Verdun

« Celui qui n’a pas fait Verdun, n’a pas fait la guerre »- Jacques d’Arnoux

                                                                                           62e régiment d’infanterie 

(Any man who didn’t fight at Verdun didn’t fight the war....almost 75% of the French military would serve at Verdun before the War's end)

I want to preface this post with an apology. I have not written in this blog for almost half of a year, and although a great many things worth reporting have happened, I’ve been living in the present at the frequent expense of recording things for the future. Seeing Verdun has changed that. During my senior year, I wrote a 40 page mémoire on the historical and cultural significance of the Battle of Verdun (Feb. 21^st, 1916- December 18^th, 1916), something I was inspired to write in no small part by a book Lee shared with me, The Price of Glory, written by one of England’s premier war historians, Alistair Horne. Two dozen books and essays later, I am still studying it as passionately as I did as a student. This past weekend, I finally made my pilgrimage to the small city on the Meuse River and the shell-scarred battlefield that spans 40 square miles of its eastern bank. I made the trip on the 98^th anniversary of the battle, and the “chapters” below tell the story of my 12 hours hiking (and sometimes running or climbing) from site to site.  This trip was as important to me as any I've ever taken, and I invite you to read on about it here. It's a story I must tell. 

                                        Abri 320 (Fortification 320)

Mud

« Ah! Non, les civils. Vos gueles! » -Roland Dorgelès, writer, journalist, and veteran of the Argonne

(‘Shut the hell up, civilians!’)

                                  Ruins of Fort de Souville, 3km outside of Verdun

I felt the branch give way as I moved to mount the top of the ridge. My stomach dropped, and the rest of me followed, sliding 20 feet down into a waterlogged shell hole. The fall had left my shoes and pant legs caked in mud and my hands filthy. Rapid assessment: Unscathed? No. Blood dripped from a small cut on my little finger. Nausea rushed over me; I imagined bacteria poisoning my blood, an emergency room, a hospital bed, a surgical ward. GILMER, John Marshall, final casualty of Verdun.  The fear was not entirely irrational. “ATTENTION!  Les armes de guerre peuvent tuer toujours!” the signs had read (Be careful! Weapons of war can still kill).  So many thousands of shells fell here that I could very well have cut myself on a tiny piece of metal buried in the mud, perhaps one carrying on it endospores of a hideous strain of Tetanus evolved beyond the scope of the modern vaccine. In that morbid prognostication, however, I felt a perverse pride. If I become a “casualty” will I gain some small fragment of justification, a basic right to speak about the battle?

As I struggled to right myself and cast out thoughts of a French ICU (USI)---I noticed my cut had come from a nearby vine, not from shrapnel---my mind turned to my own past. I had written about la boue (mud) in a short-response question during a course with George Poe, specifically of “des hommes qui sont morts dans la boue, très loin de leurs camarades et de leurs familles et” (men who died in the mud, far from their comrades and families).  In that instant, I imagined one such man.

A little under 98 years ago, a 23-year-old corporal leading a night relief squad through a sinuous communication trench at could have fallen in that exact hole and drowned in putrescent water before his friends could reach him. Weighed down by rifle and kit and with his helmet flooding, he’d have struggled to rise or even call out for help as the mud swallowed him.  Like over 300,000 others, he’d lose his life to the mundane made lethal by mankind: mud, concrete, iron, water, wood (when there were still trees), and smoke. A fetid crater, a bunker roof obliterated by a 400mm shell, a shard of grenade shrapnel, a machine gun bullet, a mouthful of gas-tainted water, an oak splinter, or suffocating lungfuls of smoke inside of a burning fort. All ground men down as the implacable cogs of “industrialized warfare” and left their ruined bodies in cheap caskets or mass graves.  

No, no amount of mud will ever give me the “right” to tell of the Battle of Verdun, and to pretend that rifles, grenades, cannons, gas canisters, and bayonets are the stuff of adventure and glory is to serve the same nameless evil that helped to drive both sides to their Calvaries, the hills and ridges that saw so many brave men killed in the name of national honor. I’ll try instead to tell you about “Ceux de Verdun,” (the men of Verdun), husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons, not one of whom came home the same if he came home at all. They were the reason for my pilgrimage to this small city in Lorraine, and if sharing my story can serve their memory in some way and provide a spark of living dignity to deaths devoid of it, then I will gladly risk sinning to do so.

Memory

« À mon fils- Depuis tes yeux sont fermés, les miens n’ont cessé de pleurer» -Inscription on a memorial plaque

(To my son- Since your eyes closed, mine have never stopped crying)

                                 Cemetery in front of the Douaumont Ossuary, 6km outside of Verdun

            

             Verdun is a city of both memory and memorial; the city and its suburbs are home to thousands of plaques, statues, site markers, tombs, bouquets of flowers, as well as the tens of thousands of individual grave sites marked with white crosses, stars of David, and crescent moons of Islam. Almost every single one of these monuments is dedicated to the victims of the 1916 battle, the longest and costliest of the entire war. The men from both sides who died in the area collectively called “The Verdun Fortified Region (RFV)” came from all around the world: from Algiers to Aachen, from Troyes to Tangiers, from Weimar to Washington, from Paris to Berlin. On the French side, some monuments are paid for the by the State to honor the men who “died for France,” others by units or organizations to honor the contributions made by their members, and others still by family members hoping to memorialize their child or husband and mark where he fell. They line the roads, adorn street posts, fill parks, crown ridges, and, in the case of the Douaumont Ossuary, tower over the horizon---the cruciform Ossuaire contains the remains of over 100,000 unidentified German and French soldiers, and the field in front of it contains 15,000 additional marked graves and collective monuments to Jews and Muslims killed at Verdun.

The buildings, crosses, and markers are physically impressive, but what of the men these monuments honor? In France, they are publicly remembered as Poilus (French “GI’s, ‘bearded ones’) with their Adrian helmets, Lebel rifles, and bleu horizon tunics, men who held at all costs, including life and sanity. Reflecting this idealized martial memory, statues often honor them as proud soldiers at attention, glorify them as fearless warriors holding the line defiantly, or mourn them as martyred heroes embraced by angels. 

 To their loved ones, friends, and neighbors, however, they were bakers and bankers, poets and priests, carpenters and chefs, lawyers and librarians, writers and waiters, gamblers and grocers, boys of 16 and men of 65. They did not belong at Verdun, and I will forever wish that at least one statue would show them not as war made them, but as they were: a smiling lover proposing to his future wife, a writer at his desk, a violinist at concert, a cook serving his guests, or a father carrying his daughter on his shoulders. To forget that these men were, overwhelmingly, not soldiers by choice, trade, or nature is to strip them of their identities and to severe their families from their true son, brother, or father.

 I think now of a recipient of the Legion d’Honneur (the highest French military award), Capitaine Georges Tabourot, who, though mortally wounded, defended a tunnel in Fort Vaux. In his final minutes of life, he told his commander and friend, Major Raynal, that his company did “all that could be asked of them” and then asked the doctor to dictate a letter to his wife. Bleeding to death in a sweltering infirmary with no water and the stench of poison gas and death surrounding him, Tabourot told his wife and daughter how much he loved them. I can imagine no act more deserving of a memorial.

«Ma chérie, je suis blessé à mort, j'ai été tué en faisant mon devoir. Soignes bien Maman, je t'aimais bien, je vous embrasse, toi et ma petite fille »-Capitaine Georges Marie Albert Tabourot                                                                                               124e régiment d’infanterie 

(My dear, I am dying and was killed doing my duty. Take good care of mama. I have loved you so much and send my love to you and to my little girl)

Courage

 «Nous tenons toujours…» –Major Sylvain Eugène Raynal, commander of Fort Vaux

(We are still holding)

                                      Fort de Vaux, 6km outside of Verdun

            Still muddy from my fall, I had run 3 miles from Souville to get to Fort Vaux before the museum closed, and as I saw it in a clearing ahead, I felt like a child meeting a superhero. My tendonitis was momentarily forgotten in a rush of endorphins. There it was, the fort that held out for 7 days against overwhelming odds, partially filled with poison gas and with an empty cistern, an Alamo on a greater scale whose final optical message to French lines was an undaunted“Vive la France!” I scouted out the entire fort, its galleries and turrets, but I realized quickly, however, that the weapons’ mounts and surviving pieces of superstructure were of far less interest than the personal accounts left behind by Raynal, Tabourot and many others.

I already knew of some but learned about many others. The tale of a critically injured soldier who volunteered to rebuild a sandbag barricade during a flame-thrower attack or of the young officer, Léon Buffet, who volunteered to run a message from French lines to the surrounded fort on the condition that he not be given a medal for doing so (he would later die from a gunshot wound to the thigh and, in death, was admitted to the Légion d’honneur despite his protests). My time in Vaux set me to thinking about heroism throughout the battle. Although the vast majority of these stories are lost to us, even in well-documented engagements like the Defense of Vaux, we still retain some of the most celebrated: the story Emil Driant, the Chasseur (Ranger) commander who led a successful stalling action against nearly the entire German force during the first days of combat and died carrying one of his wounded men to safety, of Charles De Gaulle, who decades before he would rise to lead France, personally led a (failed) charge to retake Fort Douaumont, and of Lattre de Tassigny who, like De Gaulle, is said to have done his duty without hesitation. These men were not demi-gods, but, as Jean Norton Cru writes, « frêles machine de chair qui avancent sous une pluie de fragments d’acier, qui surmontent le tremblement et la panique» (frail machines of flesh who advanced under a steel rain and overcame trembling and panic).

            Those bakers, carpenters, lawyers, and poets held their positions, often dying to do so, and the now world-famous expression, part of a communiqué from General Nivelle, «Vous ne les laisserez pas passer, mes camarades! » or simply «On ne passe pas! » (They shall not pass!) has become the literal embodiment of the sum total of personal courage that defended Verdun.  The next time you hear someone make a shameless joke about the French military, remember those words and the tens of thousands of men who died proving them true.

Rest

 “Well how do you do, young Willie Mcbride? Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside and rest for a while ‘neath the warm summer sun? I’ve been walking all day, and I’m nearly done. I can see by your gravestone that you were only 19 when you joined the Great Fallen in 1916. Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean; oh Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?”- Eric Bogle, “The Green Fields of France”

                            Thiaumont Fortification Ruins (adjacent to the Ossuary)

            I had already walked, run, or climbed about 12 miles by the time I reached Douaumont and Thiaumont. Two crosses---the only clear proof that the villages ever existed---stand in memory.  The emotional weight and physical fatigue of the past 6 hours hung heavily; I had seen miles of cratered land, the Tricolore unfurled above Fort Vaux, and thousands upon thousands of white crosses. I needed to rest. I refilled my Nalgene in the Ossuary rest area and set out to see the bunkers of Thiaumont across the field. I walked from crater to crater until I reached a mossy mound that once was an armored cupola. It is now a mass of crumbling concrete and steel wires that snake out at all angles; a direct hit from a heavy German gun had destroyed the fortification instantly and killed its defenders. Among those lost there was Raymond de Fontaines, a Dragoon sergeant. His tombstone sits atop the destroyed bunker. I sat down next to him and rested for the first time all day.

            I thought about Raymond, how old he was, where “Fontaines” was located, and what his family was like. Was he a father? An uncle? A brother? Was there a family military tradition ? Did the dragoons pay the best? Did he love horses? What did he look like? Did he die instantly? Would we have gotten along? Everything. I received no further answers from the stone and its inscription.

A French memorial database has since given me some of those answers. He was 27, from south of Dijon, and both an uncle and brother whose father, too, had served in the dragoons. I also learned that his wife was a volunteer nurse at Reims and his father was a senator from Vendée and decorated dragoon, too---and, most importantly, an account of his heroism: 

« Excellent sous-officier, n'a cessé pendant près d'une année de remplir la fonction d'agent de liaison avec un calme complet et un dévouement absolu, assurant son service dans les circonstances et les conditions les plus difficiles - a pris part aux combats du commencement de juin et au courant d'un violent bombardement a été enseveli par l'éboulement du poste de commandement du colonel, près duquel il assurait la liaison ». 

(Excellent NCO, not once during his year of service did he cease to perform his duties with complete calm and absolute devotion, even under the worst possible circumstances and conditions. He took part in the combat at the beginning of June and during the course of a violent bombardment was killed by a cave-in at the command post of the colonel he served as a liaison officer).

I propped my camera on the tombstone to take a single picture of myself at Verdun, a reminder of the peace I found atop PC 118 knowing that Raymond de Fontaines is not forgotten. Nor are the tens of thousands who, like him, fought at Verdun. In a culture and world that so often casts combat as glory and death as a fitting end for a hero, we'd do well to remember Verdun and all that was lost for a few miles of mud and concrete. I will almost certainly be a civilian until the day I die, but I won't shut up when I can use my voice to tell the stories of those who were not; they were fathers, sons, husbands, and brothers, and their memories deserve something more than "glory."  

John

Raymond

Tell My Mother I Miss Her So

"Out on the range, outrunning them trains..."
(Over there in Nantes, out running for trams)
- Ryan Bingham, "Tell My Mother I Miss Her So" 

If anyone wants to take a look into one of the world's greatest bureaucracies (I say this literally, haha), here's an excerpt from my visa-renewal request: 

"CHAQUE DOSSIER INCOMPLET SERA REFUSÉ SYSTÉMATIQUEMENT!!!"-Marianne ;)







RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE

RECRÉPISSÉ DE DEMANDE  DE CARTE DE SÉJOUR

Préfecture: Loire-Atlantique
Dossier No. : 2012SALARI
Entrée en France; 28/08/2012

NOM: M. GILMER
PRÉNOM(S): JOHN MARSHALL
Né(e): 19/05/1990 A: Alabama (États-Unis)
PÈRE:  GILMER  WALT
MÈRE: (WRIGHT) GILMER  ELISABETH
NATIONALITÉ: Américain

Life in le Système:

               It includes taxes, electicity bills, work contracs, visa renewal, insurance, and a collection of cards, codes, and calls. No one tells you that you're an adult, but somewhere between the Préfecture (Regional Admin. HQ) and University of Nantes' HR department, you better damn well start acting like one. Now I won't bore you further with excerpts from the various official documents I handled last Thursday in order to remain a legal resident of the Republic. They are legion, duplicate, and uniformly uninteresting (unless you love stamps). Suffice it to say that my dossier was accepted, and my papers, God-willing, are en règle. One thing, however, did stop me (and maybe you) in my (your) mental tracks about that excerpt: the official listing of my parents' names.

                Living across the Atlantic Ocean entails leading a life that can be (and often is) entirely separate from your existence back home, and with that separation (literal and figurative) comes not only the inconvenience of time differences and incongruous schedules, but the very real danger of forgetting who you are and whose you are (GiG). What a shame that would be for someone like me, the son of two incredible parents whose love and name(s) I've been blessed with since birth (I should thank them for that, too).

               To tell of the things my parents do (and have done) for me and taught me me to do myself (and for others) would require a novel twice as long (but only half as revolutionary) as Les Misérables. That said, since it is a story eminently worthy of the telling no matter the occasion, I'll see if I can pare it down to a (very) short story here, haha.

              When Lee and I were little, we used to sit around in our old dining/playroom while dad played the Jayhawks, Neil Young, The Band, Warren Zevon, and a dozen other bands that formed the basis for my taste in music and my love of the art. Of all the many songs whose words we learned by heart 15 or so years ago ("I'd run away with you, baby..."), my memory returns most often to "Heart of Gold."  As Lee and I were obsessed with the idea of sunken treasure at the time ("Shipwrecks" was our go-to show), I loved the song because I figured that it was the tale of a tireless miner questing for a mythical heart-shaped nugget of gold. My dad, as he often did and continues to do, taught me otherwise, but I secretly preferred my dubious interpretation. Now that I'm 23, however, I'm starting to come around. I realize that as appealing as however many thousands of dollars that "heart of gold" might be worth, the figurative heart is the real treasure, and, as I'm sure my dad will tell you, he found one in my mom (and was raised by a woman with one himself).

GILMER (WRIGHT),  ELISABETH:

                    Honey Dog might have been the most popular Gilmer, but it's safe to say that our mom is the most beloved, above all for the fact that she, more than anything else (except maybe laughing), loves (as Honey would have told you through barks, licks, and paw gesturing). I can count the number of people I've met who are as kind as her on one hand, and if I ever do anything sweet for anyone, I can assure you that it's because she taught me how. She's the sort of mom who will wake you up (and take orders) for breakfast daily; put notes in your lunches AND pack them all the way through senior year of high school (they were the envy of many, particularly their homemade peanut butter crackers that were often the thin brown line between me and total exhaustion at cross-country/track practice); and perform countless other acts of kindness for you without expecting anything in return (though she did raise us to always say "thank you" and "yes m'am, haha). She's the sort of mom who patiently put up with (and broke up)  full-blown twin fights and hundreds (actually, thousands) of middle/highschool/college breakdowns, arguments, and shouting matches. For my entire life she has, without fail, done nothing but love the people around her (even when they...we...don't deserve it), and I could write pages telling you everything else about her and not say anything more important than that. She sent me a package last year with two pieces of paper reading "Love you" (since the first note was late!).What a blessing it is to be her son.

GILMER, WALT:

                 Now Lee and I got our dad's eyes, his smile, (excellent) music taste, propensity for writing (and debating...and running), and a hundred other things genetic, recreational, and intellectual. Justin Townes Earle (whose concert dad took us to at the Saenger) wrote a song called "Mama's Eyes," and it's one of the most beautiful tributes to a mother I've ever heard from a man whose mother who never stopped loving him even when he "went down the same (rough) road as [her ex-husband and his dad, Steve Earle]":

"Now it's 3 A.M, and I'm standing in the kitchen holding my last cigarette.
I strike a match, and I see my reflection in the mirror in the hall, and I think to myself: 
'I've got my mama's eyes, her long, thin frame and her smile
And I still see wrong from right because I've got my mama's eyes.' "

                  As much as I like to empathize with songs, I have to accept that the song doesn't apply to me if we're being literal, as I do not have my mama's eyes (and have yet to go down the road of Steve Earle, nor do I have immediate plans to do so, haha).  That said, I think that to say that "I see right from wrong right" through my father's eyes is dead on. I can also edit written English on professional level with them, too, even if it did take him (and a few teachers) coating a dozen of my first essays in red ink to correct my proof-vision, haha. My dad's a lawyer, and as the To Kill a Mockingbird shrines around our house attest, is a living counter-point to lawyer jokes. Though perhaps not the best shot with a rifle in Mobile-Baldwin County (though formerly bespectacled like Mr. Finhch), he has been Atticus-like to his sons and has a near-perfect attendance record for cross-country/track meets and DBT concerts, haha. I think back to the lyic-filled letter of encouragement (which I read with our green eyes, haha) he gave me before leaving Sewanee and do my best to remember his (and Bill Mallonee's) advice about life. What man to have as a father.

BINGHAM, RYAN:
                 
                    If you've read all of this, then I thank you so much for taking the time learn about two people I love with all my heart and have the great fortune to call "mom and dad." Since I have indeed been "taken to France" (and have done my share of wine-drinking and dancing), I'd surely appreciate if everyone back home would tell my mother and father I miss her them so (and that I look forward to Christmas, haha).

(Lot of things I love about and in this picture, haha)

P.S: Next week's (early Halloween) "song of the week" for my students (complete with crudely MS Paint-ed photos): 

"Werewolves of London"-Warren Zevon 

(Does this count as a dog picture?)

Daylight

"While we still have the daylight, I might look these lessons in the eye...."-Jason Isbell, "Daylight"

               

                  (the afternoon sun at Arcachon's Dune de Pyla during my March break trip with Simon).

            It's been 8 months and 3 days since I last updated this blog, and despite the long trail of unpublished blog drafts and stopgap Facebook updates behind me, I must confess that I feel nothing but shame for having so utterly failed to maintain this site. As a matter of fact, the only other time I recall feeling this way was the day I went out to the Hodgson bike shed to remove the lock from my rust-flecked and flat-wheeled Trek and replace it with a sign reading "Donate to Sewanee PD." Neglect is voracious, and every day it's fed will only whet its appetite for two more. That is, unless you stand your ground, stare it down, and start typing (exercising, calling home, repairing your bike, or cleaning your apartment). So here I stand, and here I type, and if there's one thing I know for sure about life right now, it's that Nantes is running out of daylight.

           Indeed, with Day's gradual capitulation to the Nocturnal Empire (despite its glorious victory at the Battle of the Summer Solstice), it's hard to be an enthusiastic supporter of Fall. Though I suspect Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook hashtags will beg to differ, I am inherently skeptical of a period of time that heralds longer nights and dropping temperatures. Still, we have a rakable ember of Summer left here in Nantes, and I plan on enjoying every spark, so without further ado, I'll stop waxing (now waning) philosophical about the seasons and tell y'all about the wonderful people I have the privilege of working with this semester.

           Returning from last year are my dear friends Colin Riley, Rachel Williams, and Shoshana Sullivan (Baltimore, Tulsa, and Jamaica), so between the four of us, we have a solid squad of  "veteran" lecteurs. not to mention several dozen inside jokes, a fine circle of extended (boy/girl)friends, one dog (Ty Loup, Rachel's beloved "House Wolf"), and a successful working year (and at least one KFC meal) under our belts.  We even have the great fortune to have Mhairi Mackintosh (Inverness) and Simon Scutt (Bath) in Nantes for another year, with Mhairi still teaching courses at the University (having her around the office is as good for morale as it is for the tidiness of our now "masculine" office). What a blessed peace of mind I had when returning to a city with such people in it, and what a pleasure it is to live and work with them (Louise Dixon and Katie Rose, we miss y'all all the time).

          I had thought that it would be statistically impossible for our 5 new coworkers to get along as well as we all had last year, but I can't recall the last time I've been so happy to be proven wrong; all 5 of our new lecteurs and lectrices are getting along like long-lost siblings. We have 2 from Ireland, 2 from England, and one from Spartanburg (and perhaps more importantly, Sewanee, haha). I'll write about them in order of their proximity to my apartment (still #1, Boulevard 94 Ernest Dalby, despite a flooded floor---now repaired!--- and a bomb crisis courtesy of late-war British strategic bombing---resolved without incident by the French EOD).

            First, past our shared Super-U there's Aoife "Wifi (password-protected)" Fitzgerald (if you can pronounce her name correctly on your first try, then you're either Irish or should take up Phonetics professionally). I got it right on my second try, haha. Ee-fah. She comes from outside of Limerick and is, along with Shaun, a living reason people love the Irish. She's teaching me how to banter as the Irish do....and perhaps speak Gaelic and (I can only hope) dance as they do, too. I must say though that I feel bad for her poor students who somehow think that her name is pronounced "wifi" (wee-fee, the French pronunciation of our word for wireless internet). I do love nicknames, haha, and Aoife's is readymade.

          Across the train tracks from me is Nicholas/Nick "Superman" Pawley (also a patron of our Super-U) who comes from Northampton (an otherwise fine city with a clown problem....story here). All it took was a few late night walks home (and a few close encounters with some of Nantes' less savory inhabitants) for us to forge our international bonds of fraternity, haha. He bears more than passing resemblance to Clark Kent and is the first lecteur I know of to get his students to turn in homework on time AND confront casual misogyny in pop music (#whydopeoplelikeRobinThicke?). We might be playing Gaelic football together, too, but more on that later. Good --some might say "super"---man for any occasion.

          Down in her Centre Ville chateau is Gabrielle "Gabby" Freeman, a Sewanee girl (a current trivia partner) I should have gotten to know better while we were on the Mountain together (I think we did say "hello" to each other at least twice, maybe even three times, haha). Gabby is the Sewanee chosen one of 2012, and it's great having someone else who understands my otherwise incomprehensible references to all the strange things we seem to do at Sewanee (haha, or is it Suwanee, Nick?). She was a camp counselor, too, and as all camp counselors know, we have our own little language. Gabby has taken up a position at our former bar-headquarters, Fleming's, so we try to end our weekend nights by paying her a visit.  YSR, Gabby.

          Down near a charming park called Procé one can find the abode of the bearded Kerryman, Shaun "Warrior of the Dawn" Brennan, our resident Gaelic football coach, law student, pugilist,  musical talent, and enthusiast of hurling, Breaking Bad, and sharing good food and literature.  He lives there with his bandmate, Emma, and together they are an incredible act that I suspect will take Nantes by storm (or rather by charm). Shaun, along with Gabby, Shoshana, and I wake up for the 7:00 AM train to La Roche-Sur-Yon (where I may or may not have spent a night sleeping on a bench after a perfect storm of failed plans), and Shaun's banter keeps us (or at least me) sane. I'm very much looking forward to many more shared meals, rounds of beer, and stories (particularly when I accompany him to Ireland for our Fall vacation). Here's to hoping I can learn to play Gaelic football, too, haha.

        Finally, a mere tram stop from the Fac is our side-burned friend and another Englishman (and trivia partner), Will Heslop, our resident artist and jack of all trades (one of them being wine, haha). Will's an expert with the perfectly-timed joke, wink, or appearance (usually by bike), and his only welcome departures are those that involve his turning around dramatically and leaping back into a party after opening the front door as if to leave. Will has graciously designed our first English Night posters, and I'm sure they'll be quite the hit (perhaps as much as the sideburns, should he keep them). I think Shaun, Will, and I will need to work something out for No-Shave November, as it should prove quite the showdown of Anglophone facial hair.

      What a group. I really am so thankful for each and every one of my coworkers, and that's not something you often hear in the working world. In any case, I should not neglect to mention les trois filles de Sewanee, Sarah Flowers, Anne Carter Stowe, and Katie Keith,  members of the Class of 2015, students of International European Studies, and wholly welcome additions to the lecteur social family, haha. We're working out a dinner night to ensure we "profite" from Nantes' culinary offerings more than we would on our own, and they're all becoming FC Nantes enthusiasts with me (even if we miss a game or two and just hang out on the field next to Beaujoire Stadium, haha). So glad y'all are here.

      So even as the sun sets on Nantes earlier and earlier, it's never a problem when the lengthy evenings are spent in the company of such a group. Still, as this is my last year in Nantes, I'm running out of, not into, time here, and in light of that and the lessons of the past 2 months I've lived (and grieved), I must make the most of the time I have here, day and night, among such excellent friends.  Part of that, as I see it, involves writing about these people and the things we do together, so as I promised Anne Carter, I'm restarting this blog. I'll share with y'all the best things about my (our) time here (and sometimes the worst, haha). By way of apology for 8 months of delay, here are some long neglected pictures I owe y'all. I hope you like them (there are 3 Golden Retrievers, so I'm playing with a few too many aces, here, haha).

Bien Cordialement,

John

(Beloved by textbook writers everywhere,  Bordeaux's most famous sculpture, the Monument aux Girondins, revolutionary Republicans)
 

                                         

(Simon and me at Pyla, rare photographic evidence of our having been there and my being in France, haha. It was a wonderful trip.)

(The Pont d'Avignon...from the song, haha. Great to see Aunt Margaret and Uncle Phil in the (weakly) fortified medieval town)

(A picture taken from the (Anti-)Pope's Fortress at Avignon)

(A view from the rocks of Les Sables d'Olonne...it's not Gulf Shores, but not at all without its own charm. So glad our old crew got one last vacation hurrah somewhere like this, even if we never did find Yombo, haha)

and finally......Two French Golden Retrievers

(No caption can do these creatures justice. This Golden was helping his master "fish" for rocks, haha)

(Not bad camouflage at all, haha. He boldly hiked to the top of the 112 meter dune and then settled up here to think dog thoughts, perhaps wondering just how many smells are in that forest)

and a bonus Ty Loup picture:

(A "fetching" wolf indeed, haha)

And finally, our American Honey dog, forever Queen of the Monkey Grass, Shredder of Kleenex, stealer of hearts and socks, and winner the "most popular Gilmer" for 14 years

(We miss you, sweet girl). 

Moonshiner

Let me eat when I'm hungry. Let me drink when I'm dry. 2 dollars when I'm hard up, and religion when I die. The whole world is a bottle, and life is but a dram; when the bottle gets empty, Lord, it sure ain't worth a damn...

-"Moonshiner" (Unknown author, made popular by Uncle Tupelo and Bob Dylan)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppiol9oetOk

In the Book of Mark, Christ tells his disciples that "the poor will always be with you, and you can help them whenever you wish." Even atheists would agree with this if they were to spend a week in Nantes. Until I was reminded of that yesterday, however, the last time I had shared a long conversation with a homeless man was back home in Mobile's Bienville Park.

America

My friends were understandably horrified that I would answer when a dark figure begged us to "help a man out," but trusting my safety to the streetlights above and my feet below (thought encumbered by dress shoes), I asked the man what I could do to help. I'd meet my group at the next bar.   

My memory fails me as I try to remember his name (I think it was Charles), but I doubt I'll ever forget his story. He wanted money; I wanted to know why. Before I could ask, he fired off a question of his own:

"Y'all been at a party?"

"Yes sir, it's called the Nutcracker Ball. About as fancy as Mobile parties come," I said.

"You have fun?"

"Yes sir, and everyone's heading out to the bars now."

He nodded in approval, and I took the opportunity to ask my question:

"How'd you end up out here?"

He smiled, and I half expected the stock "Hell, even I don't know." He surprised me.

"I joined the Navy when I graduated high school...."

"What'd you do in Navy?" I asked, my own voice rising with scholastic enthusiasm

He was a fire control technician on a destroyer in the early 90's, a seaman who helped to control the vessel's "Close-in Weapons System," a defensive tool called Phalanx (it's a effectively a massive, computer-targeted machine gun that shoots 75 20mm bullets a second to detonate an incoming anti-ship missile before it can strike the vessel). He said he enjoyed his work and the places it took him, and we bonded when he said how much he had loved the short period of shore leave he'd had in Provence and that he sometimes thought of trying to go back. His final year of service ended sometime during the Clinton presidency, and since his job was already being replaced by computers, he didn't reenlist.

His story went on, taking turn after turn for the worse. His mother died shortly after he left the Navy, and when he went back to his family homestead in Selma it had already been stripped clean by thieves (after copper wire in particular) and was no longer inhabitable.  He had no money to repair it and no money to rent a place to live, so he joined a carnival that was hiring and spent the next few years of his life working as a manual laborer. He hated the menial minimum wage work and described the people who ran the show as "crazy." He ended back up in Mobile soon enough and took to the shelter/labor finders circuit. He said he'd stopped drinking and had rarely used drugs. I believe that to be true even today; clear eyes and decent clothing testified on his behalf.

I told him that I wished I could buy him a nice dinner, but since it was 12:30 at night, I would just give him $20 instead. He was speechless for a moment and then simply said "You're a good man, John." I told him that I was only going to spend that on overpriced beer and that I knew he could make good use of it. "You're a good, man, too," I added. We shook hands and said goodbye. For a moment, there we stood: I in my Mardi Gras ball tuxedo, and he in his Goodwill shirt and work jeans on a cool December night. I had made a trifling sacrifice, but I hope that I can at least grant him the dignity of having his story told here.

That experience did nothing to prepare me for what happened a year and a month later in Nantes, France.

France

 My Saturday began with misfortune; the family laundromat I frequent (run by a kind old Chinese man who cordially asks how my laundry and I are doing whenever we cross paths) had its payment terminal crash right after I finished loading my laundry and detergent into machines 12,13, and 9. I also managed to spill fabric softener all over hands at some point, adding floral-scented insult to injury.  Half a Nalgene bottle of water did little to remove the film of soap from my hands, and I had to hold my laundry bags in a deathgrip during the half-mile trek to the inferior "Lavolux" (there's no luxury there, I assure you).

With my laundry reloaded at last in two of the (foul-smelling) Lavolux's semi-functional machines, I'd finally settled into reading a characteristically sordid passage in Cormac McCarthy's Suttree about kind, but disgusting drunkards. Then, as if magically summoned from the alcoholic aehter of McCarthy's Southern Gothic universe, two haggard Frenchmen---one disheveled and unnaturally plump for a homeless man, the other emaciated and jaundiced---staggered into the tiny coin laundry carrying bread, Camembert, and Old Nick white rum in a reusable grocery bag. They reeked, their cheese reeked, the laundromat reeked. Everything reeked. After several heroic pulls of their milk-white liquor, the first thing they asked me after "Do you have any friends here?" was "Would you like to eat with us?" A kind offer excepting the fact that I despise Camembert and was already feeling ill. Then, just as I began to think "Well maybe they aren't so drunk after all," it happened. The larger, more coherent of the two coughed, sputtered, and then vomited all of the rum he'd been drinking into the sack he from which he had just removed his lunch.

Now I've been in the fraternity world, so this was not my first rodeo, but I nearly followed suit into my own grocery sack when he, at last finished vomiting, blew his nose into his. "These are literally Cormac McCarthy characters" I thought to myself. I confirmed I was not dreaming as I mentally recited a line from Child of God that depicts---in vile detail---a moonshiner blowing his nose on to the ground. Mustering my last reserve of calm, I suppressed my nausea long enough to escape the laundromat in good order. I headed to my kebab restaurant to buy two bottled waters, ran back to my apartment to grab paper towels, and then returned to the Lavolux with my cleaning supplies. He was grateful and entirely unashamed. Once again I heard "You're a good man," only this time it was slurred and in French. The sickly man agreed.

I managed to pretend that this all hadn't happened, and the three of us spoke as my clothes dried. The fat man first asked (appropriately) about my book and was disappointed when I told him it wasn't in French. He set about eating his lunch while I spoke to his companion. The jaundiced man told me it was his birthday today (something his friend didn't seem to acknowledge) and that he wanted to know what I thought of the war in Mali. Before I could articulate my opinions, however, he began telling his own story about his time in Bosnia serving during the NATO mission in the early 90's:

"I was there in Sarajevo. We were there to help people...everyone forgets that, but we were there to help people. I was there to help people...."

He trailed off, and soon our conversation drifted once again back to their lunch offer.

"Eat, it's the best kind!" the first said. I tried to refuse politely. "Eat!" My final reserve of patience wavered, and I tried one last time to decline. "I will be insulted if you don't eat." Now the Camembert covered bread was nearly in my face, and my patience shattered.  "I think that unpasteurized cheese is disgusting, and I cannot make myself eat it. I apologize." I collected my half dry clothes and prepared to leave as he stood there, shocked that someone would refuse his cheese. I composed myself, apologized again for rejecting the cheese, and wished them a final good luck and farewell. "If you ever end up on the streets, find us. Good luck and take care." was their reply.

I walked home and struggled to conjure up images of the former soldier in his uniform, healthy and strong, rifle in his hands and his nation's flag sewn on to his shoulder. The distorted images that came to mind were of that same man, sallow and feeble, bottle in his hand and someone else's discarded jacked around his shoulders. I thought of Twelfth Night's pitiful drunk knight Sir Andrew Aguecheek, poor and alone (exploited by the one man who could pass for his friend, a fat knight named Sir Toby). "I was adored once, too," he says, and no one but the audience cares. 

Sometimes comedies aren't funny at all, and I guess that applies to everything from Shakespeare plays to this lowly blog.





   

   

"Do You Hear the People Sing?" (Yet another French Revolution)

"A la volonté du peuple
Et à la santé du progrès,
Remplis ton cœur d'un vin rebelle, et à demain ami fidèle!"-Claude-Michel Schoenberg,"à la volonté du peuple" (Les Misérables) 

"To the will of the People, 
and to the safety of progress,
Fill your heart with a rebel wine, and until tomorrow, faithful friend!" 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRp-Opp2Peg

The Storming of the CDG Customs (January 12th, 2013)

Angry Frenchman Leading the People  by Delacroix, ruined by Gilmer

06:45: Disheveled and heavy laden, the weary travelers of Flight 2043 JFK-Charles DeGaulle filed out of the Boeing 747 and into the artificial light of Paris’ largest airport. For most of the bedraggled mass, freedom was in sight; the City of Lights shimmered through the terminal’s plexiglass windows and with it the promise of fresh food and plein air.  Yet one final obstacle stood, implacable, between these pilgrims and their promised land: a customs checkpoint. I was among that multinational band when it reached the bastion of French bureaucracy and will endeavor, God willing, to chronicle the heroism and sacrifice of the brave men and women who tried to storm it.  

Know first, dear reader, that we approached the checkpoint in peace, thoughts of insurrection drowned out in a haze of fatigue and vague recollections of in-flight films, and in peace we marched through the maze of queue barriers that led us onward. In an instant, however, our progress halted. From my vantage at the head of the crowd, I saw the cause; an agent of the airport---a pawn of the oppressor and an enemy of progress---had sealed off our line’s exit. With a callous sweep of his hand he barred the way to liberty for dozens of men, women, and children who had patiently waited for a half hour for the chance to present their passports and be admitted into the Republic. As his fabric barrier snapped taut, righteous indignation sparked and flared (cue the Youtube recording). “This line is closed!” he cried out to those he had wronged “Go back to the beginning! This line formed incorrectly!” The crowd held fast, and from it revolutionary voices fired back in the bold tradition of Danton and Marat: “We will not go back!” “Let us pass!” “Get out of the way, you bastard!” To their cries I added my own “This is your fault, not ours!” Seeing his authority rapidly eroding, the agent summoned his partner, and together they repeated their orders to the seething crowd. They had challenged the will of the people.  

“FORWARD!” shouted a middle-aged Frenchman at the head of the line as he cast down the barrier, and like Liberty incarnate he led the crowd of aspiring National Guards(wo)men towards their rightful place at the customs checkpoint. Oh how glorious victory was in sight at that first charge! The agents fled before our wrath (presumably towards Austria)!  Yet, what match were our passports, approved carry-on items, and rolling suitcases against the armed security guards who had closed ranks in place of the routing ushers? Despite our fervent hopes, those soldiers---relics of the Ancien Régime---did not defect to our side. The revolutionary tide was checked, and Liberty himself was captured and sent to the back of the line. With our leader fallen in battle, the mob gave up the fight ignominiously. I, too, surrendered the place I had secured at the front and withdrew to the middle of the newly-forming line.  I tell you these things with a heavy heart; would I were to have fallen to the back of the line among the others who strove for freedom. To their memory I dedicate this blog post.

Fin 

P.S:

Haha, I doubt anyone had as much fun reading that as I did writing it, but I can assure you that it’s at least 73.6% true, and it was exhilarating to be part of what I can only describe as a near riot in an airport. Word to the wise: don’t ever think that a fabric “crowd-control barrier” will hold back pissed off travelers (particularly the French) any longer than it takes them to call you and your entire family every hate slur that has ever existed in their respective languages. 

All that said, please forgive me for having taken a 2 month hiatus...taking care of final exams, grading, and Thanksgiving/Christmas plans distracted me. Oh yeah, and there was that whole thing about my laptop breaking for the entire month of December; that might have played a role in it, too. Haha...

As I write this, all is well here in Nantes, and my coworkers and I are all gearing up for another round of classes (which started this week). I'll post more about them---my classes and my dear coworkers---as soon as my shattered revolutionary heart mends. In the meantime, please accept these recent pictures of Nantes-beria (snow is almost as much a novelty here as it is in Mobile) :

View from my apartment...I was caught out in the snow when it first began to fall and used bar matches to light a  newspaper on fire for warmth; it was extinguished almost instantly, and I started thinking of myself as less of a survivalist and more of a dumbass.

Stalingrad-Dalby Intersection

It takes more than snow to stop TAN, a weekly strike/protest for example.

Winterfell on Nantes

The long walk to the Fac ("Uni" in French) 

A cute, misspelled quibble---Ayrault=the socialist prime minister, porc=porc spending---on "Death to the Airport," a massive grassroots movement that opposes the construction of a new airport in Notre Dame des Landes...I like to think that they would have opposed the ushers at CDG, too. That second piece of graffiti mocks the "Socialist" government of Hollande for "expelling and suppressing" like a fascist government (the French are rarely satisfied with anything the government does)  

Louis XVI as a snowman, Pre-Revolution.

Post-Revolution. 

Hold On/We Take Care of Our Own

"So bless my heart and bless my mind
 I've got so much to do, I ain't got much time"-Brittany Howard (The Alabama Shakes), "Hold On"

"Wherever this flag is flown we take care of our own"-Bruce Springsteen, "We Take Care of Our Own"


Beloved family and friends,

It's been almost 3 weeks since I last posted, and for that I sincerely apologize! The whirlwind of Obama's reelection and several nights out with my colleagues have blown me more than a bit off schedule with this blog. I now write to you with 2 additional songs-of-the-week under my belt, both anthems that seem exceptionally apropos during the post-election period (particularly with all these insane petitions about "secession" that 900,000 people have signed around the country). I figure it couldn't hurt the French to hear them either.

Halloween has passed (I dressed up as Prince Madoc, the patron saint of Lecteurs, haha...our Blackboard registration system bears the same name. His remarkable legend is linked below...it involves Mobile and Lookout Mountain, two of my favorite places). My beard was shaved the following night as I embarked upon my own "No Beard November" challenge at the behest of some of my dear coworkers.... I've also had a beard for the overwhelming majority of the past 4 years and agree that it might be time for a change.

With October gone, Thanksgiving and frigid weather is upon us (this "song" gains a million views every 2 days....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSBq8geuJk0). The "end of the world" is supposedly in about 36 days, and with music like this and 6:45AM freezes like today's, I don't really doubt it, haha.

My life is oddly consistent in spite of all of these changes, and the tutoring work I've taken up outside of the University has kept me even busier (although I do spend far too much time reading American news and wading into American Facebook debates). Most of the stories I have to tell include lecteur-specific humor (often incorporating Franglais---"let me retirer some argent really quick"---and broken English phrases we hear daily such as "I am very agree").  That said, I won't be the guy who says "no bro, you had to have been there to get it."

A brief list of things I've experienced since I last posted:

1. Heard the expression "Nights are for drinking not for exercising!" at least 10 times from different French people

2. Listened to Obama's victory speech with a collection of random French students at 7:40 AM last Wednesday "Il a gagné!!" They didn't even have to specify who "he" was.

3. Taught rudimentary swing dancing to those same dear coworkers (mercifully there were no pictures of this).

4. Had a student refer to the film "Friends with Benefits" as "Sex with Benefits" for the entirety of a presentation.

5. Had one of my Ghanan students make me profoundly happy, sad,  and homesick (that's apparently possible) when he said "Where I'm from, people...they take care of each other, they are there for the good and the bad, to celebrate or cry with you. In France, this is just something they pretend. I asked a man for direction in Paris and he tell me to find a map or go back to my country." French society as a whole doesn't quite live up to the big revolutionary game it talks about solidarity, particularly when it comes to solidarity with people from countries not called France.

6.  Found all of the Inter-Library-Loan books I hoarded in their original forms...and proceeded to hoard them all over for what I can now safely call "pleasure reading" rather than "frenzied, Subway and Red Bull-fueled nightmare reading." Felt like I'd met old friends again (I think that was written on a lower school library propaganda poster)

7. Watched Alabama lose its first game; I wore my Alabama shirt all next day anyway. Roll Tide in victory and defeat.

8. Made plans to visit my old host family this weekend. 2.5 year reunion, long overdue. I'll surely have some stories to tell next week!

9. Found an old computer game that lets me play through ancient French history as "The Duchy of Brittany;" it's a good excuse to learn French geography.

10. Taught some of my Master's students the idiom "That dog will hunt!" It's all for you, Lil P.

11. Was approached by a group of French high schoolers who declared that I looked like Ryan Gosling (I'll attribute that to the beard rather than a notebook of letters).

12. Was surrounded by a group of my students at an "English night" (a popular tradition that allows students and lecteurs to go to a bar together...it's about what you'd expect) all wanting to discuss zombies and the apocalypse with me (my references to the Walking Dead appear to have shambled around the department).

13. Explained to my students for the 50th time that "Prospecting" means looking for precious metals and oil, not jobs. It took showing some of them Toy Story 2's Prospector Pete to clarify.

303. Is my favorite number and where I will arbitrarily end this list.

I promise to write again sooner!

Here's to believing that America does indeed take care of its own.

Wherever this flag is flown (or worn),

John

(The French are obsessed with American flag scarves...)

P.S:

Bearded 1000-yard stare

Remembered my laptop's webcam function after I became beardless

Prince Madoc
(http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/lewis_clark_il/htmls/il_country_exp/preps/legend_madoc.html)

"Prince Madoc's Sword"