FRIDAY, 9/2:
Hello, Bayeux, did you miss us?
Greetings from our French home away
from home, the city of Bayeux, where for the first time in four long
and overdue years we're happily ensconced at the local Novotel hotel
for the next three days, before leaving for two nights and then
returning for three more nights. Details on exactly WHY will be
forthcoming, but let's just say it has to do with someone you've met
in these pages before and leave it at that, at least for now.
Why do we like Bayeux, a city of 11,000
so much? Well, it might have to do a little with this street--
Which, where the picture was taken, is
called Rue St. Martin. In case you couldn't tell, it's a narrow
street jam packed with shops and restaurants and a cacophony of
noise. The other end of the street, a quiet corner where I'm sitting
typing this, is called Rue St. Patrice. And the same street, in
between the shopping and the hotel, is called Rue St. Malo, and
that's where Bayeux's weekly farmer's market, another reason why we
like it here, is set for tomorrow morning.
I'll provide pictorial proof as to why
that's so cool and awesome and amazing in tomorrow's edition.
We left Chartres bright and early this
morning, and made the trip to Normandy in three hours. We had to
make two stops on the way, one at a Hyper U (a mega-grocery store) to
(cough cough) buy chocolate, and the other to stop at the Normandy
American Cemetery to say “hey” to four men from Marquette County
who died during the first month of the invasion of this area—Major
William Richards of Negaunee, who died on Omaha Beach D-Day, and Roy
Chipman and Roy Smith of Marquette, and Harry Smith of Negaunee, all
of whom were killed during the sweep inland. We just wanted to pay
our respects and bring them greetings from home, just like we wanted
to visit the grave of Theodore Mister of Maryland, a guy about whom
we knew nothing until our last visit here.
I'll share Mr. Mister's story in a few
days once we find something out.
In the past, I think I've referred to
the Normandy American Cemetery as the Disney World of American
military cemeteries, and to be blunt, it's actually gotten a little
worse over the past few years. Unlike every other American military
cemetery, you are now no longer allowed to go half the places you
used to in the cemetery, you have (literally) no place to throw your
garbage, and you have to go through metal detectors just to enter the
visitor's center. And yet despite the fact that there are signs
everywhere telling you can't sit, lay down, or make noise at the
graves, and that you must be respectful of where you are AT ALL TIMES
(the capital letters are theirs, not mine), that apparently doesn't
apply to the staff.
Or at least it doesn't apply to the
four workers using the world's loudest leaf blowers to make a nice
little pile of every leaf they could find--
And then use that pile as fuel for the
worst smelling fire in French history. You can't capture the smell
with a camera, but the haze you see by the trees in this picture
isn't fog, it's the smoke from their fire.
No other American military cemetery
we've been to (and we've been to a lot of them) is as regimented as
Normandy, nor does it flaunt its own rules like Normandy. That's why
I call it the Disney World of American military cemeteries. You're
much better going to St. James a 100 or so kilometers from here, or
Epinal or Margraten or Henri Chapelle or any other cemetery than you
are going to Normandy.
And that's my rant for today. I'll
shut up about it now and forever.
What's new in Bayeux? Well, sad to
say, there are more names on the Memorial des Reporters--
This is a memorial here in Bayeux that
honors journalists from around the world who were killed covering
wars. And sadly, the names they added for 2015 contain the reporters
and artists who died during the massacre at Charlie Hedbo in Paris
last January--
Theirs are the first dozen or so names
under 2015. The names in parentheses are the pen names of the
artists who drew the cartoons. Bayeux, by the way, is home to the
monument because the city hosts an international conference and expo
on war reporting every year during the first week in October. I'm
not quite sure why they do, but they do, and good for them.
When we were here in 2009, a date night
we had planned at an Indian restaurant had to be postponed when the
building next to it had its two top floors blown off by a gas
explosion. When we returned in 2010 and 2012 the building still
hadn't been repaired, but by 2016?
Look. The building is whole again!
And it only took four to seven years to finish, enough time for the
Indian restaurant to go out of business (which is a shame, because
the cashew curry I had there was amazing). I think when I wrote
about the building in 2012 (three years after the explosion) I joked
that it should finally get fixed by 2021 or so. I guess this was one
of the many times in life where I was wrong.
So to the owners of the building and
the people who worked to fix it, I apologize. I was only off by five
or so years.
Oh, remember how I didn't know what
those purple flowers were yesterday in Chartres? Well, today I don't
know what orange flowers are in Bayeux--
So if anyone has any idea, please let
me know. And thank you in advance.
Tomorrow, we go to Bayeux's market, and
then drive around a little and walk a little, maybe even climbing a
mountain in the process (by foot, not car). It's supposed to be
sunny & warm again, so why not, right?
(jim@wmqt.com)
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