Be Sure to Say "Bonjour"

Mike and Cassie of Moab, Utah, have rented our house in Leran for the last three weeks of April. After a week in Paris they will be heading down to Ariege and Leran. It will be Mike and Cassie's, and daughter Anna's, first visit to France.

Cassie has thirteen years of French language classes, but I think she's a little nervous being the only French speaker in the family.

Mike is a carpenter, electrician, plumber...a jack of all the building trades. Cassie runs the local health food store. They're really nice folks. If you happen to run across them in the village, be sure to say "Bonjour" or "Howdy". In case of an emergency, or just some puzzling French bureaucratic boondoggle, we've given them the phone numbers of a few English speaking folks in the village, so if you're in Leran, and get a call from someone with an American accent, it may be them.

Now There's an Idea

Many years ago I was on a plane with a co-worker and we were unintentionally overhearing a conversation going on behind us. The quality of the conversation must have really grated on Chuck’s nerves because he said to me, "There are three kinds of people. Some people talk about people, more intelligent people talk about things, and really smart people talk about ideas. Let’s talk about some ideas."

Ever since that business trip, I have been thinking about that observation of Chuck’s. I have listened in and participated in numberless conversations about people, things and ideas. However, I don’t know too many brilliant, world class thinkers so I can’t confirm the truth of the matter. I will say that if you examine your own conversation on a daily basis with your friends and co-workers, it’s generally about things. Places, cars, tasks undone, sports and so on, perhaps with a few ideas thrown in and a few snide remarks about people. Talking about ideas is a good way to begin an argument. Talking about people is a good way to hurt their feelings.

At times I have listened in to conversations and have been astonished how much people care about the lives of others. And I don’t mean that in a good way. They were not discussing the welfare of poor Africans, suffering Iraqis, or Palestinians and Israelis. They were chatting incessantly about the lives of their co-workers, mutual friends, relatives and celebrities. How do they know so much about the minutiae of other people’s lives?

And I have noticed when I am with certain people, we tend to elevate the quality of our conversation. I don’t mean I elevate the quality of their conversation, or they elevate the quality of my conversation, I mean we elevate the quality of each other’s conversation.

But after all these years, I never knew if that was an original observation by my highly intelligent co-worker, Chuck, or some great thought from some deep thinker like Sophocles or Shakespeare. So, I Googled the general theme and this is what I came up with:

Brilliant people talk about ideas. Average people talk about things. Small people talk about other people.—Anonymous

Great people talk about ideas. Small people talk about other people.---Tobias S. Gibson

So I guess it was neither an original thought by Chuck, nor an old piece of wisdom from Shakespeare, but an anonymous thought from long ago. And then Tobias S. Gibson had to go and misquote Anonymous. And then there is this:

Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine.----Fran Lebowitz


Wouldn’t you like to sit down and have a glass of wine and a conversation with Fran Lebowitz?

Interesting

There are lots of blogs out there about Americans in France. Here's one I found with a interesting post on some of the differences between France and the U.S.



http://chezlouloufrance.blogspot.com/2009/03/not-so-subtle-differences-between.html

From the Wall Street Journal:



MOSCOW -- For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument -- that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. -- very seriously. Now he's found an eager audience: Russian state media.



California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.
"It would be reasonable for Russia to lay claim to Alaska; it was part of the Russian Empire for a long time." A framed satellite image of the Bering Strait that separates Alaska from Russia like a thread hangs from his office wall. "It's not there for no reason," he says with a sly grin.



Yeah, right. I guess I just have to laugh. I know I can't predict the future so I don't try very often. However, I simply can't imagine the governors of Texas and the other southern states, after some event that leaves the US government powerless, sitting down and deciding to ask Mexico to intervene on their behalf. Would Mexico invade Texas and Florida and Georgia? Would Arnold Schwarzenegger sit down with the governors of the other western states and say "Let's call China and see if they will act as our benevolent dictator."? Would China invade from across the Pacific? We may be in economic dire straits, but I don't see Professor Panarin's prediction coming true. What do you think?

Darwin Award Candidate

I came upon this photograph on the internet and it brought back memories of Yellowstone. Not that we had lions in Yellowstone, we didn’t. But we did have "Darwin Award Winners" like this individual.


We would frequently happen upon visitors who were testing the limits of the very tolerant animals in the park. People would wander too close to bears, bison, moose, elk and even deer, in the hopes of getting a really good photograph. Very seldom was it the professional photographer, or knowledgeable amateur. They had good lenses. It was always the goober with the Kodak Instamatic.



The standard rule we adhered to was, "If the animal notices you or your movements, then you are too close." A number of times I had to approach an animal that was near the trail or boardwalk because of some requirement of the job. I was armed with bear spray, and even more important, armed with respect and fear. If a bison or bear raised it’s head and looked in my direction, it was time to stop and back off. Each species, each individual animal has a different tolerance level. As you might imagine, any animal with offspring has a tolerance level that is much different than that same animal at another time.


A lot of Yellowstone Park critters are much different than similar animals elsewhere in the Park or in the National Forest. Many animals, such as elk, are habituated to the presence of humans and tolerate large numbers of them standing around them, taking pictures while the critter grazes or naps. An elk whose habitat is a few hundred miles away outside the park, where hunting is legal, or in the interior of the park, far away from roads has absolutely no tolerance for the presence of humans and you would rarely see them unless you were separated by hundreds of yards.


Some of you have no doubt seen the video that is on display at the Canyon Visitors’s Center in Yellowstone. It shows a man getting too close to a bison. He is taking a picture and uses a small lodgepole pine to shield him from the animal. The bison takes no notice of him and the man gets a little closer, snapping away. In no more than two seconds the bison looks up, charges and impales the man on it’s horns, throws him into the lodgepole, and goes back to grazing. It is a very powerful video. And it was always amazing to those of us who worked in the park, how stupidly close visitors would get to animals and in most cases, how amazingly tolerant the animals were.

Day 58, Wednesday, August 19, 1987

A few words of explanation before we begin with Nancy’s journal entry. This day was the absolute low point of my entire trip. We were being tourists in Paris, but staying a short train ride away in the town of Maison Lafitte, where there was a very large campground packed to overflowing. I had been suffering from cramps and nausea for a month or two, since just before we left home. Cramps and nausea would seem to strike when I was fatigued. I had apparently drank some bad well water in good old Montana. The dreaded Lambia Giardia. For my entire life I had heard the warning that one was not to drink the water in foreign countries. In fact there was even a travel book called "Is It Safe to Drink the Water." Ironically, the French doctor told me, "The water is safe here in France, but when you go back home, don’t drink the water."


Day 58, Wednesday, August 19, 1987 (entered Thursday)


I sit at the desk (yes, the word is correct) of our hotel room at the Auberge d’ Alencon on the "Avenue St. Germain in Maison Lafitte. We moved over here Wednesday afternoon so Doug could be more comfortable during his hoped recuperation. Tuesday night was pretty rough for him after he ate some cheese and bread and some of the canned tabbouleh from the camp store. He began to get the shivers, then got hot spells, then shivers again, nausea, so headed for the bathroom. After taking diarrhea medicine, the only way out was up. From about 2:00 till 5:00 am he was up and down, finally he just stayed at the toilets and layed down there in one of the toilet stalls. When nothing else would come up he came back to bed. He slept till about 11:00 am. Meanwhile I found out there was a hospital in town so we bicycled over there about noon. The doctor was Mediterranean looking, spoke little English, but eventually we were able to inform him of our suspicion so Lambia Giardia dating back to the Bozeman trailer. At any rate he tended to agree, but without stool inspection could not be positive. Since it had happened before (two months ago, two weeks ago, and now) he felt that it wasn’t food poisoning. Issued prescription for Flaggyl, an anti-parasitic. Drug to be take two times daily with meals. I guess it didn’t matter that no pharmacies were open at that time, because he would wait till dinner to take, In all, about 10 pharmacies in town, all but 2 closed for annual vacation! The hospital bill for emergency services was 80 F for BP, pulse and consultation. Still cheap by American standards I guess. Doug went back to camp and I searched town for open hotel. There appear to be only 3, and two were closed for annual vacation! Packed up and moved from camp to hotel at 2:00. Luckily only charged for 3 nites at camp (138 F). Hotel is 170 F per night, but we have our own bain/douche, WC and lavabo. Right on the main street near station, so traffic ( both motor and foot) is incessant. But what we do have as opposed to the concentration camps is PRIVACY. That seems to be becoming a treasured sentiment for us these days, after living at such close quarters at these campgrounds. We now understand why these Europeans have these gargantuan tents—so that they can at least separate themselves from the masses. Doug rested for the afternoon on yet another uncomfortable bed. I went to the pharmacy to get medicine (24.70 F) and to the store for mineral water. The doc says the water in France is okay, but how’s come we see everybody drinking mineral water. After a leisurely afternoon, took baths, washed out a few things and walked up the street for dinner. A very ordinary pre-fixe meal @ 55 F. Doug was feeling better - no cramps or nausea yet but this was the first he had to eat all day. Time would tell. At least he wouldn’t have to go traipsing all around camp tonight. Back to the hotel, in bed fairly early, but I had to use the old foam pad on the floor again or my back would have regretted it in the morning. Fortunately Doug slept all night with no nausea or cramps or shivers, just a headache, so maybe the cure is at hand.