Everyone deserves a place to call home

Published in The Republican Herald, December 30, 2012

When my mother was the reading teacher for the fifth and sixth grades at the Lengel Middle School, every year at Christmas she read her class The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. This 1971 novel for young readers tells the Christmas story from a different angle, that of the worst kids in town, who get involved in a Christmas pageant when they hear the rumor that chocolate cake is served on a regular basis at the local church.

Those children, the Herdmans—and they are quite a herd—live over a garage on the wrong side of the tracks. At school, they steal from their classmates’ lunchboxes and at home they try to crush each other beneath the automatic garage door or sic the ferocious family cat on any social worker who comes to call. Their dad left home one evening, never to return. Their mom works two shifts in a factory, surely out of need, but mostly to get away from the kids. Needless to say, the Herdman children, two girls and four boys, had never been to church before they heard about the chocolate cake.

At the first rehearsal for the Christmas pageant, the story of the Nativity, they bully themselves into all the main roles, Mary, Joseph, the wise men, and the angel of the Lord. There’s just one problem: they are the only ones who don’t know the story and, hearing it for the first time, hearing how on a cold winter’s night a pregnant woman and her husband were turned away from the inn, the Herdmans are up in arms. Where were the social workers? Why was no doctor around? And how could anyone leave that poor couple in a stable, with, as the carol goes, “no crib for a bed” for their baby, nothing but a dirty trough filled with straw? What kind of people could do such a thing to a couple of refugees, cold, hungry, and with no place to go?

Bethlehem, a mountain city, is a cold place in winter, but not nearly as cold as Paris has been this December. Winters are generally mild here, compared to Pennsylvania, and snow, since my arrival in the city in 1991, has been rare. December 2012, however, has been different. Snow, intense cold and freezing rain have become our daily lot and fashion-conscious Parisians have taken to wearing hats or caps, pulled low on the forehead, putting at risk (for men and women both) stylish coiffures.

For the city’s contingent of over 5,000 SDFs, a French acronym referring to the homeless, sans domicile fixe (without a permanent home), the cold and snow have added yet another layer of difficulty to their daily struggle to survive. Between the time those lucky enough to have a bed for the night are turned out of shelters early in the morning until they line up to get into a shelter the next night, they have a long day in front of them.

In warm weather, they can take refuge in city parks. In cold, they head underground, into the metro. There, they tend to melt into the woodwork, or, more accurately, into the white tiles which cover the walls of the corridors and stations of the Parisian subway system. As for us commuters, unless one gets in our way, we hardly notice them, so used have we become to the presence of the homeless in our midst.

On crowded subway platforms, we turn our backs on them. Craning our necks, on the lookout for the next train, we stand poised to elbow our way inside. Once the train pulls in and the automatic doors slide open, we surge inside, leaving the homeless behind. We’re heading home, they’re left to sit on the incredibly uncomfortable seats provided by the transportation authority ever since benches were done away with, in order to prevent the homeless from lying down. Since the cold has set in, they’ve set up camp. Wrapped in blankets, they picnic on the platform, washing their meals down with cheap beer or wine, staying till closing time (the Parisian metro closes for about five hours each night).

Inside the train, we commuters travel with beggars. They’re not as easy to ignore as the homeless, who sit and stare but rarely speak. Beggars, on the contrary, speak out. They make speeches, describing the difficulties of their life, how hard it is to keep clean or find a bed for the night. Some go on and on.

Gypsies, for example, go from car to car, all the while shaking a paper cup from Starbuck’s or McDonald’s, repeating monsieur-dame, s’il vous plaît, aidez-moi, please help me, help my baby. And that’s the worst of it—these beggars, mostly women, usually balance a baby on one hip and are often pregnant with another. For weeks, every Tuesday, at the same hour, I cross such a woman, wondering if she may soon give birth before my very eyes.

On another occasion, a woman, a Rom, as gypsies prefer to be called, sang in a keening voice, while her little son worked his way through the crowd, holding a dirty paper cup. Nobody was giving so I reached in my pocket, found a fifty-centime coin and dropped it in. The boy said “merci” and gave me a beautiful, genuine smile. I’d just given him a little more than fifty cents. Did I really deserve so much in return?

Since 1997, the homeless in France have a special number to call, 115, when they need a place to sleep or urgent care, except that, these days, no one’s picking up the phone. Too many requests, too much need, no room at the inn, which, in this case means a shelter where the homeless are offered disposable sheets and a “kit propreté,” containing what it takes to keep clean. What’s even more disturbing, more young people than ever are making the call. Homeless, without work, often alienated from their families, many would join their voices to that of one homeless young man who recently said on the evening news, all he’s asking for is electricity, running water, and a place to lay his head.

I guess there has never been enough room at the inn, not in Jesus’ day nor our own. Then as now, a too large majority has ignored the homeless, the way we commuters do in the metro today. Should we offer them our garages or tool sheds, contemporary versions of the stable of long ago, or the extra room in our apartment or home? Like the Herdmans, should we all be up in arms because so many men, women and children sleep out in the cold? Wouldn’t 2013 truly be a better year if all of us had a place to call home?

You can watch the 1982 made-for-TV movie of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, with Loretta Switt, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4KSXrz28uE

French coverage of US elections: a window onto how they see us

Published November 25, 2012

When I was a little girl, if my teacher had asked me to make a picture of France, I would have drawn a man with a beret and a baguette, standing next to the Eiffel Tower. A French child, asked the same question about the USA, might have drawn the Empire State Building, with lots of tiny stick figures at its base, or a cowboy with horse and lasso in the wide open spaces of the Wild West. Those were the stereotypes then and some of them are still alive today.

The French media, covering the recent US presidential elections, painted a different picture of American life and politics. Some were stereotypical and clichéd, others, downright wrong. For example, on election night, broadcasting direct from Washington, the anchorman of France’s major public television newscast sagely commented on a map of the United States, showing states won by each of the candidates, except that the blue states were attributed to Romney, the red to Obama, giving Romney a significant lead and a chance for victory.

That blunder was the exception, not the rule. On the whole, the reporting was thorough and insightful, a rare chance “to see ourselves as others see us,” which is why, at November’s end, I’m looking back on the recent elections to take a look at how the French see us.

In April of this year, the French elected Socialist François Hollande President. Tea Party advocates might imagine that the French, at the news of “four more years,” were dancing in the streets, except that for the French, President Obama is a political figure who stands slightly right of center. They see him as a pragmatist, ready to compromise with Republicans to get a political job done.

As for his “socialist medicine,” the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, to French eyes, this is yet another manifestation of Barack Obama’s pragmatism. In a global economy, an American with good health coverage becomes a more healthy competitor. If serious illness does strike, he or she is not knocked out of the race by crushing medical bills. Some commentators wryly observed that a Romney victory could have actually given a competitive edge to Europe. His “less government” ideology most likely would have weakened, not strengthened, America’s ability to compete, causing the nation’s infrastructures to crumble and pushing the middle class towards poverty.

Wary of change, the French admire Americans’ relative optimism in the face of globalization and envy the US move toward energy independence, in part thanks to shale gas, extracted from Marcellus shale. However, on November 13, in his first press conference, President Hollande expressed his intention to respect the 2011 law outlawing hydraulic fracturing, despite large reserves of shale gas in France. He remains willing to reconsider the issue if safer methods of extraction come into use, but for the moment, fracking poses serious risks to drinking water supplies, as many Pennsylvanians know all too well.

A less religious people than Americans, the French were curious about Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith, a religion they largely discovered thanks to election coverage that included informative reporting about The Church of the Latter Day Saints. During the campaign, there were reports about Joseph Smith’s revelation, Brigham Young’s great trek from Iowa to Utah, and the hit Broadway musical “The Book of Mormon.”

Analysis of Mormonism has been interesting too. Anne-Lorraine Bujon, a French researcher in international relations, describes it as an American tradition with Judeo-Christian roots, one which practices the Protestant work ethic, while celebrating the joys of earthly life. Also, Mormons have succeeded in creating a truly American mythology, built around the frontier and manifest destiny, with Salt Lake City as their New Jerusalem.

Other religious matters have also attracted French attention. For example, one of France’s weekly news magazines, Le nouvel observateur (The New Observer), in a recent issue devoted to what the French like best and least about the USA, points out the surprising information, at least to the French, that atheists are held in greater scorn than Muslims or homosexuals by certain segments of the American population. In a country where fervent religious belief is more the exception than the rule, the French have a hard time understanding the omnipresence of God and faith in American life, even though the American wall of separation between church and state is “sturdier” than that of France.

They also can’t quite get the gist of multiculturalism, a word the French translate as “communautarisme,” a slightly pejorative term that emphasizes voluntary separation from society, to form a community where members practice and preserve beliefs and customs different from those of the majority. In France, emphasis is placed on allegiance to a national community of shared republican values (in reference to the Republic) which take precedence over individual or group systems of belief. This explains in part why the French don’t like Muslim headscarves, a visible mark of difference displayed in public space.

As early as 1835, the great French writer Alexis de Tocqueville, in his book Democracy in America, warned against the dangers of democratic individualism, when differences are carried too far, as can sometimes be the case with multiculturalism.

Another example Le nouvel observateur gives is the philosophy of Paul Ryan, Romney’s running mate. Here’s a man who has chosen “my own path, my own journey, an American journey where I can decide for myself and define happiness for myself.” The analytically inclined French point out that this form of hyper-individualism goes against the very collective values he defends. How can he exclude other Americans from making the same kind of personal journey? In his case, happiness has meant a heterosexual marriage. On what grounds, then, can he deny others choices different from his own?

On the whole, the French are pleased by Obama’s victory, though their reasons may not be those Americans suspect. For them, President Obama personifies a victory of the 21st century. He represents a new kind of president and a new kind of American, biracial, multicultural in the best sense of the word, focused more on the Pacific and on Asia than on Europe—and that’s where his re-election hurts. The French, and Europeans in general, feel forgotten and hope that in his second term, Obama will turn to the Atlantic world as well.

Views of Paris shaped by Hollywood

Published: October 28, 2012, Republican Herald

We all like to believe we’re original or unique. We all like to think there’s something about our life that sets us apart from everybody else. For example, in my case, it was my choice to uproot myself from Pottsville, PA and move to Paris, France. How daring, how courageous, how different!

Well, that’s what I used to think until I saw “Paris Seen by Hollywood,” an exhibit filling an immense gallery at the city hall of Paris (Hôtel de Ville), open free to the public until December 15th. There I discovered I am simply a child of my times, the 1950’s and early sixties, the golden age of Paris-Hollywood. An American in Paris with Gene Kelly, Moulin Rouge, named after the famous Pigalle cabaret, with Zsa Zsa Gabor, Gigi with Leslie Caron and Maurice Chevalier, Love in the Afternoon, Sabrina, Funny Face, all three with the radiant Audrey Hepburn (my role model since a very early age?), Irma la Douce, with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, who plays a hooker with a heart of gold—that’s a lot of Paris to take in at a young and impressionable age.

Though my memories are vague, I think I started going to the movies almost as soon as I could walk. There were still Saturday matinees at the Capitol Theatre on North Centre Street and, after our parents dropped us off out front, we would run down the red-carpeted ramp to the popcorn stand, buy our buttered or plain, and then settle into the worn red velvet seats for a long afternoon of newsreels, cartoons and a feature film or two. Even before the lights went out and the screen lit up, the Capitol itself, shabby and exotic, a gilded Moorish palace going to seed, had the power to transport us far from home.

Bouncing on those seats (Saturday matinees lasted for hours and we had a hard time sitting still) or on those of the Hollywood, just a couple blocks south on the opposite side of Centre Street, we travelled around the world, into the past, into the future, and, very often, far from reality. With no teachers or parents to guide us, we put together our own ideas of the world, of life and of love. All those moving pictures, worth thousands, millions of words, marked us, I believe, for life.

Take Funny Face, for instance (many readers, I’m sure, enjoy watching these “old” movies on Turner Classic Movies, which often programs Paris-Hollywood classics). This 1956 film with Audrey Heburn, playing an American ingénue, and Fred Astaire, a sophisticated fashion photographer, is a modern take on the “ugly duckling” theme. In her home surroundings (New York City), Audrey Hepburn is a homely girl, working in a bookstore. Whisk her off to Paris and she is transformed! The gawky girl becomes the very model of Parisian elegance. Dressed in Givenchy fashions created especially for her, she embodies the spirit of the city, carefree, beautiful, sophisticated, and intelligent, no less. Gee, no wonder I’m here. Who could ask or wish for more?

Funny Face, directed by Stanley Donen, marks a turning point in Paris-Hollywood. It is the film which made Audrey Hepburn a star. It is also one of the first Hollywood films actually shot in the streets of Paris. Up until that time, nearly all were shot on lots in and around Hollywood. MGM had the “biggest” Paris, located in Culver City, where An American in Paris was made. This 1951 musical, with Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron, sings and dances us through the city, serving up delightful clichés about Paris that American tourists are still searching for today.

Gene Kelly plays a World War II vet, come to Paris to make it as an artist. He lives in a garret beneath those famous Parisian rooftops immortalized in dozens of Hollywood films (remember Disney’s 1971 AristoCats or the more recent Ratatouille?). He falls in love. There’s another man in the picture, but everything works out in the end. But before that can happen, Kelly and Caron, the film’s true lovers, dance soulfully to Gershwin music beneath a bridge over the Seine, and Kelly imagines a happy ending for their love. In this 30-minute dream sequence, set entirely in painted decors, Kelly dances in and out of Impressionist paintings by Renoir and Monet. In one scene, he brings to life a dancer in a painting by Toulouse Lautrec, truly animating the work with the genius of his dance.

Americans have an on-going love affair with Impressionist painting and I’m ready to bet that An American in Paris played a part in keeping that love alive, as did the 1954 film French Cancan, directed by Jean Renoir. In this movie devoted to the cabarets of Montmartre in the year 1900, Renoir pays a tribute to his father, Impressionist painter Auguste Renoir, who immortalized one of the most famous in his painting Le Moulin de la Galette. This film also revives the French cancan, a forgotten dance brought back to life thanks to the silver screen.

The year 1900 also marks the beginning of American filmmakers’ love affair with Paris. That year, Paris hosted the World’s Fair and Thomas Edison travelled to the city with cameras and a team that filmed Paris in motion. Dominating the skyline, the Eiffel Tower, only 11 years old, begins its career as the symbol of the city, destined to appear in hundreds of American films.

In all, there have been over 800 Hollywood movies set in Paris and it would be no exaggeration to say the city has become a part of us. Lon Chaney as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Greta Garbo as Camille, “la Dame aux Camélias,” Audrey Hepburns’s Funny Face, Maurice Chevalier in Gigi, all of them Hollywood icons, though, among those actors, only Chaney was actually born in the United States.

Does that mean I can thank the former Hollywood and Capitol Theatres of Pottsville for my being in Paris today? Yes, in part, without a doubt. Have I found the mythic Paris of Hollywood I came looking for? Yes and no, but mostly no. It only exists on screen and in our hearts.

But I have found something else, a subtle ingredient of many of those films. I’ve discovered a great big world, composed of many peoples, cultures and languages. That’s what Paris has become today. And I got my first taste for it, bouncing on a red velvet seat at a Saturday matinee at the Capitol.

Celebrating good, bad of autumn

Published in The Republican Herald, September 30, 2012

Last Sunday, on my way up the hill to my neighborhood farmer’s market, I found myself dodging falling horse chestnuts, a sure sign, despite unseasonably warm temperatures, that autumn has arrived. At the market, there were further signs: mountains of plump green “Italia” grapes from Sicily, bunches of deep purple Muscat grapes from France, fresh figs, and vine peaches, an early autumn variety, whose fruit is blood-red.

I buy some of each because I know they won’t be around for long. Soon the choices will be limited to oranges, bananas, pears and apples, winter staples, which is nothing to complain about. One of my fondest childhood memories is of Sunday excursions to Blazer Orchards, in the Hegins Valley, to buy McIntosh apples. We couldn’t wait to get home to eat them, we couldn’t even wait to get back into the car. From a bushel basket, we’d grab an apple and bite into the crispy fruit, through the red skin into the white flesh, tinged here and there with a pink blush. Sweet and tart all at once, those apples captured the perfect bittersweet flavor of early autumn, a gift of sun and warmth, a frosty tang as an aftertaste.

I haven’t experienced a Pennsylvania autumn in more than twenty-five years and it is something I deeply miss. Autumn is not vacation time for teachers, so I’ll have to wait for my still distant retirement years if I hope to once again observe, first hand, leaves falling in a symphony of colors.

For the Parisian I have become, autumn has taken on other distinctive shades. Besides horse chestnuts and the bounty of my local market, there’s the annual International Dahlia Show, which takes place each year in late September at Parc floral, a botanical garden at the eastern edge of Paris. There, in a confined space, when compared to the Pennsylvania hills, I can immerse myself in a riot of intense color, which partially satisfies my yearning for a crisp, sunny autumn day, taken in, let’s say, from the southwestern slope of Sharp Mountain, looking out over Indian Run.

Unfortunately, autumn in the city also means crowds. All those who fled the dog days of summer have returned and in the metro, we’re back to riding cheek to cheek, conscious of fellow travellers who had garlic or a glass of wine with their most recent meal. Only last evening, I stepped into a crowded car permeated with the sickeningly sweet odor of urine. As we all do, I’ve noticed, I looked around for the source, for the “culprit” (of course, it couldn’t be me!), but, unable to find one, I just grabbed onto a pole (sitting in the metro is a luxury of summertime) and limited myself to shallow breaths. That’s when I noticed “he” was standing next to me, a poor soul, dressed in drab clothes that were giving off “that odor.” The car was too crowded for me to move away. What if people began thinking it was me! I forgot all about the smell and began to worry about guilt by association!

Luckily, he got off at the next stop, clearing the air and clearing me of guilt because he took the smell away with him. For the last part of the ride, I could concentrate on pleasant memories of the day I had just spent visiting hidden treasures of Paris, open to the public one weekend each year. In fact, all over Europe, the weekend of September 15th and 16th was “le weekend du patrimoine,” “heritage weekend,” another annual fall event I always look forward to.

In Paris, for two days, buildings generally closed to the public open their doors to welcome us. Those ready to stand in line for five hours can step over the threshold of Elysée Palace, home to President François Hollande. Rumor has it that on Sunday, he was guiding some of the tours himself. Those with a bent for law and order and its inseparable opposite, crime, can penetrate the inner courtyard of 36, quai des Orfèvres, the “Scotland Yard” of Paris, located on Ile de la Cité, the island at the city’s heart. For those seeking treasures on a smaller scale, every city neighborhood holds surprises, some unusual, others of unexpected beauty, many in our own “backyard.”

That’s why my friend Nathalie and I decided to concentrate on hidden treasures close to home. Our destination was some nearby “hôtels particuliers,” once the elegant townhouses of wealthy members of the French aristocracy, located in the Marais (which means “swamp”), on the Right Bank of the Seine. At the beginning of the 17th century, it was the most fashionable neighborhood in Paris, but then as now, trends in fashion are quick to change. By the end of the century, those same aristocrats were abandoning their homes for the Left Bank, which had become the new “quartier à la mode.” The townhouses of the Marais were transformed into warehouses, apartments, workshops and shops. It was not until the latter part of the 20th century that many were restored to their former glory.

In 1813, one of the most elegant became the barracks of a company of fire-fighters, members of a national corps created by Napoleon in 1811, a function it continues to serve. Hidden from view, located in a street where I’ve often walked, never suspecting its existence, this elegant townhouse, “Hôtel Bouthillier de Chavigny,” occupies part of a large inner courtyard, once a formal French garden, today a dusty plot where fire-fighters’ children can play and firemen park their cars.

Their home is a magnificent palace in the pure French classical style, designed by François Mansart (1598-1666) who sought to adapt the architecture of Antiquity to his times. On the ground floor, former reception rooms are today the fire-fighters’ gym. The upper floors have been divided into apartments. In one wing, there is a small museum devoted to the brigade’s history, in another, a recreation room. An adjacent building, off-limits to visitors, houses all the fire-fighting equipment Many Parisians would love to live in such a setting, but few would be ready to do a fire-fighter’s job.

Next weekend, autumn festivities continue with an annual festival of American literature with Toni Morrison as this year’s special guest. In the city, there’s certainly lots to do, but I’d throw it all over for a walk in “Penn’s woods” on a perfect fall day.

Ramadan celebrated in France

As I write, it is Ramadan and my neighbors are fasting. One of them gets up early and leaves for work around 5:30 to catch the first metro of the day. The other works late, usually returning home around eight or nine, perfect timing during the month-long fast of Ramadan, which ends this year on August 19th. Each evening, he can participate in the preparation of iftar, the meal marking the end of the daily fast stretching from sunrise to sundown. During that time, Muslims freely give their time to God, practicing the self-restraint encouraged by the Quran.

My neighbors are from Mali, a land-locked country of northwest Africa. They live and work in France so their families can live better in their native land. They do not take month-long vacations nor do they go out very often. They work, share meals, rest, and send money home. Northern Mali has recently been taken over by Taliban affiliated with Al Qaeda, sending thousands of refugees fleeing south. I wonder what it is like to be so far from home in time of war and strife.

My friend Karima is fasting. In less than a week, she is leaving for the United States, where she will begin work as a teaching assistant at the University of Wisconsin. This will be her first extended stay in an English-speaking country. She speaks our language well but has never practiced it on a daily basis. In other words, she has yet to be immersed in American life, where the real business of language learning takes place. Naturally, she is nervous and sometimes afraid, but mostly she is busy, wrapping up one life before she begins another in a new language and land.

After a gray, cool month of July, August in Paris has been hot and muggy. Karima, with dozens of things to do before stepping on her plane, has been hurrying through the hot streets and down into the steamy metro several times a day. I wonder what it is like to face the heat and crowds with stomach empty and throat dry.

In my neighborhood, all around me, people are fasting. At the local outdoor market, is it just my imagination or are veiled Muslim women, pushing baby carriages or pulling shopping carts, truly walking more sluggishly? What about the workmen renovating an apartment in my building? I’ve met the foreman. He is from Tunisia but has lived in France for the past twenty years. Some of his workers are French, others, Tunisian. All are Muslim, working long hours during Ramadan.

On the subject of working and fasting, there has been a controversy this year involving four Muslim camp counsellors. They were laid off for not taking in adequate quantities of fluids and food during work hours, as stipulated in their contract. Located in the Parisian suburbs, the town of Gennevilliers that hired them argued that three years ago, a fasting counsellor was involved in an accident while transporting children. Feeling faint, she lost control of the vehicle. The town did not want to risk similar accidents. The counsellors’ lawyers are arguing that such a requirement to eat and drink is a disguised form of discrimination against Muslims.

As France’s Muslim population grows, surely there will be more conflicts of this type, requiring negotiation and compromise as France’s approximately six million Muslims and the sixty million Frenchmen of other faiths or of none (atheists and agnostics abound) learn to better live and work together.

During Ramadan, I like to descend from my hilltop neighborhood, Buttes Chaumont, to Belleville, the heart of Arab Paris. There, street vendors sell fermented milk and dates, fresh cilantro and mint, special breads and crepes made from semolina, soups, salads and all kinds of cakes. In late afternoon, hours before sunset, crowds jostle each other on the sidewalks and, instead of concentrating on self-restraint, I’d say those around me have a one-track mind, eying mountains of fresh mint or trays of honey cakes, anticipating the first sip of something cool, the first bite of something sweet.

Following the advice of Muslim friends, I do not make my purchases in the street but step inside established shops. My favorite is “Délice de Sfax” (“delight from Sfax,” a city in Tunisia, the name of a pastry shop located at 9, rue Couronne), where Madame Boussa always greets me. She too is fasting while working in the kitchen and in the shop.

During Ramadan, besides cakes, she also prepares special crepes filled with grilled vegetables, a kind of Tunisian quiche called tajine, made with cheese, meat and vegetables, and the traditional chorba, a delicate barley soup. I’ve tried them all and shared them with friends. Unanimously, we find her cooking délicieux.

However, her spécialité is dozens of varieties of cakes made from pistachios, pine nuts, walnuts, almonds or hazelnuts, most of them bite-sized, true works of art to be popped into the mouth. There are also almond-flavored crescents and doughnuts, but if ever you pass by her shop, I would highly recommend the bite-sized cakes made from honey and nuts.

At the beginning of August, I headed south to a friend’s wedding, taking place near Clermont-Ferrand, a city of central France. There I visited the Romanesque basilica Notre Dame du Port, built in the 11th and 12th centuries. It is a beautiful church and its underground crypt is filled with a spiritual presence that mysteriously took hold of me.

Upon leaving the church, I met a woman and began talking with her about the crypt. She had many times experienced that “presence” and often went there to pray. Having struck up a conversation, I decided to ask her if she knew where I could find a branch of my bank. Early that morning, in Paris, I had had a worrisome problem with my bank card. After reflecting, she said to me, “The route is complicated, I’ll take you there.”

Walking through the streets of Clermont-Ferrand, this very attractive woman, the epitome of French elegance, told me a bit about herself. She is Muslim, she was fasting and during Ramadan, she often visited Notre Dame du Port, preferring it to mosques where men and women pray separately. She took me to my bank and then continued on her way, a woman glowing with vitality who, just like in Christ’s “Sermon on the Mount,” did not appear to fast.

When this article goes to press, Ramadan will have already ended, but I hope it is not too late to say “alf mabrouk,” 1,000 congratulations, to Muslim readers who fasted during the holy month of Ramadan.

Simple vacations are sometimes the best…

Published in The Republican Herald July 29, 2012

Paris in Song

Published June 24, 2012

It’s not often I walk through the streets of Paris, humming, singing, swaying to a melody. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like to draw attention to herself in the street, but today is different. I’m walking on air, care-free, my heart full of song. No, I haven’t just fallen in love, nor have I hit the jackpot playing Loto, the French national lottery. Today, I simply stepped outside and headed to the library!

Yes, to the library. There, at an exhibit organized by the public libraries of the city of Paris, I discovered Paris en chansons, Paris in Song, one of the most joyful exhibits I’ve been to in years and readers with a computer can discover it too at www.chansons.paris.fr. And there’s no need to understand French. The range of emotions expressed in the more than four hundred recordings that make up the exhibit (out of a selection of 2,800 songs about Paris) speak the universal language of music, transcending words and borders, capable of touching hearts everywhere.

Before we enter the exhibit, those who would like to read and listen at the same time can go to the homepage of Paris en chansons. At the bottom of your screen you’ll see an orange bar for Radio Deezer, a French-based music streaming service, which, till July 29, the day the exhibit closes, will be streaming non-stop songs about Paris spanning a period of nearly five hundred years. The most ancient is “Voulez ouyr les cris de Paris,” “Hear the cries of Paris,” a song written by Clément Janequin in 1530, which provides a mouth-watering inventory of all the food and drink sold by hucksters in the city streets nearly 500 years ago.

At the other end of the timeline, one of the most recent is “Gare du Nord,” “North Station,” recorded in 2009 by Malakoff, a French rock group that grinds out a hard-rock ballad about the misery and excitement found in this Parisian train station, the busiest in Europe, the most dangerous in France.

In between, there are lots of familiar faces, voices, and songs for both the French and Americans. I listened to Cole Porter’s “I Love Paris” and heard Petula Clark sing “Hello Paris.” Everywhere, in photos, video and sound recordings, I met Maurice Chevalier, star of the 1958 MGM movie “Gigi,” where he sang “Thank heaven for little girls.” Considered a typical “French lover,” he inspired the Looney Tunes character Pepé le Pew and remains one of the best known French singers in the world. I stopped to admire a photo of the frail Edith Piaf, “the little sparrow,” weighed down by her accordion. I also listened to Yves Montand as he strolls along the boulevards of Paris, Charles Aznavour singing about why he loves Paris in May, and Brigitte Bardot celebrating “les p’tites femmes de Paris,” the elusive women of Paris who always know how to keep a man on his toes.

Many names familiar to the French may be less so to Americans, such as Juliette Greco whose 1951 rendition of “Sous le ciel de Paris,” “Under the Paris sky,” is my favorite. There’s also Barbara (1930-1997), a singer for whom “Seine” often rhymed with “peine” (Seine and pain went together). Going further back in time, three legendary figures stand out: Aristide Bruant (1851-1925), Mistinguett (1875-1956), and Josephine Baker (1906-1975).

The painter Toulouse Lautrec immortalized Aristide Bruant, the father of French popular song, who sang in the language of the streets of Paris, protesting against injustice, celebrating the life of the working class. Surely, many readers will recognize his portrait or a poster of Le Chat noir (The Black Cat), the famous Montmartre cabaret where he performed. At the exhibit, I listened to an 1889 recording of him singing one of his compositions, “A la place Maubert,” “On Maubert Square.”





Mistinguett, singer, dancer, actress, star of stage and screen, sang at Moulin Rouge and, in 1926, was the star of the opening ball of the Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro. That same year, “Ça, c’est Paris,” “That’s Paris,” the song that became her “anthem,” was composed. Performing it, she belts out that Paris is a blond who makes everybody happy. Her chief rival, Josephine Baker (1906-1975), the African-American singer who, in the 1920’s and 30’s, took Paris by storm, might have disagreed. At the Folies Bergères, she sang “Paris, Paris, Paris” and “J’ai deux amours,” “I have two loves” (France and the USA), and brought the house down.





Ernest Hemingway wrote that Paris is “A Moveable Feast.” Parisians might argue that, above all, “Paris is a song,” and every neighborhood has its own. The website of Paris en chansons provides an interactive map (carte interactive), where, district by district, decade by decade, from the 1870’s to the present, you can discover how each Parisian neighborhood was turned into song. Mine, near what were once the slaughter houses and the meat market of the city, has been immortalized in “Les joyeux bouchers,” “The Happy Butchers,” a 1954 tango whose refrain is “it’s gotta bleed, it’s gotta bleed.”

In the past, before Parisians began tuning out the world and tuning into music only they can hear through headphones plugged into electronic devices, they actually joined together in song. Paris en chansons also documents how sheet music was sold in the streets, a practice developed by Aristide Bruant who would send out singers with a bundle of his songs printed as sheet music. They, in turn, would set up shop on street corners, singing the songs, distributing the music to bystanders and encouraging them to join in. If the melody “struck a chord,” Parisians were ready to pay a few pennies to take the sheet music home to play on the piano or sing with family and friends.

I’m tempted to sigh, those were the good old days, but perhaps that’s what many songs devoted to Paris are all about. They make us feel nostalgic about a mythic city that only exists in song and in our dreams.

As for Pottsville and song, this exhibit got me thinking about George Korson, a reporter at The Pottsville Republican in the 1920’s and a life-long collector of anthracite folklore and song until his death in 1967. The songs he recorded are available on the CD “Songs and Ballads of the Anthracite Miners” (Round Rounder 1502), and, on You Tube, you can hear Pottsville miner William E. Keating singing “Down, Down, Down,” recorded by Korson in 1946. Those too were the good old days.

France's new president already busy at work

Published: May 27, 2012

Well, President Obama has met him and I suppose, by this time, you may have caught a glimpse of him, too. I'm referring, of course, to France's new president, Francois Hollande.

On May 18, he and Barack Obama had a chance to meet and get acquainted over lunch at the White House before heading to Camp David for the G8 summit. Socialist President Hollande arrived with a particular message: he is pitching a pro-growth, pro-stimulus package to get faltering economies back on track. Only time will tell if he can make his ideas work.

For now, he is busy proving to the world and to France, to the near 52 percent of voters who chose him and the 48 percent who did not, that he is the right man for the job. So far, so good. Hollande appears energetic and devoted to the French Republic. From candidate, he got down to the business of being president almost overnight. Officially in office since May 15, he has deliberately played down the regal side of the French presidency, where the commander in chief lives more like a king than a citizen. Instead, he has promised to live a "normal" life, rejecting many presidential privileges, presenting himself as the No. 1 public servant of France. Once again, only time will tell if the new president can resist the sense of privilege that comes with inhabiting the gilded halls of Elysee Palace, the official presidential residence, once home to Madame de Pompadour, the "favorite" of King Louis XV, his official lover at the French court.

From my American point of view, Hollande has set his presidency in motion in a hardworking yet low-key way. On May 6, a mere three weeks ago, the man was still a candidate. On that day, like millions of the French, I made my way to my local polling place, a classroom in an elementary school a few steps from my home, to cast my vote in the presidential election. First, I presented my voter registration card and then I picked up an envelope and three squares of pale blue newsprint, one blank and the other two printed with the names of the candidates, the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy and the Socialist Francois Hollande. From there, I headed to a voting booth, put one paper in the envelope (and I'll let readers guess who I voted for) and crumpled the two others before dropping them in a waste basket placed in easy reach (no problem with hanging chads or computer fraud).

The next step was the most solemn. I approached the "urn," a locked transparent ballot box. Once again I identified myself, demonstrating I had only one envelope in hand. After I slipped it into the box, an observer called out "a vote" (has voted). Then, for the final step, I moved off to the side to sign the register containing the names of those authorized to vote in that particular polling place. On May 6, I was one of the 36,562,072 French women and men, more than 81 percent of registered voters, who observed this ritual.

By eight that evening, the results were in: for the second time in the Fifth Republic, formed in 1958, a Socialist candidate could claim victory. This had not happened since 1981, the year Francois Mitterrand was elected president. That evening, supporters rallied at the Bastille, to sing, shout, dance and drink the night away. A little after midnight, Hollande showed up to thank his electors and reiterate his promise for change. The next morning, bright and early, he was at work, meeting with advisors to begin putting together his new government. The following day, May 8, V-E Day, he was walking up the Champs Elysees in the company of President Sarkozy. Side-by-side, they placed a spray of flowers on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier beneath the Arc de Triomphe.

One week later, on May 15, the official transfer of powers took place. Observing this process, but also participating as a citizen for the first time since my arrival in France 25 years ago, I had the feeling things were happening too fast. After all, in the United States, a newly elected president has more than two months to get used to the idea before he actually takes the reins of power. He has time to rest after a hard campaign and wrap up one life before beginning another. And Inauguration Day, although not an official holiday for all Americans, has all the ingredients: the solemn swearing-in ceremony on the steps of the Capitol, the parade along Pennsylvania Avenue, the many inaugural balls and banquets, spanning a period of 10 days.

A French friend provided me with one explanation for this hasty transfer of powers. He reminded me that in the days of the monarchy, between the time a deceased king was put in the grave and a new king mounted the throne, the country was ruled by an effigy, a mannequin stuffed with straw made to look like the former king. Obviously, straw men don't have much power and it was important to get a new, flesh-and-blood king on the throne fast. Likewise for a new president. Others, however, believe Hollande has been doing his best to not behave like former president Sarkozy, who, on election night, celebrated with the rich and famous in a very expensive Parisian restaurant and, the next day, continued to celebrate on a rich friend's yacht in the Mediterranean Sea.

Whatever the explanation, Hollande's "Inauguration Day" was all work and no play: lunch at Elysee Palace with former prime ministers and Nobel Prize winners, speeches in the afternoon and then a flight to Berlin (the airplane was struck by lightning - an inauspicious sign?) to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss the woes of the European economy. Conspicuously absent from the day's ceremonies were the new president's four children and their mother, his former companion (no, not wife), Segolene Royal, who lost to Nicolas Sarkozy in France's 2007 presidential elections. At his side, was his new companion (no, not wife), Valerie Trierweiler, a journalist.

A mere three weeks after elections, the new government is in place and busily working to bring about change, Hollande's main campaign theme. As for how the French look at elections, inaugurations and the private life of their presidents, their attitudes are very different from ours.

To conclude, I'll just say, "Vive la difference."

(Honicker can be reached at honicker.republican herald@gmail.com)

Good food, good friends, the French way

Published: April 29, 2012

This month, I should be writing about politics, about the 10 candidates who ran for the first round of the French presidential elections on April 22 and about who came out on top. I should be writing about my very first voting experience in France. Instead, I'd like to concentrate on friendship and food, two topics that far outshine politics in my life at this time.

A month ago, my mother, Mary Honicker, a long-time teacher in the Pottsville schools, passed away. Returning to France was not easy. I felt like I was leaving everything behind: our family home, Pottsville, Schuylkill County.

My mother, besides being my mother and irreplaceable in that role, was my anchor to "home." Without her, I felt afloat, deprived of a safe haven, truly on my own in this great big world of ours. Although I am Franco-American, upon opening the door of my Parisian apartment the day I returned, I wasn't feeling very French.

But all that was before my French friends stepped in and began taking care of me. There were phone calls, flowers, notes expressing sympathy. Most of all, there was food, food shared with friends, a pastime the French have raised to the level of art, exactly what my weary soul needed to settle back in here.

My friend Nathalie was the first to invite me to her home and we sat at her dining table, looking out over the zinc rooftops of Paris. In the distance, we could see the tip of the Eiffel Tower and, closer to her top-floor apartment (no elevator, like mine), the two rectangular towers of Notre Dame de Paris.

On the table in front of us, as admirable as the view, lying on a bed of crisp escarole, were some slices of foie gras d'oie - goose liver pate - direct from the Bearn region of southwest France, where Nathalie's father is from. He knows where to get the very best and makes sure his daughter always has a supply in her Paris home. Nathalie toasted some bread and then opened a bottle of Graves, a red wine from Bordeaux. All I had to do was savor the "made-in-heaven" marriage of wine with foie gras spread on a slice of toasted French baguette.

And that was only the first course. Nathalie, with the ease of a French woman raised in a home where the finest culinary traditions are passed down from generation to generation, next got out a frying pan, melted a big pat of butter, and, in a matter of minutes, produced two perfectly pan-fried sole. "Succulent," as the French say. Golden on the outside, with firm white flesh on the inside. And there was no sticking to the frying pan!

I have been to Nathalie's parents' home in Pau, the capital of the Bearn region, and each time I have marvelled at the meals her parents produce. I have been particularly impressed by the desserts, always homemade, be it ice cream or sherbert, the French version of macaroons, made not with coconut, but with sugar and egg whites, or a charlotte with strawberries or raspberries, a very sophisticated form of shortcake.

When I go to Nathalie's Parisian apartment, I prefer to supply the dessert, scouting my neighborhood for the very best bakeries. If Nathalie approves my choice, I know the bakery is good. This time I brought a slice of Black Forest cake and a simple cream puff, topped with candied sugar. She gave both her highest marks, with special praise for the cream puff, a simple pastry very hard to make well.

However, one meal, no matter how delicious, is not enough to soothe a grieving soul. Luckily for me, a week later, my friend Sophie whisked me off to Brittany, where her family has a vacation home by the sea.

Brittany, or "Bretagne" as it is called in French, is the westernmost part of France, jutting far out into the Atlantic. The region is best known for rain, wind, storms at sea, Celtic folklore and mystery. In no way is it a culinary capital, but it is a region where simple, good food abounds. Almost as soon as we arrived, we got busy and dug in.

We began with buckwheat "galettes," the local version of crepes, the thin pancakes the French prefer to the fluffier American kind. In Brittany, entire meals are designed around crepes and it is traditional to begin with one or two buckwheat galettes, filled with meat, cheese or vegetables, before moving on to dessert crepes, made with white flour. Buckwheat, which is not wheat at all and thus gluten-free, produces a dark crepe, with a strong, slightly bitter flavor.

In Brittany, the locals have some favorite fillings for their galettes that take some getting used to. Seated at a table at L'hermine, or "the white weasel," Sophie's family's favorite creperie in the town of Morlaix, I decided to take the plunge into local culture, ordering a galette filled with stewed onions and andouillette. This Breton specialty is a kind of sausage made from rolled pork intestines, smoked, dried and finally simmered in a bouillon flavored with hay.

According to Edouard Herriot, a French politician of the first half of the 20th century, like politics, andouillette should smell a bit like shit. And it does and that's why it is hard to get used to, but, believe me, once you get past the smell, andouillette tastes really good, so good that I tried another galette filled with andouillette sauteed with apple slices and "pommeau," a local alcohol made from fermented apples. It was even better than the first.

I have such a taste for buckwheat that I didn't even try a dessert crepe, but finished up my meal with a galette filled with soft goat's cheese and topped with chestnut honey. I'll take that combination over chocolate or ice cream any day.

In Brittany, there were lots of other good things to eat, crabs and oysters right out of the sea, the local fish soup and sand tarts made with buckwheat, but, most important of all, be it in Paris or Brittany, these past weeks, there have been good friends sharing good food, which has meant the world to me.

As for the elections, President Nicholas Sarkozy and the socialist candidate Francois Hollande won the first round. Second round elections will take place May 6 and next month, I'll be telling readers about the new president of France.

(Honicker can be reached at honicker.republican herald@gmail.com)

Things gained, lost with urban renewal

Published: March 25, 2012


Pottsville and Paris are both full of memories, for me and for all those who knew either of these cities before downtowns began to die, as in the case of Pottsville, or cities lost their heart, which happened in Paris in 1969.

In the 1960s, the first shopping centers appeared near Pottsville, moving stores from downtown to outside the city. In 1969, Paris lost its "belly," the city's central market, located at the city's heart for eight centuries.

Through April 28, Parisians and visitors to Paris have the chance to travel back in time, to visit that market.

Les Halles was a covered marketplace made up of several cast-iron and glass pavilions - marvels of 19th century commercial architecture - and located a few steps from the Seine, the Louvre and Notre Dame de Paris.

Until 1969, the year the market was transferred to the suburbs south of Paris, there may not have been a more busy place in all of France between midnight and noon.

In the span of those 12 hours, six days a week, 30 tons of food were moved into the market and then moved out again to grocery and specialty shops throughout the city.

Les Halles fed Paris, and the market was a true cast-iron stomach overflowing with poultry, seafood, sides of beef, fresh fruits and vegetables. It was also the heart of the city, where more than 5,000 workers saw to it that Parisian were always well fed.

Today, there is no trace of this glorious past. By 1973, all the pavilions had been razed or transferred to other sites. In their place was a giant hole surrounded by a barrier where Parisians came to gawk at the destruction and wonder what would rise in its place.

Studying in Paris at that time, I was one of them, leaning over the barrier, looking down into what looked like a giant strip mine. I remember feeling sad, aware I had missed something important, a slice of the history of Paris, not about kings or those in power, but very much about how ordinary Parisians lived their daily lives.

As is almost always the case for projects of urban renewal, change was necessary at les Halles.

Trucks arriving in the narrow streets around the pavilions between midnight and 2 a.m. often had to wait hours to unload, and when unloading did begin, no matter what the weight, all work was done manually. There was no room for machines or conveyor belts and the heaviest loads were shouldered by "les forts," strongmen, workers certified by the state to transport up to 500 pounds on their backs. Nor was there refrigeration. Sanitary conditions were often deplorable and among the many vendors at les Halles, the butchers were the most impatient to move to more modern and sanitary facilities.

Old-timers recount that on moving day, when the trucks began pulling out to transfer their goods and material to Rungis, the new market to the south, the rats followed, thousands of them scurrying through the city streets, making the move along with those who had long provided the rodents with their "daily bread."

Urban renewal, then, is a good thing. Les Halles, the heart and belly of Paris, was dying of asphyxiation. Rungis, the new market, provided better and safer working conditions and guaranteed safer food to the consumer.

Urban renewal becomes a problem when bad decisions are made about how to replace the old with the new. For the Parisian Halles, this is what happened. Above ground, the former pavilions were replaced by a garden maze and some glass structures that did little more than block the view. Below ground, a shopping mall opened, filled with some of the same shops Schuylkill Countians might find at the Frackville mall or in one of the Reading shopping centers. The hole got filled but, in the process, Paris lost its heart and soul.

Thousands of us are standing in line to catch a glimpse of what was lost, in an exhibit of the photos of Robert Doisneau (1912-94), best known to Americans for his photo "The Kiss," which appeared in Life magazine in 1950. In it, a young couple exchange a passionate kiss right in front of the city hall of Paris, which is exactly where the current photo exhibit is taking place.

On display are 208 of the thousands of photos Doisneau took at les Halles between 1933 and 1973, when the last pavilion was moved. It was hard work because, like the thousands working at the central market, he got up in the middle of the night and worked far past dawn.

Working at night, with little light, Doisneau encountered many technical problems and often had to fight fatigue because during his first years at les Halles, he worked as an industrial photographer for Renault, the French automobile maker, by day.

He had no problems, however, when it came to choosing subjects. He was adopted by the workers, who considered him one of them. Perhaps that is why, when looking at his photos of a butcher next to a bull's head on a butcher's block, a flower-seller surrounded by her bouquets, a woman proudly waving a bunch of parsley or a "fort" carrying a bulky burlap sack as big as him, we feel close to these people, as if we'd met them somewhere before.

Thanks to the photos of Robert Doisneau, les Halles lives on.

Photos also provide me with precious memories of Pottsville and over the years, I've clipped "Schuylkill Memories" from The Republican-Herald. Many of these photos provide proof that, as in the case of les Halles, urban renewal has been good for the city.

For example, it was a good decision to get rid of the steam heating facility of downtown Pottsville, where dangerous fires periodically broke out. In a photo taken in the 1950s, its giant smokestack dominates the city's skyline. In that photo, I also see "the flats" across from the county jail, since replaced by better housing.

But, once again, as in the case of les Halles, with urban renewal much was lost. To end this article, I'd like to list some of the places I miss: Joyce's Restaurant on East Norwegian Street, where Joe Talpash served the best seafood around; the Sugar Bowl on West Market, where my family was often served by the black-haired Arlene; all the women's clothing shops, such as The Feel-Fine, Mister S, The Grace Shop, Pomeroy's and Weiss's Department stores, Raring's, Paramount and Triangle for shoes, Woolworth's, Kresge's, and Green's Five-and-Tens, the Capitol and Hollywood Theatres. And I could go on and on with all the ingredients that make for a great downtown.

The city of Paris has just undertaken the destruction of the shopping center that replaced les Halles, hoping to resurrect the city's heart. A good idea, isn't it?

February month for crepes, carnivals

Published: February 26, 2012

February in France has been exceptionally cold, from the shores of the North Sea to the pebble beaches of the Mediterranean, dusted with snow. Despite the cold, or perhaps because of it, the French have continued their winter celebrations, each one an occasion to crowd several people into the same room, warming hearts and raising temperatures a few degrees.

It all started on Feb. 2 - Groundhog Day in the United States, Chandeleur, Candlemas, in France. For this "festival of lights," candles are lit at midnight to commemorate the end of the Christmas season, 40 days after the birth of Christ. Traditionally, this is also the day when Nativity scenes are put away until the next holiday season.

However, ask the average Frenchman why he celebrates Chandeleur, nine times out of 10, he'll answer, "to eat crepes," and on Feb. 2, that's just what the French do.

They get out a well-seasoned frying pan made specially for the thin pancakes the French prefer to the fluffier American kind. Then they mix up some batter with buckwheat or white flour, depending on whether the crepe is to be salty or sweet. Buckwheat crepes are served with ham, cheese, eggs or andouille, a sausage made from pork belly, an acquired taste that's not one of mine. As for the sweet variety, the only limit is the cook's creativity. Some of the basics are sugar and lemon juice, melted chocolate, sweetened chestnut cream or a favorite jam, but, just like with a sundae, you can pile on pretty much anything you'd like, including a dollop of your favorite ice cream.

As to why the French eat crepes on that day, there are many legends, most concerning popes from long ago who distributed crepes to pilgrims visiting Rome. The most convincing explanation I've found is that a perfect, golden crepe, light as air, looks a lot like the sun shining in the sky. It's the perfect reminder that at the end of a long dark winter, sun and spring will return.

In fact, just like Groundhog Day, Chandeleur marks a significant turning point in the winter season. We all know that if a groundhog sees his shadow and returns to his burrow, winter will hang on for six more weeks. In much the same way, "if Candlemas be fair and bright, winter has another flight. If Candlemas brings clouds and rain, winter will not come again," claims an old English poem.

On Feb. 2 of this year, in Paris and much of France, winds swept down from Siberia and kept blowing for much of the month, turning this year's carnival season, leading up to Mardi Gras, into a pretty chilly affair. In Nice, where one of France's oldest and most famous carnivals takes place, temperatures have been hovering around zero for weeks, which does not bode well for the traditional "battle of flowers," perhaps the most peaceable battle on earth. In a parade of 20 magnificent floats, all composed of fresh flowers, scantily dressed men and women shower spectators with volleys of mimosa, lilies and daisies, grown on the hillsides around Nice. Fewer flowers and cold temperatures mean fewer tourists for what is the city's biggest money-making event of the year.

Further north, in the seaport of Dunkerque, where a cold wind almost always blows off the North Sea, everybody gets into the act at carnival time. Neighborhood associations, much like the "New Year's Associations" of Philadelphia mummers, dress in bright hats and carry parasols with their local colors as they march through the streets. There is no organized parade, no bleachers, no paying spectators, as is the case in Nice. There are simply the people of Dunkerque, organized in neighborhood "gangs," and anyone else who wants to participate, as long as they wear a disguise. From January through to Mardi Gras and beyond, each association organizes a dance, where entrance fees are donated to good cause.

For those who really want to celebrate, with a guarantee of escaping winter's cold, there is France's most famous carnival, which takes place more than 4,000 miles from Paris in equatorial Guyana, France's largest state, on the northeast coast of South America, bordered by Brazil and Suriname.

In what's known as France's "Far West," festivities begin in January, three days after Epiphany, with the arrival of the carnival king, the diabolical Vaval, and continue through to Ash Wednesday, when Vaval is publicly put to death. In between, most of the 114,678 inhabitants of Guyana, along with thousands of tourists, live to the beat of the carnival, which includes weekly Saturday night dances followed by Sunday afternoon parades. In the days leading up to Ash Wednesday, the festivities continue nonstop.

During carnival time, at the dances, in the parades, you'll always find le touloulou, a word you won't find in a French dictionary. Le touloulou is a woman who, at the weekly dances, gets to act like a man. In other words, the men line the walls of the dance hall, like so many wallflowers, while le touloulou, disguised from head to toe, wearing a mask, a wig and a veil, a long gown, long gloves and opaque stockings, even using cushions and stuffing to hide her physique, struts around the room, eyeing the men before selecting her partner for the night, who does not have the right to say no. Balls go from dusk to dawn and the dancing can get hot and heavy, to the point that nine months later, there is a sharp rise in the birth-rate in Guyana, where "Sadie Hawkins' Day" goes on for weeks.

As for me, I'm not sure I'm ready to dance the night away. I'd rather sit back and reminisce about a childhood memory of Fastnacht Day, back when, in Pottsville, you could find just about the best glazed doughnuts in the world.

I'm sure I'm not the only one whose mouth waters when remembering The Danish Bakery, once located at 20th and Market streets. There, Mr. and Mrs. Frederickson spoiled us, not only with their glazed doughnuts, which made Fastnacht Day one of my favorite holidays, but also with fresh Vienna bread and their unforgettable almond ring. Ah! Those were the days when, upon opening the bakery door, which made a little bell ring, we'd be greeted by billows of warm, moist air smelling of fresh-baked bread.

But Lent has begun and the cupboards are bare of fat. Time to elevate our thoughts to higher things - although it would be hard to find better than the bread and doughnuts once sold at the Danish Bakery.

(Honicker can be reached at honicker.republicanherald@gmail.com)

Happy New Year - the French way

Photo courtesy of Eric Bony, Mairie 19ème Paris

Happy new year - the French way
Published: January 29, 2012

The French are at it again. They've carried the Christmas holidays into overtime and they'll be proposing toasts and clinking glasses of champagne right through to January 31st.

'Tis the season to be jolly. More seriously, 'tis the season to get a message across, which may be the true motivating factor behind a month of get-togethers and ceremonies, where "voeux" or "wishes" for the new year are exchanged. In 2012, a year when the French, like Americans, will be electing a new president, the standard greeting, "bonne annee" (happy new year) may very well represent the kickoff of this year's presidential campaign.

By the end of the month, President Sarkozy - who has not yet announced his bid for re-election, although everyone knows he will - will have pronounced those words thousands of times, in every corner of France. As I write, the president is midway through what the French media have dubbed his "marathon des voeux," one day addressing teachers, the next metalworkers, the next members of Parliament, etc., etc., etc. In this election year, each encounter becomes an opportunity to take a political stand.

After getting the traditional greetings out of the way, President Sarkozy gets down to business, announcing reforms, proposing new laws at the rate of about one a day. Government spokesmen insist the president is not campaigning; he is simply behaving "presidentially." Constitutional and parliamentary experts argue, however, that there is no way these reforms could be carried out before the end of the current session of Parliament in March. On April 22, the first round of presidential elections will take place.

The 14 other presidential hopefuls, ranging from the far left to the far right, are also getting into the act, combining new year's greetings and campaign promises, although you can be sure none of them get the same media exposure as President Sarkozy.

On TV, on the radio, I've heard the wishes of some of the more important candidates, those with a chance of making it to the second round, like François Hollande, the Socialist candidate; Francois Bayrou, representing the center; or Marine LePen, candidate of the National Front, a far-right political formation striving for respectability. All of them are striving to be heard, ready to enter the ring and fight it out with candidate Sarkozy, but, at least for the moment, the president, not yet candidate, has chosen to ignore them all.

Instead, President Sarkozy is concentrating on the citizens of France, respecting an illustrious tradition with roots in ancient Rome, where each year began with vows for the security and health of the republic. Interestingly, my Webster's dictionary tells me the words "vote" and "vow" share the same Latin root, "votum," which can also mean "wish." So we're back to where we started from: new year's wishes and political campaigning have long gone hand in hand.

Hearing about these ceremonies in the news, I decided it was high time I went to one myself and I jumped at the chance when I got an invitation from the mayor of the 19th arrondissement, or district, of Paris where I live. On Jan. 12, dressed in my Sunday best, I headed to the local gymnasium where the ceremony was taking place. The invitation was for 7 p.m. and I thought it best to arrive fashionably late, but as I approached the gym, I saw hundreds in line outside. I had no choice but to join them. Once inside, I joined a crowd of about a thousand waiting impatiently for Roger Madec, the 19th district's mayor since 1995, to wish us all a happy new year.

On a stage framed by two huge bouquets of red roses, the symbol of France's Socialist Party, to which Mayor Madec belongs, the mayor and the city council were already in place, all standing, like us, for the occasion. At floor level, all around me, I could see examples of the racial, ethnic and religious diversity for which the 19th district is known.

There were representatives of the Orthodox Jewish community, wearing their black felt hats, Catholic priests and veiled Muslim women. There were also hundreds of "normal" French citizens, many with roots outside of France, all come together as members of the same community. The gymnasium was crowded, but there was no pushing or shoving (at least not until it was time for champagne). I got the sense that people were happy to be there and proud to be one of the 187,603 residents of the 19th arrondissement of Paris.

But the mayor is asking for silence. He wants to get the ceremony under way and we all turn our faces upwards to hear what are his wishes for 2012. I listen carefully for this is my first "live" ceremony, my first direct contact with "my" mayor.

At the speech's end, I have to admit, I'm impressed. Rather than indulge in "wishful thinking," Roger Madec supplied us with a report on what was accomplished in 2011 and, based on those results, told us what to expect in 2012. The main themes were transportation, housing and cultural life, and in each area the mayor provided concrete examples of change. Better transportation thanks to a new tramway, renovation of housing for the middle class, and the creation of 700 new places in day care, essential in a neighborhood undergoing a baby boom.

Concerning cultural life, near where I live, a new public movie theater showing quality films at a reasonable price, will soon open. The mayor also gave us a rundown of local festivals for the coming year, among them, the "Festival du talent," a French equivalent of "American Idol."

To conclude, he reminded us of our responsibilities, admonishing us to "clean up our act" and litter less in order to make the 19th a cleaner, more pleasant place to live, while thanking the many volunteers in the community who are doing just that.

Finally, he invited us to have a drink, champagne or orange juice, served with tasty appetizers, hot and cold. Quite a spread, considering the crowd.

This local ceremony taking place in my own backyard convinced me that new year's wishes, a good time and politics can go together. And Mayor Madec's speech is proof that at the grass-roots level change is possible. Listening to the presidential candidates on the evening news, and this includes President Sarkozy, I'm less optimistic about their ability to transform wishes into reality.

But until Tuesday, the wishes will continue and the champagne will continue to flow. And by French standards, it's not too late for me to wish readers a happy 2012. Reflecting upon the French habit of prolonging the winter holidays, I've realized Americans do quite the same, which is why I also wish you a happy Super Bowl Sunday, a mere seven days away.

(Honicker can be reached at honicker.republican herald@gmail.com)