Liar, liar, pants on fire

My husband is looking for my friend Eulalie.

What a surprise. Eulalie turns into his daughter from the States.

What to give my husband for his 75th birthday? The only thing he still wants is an antique crossbow and I've looked for one for four years with no luck.

I'll explain: We live in Southern France and Switzerland. His daughter and family live in the Southwest U.S. Because of our politics and what has happened to friends and colleagues entering the U.S., he doesn't dare enter the U.S. under Trump. Between an active job, two kids, a house and husband, she has little time to travel.

Still it was worth a try. I offered to give her an airline ticket to Europe as his birthday present. She loved the idea and found very cheap tickets of herself and her husband. Rather than stay in my Nest, the studio I had bought for my retirement before reconnecting with my husband, she booked into a hotel. The owners are our friends. They were in on the secret.

His family decided to fly into Barcelona and train up to Perpignan. No matter their destination, I still needed to get him to pick them.

"Eulalie, remember her? She was here before, she loved Cassoulet in Carcassonne. Well, we need to pick her up in Perpignan, she's coming back." Meanwhile Gigi was repairing the skylight in the Nest and we wanted it done before Eulalie came. The Nest had to be cleaned before Eulalie came. Oh did I lie, although I did want the skylight fixed.

My husband asked, "Do you think my daughter would get a NTU T-shirt and ship it to your daughter when she come next month? NTU is where his grandson goes and his granddaughter will go next fall. I assured him that she probably would. His worry that his daughter would know my daughter's Boston address was put to rest.

My clever daughter-in-law didn't dare email me but she had a friend email me saying that Eulalie's internet was down but gave me arrival time and place.

We made the Perpignan train station on the day of arrival ahead of the train and stood outside arrivals. My husband wasn't sure he would recognize Eulalie about whom I had been saying I was looking forward to seeing. More lies fell from my lips.

His daughter was the first one off the train.

"That looks like my daughter," he said. And seconds later the two of them were hugging. It was a week of talks, walks, hugs, meals, sightseeing, a week long birthday present. 

I just wish that I had her put a bow in her hair.

It's okay to lie for a birthday surprise.

Memories up in smoke

Maybe as my husband and I walked around Walden Pond, we stepped on the same stones as Henry David Thoreau walked on -- maybe not -- even if we were at the site of his cabin.

We were on our memory tour showing each other places we grew up.

It was a perfect autumn day: unreal blue sky, the smell of fallen leaves crunching under our feet, but still many leaves on the trees on each side of the path. Chipmunks monitored our progress.

I couldn't show my husband my schools, all except the Highland School (now the town library) where I went to fifth grade. The rest had all been torn down. Even my childhood home had been replaced with a modern house. The barn and my playhouse, that was once my grandfather's cabin for storing his gardening tools was gone. What was left was the Robert Frost-type stone wall that bordered the pine grove although I didn't count the pines.

The golf club where I was forced to take lessons was as I remembered it. A good thing, too, because the next year the clubhouse burned down.

We went to Maynard where along with five others, I created the Digital Credit Union, now a billion dollar financial institution. The headquarters is no longer a credit union. Even the ATM is gone, but the speed bump that we named Mt. Hanahan after our custodian who put it in to slow traffic is still there.

Naturally Marty the receptionist was long gone, but who ever she was now, she let me use the ladies room, which looked identical to the zillion times I used it when I worked there earning me the name "Bitty Bladder."

We found the last of the corn on the cob of the season, a real treat. I'd missed New England corn on the cob living in Europe. 

I hope Rick enjoyed my childhood and early adulthood as much as I enjoyed where he took me for cider and donuts, spedies, the course he played and his childhood home, still standing with his mother welcoming us at the door with a "Bonjour."

As for my childhood memories, I may be one of the only people to remember the details like the dining room bay window with the plants and the "abortion" steep stair case to the second floor. After me, no one will remember. The memories will disappear like smoke.

Free Write - The Yellow Fiat

 

For this weeks's Free Write we were back at our favorite summertime Southern France café EXCEPT the weather felt more like autumn. The hot chocolate and Yorkshire tea were warming. Meanwhile our Swiss writer had little to say about the weather.

D-L's Free Write

"You don't want a FIAT," Jana's father said, "Fix It Again Tony."

They were walking around the used car lot. Then the yellow car caught Jana's eye. Most of the cars were three years old or less.

Many of her friend's parents had bought them cars, but nothing like this. There were stickers going back to 75 on it. The car was an antique. She imagined it standing out in the student parking lot, among all those dull white, black or gray ones.

The car salesman came up. "We guarantee it for 30 Kilometrs or 30 Kilometers an hour, which ever comes first."

"I want it for a lifetime," Jana said.

"How much to put it into top working order?" Jana's father asked.

"3000 Euros."

"Please Papa, please."

Jana's friends made fun of her car. They made fun when she put flowered contact paper on the dashboard. Yellow sunflowers. The car went to uni with her and on a cross European trip. 

She changed its oil and got tune ups regularly.

When her daughter, Cissy, was born, Jana's husband wanted her to get another car. She said, "No!!!!"

Her daughter Cissy took it to uni with her.

A man offered them 10,000 euros for it.

Jana and Cissy said, "No!!!! You don't sell a member of the family."

Julia's Free Write

Putt, putt, putt… and just like that she was transported back to the summer of 1968!

A group of four students bought a French 2CV (two horsepower) for a ridiculously low price and headed North for Copenhagen.

It wasn’t fast, but it was – as advertised – untippable.  Up the German Autobahn: the axel broke in Hamburg.

Despite a total lack of German, they were able to not only get it repaired overnight, but to find two elderly ladies who put them up for the night. Then it was off again and on to a place just outside of Copenhagen where the arrived at midnight.

Knowing they couldn’t get into the school that night, they slept in the car (one could take the front seats out: the boys sat in the back and the girls leaned against them – Imagine that today!)

A bright sun woke them. They packed and got ready to continue, but a total lack of people about had them looking at their watches: 3 a.m.!

That was the night that Robert Kennedy was assassinated.

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com, a weekly newsletter reporting the airline industry  top stories . He is the author of The Robot in the Simulator. AI in Aviation Training.  

Visit D-L.'s website  https://dlnelsonwriter.com, She is the author of 15 fiction and three non fiction books. Her 300 Unsung Women, bios of women who battled gender limitations, can be purchased  at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/300-unsung-women-d-l-nelson/1147305797?ean=9798990385504 

Visit Julia's blog. She has written and taken photos and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/ 

Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles - Gwen Campbell's Story

Another death, another illegal abortion from my book Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles that tells of abortion before it was legal. Now that it is illegal again in many places the horror is back for many women and their families. For me, the most horrible part is that most of the laws passed against abortion are made by men, some of whom have been known to take their girl friends for abortions. Women should be the ones to write the laws on women's health along with medical experts.

Gwen Campbell Elliott’s Story

Abortions cross all racial lines. Gwen Campbell Elliot was called to the hospital where her mother lay dying. Like Sharon’s mom, Vivian’s last words to her children were to be good, also adding for her to be good in school.

Gwen was told that her mother died in childbirth. Only when she was in college and she saw the death certificate did she learn her mother died of an illegal abortion. Her father, she said, spent a lot of time trying to find out who performed the abortion. His hope for justice went unfulfilled.

Gwen showed the viewers the Jerusalem Baptist Church, a light-yellow brick building. She said the church was the foundation of the family.

In the 1950s, it was still the custom to lay the body out at home. Vivian Campbell was laid out at Gwen’s aunt’s. Gwen knows she was at the cemetery. She remembers thinking she could go to the cemetery and wake her sleeping mom.

Her parents were separated when her mother became pregnant and she’s not sure who the father was.

Not having a mother brought other traumas. She was raised by her grandmother, who was determined her granddaughter would not be sexually active. Gwen’s periods were irregular. To make sure she wasn’t pregnant, the grandmother took her to a doctor, who did an “internal.” He also asked her if she had had sex. Gwen wasn’t sure what sex was, but she’s convinced that if her mother was alive, she would not have to be humiliated and hurt in the doctor’s office. She didn’t communicate with anyone for weeks after that. “I was a scared kid.”

“There have to be more people like me out there. If we don’t speak out the abortion will go the wrong way,” she concludes.

 

Lost and Found "X

 

BOOK LOSS

My masters thesis at the University of Glamorgan was symbolism in John Irving's work. I was surprised when at 83 he published another novel, Queen Esther. I had Pages & Sips, my favorite Geneva book store, order it and enjoyed scones and tea when I picked it up. 

Irving said that the novel carried on from his Cider House Rules, which I reread. I THOUGHT I took Queen Esther back to France with me when I go back there, but was waiting until I finished the biographies of Eleanor Roosevelt before starting it.

All excited, the day I was to begin the new Irving book, I couldn't find it. Had I left it in Geneva? Our flats are not that large so there aren't that many places for a book to go.

I figured when I got back to Geneva, if the library didn't have a copy, I'd order a Kindle.

BOOKMARK

On a cold, but clear day we walked through the Montreux Christmas Marché chalets along Lac Léman. Rick was thrilled to find his poutine, I found a wooden handmade pen for my collection. There was one chalet that looked like English library. They weren't selling books, but golden bookmarks. There were different designs. 

I fell in love with a book design (see photo). Even the 34 CHF price tag didn't persuade me not to buy it. That was 18 months ago and I've used it in the major book I've been reading ever sense. I often read two books at the same time. My other bookmark is a piece of flat wood with a lovely grain.

THE SECOND LOSS

Rick and I have back-to-back physio appointments. I take books to read while he was being worked on.

When I opened my book, the bookmark was gone. 

In our village we can walk to almost everything we need. Rick offered to retrace our steps while Reuben massaged my legs. My husband went to the Retirada musée where we'd taken his kids to see the diaspora of people escaping Franco across the Pyrenees in January 1939. He walked back to our house. He told me he looked through our flat. Giving up, he headed for his appointment.

2X FOUND 

Rick had found Queen Esther behind other books. Walking back through Place Gambetta and by the grocery store he, by chance, glanced down and there was the book mark.

The book and its bookmark were reunited and I was very happy.

Free Write - The Rock

This week's Free Write was delayed between guests and life. Next week we should be on track.

Julia's Free Write

“The Rocks in my Life”

Up yet another mountain, another field, another path; looking, always looking for signs that specialists had told him about; that formation, that type of apparently innocent-seeming rock, which, when split would reveal crystals. Over the years there had been some breathtaking moments.

Then there were the purposeless hikes, often with eyes glued to the ground, unconsciously looking for that perfect round, that whiter than white stone.

It wasn’t until he returned home from being abroad that he realized where he had gotten his fascination: his mother lifted his backpack – heavy – and laughed when she realized what he had drug across the oceans.

Then he looked around the house…everywhere small piles. But the best rock of all was the year he had no present for his father for Christmas.

He went down to the lake below their house – brrr – it was December 24^th – dove and found the perfect smooth rock.

We won’t mention the other rocks in my life – too numerous to count.

D-L Free Write

Think girl!

Solid as a rock

Rock solid

Rock and roll.

Don't rock the boat

Get your rocks off

Rocky mountain (s) (high)

None fit the prompt. 

Could the white lines on the prompt be pain? Maybe some mineral. What is the type of stone?

Two minutes gone. Eight to go.

Rocks can be made into cairns. I learned about those in Iceland. My husband has built a small cairn on our patio. 

Four minutes to go.

What about skipping stones into a pond, tiny rocks. Three people by the water, each holding a flat stone. 

Make it a story. With boys.

Tom throws his. And it skips. He's not that well co-ordinated like his big brother Jason who skips his skips twice.

Jenny steps up. "Watch out boys for the champion. She winds up her arm theatrically and lets it rip. Four skips.¨

"How did she do that?" Tom asks. Jason just shrugs.

Thank goodness. Free Write time is up. 

Rick's Free Write

The rocks in my life. Literal rocks or metaphorical?

I have a cairn that I built on the outdoor patio from interesting rocks I have collected in various places, such as the beach. And re-built and re-built when moving it around to powerwash the patio floor.

There are rocks in the large flower pots along the front of the apartment. The flowers and plants are intended for privacy. The rocks are intended to prevent the street cats from shitting in the pots.

My dad used to use a phrase, “He’s got rocks in his head,” to indicate someone he thought was particularly slow-witted.

But in a sense we all have “rocks in our heads” – mental challenges that we carry around and weigh us down as we trudge through the day. Health issues, financial, family, societal…

I suppose a cairn is an attempt to create an order from the rocks in our life. Large stones on the bottom, perilously supporting the medium and small stones above. Brightly coloured or shiny rocks that highlight pleasant memories. Sometimes re-arranging the order of the rocks for better balance. Adding a new rock and trying to find a place for it.

We took Sherlock to the beach the other day – his favourite place to run. I thought about it but didn’t pick up any new rocks for the cairn… or my head.

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com, a weekly newsletter reporting the airline industry  top stories . He is the author of The Robot in the Simulator. AI in Aviation Training.  

Visit D-L.'s website  https://dlnelsonwriter.com, She is the author of 15 fiction and three non fiction books. Her 300 Unsung Women, bios of women who battled gender limitations, can be purchased  at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/300-unsung-women-d-l-nelson/1147305797?ean=9798990385504 

Visit Julia's blog. She has written and taken photos and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/ 

Leave me Alone

I need to sign an agreement with my rental agency with whom I've had a wonderful relationship for a couple of decades. It is an electronic document. It came through no problem.

We read it.

We signed on screen as told. 

Nothing. 

Several tries and we were told we would get a code within three hours. We are about to leave the house for the next eight hours and we will have the code on our phone but not have the screen to sign.

It takes two seconds to sign a paper copy. We've wasted part of the morning on NOT SIGNING. We still have to deal with it tomorrow.

I went to send a photo to my Facebook Messenger, something I do sometimes daily, sometimes many times a day.

The method has changed and I need to figure out the additional steps.

I get regular messages that my laptop wants to update to this or that, install this or that I don't want.

I'll be happily writing and pop ups dirty up my screen for products I don't want and even if I did, I would not buy because my writing or whatever I was working on was interrupted.

I have a dream, not as profound as MLK, but that I turn on my computer, bring up whatever I want to work on and work without any interruptions EXCEPT by cups of tea or potty breaks that I decide.

Coat Hangers and Knitting Needs -- Sharon Magee

In writing Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles about abortion before Roe v. Wade, I came across many stories about women who died and about the families they left. Sharon Magee's story was part of the film Motherless. 

*****

        The last time Sharon Magee saw her mother, Mary, she thought she might have been going out on a date. Sharon is the youngest of the four speakers in the film, an attractive, articulate woman with children of her own. Her mother died in 1960.

She remembers her mother’s last words to her: “And you be good.” Mary Magee always gave Sharon a hug and a kiss when she left.

Sharon was four when her mother died. Photos shows her in a puff-sleeved dress playing with her toys. Despite her young age, she remembers them going shopping and eating pizza together: fleeting, but good memories. Memories of being cared for and loved.

When she was older a friend told her that her mother was murdered. Sharon said she felt ashamed.

Sharon reads from the news clipping describing Mary’s death. “A young woman, who apparently died in an abortion attempt, was identified by her parents at the City Morgue shortly before dawn today.” Sharon’s voice breaks as the article describes how the woman was left by two men who said they needed help than sped away.

A 56-year-old woman was charged with the abortion, the third attempt on Mary, who worked as a secretary for a cement company. What killed her was an injection of pine oil.

“It is too much to know because I often wonder did she think of me before she died? Did she think of me before she did this?” Sharon asked. She compares it to a child being left alone in a department store, although people would come up to help, they wouldn’t be the right person—the mother.

Sharon said that one of her sons was very attached to her. It was hard for her to watch how much he wanted her like she had wanted her own mother.

She hopes her mother will not be seen as a “pig” and added. “This stuff happens…It shouldn’t happen, but it did."

Sexual Harassment and Hope

 

Sexual Harassment and Hope

1972

On my first professional corporate job, my boss was wonderful, a mentor in the full sense of the word. In fact, for decades when I was solving a problem, I would think, "What would Walter do?"

Not everyone was so lucky. The PR assistant had her ideas stolen by her boss, but worse was the accounting department. The women complained that their breasts should not be part of the job descriptions, yet they were. 

Thanks to Betty Frieden and The Feminine Mystique women were given something other than secretarial roles. Even with good degrees they would start as secretaries. However if the boss moved on they would be promoted to his responsibilities, given his title with the word ACTING in front of it and paid about half his salary which still was a raise. Often they would use it as a stepping stone to a full title and an almost full salary elsewhere.

The accounting manager hired a new accountant. She had an MBA but was still in a junior role. We all heard shouting from the accounting office followed by the new employee bursting out the door screaming, "Don't touch my breast!!!!!!!!!!" She ran to the HR office.

We expected her to be fired.

We were wrong.

He was.

HR called some former female employees who verified why they left.

Hi-fiving hadn't been invented -- but the women mentally hi-fived. We also noticed after that the few men in the company that we had to watch out for were on their best behavior. 

It was a start.