Cover | House | Poetry | Phalanges | Outward Bound | Synopsis | Girls | Centerfold | France | Susan | 9-11 | Parting shot

Connections

by Jim

Once upon a time, there were six degrees of separation for most of the world, but as the world’s population grows, the separation surely seems like it gets less. Recently we invited eight people over for dinner and everyone somehow had a previous relation to someone in each family - in this life or in a previous generation.

So I may have thought I was going to introduce a group of people to each other but, all I did was set them up to make or really to find out about their own existing connections. Perhaps the most far fetched was the spouse of a surgeon I have worked with for two years, herself a surgeon. Her parents grew up in Rokycany, Bohemia which is at least 3 or 4 miles from where my great, great grandfather Vaclav Slama grew up, and some of the more distant ancestors from both families lived in another town called Kvan.

That is the way our trip to France started last fall. Put dinner, a patient, a men’s acapello choir, an opera together, stir and you get ... a trip to France of course.

One day last year a patient tells me what a wonderful time their family spent at a home in France. I had studied in Lyon, France a few years ago so we chatted and she felt I should rent the home. I had lunch later that week with another otolaryngolgist friend and he tells me of French lessons that he took from a tutor just up the street from my office. We are attending the French opera Carmen the next week and dining before the opera at Le Bouchon, a delightful french cafe near my office. My opera companion, David hears the above story about France and says - sure, let’s go to France. The next Sunday I attend a standing room only concert by Chanticleer and at the last minute a seat opens in the second row. I end up sitting next to a woman who owns a house in southern France - the one my patient stayed in I discover, when she later sends me information on renting the house.

I take the French lessons and am still taking them, Martine, my tutor has lived in Provence and put me in touch with people and places to stay while there. Life may be a puzzle, but sometimes all the pieces just fall into place.

Thus began our spring break trip, two couples and three girls. At the airline counter, a customer service representative I happen to know puts us up in the lovely frequent flyer lounge on top of the air terminal where we start our journey on the right foot(Thank you Richard). The air hosts treat us very well as our daughters get to try out long distance travel.

The essence of our travel was to get a flavor of another country and culture for ourselves and the girls. We spent 4 days along the Mediterranean at the beginning and end of the trip. The first few days were in St. Jean Cap Ferrat. In the middle we rented a very old stone home in the small hill town Venasque, in Provence. It was out of the way, yet centrally located for exploring the Roman Rhone valley of France. At the end we stayed in Nice at the Hotel Windsor.

I appreciated the wine and food - multicourse meals that lasted all evening - as well as the markets. We scheduled our visits to each town on the day of their open air market so every town was very alive. I tried to use French whenever possible and enjoyed sitting around coffee shops and making conversation. I even enjoyed have to go to the police station to talk to the gendarme but that is another story.

Among other highlights the Abbey of Senaque was a glipmse into the history of religion in the region. Leaning into the Mistral in Bonnieux where Peter Maylie wrote ”A year in Provence“, exploring steep narrow alleys, watching the girls play with children that they could not communicate one word to, sipping espresso in St. Tropez, Riviera beaches, Medieval castles, sipping Cotes du Rhone all filled our memory banks. As I have said in previous newsletters, time travels much slower when you do new things.

I made a serious faux pas at a Beaumes de Venise vineyard when I tasted their dessert wine, then asked to taste a red. The elderly woman proprieter was so insulted, she just walked out of her shop leaving me standing there unable to even purchase a bottle from her.

France is France and unless you have been there…