"PITY THE NATION"
(After Khalil Gibran)
Pity the nation whose people are sheep
And whose shepherds mislead them
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars
Whose sages are silenced
And whose bigots haunt the airwaves
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
Except to praise conquerors
And acclaim the bully as hero
And aims to rule the world
By force and by torture
Pity the nation that knows
No other language but its own
And no other culture but its own
Pity the nation whose breath is money
And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed
Pity the nation oh pity the people
who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away
My country, tears of thee
Sweet land of liberty!
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Saturday, April 27, 2019
With time...
It's been difficult days, these.
Last year about this time, three things happened nearly simultaneously.
One of the members of our French/English Conversation Group suddenly stopped coming. We found out much later that she'd been having stomach problems. After many doctors visits a surgeon opened her up, took one look, sewed her closed and sent her home to die. Six months later she was no longer with us.
As we were heading out one day I stopped to talk with a woman who lived in our apartment building. We'd been on friendly terms for years and it was she who recommended a boulangerie that made a true bon pain. I knew she'd been battling cancer and she was particularly out of breath and weak that day. We talked a bit so she could gather her energy. Soon, another apartment owner joined the conversation. Since they were both headed upstairs our recent conversation joiner offered to take the woman's groceries up. We said our goodbyes and I never saw the woman again. She died less than a month after that conversation.
The woman's husband was conversational with Jude and I over the years. One day I saw him driving into the parking garage in a pretty Jaguar saloon. I told him I thought he had excellent taste. He smiled and told me a bit about the car. Six months after his wife had died, we heard from another apartment owner in our building that the husband, too, had died. He'd been in excellent health, but had taken his wife's passing so hard that he was gone a month after his wife.
That was 2018.
Come 2019 and we have further news.
A Canadian friend announced she has breast cancer. An old friend of Jude's who we just saw right here in Paris announced he has bone cancer. And a family member broke the news the very same month as our two friends that she, too, has what turned out to be a very aggressive breast cancer. All three people sound positive and the outcomes in each case appears to be well into the 90 percent survivability range.
Still, all this news is getting a bit difficult to take.
Then, just this morning, I received some bad news about a friend's father.
When I was young and growing up in Dana Point, I had a great friend who I used to pal around with. My father was in aerospace, and his father was, too. My father worked on putting a man on the moon with TRW, and his worked on managing large deep space exploration projects out of JPL.
I enjoyed talking with my friend's father. He had fun stories about growing up in the mid-west and learning to drive the dirt roads that the booze-runners turned NASCAR drivers used to use. He talked about drifting a car through the corners and how to use the throttle to control the car's attitude and to never ever touch the brakes.
One day my friend asked me if I'd like to go with he and his father to Riverside International Speedway to take in a race. Not knowing exactly what I was getting myself into I said sure.
Raceday arrived and I found myself in the backseat of a 1965 Pontiac 389ci GTO convertible. The top was down and the sun was out. Off we went and we were soon on the Ortega Highway headed east. It's the road that still runs from San Juan Capistrano up over the mountain range and down into Elsinore. The road is famous, now, for it's fast lower section and very twisty upper sections.
That morning I got a driving lesson that I will never forget.
A '65 GTO is a big car. It has a bit of horsepower, too.
Mind you, my father was a purely law abiding citizen and wherever he took us, we always were driving at or under the speed limit and in complete security and safety. Speed, by these standards, was for reckless people.
The sun beat down as we reached the lower portion of the Ortega Highway. Suddenly it felt as if the Hand of Gawd ... Damned we're going fast!!! The wind roared around my ears as I tried to assimulate what just happened. I'd never been driven this fast. Ever. What was the speedo indicating? That can't be right. 110MPH? No. Not possible.
As the GTO quickly gobbled up the straighaway we found ourselves starting to negotiate the first turn at a speed I was convinced would kill us far too early in our young and yet to be mis-spent youth.
Holy Moly! The car is sliding gently sideways and I'm sliding down the rear seat toward the other side. Time to dig the hands between the gaps in the seat to try and find something to hold on to. Seat belts, obviously, weren't standard equipment.
And so it was. Fast on the straights. Slide through the corners. Up over hill and dale.
I think my friend turned to look at me at one point. I seem to recall him saying he'd never seen me so white before. I know he was immensely proud of his father.
For myself, it took awhile for the experience to sink in. All I remember is being very happy when we reached the freeway. 65mph seemed sedate compared with what I'd just been through. But soon enough I found I, too, enjoyed the sensations of driving at speed.
Laws be damned!
A year or two ago my friend contacted me to say his mother had passed. She'd been particularly hard on her son and we simply noted her passing. My friend and I have stayed in close contact since then.
Which leads us to today. My friend's father was found some days after his passing. The police needed to break into the house. It's not the circumstances that bother me. It's the knowing how much my friend's father helped shape my view of cars and speed and science and engineering and space exploration.
This man is one who contributed in innumerable ways to the vast library of human knowledge and has himself just reached the speed of light.
Me and my car, some years after
the Trip to Riverside International Speedway
Last year about this time, three things happened nearly simultaneously.
One of the members of our French/English Conversation Group suddenly stopped coming. We found out much later that she'd been having stomach problems. After many doctors visits a surgeon opened her up, took one look, sewed her closed and sent her home to die. Six months later she was no longer with us.
As we were heading out one day I stopped to talk with a woman who lived in our apartment building. We'd been on friendly terms for years and it was she who recommended a boulangerie that made a true bon pain. I knew she'd been battling cancer and she was particularly out of breath and weak that day. We talked a bit so she could gather her energy. Soon, another apartment owner joined the conversation. Since they were both headed upstairs our recent conversation joiner offered to take the woman's groceries up. We said our goodbyes and I never saw the woman again. She died less than a month after that conversation.
The woman's husband was conversational with Jude and I over the years. One day I saw him driving into the parking garage in a pretty Jaguar saloon. I told him I thought he had excellent taste. He smiled and told me a bit about the car. Six months after his wife had died, we heard from another apartment owner in our building that the husband, too, had died. He'd been in excellent health, but had taken his wife's passing so hard that he was gone a month after his wife.
That was 2018.
Come 2019 and we have further news.
A Canadian friend announced she has breast cancer. An old friend of Jude's who we just saw right here in Paris announced he has bone cancer. And a family member broke the news the very same month as our two friends that she, too, has what turned out to be a very aggressive breast cancer. All three people sound positive and the outcomes in each case appears to be well into the 90 percent survivability range.
Still, all this news is getting a bit difficult to take.
Then, just this morning, I received some bad news about a friend's father.
When I was young and growing up in Dana Point, I had a great friend who I used to pal around with. My father was in aerospace, and his father was, too. My father worked on putting a man on the moon with TRW, and his worked on managing large deep space exploration projects out of JPL.
I enjoyed talking with my friend's father. He had fun stories about growing up in the mid-west and learning to drive the dirt roads that the booze-runners turned NASCAR drivers used to use. He talked about drifting a car through the corners and how to use the throttle to control the car's attitude and to never ever touch the brakes.
One day my friend asked me if I'd like to go with he and his father to Riverside International Speedway to take in a race. Not knowing exactly what I was getting myself into I said sure.
Raceday arrived and I found myself in the backseat of a 1965 Pontiac 389ci GTO convertible. The top was down and the sun was out. Off we went and we were soon on the Ortega Highway headed east. It's the road that still runs from San Juan Capistrano up over the mountain range and down into Elsinore. The road is famous, now, for it's fast lower section and very twisty upper sections.
That morning I got a driving lesson that I will never forget.
A '65 GTO is a big car. It has a bit of horsepower, too.
Mind you, my father was a purely law abiding citizen and wherever he took us, we always were driving at or under the speed limit and in complete security and safety. Speed, by these standards, was for reckless people.
The sun beat down as we reached the lower portion of the Ortega Highway. Suddenly it felt as if the Hand of Gawd ... Damned we're going fast!!! The wind roared around my ears as I tried to assimulate what just happened. I'd never been driven this fast. Ever. What was the speedo indicating? That can't be right. 110MPH? No. Not possible.
As the GTO quickly gobbled up the straighaway we found ourselves starting to negotiate the first turn at a speed I was convinced would kill us far too early in our young and yet to be mis-spent youth.
Holy Moly! The car is sliding gently sideways and I'm sliding down the rear seat toward the other side. Time to dig the hands between the gaps in the seat to try and find something to hold on to. Seat belts, obviously, weren't standard equipment.
And so it was. Fast on the straights. Slide through the corners. Up over hill and dale.
I think my friend turned to look at me at one point. I seem to recall him saying he'd never seen me so white before. I know he was immensely proud of his father.
For myself, it took awhile for the experience to sink in. All I remember is being very happy when we reached the freeway. 65mph seemed sedate compared with what I'd just been through. But soon enough I found I, too, enjoyed the sensations of driving at speed.
Laws be damned!
A year or two ago my friend contacted me to say his mother had passed. She'd been particularly hard on her son and we simply noted her passing. My friend and I have stayed in close contact since then.
Which leads us to today. My friend's father was found some days after his passing. The police needed to break into the house. It's not the circumstances that bother me. It's the knowing how much my friend's father helped shape my view of cars and speed and science and engineering and space exploration.
This man is one who contributed in innumerable ways to the vast library of human knowledge and has himself just reached the speed of light.
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Monday, April 15, 2019
She's dead...
I feel like I did when editors of Charlie Hebdo were murdered. I feel like I did when Paris was assulted and far too many people died, including many who were at the Bataclan that night.
This is the place where the first island settlers built a temple to their river gods.
This is the place where the Romans built their own temple not long after the Parisii.
This was the place where Our Lady gave King Arthur the ermine cloak that blinded his adversary during the mano a mano fight with the Roman Frollo.
This is the place where King Arthur then built his church to honor Our Lady.
This is the place where Saint Genevieve sealed a deal with Clovis to protect Paris against attacks from the Germanic hordes.
This is the place where giant chains were strung across the river to keep the marauding Normans out of the city.
This is the place where the alchemists mounted their bas relief plaques that were used to educate later generations in the making of the Elixir and instructing how to enter knowledge as the means of saving one's soul, including educating Nicolas Flamel, Fulcinelli, and a certain Nazi spy who came to see if he could steal the secret of making gold that would be used to fill party coffers.
This is where medieval revelers ended their naked bacchanalian Festival of the Donkey parades.
This is where the Festival of Fools was celebrated until the Church outlawed the inversion of authority (even if it was only for a day).
This is the place where hungry wolves were cornered and killed after entering the old city through a breech in the fortifications.
This is where the Philosopher's Stone was buried and the crow as sculpted to look at it from afar.
This is where the Church, fearful of so many things, had the beautiful statue of Saint Joseph carrying Jesus destroyed.
1789 revolutionaries nearly destroyed this place in their search for raw materials used to finance their war against the Prussians.
This is the place where Napoleon crowed himself while Bishops of Paris and Rome looked on and huge tapestries covered the damage caused by the revolutionaries.
This is the place that was rebuilt, in part due to Victor Hugo's wonderful history.
This is the place Charles de Gaule was nearly sniped as he calmly walked across the open space to celebrate the liberation of France at the end of World War II.
This is the place that today starting a 19h00 local time experienced a crisis of unimaginable horror and 30 minutes later, died.
I feel as hollowed out as Notre Dame de Paris now is.
A historian reminds us that these kinds of building are living, changing. She's burned before and she'll in all likelyhood burn again. She's been expanded, updated, changed, destroyed, changed some more, nearly destroyed time and again. Each time we rebuild her.
The only sadness is that work and restoration will likely take longer than I have left on this earth. Still, we saw her as she once was. And that will have to do.
This is the place where the first island settlers built a temple to their river gods.
This is the place where the Romans built their own temple not long after the Parisii.
This was the place where Our Lady gave King Arthur the ermine cloak that blinded his adversary during the mano a mano fight with the Roman Frollo.
This is the place where King Arthur then built his church to honor Our Lady.
This is the place where Saint Genevieve sealed a deal with Clovis to protect Paris against attacks from the Germanic hordes.
This is the place where giant chains were strung across the river to keep the marauding Normans out of the city.
This is the place where the alchemists mounted their bas relief plaques that were used to educate later generations in the making of the Elixir and instructing how to enter knowledge as the means of saving one's soul, including educating Nicolas Flamel, Fulcinelli, and a certain Nazi spy who came to see if he could steal the secret of making gold that would be used to fill party coffers.
This is where medieval revelers ended their naked bacchanalian Festival of the Donkey parades.
This is where the Festival of Fools was celebrated until the Church outlawed the inversion of authority (even if it was only for a day).
This is the place where hungry wolves were cornered and killed after entering the old city through a breech in the fortifications.
This is where the Philosopher's Stone was buried and the crow as sculpted to look at it from afar.
This is where the Church, fearful of so many things, had the beautiful statue of Saint Joseph carrying Jesus destroyed.
1789 revolutionaries nearly destroyed this place in their search for raw materials used to finance their war against the Prussians.
This is the place where Napoleon crowed himself while Bishops of Paris and Rome looked on and huge tapestries covered the damage caused by the revolutionaries.
This is the place that was rebuilt, in part due to Victor Hugo's wonderful history.
This is the place Charles de Gaule was nearly sniped as he calmly walked across the open space to celebrate the liberation of France at the end of World War II.
This is the place that today starting a 19h00 local time experienced a crisis of unimaginable horror and 30 minutes later, died.
I feel as hollowed out as Notre Dame de Paris now is.
A historian reminds us that these kinds of building are living, changing. She's burned before and she'll in all likelyhood burn again. She's been expanded, updated, changed, destroyed, changed some more, nearly destroyed time and again. Each time we rebuild her.
The only sadness is that work and restoration will likely take longer than I have left on this earth. Still, we saw her as she once was. And that will have to do.
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
A scorpion on the loose!
As one might expect, life can be pretty interesting here along the Cote d'Azur.
Our friends Dave and Mary came over from Bedfordshire to spend an extended weekend with us. The first full day of our visit together was spent in Monaco. Which was a Good Thing(tm) because the entire village was to be shut down the next day. It seems that some Important Chinese Person or other was visiting the Prince.
The day after the Chinese visited the Prince saw the traffic flows around Nice seriously disrupted and we didn't know why. Well, it turns out that French President Macron was meeting nearby with the very same Important Chinese Person to no doubt plot the Chinese Economic Takeover of France. No wonder the buses weren't running their regular routes. No wonder there was a heavier than usual Gendarme presence.
The knock-on effects of these disruptions (economic and transportation) could still be felt the day our Good Friends escaped the bright and sunny climes of southern France for the more familiar cold wintery England.
After spending the day over lunch and then on the colline that overlooks Nice our Good Friends were packed and ready to brave the bus system out to the airport. So down the hill we went to the Rond Point and around the corner we go to pass in front of Station Gatto. Around the gas pumps and...
... wot's all this, then?
It seems that the disrupted traffic patterns had washed up something rather interesting. Flotsam in the form of a sportscar.
There sat a very pretty roadster of one kind or other. The engine was exposed and mechanics were tending to a sparkplug. One man was lighting a fire under the sparkplug's gap. But that's not how you light the engine's fire, now is it? No, he must've been working on heating up the plug or trying to burn off some carbon from a rich-running motor.
So what did we have here? Oh, look, there's a scorpion on the rear fin. Oh, look, there's a nameplate on the valve cover. Ah. It's an Abarth of one kind or other.
OK. Need to move along. Off to the bus. And past Place Garibaldi. And past a huge Gilets Jaunes manifestation. But that couldn't be right either, could it? It was late Monday and... oh... never mind. They were there and that's just that. 'Round another corner and to the first bus stop of the Aeroport Bus.
The transfer of humans and luggage was successfully achieved. Our Final Farewells were well made. And I'm hoofing it back to the Rond Point and our Winter AirBnB.
Thinking about things and doing a bit of research I learn that the Abarth is a 1955 207A. What a pretty thing it is. Being made for export makes sense in that sufficient time has passed from when the House of Savoy and the Northern Italians run things here in Nice and that France likely now qualifies as one of Abarth's export markets. Hence, seeing the 207A washed-up here and not in Italy seemed to fit history as scribbled somewhere by someone out on the 'net.
Approaching Station Gatto I hear the flat *blat* sound of a running highly tuned (for it's day) 4 cylinder. Hah! They got it running!!
Or did they?
As I walk up they're pulling jumper cables off the the terminals. The car again sits silently. What next? it seems to be asking.
Our friends Dave and Mary came over from Bedfordshire to spend an extended weekend with us. The first full day of our visit together was spent in Monaco. Which was a Good Thing(tm) because the entire village was to be shut down the next day. It seems that some Important Chinese Person or other was visiting the Prince.
The day after the Chinese visited the Prince saw the traffic flows around Nice seriously disrupted and we didn't know why. Well, it turns out that French President Macron was meeting nearby with the very same Important Chinese Person to no doubt plot the Chinese Economic Takeover of France. No wonder the buses weren't running their regular routes. No wonder there was a heavier than usual Gendarme presence.
The knock-on effects of these disruptions (economic and transportation) could still be felt the day our Good Friends escaped the bright and sunny climes of southern France for the more familiar cold wintery England.
After spending the day over lunch and then on the colline that overlooks Nice our Good Friends were packed and ready to brave the bus system out to the airport. So down the hill we went to the Rond Point and around the corner we go to pass in front of Station Gatto. Around the gas pumps and...
... wot's all this, then?
It seems that the disrupted traffic patterns had washed up something rather interesting. Flotsam in the form of a sportscar.
There sat a very pretty roadster of one kind or other. The engine was exposed and mechanics were tending to a sparkplug. One man was lighting a fire under the sparkplug's gap. But that's not how you light the engine's fire, now is it? No, he must've been working on heating up the plug or trying to burn off some carbon from a rich-running motor.
So what did we have here? Oh, look, there's a scorpion on the rear fin. Oh, look, there's a nameplate on the valve cover. Ah. It's an Abarth of one kind or other.
OK. Need to move along. Off to the bus. And past Place Garibaldi. And past a huge Gilets Jaunes manifestation. But that couldn't be right either, could it? It was late Monday and... oh... never mind. They were there and that's just that. 'Round another corner and to the first bus stop of the Aeroport Bus.
The transfer of humans and luggage was successfully achieved. Our Final Farewells were well made. And I'm hoofing it back to the Rond Point and our Winter AirBnB.
Thinking about things and doing a bit of research I learn that the Abarth is a 1955 207A. What a pretty thing it is. Being made for export makes sense in that sufficient time has passed from when the House of Savoy and the Northern Italians run things here in Nice and that France likely now qualifies as one of Abarth's export markets. Hence, seeing the 207A washed-up here and not in Italy seemed to fit history as scribbled somewhere by someone out on the 'net.
Approaching Station Gatto I hear the flat *blat* sound of a running highly tuned (for it's day) 4 cylinder. Hah! They got it running!!
Or did they?
As I walk up they're pulling jumper cables off the the terminals. The car again sits silently. What next? it seems to be asking.
Saturday, February 9, 2019
Nice is noisy!
In leaving Paris for the winter I gave up seeing two events that I normally would really enjoy attending. The first event would've been in January with la traversee de Paris. The second would've been in February with the Retromobile show. Both tend to be filled with cars that'll make motorheads turn. I often dream of owning a vintage automobile after seeing so many great things running the streets of the city.
It should come as no surprise that I've over-compensated a bit in coming to Nice. I've been looking for every motor-related event and museum I can find along the cote d'Azur. A little diligence with elbow-grease and I've hit paydirt.
Walking back from a visit to Coco Beach I spied the garages of the Classic Car Club of Nice. I enquired to see if I could take photos. Before Jude and I could see what there was to be seen a little Teckel a Poil Dur came up to us to say "hello" and he captured our hearts. He is such a sweet little dog. After our first visit we've taken to stopping by once a week to pay our Favorite Dog a wee-visit.
Somehow I came across an affiche for a motorcycle show and decided I had to go. We boarded the Bus 100 en direction Menton one cold Sunday afternoon to go see a few old motorcycles in Roquebrune Cap Martin. There is a club in the area that plays host to a salon de motos.
The very first motorcycle I saw on entering the show was a fabulous Egli Vincent. Words escape me. There are no descriptions worthy of the beauty of that beast. It was the very first time I've ever seen one in the flesh.
After spending an hour at the show we returned to Nice where I plotted and planned another adventure.
Not long after the salon de motos I came across a description of a monthly rassemblement out in Saint Laurent du Var. Leaving Jude with our American Guest, Missy, I jumped a TER from Riquier out to the other side of Nice. It was a bit of a hike down to the port, but I found the cars I was looking for.
It didn't take long for me to uncover a very fine Alfa Romeo 1300 Sprint Junior. Oh, she was beautiful. Her owner was sharing his pride and joy with several couples who stopped to ask questions, and I got to take a peek at the motor. The Junior was correct in nearly every possible way.
Soon there was a deep rumble as only an American V8 from the '60's can rumble and, sure enough, up drove a bright red Shelby Cobra 427. She slid in not too far from a wonderful blue '68 'Vette. The French seem to love American heavy iron.
All this happened in the first month our being here. With these out of the way, perhaps we can return to exploring a bit of Nice, right? Alas, there's the Prince's private automobile collection in Monaco that I must go see.
Ah, the never-ending glories of personal transportation. I was certainly not prepared for any of this.
Have I mentioned the Ferraris and Lamborghinis that pass below our front window that overlooks the Moyen Corniche?
It should come as no surprise that I've over-compensated a bit in coming to Nice. I've been looking for every motor-related event and museum I can find along the cote d'Azur. A little diligence with elbow-grease and I've hit paydirt.
Walking back from a visit to Coco Beach I spied the garages of the Classic Car Club of Nice. I enquired to see if I could take photos. Before Jude and I could see what there was to be seen a little Teckel a Poil Dur came up to us to say "hello" and he captured our hearts. He is such a sweet little dog. After our first visit we've taken to stopping by once a week to pay our Favorite Dog a wee-visit.
Somehow I came across an affiche for a motorcycle show and decided I had to go. We boarded the Bus 100 en direction Menton one cold Sunday afternoon to go see a few old motorcycles in Roquebrune Cap Martin. There is a club in the area that plays host to a salon de motos.
The very first motorcycle I saw on entering the show was a fabulous Egli Vincent. Words escape me. There are no descriptions worthy of the beauty of that beast. It was the very first time I've ever seen one in the flesh.
After spending an hour at the show we returned to Nice where I plotted and planned another adventure.
Not long after the salon de motos I came across a description of a monthly rassemblement out in Saint Laurent du Var. Leaving Jude with our American Guest, Missy, I jumped a TER from Riquier out to the other side of Nice. It was a bit of a hike down to the port, but I found the cars I was looking for.
It didn't take long for me to uncover a very fine Alfa Romeo 1300 Sprint Junior. Oh, she was beautiful. Her owner was sharing his pride and joy with several couples who stopped to ask questions, and I got to take a peek at the motor. The Junior was correct in nearly every possible way.
Soon there was a deep rumble as only an American V8 from the '60's can rumble and, sure enough, up drove a bright red Shelby Cobra 427. She slid in not too far from a wonderful blue '68 'Vette. The French seem to love American heavy iron.
All this happened in the first month our being here. With these out of the way, perhaps we can return to exploring a bit of Nice, right? Alas, there's the Prince's private automobile collection in Monaco that I must go see.
Ah, the never-ending glories of personal transportation. I was certainly not prepared for any of this.
Have I mentioned the Ferraris and Lamborghinis that pass below our front window that overlooks the Moyen Corniche?
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