Real Men Know How to Give

 

The church in Condé sur Huisne

 If Papy had lived in Bethlehem long ago, Mary and Joseph, no room at the inn, would have found a bed and food and love at his place. It may have been small, and the bed may have been of straw, but Papy would have given them his bed, his blankets and the food off his plate.

If he’d had a chicken, he would have killed it, plucked it and thrown it in a pot: a rich broth for the new mother, a drumstick for Joseph, and enough to share with the shepherds who’d somehow found their way to his door. With the feathers and the down, some scraps of fabric, an old straw basket, he’d have made a cradle where the little baby could lay down his sweet head.

Sacré Papy, as the French say. That’s Papy for you.

Except that Papy is no more. He died December 4^th. He was born March 2, 1949, in the town of Sochaux, France. Here, on a piece of swampy land along the Doubs River, not far from Switzerland, Peugeot built its automobile assembly lines in 1912. The site became a city onto itself where, in the 1960’s and 70’s, as many as 40,000 workers were employed. Today fewer than 8,000 are present on what was once the biggest industrial site in France.

 

Papy’s father worked for Peugeot. The family lived in company housing and Papy’s mother worked hard to raise her sons. Everyone worked hard and played hard. Soccer was the big sport and the town of Sochaux can boast being home to France’s first professional soccer team, Football Club Sochaux-Montbéliard, founded in 1928, the last year the Pottsville Maroons played in the NFL.

Papy came from a working-class family and lived in a working-class home, where there was always plenty to eat, but at night the heat was turned off to save on heating bills. Before they went to bed, Papy’s mother would give her sons 2-liter glass bottles filled with hot water to warm their beds.

In the daytime, Papy went to school. He was a good student but rowdy and left school when he was 14, which was common practice in France at a time when very few students finished high school. Fewer still obtained the high school diploma called the “baccalauréat,” which opened the door to French universities.

Papy earned his “junior-high diploma,” “le brevet.” It meant you could read and write French much better than many French high school graduates today. I know because these were my students and I spent as much time correcting their French as their English.

Papy had a favorite teacher, Madame Moreau, and he was her favorite too. She recognized his sharp mind, his energy and zest for life. She encouraged him to stay in school, but that’s not what his people did. Whenever he talked about her, he always exclaimed, Oh! I wish she could see me now, friends with a teacher. She would have never believed it.

Because Papy was my friend.

We met at the house I was remodeling in a country town called Condé-sur-Huisne. Our first conversation took place with me looking up at Papy as he laid new tiles on the roof. I was working too, sitting on a wall by the garden shed, chisel, hammer and metal brush in hand, as I cleaned the original 19^th century floor tiles from inside the house so they could be put down again. 

That's Papy in the striped sweater

For that, I earned Papy’s respect and when he took a break, he often came to talk to me. He knew we’d get along well when I showed interest, rather than repulsion, listening to his story about his pet boa constrictor.

When the house was done and the workers gone, Papy stayed in my life. He and his wife, Mamie, became my best friends in that little village, where some of the locals were none too kind. I’ll never forget my first meal at their home, a luscious pot au feu made with different cuts of tender beef, leeks, carrots and potatoes from their vegetable patch.

Mamie, whose name is Nicole, married Papy, whose name is Guy, in 1990. Till then, both of them had lived a lot of life and taken some hard knocks. I’d say their love saved them and those 33 years together were the happiest of their lives. They had no children together, but they raised one of Mamie’s grandchildren as their daughter and Papy was as proud of Mamie’s children as of his own.

In their home, I learned the meaning of hospitality and ate some of the best meals I’ve ever eaten in France: lapin chasseur, rabbit with mushrooms, langue de boeuf à la sauce piquante, beef tongue in a spicy tomato sauce, tripes à la mode de Caen—yes, I even enjoyed the tripe!!! French home-cooking at its best, served with love.

Anyone who showed up at mealtime was invited to sit down and there was always a lot of drinking—and smoking—during the meal. Thanks to Papy, yes, thanks to him, I’ve learned, not to enjoy, but to tolerate cigarette smoke. And perhaps to better understand those for whom a cigarette represents a brief respite from the pressures of daily life.

Papy lived hard, almost from the start. He loved to reminisce about the dances he went to as a youth, the drinking, the girls, the fights out back. Later he worked in Paris as a painter but lived far away. As soon as he got on the earliest train to the city, he’d meet his buddies and the poker game and smoking would begin.

Later, even when he was up on my roof, working hard, he was fighting cancer. It got him in the end. I saw him last in September, weak, confined to an easy chair, but still in love with life.

A couple of years ago, I gave him a t-shirt from Yuengling Brewery’s gift shop. He wore it with pride.

Papy didn’t use a computer, wasn’t on social media, didn’t much like his smartphone. He was too caught up in giving, living and loving life.

What the world needs now, in 2024, is more like him.

What Do We Know about War?

 

In November 1973, I went to Waterloo, Belgium, to see with my own eyes the battlefield where, on June 18, 1815, Napoleon met defeat. On that date, Europe, after more than two decades of revolution and war, entered a new era of what some might call peace; others, a period of localized conflicts. The continent was no longer a battlefield from the Atlantic to Moscow.

My visit to Waterloo took place exactly fifty years ago, at a time when World War II was still very much alive in the hearts, bodies and minds of those who lived it. It cast its shadow over the lives of those, like me, born in its aftermath. The most deadly military conflict in history ended May 8, 1945, V-E Day in Europe, and September 2, 1945, V-J Day, when the surrender of Japan became official. It is estimated that in the combined conflicts between 70 to 85 million people died.

At Waterloo, in one day, near 50,000 soldiers fell, wounded or killed in battle. In comparison, in the three days of the battle of Gettysburg, there were an estimated 10,000 deaths and 30,000 wounded, many of whom underwent brutal amputations.

My favorite war, or anti-war, novel is Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. The 1929 novel is based on the author’s experiences as an ambulance driver in the Italian army during World War I. The story’s narrator, Frederic Henry, is an ambulance driver, like the author. Frederic is injured by a bomb. He is hospitalized in Milan, cared for by Catherine Barkley, an English nurse, and they fall in love. By the story’s end, we understand Catherine is the bravest soldier of them all.

Agnes Von Kurowsky Stanfield (1892-1984), born in Germantown, PA. She is believed to be the inspiration for Hemingway's Catherine Barkley

In the novel’s first chapter, in a language close to poetry, Hemingway gives us the truth of war: when bombs fall, humans are reduced to their most elemental, blood, organs, limbs, with no more control over their destiny than a tree or a stone.

And as if war were not enough, cholera breaks out, and I quote here the chapter’s last paragraph, another powerful indictment of war: “At the start of the winter came the permanent rain and with the rain came the cholera. But it was checked and in the end only seven thousand died of it in the army.”

Only 7,000. Only indeed, compared to the nearly 10 million military deaths and the 10 million civilian deaths of World War I. War remains an abstraction until the bombs fall on us.

But back to Waterloo. It was November, the plain was covered by low clouds, and there was a rainy mist in the air. My travelling companion and I climbed the Lion’s Mount, the artificial butte rising from the plain to commemorate the victory of the English and their allies. From the top, the mist was so thick, we could hardly see a thing. We climbed back down and hurried to a bus stop to wait for a bus back to Brussels.

When it finally arrived, it was empty except for an older couple. They smiled at us. We struck up a conversation. When we got off the bus at the same stop in the city, they invited us to their home.

I will never forget the time I spent with them.

They lived in the center of Brussels, in what to my American eye was a very old building. We climbed up steps to their apartment. Once inside, it was like a fairy tale. Everything glowed in soft light and I felt enveloped in gentle kindness. Even our porcelain teacups, so fine, were like embers in our hands.

We had tea, we stayed for dinner. In the space of one evening, we’d become a family, parents and children, protected by the power of love.

That’s when they showed us. They showed us the numbers tattooed in the flesh of their forearms. They’d been among the last transports to Auschwitz. They had survived.   

The entrance to the Auschwitz camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau

 

 I don’t know how many Holocaust survivors are alive in November 2023. A handful. In November 1973, I touched the Holocaust as our new friends warmly embraced us when we left their home late that night.

In December 1990 I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau. I was living in Krakow, Poland, at the time. On that December day, icy snow was falling. My entire body was numb with cold. I went to the cafeteria in the Auschwitz camp, ordered a bowl of zupa grzybowa, mushroom soup. I had been alone in the camp and I had the entire dining room to myself. I have no words to describe the strangeness, the shame, of eating in that place.

Krakow is not far from the Ukrainian border. It is about 200 miles from the city of Lviv. Both cities were once part of the Austro Hungarian Empire. Lviv was a part of Poland at different periods in that country’s history until, in 1945, it became part of the Soviet Union. Today it is a city of independent Ukraine. At this date, it is estimated there are 500,000 dead and wounded in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.  

I have never been under attack, unlike my father. He escaped bombs and death in the Philippines in WWII, but he died too young to tell me about his experience. I remember April 30, 1975, the fall of Saigon, as if it were yesterday, but I have never directly experienced war. Nor were my ancestors the victims of the pogroms that are a fact of European history.

In Europe, the victims were the Jews. On October 7, 2023, Israeli Jews once again experienced the horror of a pogrom. This time it was perpetrated by the Hamas, within the borders of the Israeli state declared independent in 1948. This was three years after the end of WWII, which brought death to an estimated 6 million European Jews out of a population of 9.5 million.

The Israeli riposte to the Hamas attack has been devastating to the people of Gaza. Hamas wants to wipe Israel from the map. Israelis fight for their lives, killing thousands in Gaza, as public opinion around the world turns against them for what is considered a cruel and unjustified show of force.

All wars eventually end, as history demonstrates. We know the years, the dates, the number of victims, but the suffering belongs to those who have known war.

         

         

 

Rugby, Music, Friendship: International cooperation in time of war

Photo by Tiago Lucet-Rémy taken at opening match of World Cup, Stade de France

Who would have ever imagined that I could become a rugby fan. I never much liked what the French call “American football” (the only true “football” for them is soccer and for short, they call it “le foot”); and until September 2023, I’d never watched a rugby match in my life.

So what happened?

First of all, friendship. Second, music. Yes, friendship and music brought me to this sport.

In past articles, I’ve written about my friend Tiago Lucet-Rémy, a singer and dancer who has been performing since he was 11. He is now 15, and since the World Rugby Cup kicked off last September 8^th at the national stadium of France, he has been singing to live audiences of 80,000 and to millions watching around the world.

For the past five years, he has been a member of the Children’s Chorus of Opéra comique in Paris. His training consists of both singing and dance, and the chorus, known as “la maîtrise populaire de l’Opéra comique,” has as one of its missions to step outside the elegant theater home to Opéra comique and take music to the world.

That mission was a motivating force for “la mêlée des chœurs,” an initiative of Opéra comique and the organizing committee for the rugby championship, with the participation of the French Ministries of Education and Culture, along with many teachers and students from all over France.

First of all, “la mêlée des chœurs.” That’s a hard one to translate. “Mêlée” is a French rugby term. In English, it’s a “scrum” or “scrummage,” not a very pretty-sounding word. And it refers to a rugby formation that resembles two giant centipedes going at it head-on, their many legs trembling till suddenly, one of those unwieldy creatures lays an egg. That’s how it looks to me, and how one team or the other takes possession of the ball. Each centipede is composed of three rows of players, heads down, shoulders locked as, with their feet, they try to kick the ball outside the scrum towards a member of their team (8 players make up each scrum and 7 others wait for a chance to pick up the ball).

Rugby connoisseurs will forgive me, I hope, if I didn’t get it quite right. As for the “mêlée des chœurs,” it’s a blending of the voices of the children of France. Guided by the know-how and the experience of the singers of Opéra comique, 7000 French youth have become part of the “mêlée,” and at each of the 48 matches of the world championship, in stadiums across France, a choir of 300, with in the vanguard 30 singers from Opéra comique, sing the national anthems, in the original languages, of all participating teams.

For months, Tiago has been learning them by heart in English, Spanish, Welsh, Romanian, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, Georgian and Gaelic.

Now it’s down to two, New Zealand and South Africa, the winners of the semi-finals. The final match is Saturday, October 28^th, in the national stadium, just outside Paris in the town of Saint-Denis. The New Zealand anthem is in English. The youth choir can sing the South African anthem in Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, Afrikaans and English!

If you can tune in, the pregame show begins at 2:30 PM EST and the first scrum is at 3 PM (9 PM in France). Tiago and a choir 300 strong will be there to sing the anthems. Members of la maîtrise of Opéra comique will also be performing in the pregame show, singing and dancing, directed by international pop star Mika, a singer-composer born in Lebanon to Lebanese-American parents.

Mika was born in 1983. He had to leave Lebanon because of war when he was 8 years old. His family settled in Paris and later moved to London. Mika is a man of the world and a man of peace. He knows how to bring out the best in the children he is preparing for the show. In Paris, they have been practicing together for weeks.

But what about the game? To tell the truth, I never expected to make it beyond the singing of the anthems, but the game and the players drew me in. At first it was pure shock: What! They have no protection! And they’re being thrown around like that!

Though I could recognize certain similarities to American football, I became acutely aware the players’ only protection was mouthguards and the occasional very flimsy looking leather helmet (something more like a winter cap). It’s no surprise the game includes what’s called a “blood replacement”: one player comes on the field while another moves to the sidelines to get the blood wiped off his face. 

In the past six weeks, I’ve also seen more cauliflower ears—up close—than I’d seen in my whole previous life.

Once I got beyond the shock, I tuned into the strange combination of power and grace of this very rough game. These big bulky men jump so high! They run so fast and their sideway passes, their fancy footwork, seem more the stuff of dancers than of athletes who must draw on deep reserves of raw strength.

Two 40-minute periods separated by a 10-minute halftime, few if any timeouts, players are constantly on the move and, as opposed to American football, each player can play many roles: defense, offense, the kicker, star quarterback. True, specialists step in for the incredible “flying kicks” needed to score a field goal, but on the whole, rugby is a game of true teamwork, where there are no stars.

A quote about rugby has been attributed to Winston Churchill, “Rugby is a game for hooligans played by gentlemen.” I get it. These big hulking men I would not like to meet in a dark alley, participating in the roughest sport I’ve ever observed, play like gentlemen—especially when compared to what I’ve observed in French soccer.

The Irish writer Oscar Wilde quipped that “rugby is a good occasion for keeping 30 bullies far from the center of town.”

They may look like bullies, it’s true, but this World Cup has taught me a lot about what it means to be a team player and a true athlete. For that, I thank Tiago and the mêlée des chœurs.

 

La mêlée des choeurs and a player from the Fidji Islands, Tiago front and center.