A French Pollyanna

 

Earlier this month, on Sunday June 11^th, at 6:20 AM, an overpass collapsed due to a violent fire on I-95 in Philadelphia. It was noon here in France and I found out about it almost in real time scrolling through US news on my phone. A couple of hours later, while speaking to my sister in Pottsville, I mentioned the fire and she reacted with surprise. From the other side of the Atlantic, on another continent, I’d been the first to know.

News travels fast, and thanks to our smart phones, 24/7, we have the world at our fingertips. Often this means living our lives against a backdrop of violence, war and tragedy.

I think about this a lot as I carry on with life. I think about distance. For example, 1,000 miles from where I live, a war is going on. An entire generation of young men is being sacrificed in Ukraine, a country with a population of 43 million. Today fighting is going on in eastern Ukraine as, village by village, the Ukrainian army tries to regain territory lost. The death toll is heavy on both the Ukrainian and Russian sides.

We live in a world where it’s hard to ignore what’s going on at home or on the other side of the globe. To escape the news, we’d have to live like Henry David Thoreau, in a cabin we built ourselves, eating the food we raise. Even if you tossed your cellphone in the Schuylkill River and turned off the TV, current events would catch up with you somehow.

During the night of June 13-14, off the coast of Kalamata, Greece, a boat carrying refugees sank. More than a week later, the number of deaths, most likely in the hundreds, remains unknown. The 104 survivors, all men, speak of 750 passengers on board, with most of the women and children trapped in the hold. This is the worst refugee boat accident in the Mediterranean since 2016.

I am not a morbid person and I am not trying to depress my readers, but I ask myself and I ask you how to live life against a backdrop of bad news.

My response may be a cowardly one—I am not an activist by nature, but my decision is made. I try to make the best of each day, fighting bad news with a smile. I suppose that makes me a Pollyanna. I loved the 1960 movie with Hayley Mills, now a classic, and I enjoyed the book.

 

Playing Pollyanna’s “Glad Game,” I’m glad for my morning cup of coffee and fresh bread with honey, a breakfast fit for a queen. I’ll admit, I’m glad to no longer be teaching. That alone makes each day a gift. I live modestly but what does it matter when I can read, write, walk, garden, visit friends, live.

The morning after the tragedy in Kalamata, I heard about it on the radio while I was picking red currants in my garden. I have to use scissors to cut the fruit from the tiny stems. If I try to pull a berry from the bush, it crushes between my fingers and the berry juice stains my fingers red. That morning, while others’ hopes, lives and families were destroyed, I was enjoying summer’s splendor. The contrast made me feel beholden to life. 

 

Only yesterday, just as I was sitting down to write this article, my friend Sophie called with a spur-of-the-moment invitation to hear her son sing with the youth choir of Opéra comique. They were giving a free concert in the main hall of Musée d’Orsay, the museum of 19^th century art across the Seine from the Louvre. Art and music all under one roof. Carpe diem. I seized the day and hurried to Paris. It’s not hard to play the “Glad Game” in circumstances like that.

Somedays, though, it is. This past winter, I shivered through each day, huddled in front of the fireplace, my only source of heat, in the apartment I moved to in January 2022. Taken in by the look of the place, I overlooked there was no heat. The few radiators are good for nothing except running up the electric bill. There were days when, without my coffee and bread, I’d have found nothing to be glad about. The only way to warm up was to take a swift walk outside.

Now it’s summer. Last year I planted some honey suckle. This year it’s in flower and I can smell its sweet scent, one I came to love as a child. On our way to the East Side pool, my friends and I would stop at a honey suckle hedge, pick the flowers, and suck out the sweet nectar.

On this summer day, the windows are open, birds are singing and the air is fragrant with the scent of linden flower. And all’s right with the world, I’m tempted to say, except it’s not.

Here, the natural world is in peril and so are we. There is not enough water. For the moment, we are practicing voluntary water restrictions. In a neighboring département, strict conservations measures have been put in place, along with fines. What happens if we run out?

That’s another thing I wonder about. If we were the refugees, fleeing drought, who would take us in?

I also wonder what it would be like to play the “Glad Game” if I didn’t have shelter, food, friends and family always there to love and help. What if I were all alone and had to face mortal illness, war? I’ve not been tested. I don’t know.

On June 11^th, when the I-95 overpass collapsed, rescuers first believed there were no victims. Later in the carcass of the fuel truck that caught on fire, the remains of Nathan Moody, age 53 at time of death and father of three, were found.

Let’s hope in the months and years to come, his family can overcome loss and find things to make them glad.

They Do It Too!

 

Once a year, just like in Pottsville, they do it too! In this little village where I’ve taken up residence, peaceful, bucolic, lusciously green at this time of year, they do it: they get out their antique cars, their classics, and they cruise!

Saturday, May 13, 2023 was “Cruise Day” in Nointel and 8 other neighboring villages of this region of the Oise River Valley. Of course, they don’t call it a “cruise.” They call it a “randonnée,” a ramble, a leisurely day-trip. Beginning at 9 am, a cavalcade of classic cars travel from town to town, with frequent stops to give the locals a chance to admire these pampered vehicles.

It all began in 2016 and the idea originated with the current mayor of Nointel, Madame Martine Legrand, in office since 2014. She and her municipal team wanted to attract attention to this region, so close to Paris (a 35-minute train ride) yet so far away in its setting and way of life. Classic cars always attract a crowd and with 9 participating towns on the circuit, each municipality was given the chance to show off what the French call its “patrimoine,” its heritage, but also its potential for future development.

 

The idea took off and this year marks number 8 of a series of successful events.

Nointel is a small place. The population is under 1,000. It’s a strange combination of aristocratic grandeur, small village, and housing developments for commuters who go to Paris to work. The village has its chateau, an imposing castle with a majestic entrance and a walled park that hides cascading fountains and a thick forest. Today it is a conference center, its grounds closed to the rest of us.

 

The village also has its manor house, less grand. That’s where I live, in what has become an apartment building looking out on the village green. Here every dog owner in Nointel passes at least once a day, and with typical French “orgueil,” a kind of innate pride, most refuse to stoop to clean up after their pets. On this beautiful green, bordered with majestic linden trees, one must always step gingerly to avoid the doggy diamonds littering it everywhere.

And this is exactly where the cruise wrapped up. In the days leading up to it, the village maintenance team worked tirelessly, rain or shine, removing every single weed, every dog crotte from the cobblestone walk crossing the park. The eve of the event, the lawn was mown and manicured. On the big day, it was perfect. Best of all, after a week of rain and cold, the sun burst through and temperatures rose.

At 9 AM on the dot, the first cortege drove out from the main entrance gate of the chateau, open especially for the event. A small crowd was gathered to cheer the drivers on. At 9:40, the second group drove away, and already the crowd was bigger. From that point onwards, the cars followed an itinerary through local villages and towns, stopping in each for 40 minutes before returning to Nointel at the end of the day.

Compared to the Great Pottsville Cruise, 30 years old this year, this local event is still in its childhood. As for size, participation is limited to 80 vehicles—though there are no specific standards for what kind of car can participate. Looking out my window, I saw some fine vintage models of Peugeots, Renaults and Citroens from the 1930’s. There were also lots of sports cars, Karmann Ghia, Aston Martins, Porsches and Mercedes. And American models too: a gleaming red-and-white Mustang, a Dodge Challenger. 

Standing out among the other classics was the Citroen DS (those 2 letters pronounced together in French become the homonym for “déesse,” goddess). Once the car of presidents and the elite, French critic Roland Barthes described it as “the exact equivalent of the Gothic cathedrals, a great creation of its time, conceived with passion by craftsmen who remained anonymous.” 

Beauty and style aside, all those classic models, created before the days of clean-air emissions standards, make for a lot of big and powerful motors, and call it a cruise or a ramble, the purpose is show off what those motors can do. From early morning till after midnight, motors purred like the family cat, growled like a menacing lion, and roared through the streets of tiny villages at speeds, well, that were unwise. There were no buckets of water, no laying tracks. That doesn’t seem to be popular here. But there was noise a plenty, and what could be more appropriate for a day that celebrates gasoline-powered automobiles?

To register a car for the day’s event, participants paid a fee of 15 euros, and they got their money’s worth, à la française. Before they headed off, breakfast was served: croissants and hot coffee. And at the end of the day, when they returned to Nointel, an entire meal was waiting for them in an enclosed garden at eastern end of the village green, opposite the chateau. There, beneath an elegant green-and-white striped tent, participants, along with any spectator ready to pay for the copious meal, were served fresh French fries, grilled sausage, wine and beer.  

As I write, it’s raining and I’m cold, but the evening of May 13^th was perfect. The air was soft and warm, scented with lilacs and wisteria. The village green, looking its best, was transformed into a giant showroom for gleaming classic cars. Families, friends, couples, solitary car-enthusiasts, wandered from vehicle to vehicle, inspecting, taking pictures, admiring.

There was also best of show and a crowd gathered around the panel of judges. The winners were announced late in the evening. The mairie (city hall) has not published the results, so I cannot tell you which cars received a prize.

I can say people enjoyed themselves and the area around the tent was packed all evening. Still at midnight, motors were roaring as the classics pulled out to return home.

Sunday morning, there remained not a trace of the previous day’s event. I’ve rarely seen the village green so quiet, and it felt ominous—as if the future had arrived overnight and the gasoline-powered car, gone for good.

 

Beneath the Surface, A Lot to Learn

Just in time for Easter, my nephew Louis from Auburn PA showed up at my front door. He was in Paris and stopped to visit before heading off to a conference in Vienna, Austria, where he hopes to interest other researchers in his work in the field of hydrology.

This is the best kind of Pottsville-Paris connection, and I am happy my nephew likes to spend time with me. He roamed Paris on his own, but together we visited the suburban city of Saint-Denis, where I taught for nearly 30 years. It is home to many people, many things, but best known for its basilica, where Abbé Suger, an extraordinary 12^th century abbot, raised the nave of his church and inserted in its western façade the first rose window of Gothic architecture. 

Behind the clock is the original rose window.

I’ve already written about the basilica and its necropolis, the official burial ground of French royalty since the time of Dagobert, a Frankish king of the 7^th century. Long before his time, however, cemeteries existed on the basilica’s grounds, some going back to Gallo-Roman times, when France was a Roman colony called Gaul. In the 3^rd century, Paris was known as Lutetia and its inhabitants worshipped Roman gods. The Gauls, warriors and farmers who inhabited the territory we today call France, had their own pantheon served by druid priests.

Not until the end of the 4^th century did Christianity become the official religion of the Roman Empire. The hard work of conversion, an endeavor that required centuries, was carried out by humble men and women who roamed across Europe, preaching their faith. Saint Denis was one of them. In the 2^nd century, he was sent from Rome north to Gaul. Such was his success that the Roman authorities of Lutetia considered him a menace to their power and put him to death.

The Romans carried out their executions on mons Martis, a prominent hill in the city dedicated to Mars, god of war. There Denis had his head chopped off. Later, when Christianity became the religion of the Frankish kings, mons Martis was renamed mons Martyrum, today’s Montmartre, where Christian martyrs met their death.

Saint Denis was one martyr among many, yet legend remembers him as the saint who, after decapitation, picked up his head and walked in a straight line north to the grounds where his basilica stands today. From the 4^th century onwards, a church has existed on the site, and in the 21^st century, archeologists are still making important discoveries about its past.

For example, the bones of a beheaded man were discovered there, but did they belong to Denis? Also, precious stones, gold and silk have been uncovered, proof that the wealthy chose to place their tombs near the martyr saints. Each time a sanctuary outgrew its worshippers, a new one rose above and around it. Today visitors can enter the original church, now the basilica’s crypt, and view Gallo-Roman sarcophagi. 

Above it rises an 8^th century church from the time of the Emperor Charlemagne. On the walls of its small windows are visible traces of the original paint imitating marble. Then came another church and another, each one built on the back of the one before. It took centuries for the Gothic basilica to be completed. In 1793, at the time of the French Revolution, it was almost destroyed. The tombs of the French kings and queens were opened and their bones scattered among the ruins. Children collected them and used them to play jacks, in French called “osselets,” “little bones.”  

In 1806, Napoleon ordered the church rebuilt. With the return of the monarchy in 1815, it once again became the official burial place of French royalty. Work on the basilica continued throughout the 19^th and 20^th centuries and continues still today. Recently the façade was cleaned and refurbished, and a gilded clock was added, its design that of François Debret, one of the 19^th century architects essential to the basilica’s renovation. 

This year began the reconstruction of a steeple toppled during an 1845 tornado. The restoration of the basilica’s magnificent entrance doors is also underway. A few dozen feet from the church, a square previously used for an outdoor market has become an excavation site.

The basilica of Saint Denis is a more than millennial work in progress, as is the town of Saint-Denis that has grown up around it. Besides its importance to the French monarchy, the town was at the heart of France’s industrial revolution. Leather and textiles, then foundries, then automobiles and luxury goods provided jobs for qualified workers. And then came mid-20^th century decline, a rustbelt on the outskirts of Paris. Today many old plants and factories have disappeared. A building boom has replaced them with offices and apartment buildings.

Saint-Denis has also been home to waves of immigrants. I took my nephew to the town’s big covered market, built in 1893, a site where markets and fairs have been taking place for hundreds of years. In the 12^th century, a commercial fair, “la foire du Lendit,” attracted merchants and buyers from all over Europe. Gypsy kings from the east travelled to the fair and while in town, paid their respects to the French monarchy. 

In 2023, at the market of Saint-Denis, you can still rub elbows with people from all over the world and hear many languages besides French. The town, like the basilica, is multilayered and multifaceted.

On another scale, Schuylkill County is also a multilayered and multifaceted place. Pottsville gave its name to a rock, “Pottsville conglomerate,” whose formation dates back to the Pennsylvania period in geology, over 300 million years ago! I think of this each time I hike on Sharp Mountain, whose north end has some beautiful outcrops of this stone.  

View from Jackson Street Hill looking northwest

Closer to our own time is the region’s 19^th century past when coal was king. “For anyone from Cape Cod to New Orleans, to say he had not heard of the renowned town of Pottsville, would sound as marvelous as if an Arabian were to declare he had never heard of Mahomet,” wrote 19^th century historian I. Daniel Rupp. Today remnants and artefacts of those glorious times are present everywhere, as is the destruction mining wrought.

The Saint Nicholas Breaker of Mahanoy City, now gone

Saint-Denis, Pottsville, multilayered, multifaceted places, whose buried pasts can reveal what once was and also, for the patient and attentive, provide clues of what’s to come.