris was blah. But once, we arrived in Paris, I was dumbstruck. Debbie and I had found our first hotel on the left Bank on the Seine across from Notre Dame. It was from Frommer’s Guide and cheap — $8/night. Maybe less. I remember dropping our bags and I just wandered the streets of Paris at twilight — blocks and blocks of beautiful buildings and cafes with lights. Enchanting. I never wanted to leave.
We spent a week or so in Paris exploring la rive gauche, hanging out in cafes, visiting the Sorbonne and going to french films. Debbie knew a little french so I was dependent on her. And although I took french in high school, it was useless. One of the strongest memories of those early days was how people will treat you as a five year old if you don’t know the language. Learning french was going to be a big mountain to climb but I was really, really motivated.
From Paris we took a “Wagon Lit” (Sleeping Car) for the 12 hour trip by train to Marseille and then onto Aix. Once in Aix, we found a cheap hotel and began looking for language classes and a place to live. We didn’t know a soul although I had a distant cousin who we would meet later on.
During that first week we enrolled in an institute for learning the french language and at the same time we were looking for a private tutor and a place to live. It was on the bulletin board at the Institute that we found an notice for private tutor. We trotted right over to this address right off the Cours Mirabeau and found ourselves facing a massive carved wooden door. (see image). As it turns, out this “hotel” is next door to the house where the painter Paul Cezanne was born.
We were buzzed in and a couple of winding flights up we were greeted by Madame Wytenhove who ushered in to her spectacularly beautiful flat with views of Mt. Saint Victoire in the distance. Madame Wytenhove, a widow, sized us up quickly and like Red Burns, she made a snap decision that she liked us. Speaking only french, she not only agreed to be our private french tutor, but offered to put us up a beautifully appointed room in her beautiful house. Debbie and I looked at each other. We had hit the jackpot. The monthly fee for daily one-on-one lessons was not exorbitant and included breakfast (croissant and cafe au lait) and dinner. It turns out that Mme Wytenhove was a wonderful cook serving four course dinners.
Mme Wytenhove took an instant liking to me — probably because I looked innocent enough and, not knowing french, was unable to express any opinion (a technique which I used successfully in my first days as a professor in Montreal). In fact, she trusted us so much that she said we could stay in the house alone while she went off the next day to visit relatives in another part of the country. We met her son Henri the next day who had come to fetch his mother for the trip. Henri was in his twenties and living in Marseille where he was curator of the local museum. Henri was horrified when he learned bout this. He said, “Maman, you don’t know these people and you’re letting them alone in the house?!” And in Red Burns fashion, she said, “Don’t worry, I have a good feeling about them.” So Debbie and I got to stay in this amazing french apartment with views of Mont Saint Victoire for our first week in Aix.
Here’s a couple of shots of me and Debbie preening and me doing my french homework.
In searching the web to see if there were any photos of Mme Wytenhove I came across an article by Michael Dirda of the Washington Post who had rented the same room from Mme Wytenhove in 1968. Dirda’s description of his time in Aix mirrors my own experience. It’s beautifully written. So I include it here.
“Aix possesses one of the finest main streets in Europe — a wide boulevard canopied by plane trees, lined with cafes and bookstores on one side and sweetshops selling les calissons d’Aix on the other. There are fountains every block or so, and narrow, winding streets lead off toward the market square, the cathedral and one particular restaurant where I would eat steak-frites or a slice of pizza from a wood-burning oven. During the day I would attend classes in the morning, read in a cafe at lunchtime and sightsee in the afternoon. One sky-blue weekend Madame Wytenhove’s son took me to see the dam built by Emile Zola’s engineer father, and then drove me by the original chateau that served as the model for Le Paradou in the author’s novel about sensual awakening, La faute de l’Abbe Mouret (The Sin of Father Mouret). Another Saturday I laboriously climbed to the top of Mont Saint-Victoire, the mountain pictured in so many Cezanne paintings.”
PART II. Debbie and I stayed with Mme Wytenhove for four months. I settled into a disciplined routine of extreme immersion. Breakfast (cafe au lait in a bowl and fresh croisson), private lessons with Mme for 2 hours in the morning, homework of french grammar exercises, food shopping in the open air market (Marche en plein air), a brief siesta, and attending lessons at the “Institute pour les etrangers). During the second week in Aix, I bit into a chewy candy and managed to break a piece of my molar. So I got to experience the French dental system. Mme Wytenhove arranged for me to see Dr. Gaillyrand (amazing that I still remember his name). He spoke little english and my french was still useless. Yet he figured out what I needed and I was out of the chair in an hour or so.
Slowly, painfully slowly, I began to understand snippets of the language and what was being said to me. Understanding is one thing; expressing yourself was another. But I was taking baby steps in trying to speak. At about the three month mark, I had learned enough french to be dangerous. The most embarrassing moment when I tried to buy a pineapple yogurt at a small grocery store. Pineapple in french is “un ananas” ; jackass in french is “un an.” Turns out I asked the grocer for a Yourt d’un an” which roughly translates as “Jackass Yogurt.” The grocer looked at me straight faced and said, “We only have fruit flavors here, no jackass flavor.” My regimen also include buying novels and noting new words (Crime on the Orient Express was the first french novel I read) as well as going to city hall and listening to court cases. We also starting going to the movies where I discovered a love for slapstick french comedies—especially Louis de Funes who usually played a wealthy uptight businessman who gets humiliated in various ways. One of the funniest scenes was when Louis was placating a boat designer by trying out a new kind of kayak which you could wear like a tutu as you waded into the water. Of course, the kayak flips over and all you can see are Louis’ legs up the air. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breath.
At about six months into our stay, Debbie and I were hanging out in a cafe when we struck up a conversation with a very friendly guy about our age from Marseille named Albert. He was a plumber by trade. Albert adopted us and let us pal around with his friends taking us to the beach and on picnics. He called me “Sky Lab” because the americans had just launched the first satellite space station. A very funny and kind guy. Debbie meanwhile was attending classes in Pottery at a famous school in Marseille and had befriended a woman named Veronique Neil. “Vero” as we called her was a wonderful friend. I ended up staying with her extended family in Versailles when I was doing a project for a Paris Museum. More on the project later if I have time. I will say more about my stay in Marseille later if I have time. But I will say that this was a first hand experience of old school french family. The father (Veronique’s uncle) was a judge — a fat little frenchman who didn’t think much of americans. In any even, his wife (Mme Neil) was a saint — a very smart, educated and pious woman who prepared three substantial meals everyday as well as coordinating housework and helping the poor. Monsieur le Juge Neil literally had never stepped foot in the kitchen. It was a big house, but still. He just showed up for meals expecting everything to be fresh and well prepared. Times have changed I think even there in Versailles.
After about six months in Aix I flew back to Montreal for an interview for a post at the french speaking Universite de Montreal. I still remember getting goosebumps when I landed at Dorval and heard the announcements in French over the loud speaker. I understood them now as opposed to when we left the same airport six months earlier. It dawned on me that another universe was opening up to me through the learning of a new language at the age of 27. As it turned out, I did well enough in the interview to secure a position at the U de M for the following year. So I returned to Aix and continued my adventures for another xix months. My experience beginning teaching in French after roughly a year learning the language is worth another story. More later, maybe.