“When good Americans die, they go to Paris.”---Oscar Wilde
Less than two months from now, my child bride and I will be in France, doing the things people who go to France do. Strolling down the Champs-Elysees hand in hand while itinerant musicians play La Vie En Rose. Clambering to the top of the Eiffel Tower for some bubbly in the champagne bar. Looking for Louvre in all the wrong places. To be on the safe side with the natives I’m learning to say “Woody Allen sent me!” in French. Woody’s films brought more people to Paris than Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe and Brigitte Bardot combined, and the Paris Tourism Bureau owes him a small statue, at least.
Don’t forget Hemingway, either. Ernest was a big fan, his thoughts on France defined by his time living there as a young, struggling but deeply happy expatriate in the 1920s. He called Paris “A Moveable Feast,” which meant that wherever you go for the rest of your life, the city and its magic will always stay with you. “There are only two places in the world where we can live happy,” declared Hemingway. “At home or in Paris.” You’ll note that nobody ever says this about Rotterdam or Saskatoon..
I’m hoping things work out better than my first visit to Mexico, where I soon learned the buses don’t always run on time, people give you directions whether they know them or not and it’s a bad idea to get ice in your Margarita. Fortunately, we have infiltrators to help us as niece Kathleen set out with a scouting party two years ago to get the lay of the land (she lives on the Left Bank; no, not Kathleen). In any case, we’re ready. We have our stash of euros for the public toilets, our Charles DeGaulle backpacks and our pickpocket-proof money belts and we’ve learned all the words to The Marseillaise in case we wind up with a bunch of hooligans at an international soccer brawl. Oh, and we promise you---We Won’t Come Back Til It’s Over, Over There.
Getting There Is 1/16th The Fun
One of the reasons I have never gone to Europe is my antipathy for long flights. That and my deep fear of running into a McDonald’s in Saint-Remy-de-Provence. I remember being captured once by an airplane in Honolulu and hauled all the way to Boston, a cheery hop, skip and jump of 12 hours. When I got to Beantown, I felt dazed from sensory overload and bruised as if beaten by cricket bats covered with foam padding. After abstaining for years, I reluctantly flew to Anchorage, arriving in a fog at one a.m. to find my travel agent had given the wrong date to my hotel and rental car company. Talk about getting cold-cocked.
On the other hand, I haven’t seen my old pal Gilbert Shelton, a long-time Paris resident, for nigh onto 64 years, when both of us were stirring up a hornet’s nest with University of Texas censors while turning out monthly issues of the Texas Ranger humor magazine, and it seems like time’s-a-wastin’. My six months in Austin were a revelation marked by daily epiphanies, a swirl of new friendships and colossal good times, which started with me living in Gilbert’s condemned apartment, engaging in life-and-death waterballoon fights involving hundreds of warriors, meeting crazed women and dining in venerable Mexican-town restaurants at midnight. Shelton: “Try the enchilada plate, it’s only 88 cents.”
Gilbert left and rarely came back, opening a tiny workspace and studio called Art Kerblooey at 9 Rue Francois de Neufchateau in the 11th Arrondissement, wherever the hell that is. This is not a retail store, I’m assured by nephew Gavin Shelton, so don’t trek out there looking for Fat Freddy’s Cat paraphernalia. Even if you happen to find Gilbert there, remember he’s 85 now and subject to feeling grumpy, so you might want to bring along a peace offering of sweet tea and an enchilada plate.
Anyway, I’m told the airlines have outstanding perks these days if you’re willing to pay the piper. For a grand extra, you get seats that fold out into a bed, for a thousand more a stewardess will bring wine and tuck you in at night and for another thou she’ll get in bed with you. Oh, and don’t forget your compression stockings, we don’t want to be stopping at the Landspitali hospital in Reykjavic to take care of your ugly blood clots. Other than that, bon voyage! See you at Notre Dame. What do you mean there’s no football?
Whatever Happened To Continental Capers?
Remember when we had these things called travel agencies? Back in the real golden years they were scattered all over town. You could pop in at a moment’s notice and plan a trip to Tanganyika or Detroit with the aid of skilled experts and all of it was free because the travel agencies were largely subsidized by the booming airlines. Alas, one day at a Pan Am picnic, the CFO took a look at the payouts and screamed “Stop that train!” In no time flat, the travel agencies found out what fade to black means. Now we have to do all this stuff ourselves. Oh sure, there’s AAA, but we stopped using them when Freida at the Need-a-Tow? desk who held your hand til help arrived was replaced by Clarence the Computer, who said they’d get to you in eight or nine hours if the traffic lightened up.
Though they are rarer than turtle teeth, travel agents do exist, hiding their shame in little duplexes or tawdry booths at the farmers’ market. I was given a clandestine phone number for “Yvonne,” by an underground friend who prefers to go unnamed. I called her and she gave me directions to an address on SW Second Street near downtown Gainesville. “Knock three times and whisper low,” she said. I went as close to the address as I could get, parked on the property of a deceased burger joint and started looking around, but there was no such number. I foolishly asked a pair of convenient malingerers if they knew Yvonne, but they were high on Ashwaganda and slowly discussing their fascination with the color magenta. I carefully drove around a couple of reclining derelicts and made a mental note to avoid downtown any time there was not a Flying Pig Parade happening. Oh, well. Sometimes you just have to reach down, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, uncork a bottle of Jameson’s Triple Distilled and call Delta. Hopefully, you won’t get Ganesha.
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| Kathleen Ellison, D.C. Coordinator, Killeen For President campaign, 2019 |
Anticipation Always Trumps Reality
“At the age of thirty-seven she realised she’d never ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair,”---Marianne Faithfull
Me neither, but a nice tour bus with a sack of baguettes will do. Thanks to Woody and early James Bond, I feel like I know the basics of the City of Light and what I don’t know niece Kathleen will hip me to. Kathleen Ellison, now the wife of Yaniv Barzilai, still appreciates me for helping to hone her driving skills on the interstate when all others fled in terror at the prospect. A dermatologist by trade, Mrs. B. wound up in Paris after her husband drew the long straw at his State department job. Not to say that Yaniv didn’t pay a weighty price for his plum posting---his previous stops were in lovely Azerbaijan, famous for its sterling waste management and exciting garbage floods and never-dull Kabul, home of Kidnapers ‘R’ Us. Walk across a hot bed of coals for eight years, eventually you get a cushy spot with a view of the Eiffel. Seems only fair. We’re staying with the kids for a couple of days while we get our feet wet. Knowing Kathleen, we won’t be bored.
On Day 3, it’s off on the Rick Steves 7-day tour of Paree with our new friends from Albuquerque, Duluth, Pflugerville and Roanoke. We have not done much of this group touring sort of thing, although we did enjoy our Duck Tour in Boston in a bus that converted to a riverboat. When we headed for the Charles, Mildred and Larry up in front jumped out because they didn’t know how to swim; we picked them up on the way back. Forest Gump had tour groups figured out…they’re like a box of Dunkin’s, you never know whether you’ll get Nutella Croissant or Jelly. The tour guide can make or break the day, of course, and we had a jolly lad. Pulling up to a pub across the street from a tiny ancient cemetery, he told us “This is the only place in the world where you can drink a Sam Adams while looking at his grave.” Maybe Marcel Marcel will have a few similar bon mots in his poche.
We’re Off To The Coxville Zoo
Sometimes Rick Steves gets a bit weary and gives you a little time to explore Paris on your own. I think we’ll be passing on the famous catacombs and the Musee des Egouts sewer museum due to Siobhan’s allergies to intricately stacked skulls and femurs and her lack of interest in urban plumbing. While on our own we’ll be guided by the colorful suggestions of my cosmopolitan cousin Beverly Mack, who’s been there and done that:
“We did the big things…Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, etc., but we more enjoyed the smaller venues like the Pantheon, the Grand Mosque with its adjacent Moroccan restaurant and walking along the Seine through the Latin Quarter past crowded Notre Dame and nearby Shakespeare and Company bookshop, then on down the Champs Elysees through the Tuilleries, past the Louvre pyramid. Don’t miss the flower market. If I could do only a few things in Paris, they would be: visit the Pantheon and the St. Chapelle chapel; have a meal at Jean Paul and Simone’s Les Deux Magots and visit the adjacent St. Germaine de Pres church. And lounge at a local sidewalk bistro as often as possible, just people watching.”
Beverly is one of those wise women who trekked through Europe in her youth while we were haggling with Mexicans over the price of onyx in Puebla. Perhaps a smarter choice, although we have funnier stories. After all, nobody worries about the Evil Eye in Montmarte.
C’est tout pour aujourd’hui….
bill.killeen094@gmail.com
