I had just completed the drawings on another gunite in-ground swimming pool project. 1181 is how many I would design and build in the 29 years of my so-called career. Thirty years being an even number -- “I am not into that completion thing.” (Words from “The Big Chill,” spoken by William Hurt.)
Did you know that Kevin Costner’s part was written out of the movie? On a vacation to Savannah and Charleston, we tour the town of Beaufort, South Carolina with friends. Sandy comments, “This looks like where ‘The Big Chill’ was filmed.” Yah, right! On the next block there stood the house. We Yankees were treated better in Paris, the one in France, than here in Beaufort. However all it took to get on the United States Marine Corps Training Center at Parris Island was a simple verbal request of “Permission to come aboard, Sir.” Funny. It is after 911. You cannot get a vehicle anywhere near the National Guard building in Braintree, Massachusetts, and with no one there during the week, but you can drive right on board to a place that holds thousands of Jar Heads. I was a United States Navy SeaBee so I can lovingly call you a JarHead. Because of us you could drink your beer cold all around the world. Where the %*&$ was I? Oh yah, Paris.
It is 9:30 p.m. in the middle of the week. Sandy is still working at her business at Alexandra’s European Skin Care Salon. For both of us, another super-long day. Owning your own business is a wonderful thing. One of Sandy’s regulars says, “Oh I know how you came up with that name. Your husband’s name is Alex and your name is Sandra.” Good guess! Excellent guess! Alexandra is Sandy’s baptismal name. It is that simple.
My business phone rings. It is Janis, our travel agent. She never calls me in the evening. She says, “It will be your wife’s 50th birthday soon. Did you make any plans?” No! Then she says, “Paris for the weekend?”
We are married 41 years as I write this. In that time we have continually pulled off surprise parties on each other. I guess we must not be too bright. I say Yes to Paris for the Weekend. Janis and John will come along too.
The three of us decide to keep the destination a secret from Sandy. This will be our first trip to Europe. Pack for the same weather as Boston. Leave your bathing suit at home. It will be city, not country, and bring really good walking shoes. No, you will not need sunscreen.
Janis only travels First Class. We wait at the Admirals Club at American Airlines for the call to our gate for Orly. Every time they announce a flight, Janis talks over it so Sandy can’t hear the destination. Once we are on board they announce that our flight to France from Boston will take about 6 and ½ hours. Sandy is thrilled.
We buckle up for the evening flight. Two hours out above the Atlantic -- I think it’s the Atlantic -- the Captain comes on over the speaker and says, “We have a medical emergency on board and will be returning to Boston.” This is certainly a first for us and even a first for Janis.
Finally, after a turn around back to Boston, we land in France. John grabs a Mercedes cab and Janis shouts, “Follow us!” It is a little bit like the “Pink Panther” movie. “Follow that cab please.” They have all the travel plans. I don’t even remember what hotel we are staying at. I had to keep the secret destination a secret, remember?
We arrive at the hotel right behind them. Janis orders us to go to our room but be back down in twenty minutes. We are walking to the Louvre to beat jet lag. We reply, “Ma’am yes Ma’am!”
The Bacons and the Hansens in Paris.
Janis knows her stuff. Even though the Louvre has no Mexican/Mayan or American Southwest exhibits, it’s not bad.
Her only favor is for us to dine with them at the best restaurant in Paris, called La Serre. Hey! This place is even better than Pedrin’s Dairy Bar on the Curran Highway in Adams. It seems there is a different waiter for each course. To really overwhelm you, the roof opens to the Paris starry sky every once in a while. What the hell am I suppose to do with all this silverware? Sandy excuses herself to go to the ladies room and a waiter shows her to the elevator and rides with her to the restroom, where a woman takes over, even opening the bathroom doors for her. Here’s where the service started sliding. I noticed the three bottles of wine that we drank consistently were covered in dust. I would never lie to you, mi amor. Two waiters deliver the bill. I guess it took two in case someone fainted. The bill was $700 U.S. Janis and John said “Happy Birthday Sandy!” and grabbed it. Wow! Thank you so much.
The next morning Sandy and I get an early start and climb aboard the Metro. The train and a bus will get us across the Seine and over to the town that Nicholas Bachand departed from on his way to French Canada in 1646. Bachand is my real last name, as you probably know by now. He travels down the St. Lawrence River to Quebec City in a wooden French Army ship. It had sails, you know what I mean. Judy Collins sang the song about Suzanne taking you down to a boat by the river where she serves you tea and oranges that come all the way from China. She is referring to the Saint Lawrence. (Leonard Cohen wrote it. He is touring Europe right now. Sandy and I are big fans. Kezia took us to see him at Berklee School of Music on Mass. Ave years ago. I hope he comes to Boston again soon.) Oh! Hello. Well, back in 1977 I hired Mrs. John Coderre of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada to help me find a missing relative. Too early for computers. Here is the sentence from Mrs Coderre -- written on August 28th in 1977 -- that got me to come to the town of Saint Cloud, France (St. Clude). “If Frank Bacon were of French origin another possibility is that his name was originally Bachand, which is pronounced “BACK-ON (the “D “ being silent, and the “N” given a nasal sound). Possibly the name was anglicized to BACON when he moved to the United States of America. There were a number of Bachand families living in the region of St. Hyacinthe County.” This turned out to be true and I finally found Charles Frank Bacon, rather Mrs. Coderre did, and the flood gates opened all the way back to 1646.
Paroisse de Saint-Cloud.
Sandy and I find the only Catholic church in town. Nicholas must have worshipped here. I leave a note on a donation slip in English asking for additional information on Nicholas Bachand. I fill it with francs for more info that will lead me to Frank -- sorry I had to do that. A year later a letter arrives from Paroisse De Saint-Cloud France. It says simply that,
“all the archives of Catholicism were destroyed during the French Revolution of 1789, and thanks for the francs.”
Francois – Xavier Challamel
Cure- Doyen
Saint Cloud is built into a hill overlooking the Seine. I think they mean the river. It starts to rain. Well it IS Paris, and it IS April. We have no umbrella. I reach into a trash can to get newspapers to use to keep the rain off and find a discarded umbrella with only half a handle. It opens and it keeps us dry for the rest of the walking, self-guided, arm-in-arm tour. We still have it. It brought us luck and we pack it for every trip to follow.
Bob in Saint-Cloud.
Hey! Guess what? You can see Notre Dame from here. The cathedral was built 1,000 years ago, so only 332 years ago the Bachands must have visited it. You think? The old travel ad said, “Walk the streets your grandparents walked,” and I did. Except it was my great, great, great, great Grandparents.
Did I mention that you can see the Eiffel tower from here also? The Chicago planners of the 1893 Exposition, World’s Fair, Chicago -- it’s in Illinois -- wanted something to be built bigger, taller and more spectacular than Eiffel’s Tower from the previous World’s Fair of Paris, but no one came forward except George Eiffel with a plan. But Americans wanted an American to build something. Then along came Mr. Ferris.
Mr. Ferris’s double wheel held 2,000 people for one ride -- I am not sure how many revolutions. But I will get back to you on that via Bob Mail. Each cabin held 60 people. Each cabin was the size of a railroad car. So do you want to know who rode it? Rain-In The-Face, a Sioux Chief (pictured below).
He killed Tom Custer, George’s brother, at the Little Big Horn disturbance. Annie Oakley, Bill. (Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show was playing right next door. They had just returned from a European tour. They performed 318 times with the average crowd being 12,000 people at Chicago. And then there was the day Buffalo Bill invited all the children to his Wild West show FOR FREE, train ride, all the ice cream and candy you could eat. Free admission. And you want me to read fiction? No, I am not exaggerating. Bill broke a record that day for his show. 15,000 people showed up during an awful recession. Go and see the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming. It is fantastic. Read a book about him.)
Also aboard Ferris’s Wheel were Tom Edison, Diamond Jim Brady, Frederick Law Olmstead (designer of Central Park and the Emerald Necklace around Boston), Bill Clinton, James J. Corbett -- he had recently won a fight over John L. Sullivan, Helen Keller, a Princeton professor named Woodrow Wilson, Scott Joplin, Teddy Roosevelt, Philip Armour the meat king, and Clarence Darrow to name a few.
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) spent 11 days in a nearby hotel, very ill, and never saw the Fair. In Hartford, Connecticut he lived next door to Harriet Beecher Stow. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I know this to be true because I went there once. You don’t even care about that, do you? While we are on the subject, Why do you always pull just a little over the painted STOP line at traffic lights? You make me crazy. Anyway. In the ranks of the workers was a carpenter/furniture maker who would one day tell his son Walter all about the building of the World’s Fair at Chicago. What was his name? Oh yah, Elias Disney.
About the Fair (Exposition) 1893. Live music by an orchestra in New York was transmitted to the fair by long distance telephone. Moving pictures were showed on Edison’s Kinescope. The first zipper. Around 1966, the United States Navy tried to put a zipper in place of the usual 13 buttons (13 original states) on a U.S.N. sailor’s pants, but loose women around the world complained and the 13 buttons came back. Sailors referred to the buttons as 13 chances for a girl to say no. HEY! That is how I heard it. Besides, you can’t make some thing like that up. The first ever all-electric kitchen, which included an electric dishwasher. This was 1893. Are you listening? A box purporting to contain EVERYTHING you would need to make pancakes (Aunt Jemima). That is really a beautiful name, isn’t it? An oddly-flavored gum called Juicy Fruit, and caramel-covered popcorn named Cracker Jack. A new cereal, Shredded Wheat, seemed unlikely to succeed – “shredded doormat” some people called it. But a new beer did well, winning the top award. Forever afterward its brewer called it Pabst BLUE RIBBON Beer. Daniel Burnham, Director of Works said, “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood”.
“Hello ! I must be going.” - Groucho Marks. I am back. Paris, France 1996. There is a song that I just might put on my next Bob’s World CD called “Paris in a Day.” Only an American would try to see Paris in a day.
After our Saint Cloud marathon, we returned to the hotel. The maitre’de asked how our day went. We said, “WONDERFUL!” You know, we were warned about how the French people might treat us. But in fact they treated us very well. To which he replied, “Monsieur, Madame, We will never forget World War Two.”
A month passes. Mrs. Ellison of Duxbury is Sandy’s, I mean Alexandra’s, next client. “Sandy,” she says, “How was Paris? You know one of my son in laws is a pilot for American Airlines and recently his flight to Paris was turned around because of a medical emergency.” In 21years of flying that route, it had never happened to him.
I love Paris in the springtime.
Robert Bachand, Augusto 2008
Je t’aime, Je t’aime. I’ll bet Roy Rogers never said that to Dale Evans.
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