Since my daughter has been maintaining my blog for me, it has a new look and the number of visitors is up. From about a hundred daily visits, it now records around 200, the peak being 337.
During the past two weeks, 1643 people visited the blog 3535 times.
The big surprise was that people even visit from other countries, some of these might have been false hits but someone from Manchester, England who stays online for 4 min, a Canadian from Richmond Hill who reads my articles for 2.40 min and some other 34 views from the USA deserve special thanks.
One visit from Waco lasted longer than it takes one of its famous figures (the Waco Express) to run a 200-meter race. But a resident from Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota takes the prize with the longest visit.
Having fallen in love with the USA at a very young age, it's a real pleasure for me to know that there are Yankees from CA to TX to NY who read what I have to say here.
With the Bush administration in power, I must admit to all my trans-Atlantic readers that until recently it was difficult for me not to maintain that Americans aren’t all horrid capitalists, careless of the planet and of their own bodies, obese from too much fast food and Coca-cola ;
that they aren't all without historical memory; without respect for de Gaulle's countrymen; without mercy for the French people, who resisted and rebelled against hawkish cries for a war on Iraqi women and children; without pity for the Frenchman on whom they take their revenge by pouring bottles of Bordeaux into the gutter from New York to Los Angeles.
Since Obama's election, I've been able to breathe more freely, and I hope that things will continue to look up. Most of my compatriots no longer regret Lafayette’s efforts and once again, the graves of young American soldiers are in bloom from east to west across la douce France.
Like most young French visiting pupils in Verdun, I cried while listening to the poignant testimony of a 19-year old Middle West farmer who gave his life in order to save the country of love and freedom, in the blockhaus of the Maginot line that smelt of death and stank of shit (sic).
All French people of my generation, I’m 59, know that a band of young soldiers destined for slaughter inflicted rape and violence on too many young French girls, but our mothers and propaganda preferred to give us a different image of the land of Uncle Sam – an image weaved of cigarettes and chewing gum, jazz and swing and ‘true stories’ of love between brave cowboys and the pretty French girls they had liberated.
Kit Carson westerns, Marylin Monroe’s cleavage, Negro Spiritual choirs chanting the words of Martin Luther King captivated all the young people of my generation. On top of that, as an adolescent I could still hear the words of my Italian grandmother who, to get me to sleep when I was a child, used to talk about Milwaukee, the place where I could have been born if she had, like her sister, accompanied an emigrant bound for America instead of following her husband to France.
America was waiting for me, she would say
Another emotional shock for an eighteen-year-old French boy, athlete and left-wing student, were the unheard-of political and athletic gestures of Tommie, televised live from the 200 metres Olympic final in Mexico.
He was the epitome of technical purity and political courage, the birth of a legend in less than 20 seconds live on television – a world record despite an injured thigh, a sporting hero in and out of the stadium who would, to cap it all, marry Miss Black America and so capture the imagination of teenage sprinters everywhere.
The advertising industry still uses his act of bravery today.
By then both my grandmother and her sister from Wisconsin were dead, but her sister’s children – Blasco, her son’s name, is also one of my middle names – the Pagini family in Milwaukee, were still willing to take me in.
And so, in 1970, at the age of 20, with 90 dollars earned from a summer job and a return ticket on a student-rate Paris-New York charter flight in my pocket, I turned up at Kennedy Airport, passing, by the magic of air transport, directly from my council flat in a French industrial town to a room in Times Square Motor Hotel that had been rented by some new-found friends.
To this day it is still a mystery to me why I didn’t die of pleasure from so much emotion. In those first five weeks among Americans I passed through all the stages of love, from infatuation to an eternal affection, for this melting pot of people who had welcomed me with unfailing kindness and occasionally even with affection.
8000 miles of hitch-hiking and 5 weeks of daily encounters taught me words I had never heard before—computer, ecology, psychology, psychoanalysis of sport, and made me discover in real life places that had previously only existed before in my dreams—Disneyland and the Universal Studios for example, but also synthetic athletics tracks-- and incredible prophecies, when, in Pittsburgh, during the 70’s crisis, I--who came from an area of mines and steelworks in Eastern France-- was told that the job of steelworker, the work of my grandfather, uncle and many friends from my neighbourhood, was going to disappear.
Which is, in fact, exactly what happened in France ten years later.
I can’t possibly thank here all the African American, White, Asian, Indian (American) and Latino drivers who gave me a ride nor all the people that let me stay at their place but how could I forget the thickly carpeted New York apartment and its balcony with unimpeded view of Rochester, the Diamond District? Thank you, Doctor William Hornilck.
How could I forget the warm welcome and the generosity of the Hollister and of the Bates? From Yardley to Trevose, how could I forget the barbecue evenings we spent contemplating at the moon and trying to catch sight of the Star and Stripes? How could I forget the dinners in Atlantic City in a restaurant where an employee parks your king size Chevrolet for you?
How could I forget hosts who sent me out dancing with the New Jersey women's water skiing champion, slipping a few greenbacks in my pocket as I headed out the door.
How could I forget the way the Pagini family welcomed me, even including my cousin Nancy, who introduced me to her girl friends and then brought them to London to meet me one New Year's eve?
Outside France, any French person is immediately seen as an expert on love.
And from San Jose to San Diego, the student unions are full of students of French literature who have read Moliere’s Don Juan.
I thought my relationship with the United States had reached that perfect level of implicit understanding by the end of the initiation that was my first, fabulous stay . I was wrong.
On second acquaintance, in 1975 at the age of 25, I found that country even more enchanting. Full disclosure: I was on my honeymoon.
Once again, a heavily-discounted Paris-New York charter flight. Though we spent a few too many "free" nights on the Greyhound buses for my young bride's tastes, crisscrossing the continent on an unlimited travel pass -- from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas and from the beaches of Florida to the French Quarter in New Orleans -- did allow us to save money on hotel stays. It also helped us to avoid overstaying our welcome with any of our kind American acquaintances, who were always willing to help a couple of young newlyweds. And we were very young indeed: at 21, my wife was barely an adult according to French law of the time.
The Bates family took the prize once again, welcoming us into their home, taking us out to dinner at the same posh Atlantic City restaurant with valet parking, and even introducing us to the French chef.
Our "just married" status was like a back-stage pass to amazing invitations and privileges, including the master bedroom of the Bates' enormous home and a free consultation at the make-up counter in Lord & Taylors on 5th Avenue.
Our return flight left from Mexico. The Bates sent us off with a copy of a commissioned painting Mr. Thomas Bates had completed for the United States Bicentennial. As I sit writing these lines, his Hasbrouck House hangs before me on the wall of my office.
If anyone who reads this happens to know if the Bates are still alive, if anyone knows their elder son with the Studebaker, the one who picked me up when I was hitchhiking and drove me to his parents' home… Please give them my best.
Alas, the younger son of this extraordinary family, brilliant in class and on the basketball court, committed suicide. I was bewildered and stupefied by his death. At the time, I was myself barely beyond the naivete of adolescence, and I still believed that being young, rich, handsome, smart and good at basketball was a comprehensive insurance policy against the existential questions of life and death.
In 1987, my third trip to the USA was more comfortable—the direct flight to Los Angeles with a top airline this time, the rental car, the room at the Hilton University hotel at a special rate for teachers and researchers staff. Much to the surprise of the American university track and field coaches whose career relies upon competition results, my whole stay was paid for thanks to a French government grant.
This time, my stay was less hectic. I spent four weeks in the State of California meeting athletes and coaches and sports psychologists and doctors all day long. After that, I took a week off.
Thank you to Ernie Bullard, the USC head coach, and his now ex-wife Carolyn, for taking me in their family flat in Culver City and thanks for opening many doors for me.
Thank you, Tommie Smith, for the invitation to your house and for sharing your secrets, which made me jump for joy.
Thank you to William Quarrie and some other Olympic champions for their time.
Thank you, Art Venegas, Burt Bonnano, John Smith, Bob Kersee, and some other coaches of champions.
Thank you, Bruce Ogilvie and BJ Cratty, the pioneers of sports psychology, for your contributions and for your invitations to your marvelous homes looking onto the Pacific Ocean or hidden at the end of long driveways padlocked gates.
Thank you, Robert Nideffer and Rick Milan, for letting me into your sport psychology labs and for the shirtless jogging on the beach of San Diego in November.
I hope that theses thanks will come to the attention of some of you.
I apologize to all those that I haven’t mentioned, to Tommie for missing him twice when he was in Paris. The esteem and respect I have for him as an athlete and as a man have never lessened.
I learned from the papers that you and John had gone all the way to Australia to bury Norman, your friend and Olympic rival. It warms my heart to know good people like you. And I know you are because I saw you on TV, I read what Bud Winter said about you and Lee, which Burt Bonnano told me about.
In the fifth week, I kind of let you down, athletes, coaches and psychologists. I even turned down the offer for a ticket to fly from LA to Philadelphia to meet the Bates family. But I was waiting for Karolle, who came all the way from France just to spend a week with me on Venice Beach.
You know the French: for us love is more important than anything.
My fourth visit to the US was shorter. It was a family visit - two families actually: two couples and three children. We stayed on the East Coast and spent some time in Quebec, discovering how friendly our Canadian cousins are. This dates back from the last century.
It has been a while-- two or three presidential terms--since I last set foot in the USA. Now that Obama is there, I will go back, that’s for sure.
But I had lost sight of you, American friends. I know that Pittsburgh, the ex steel city that smelt like Longwy, my hometown, has changed a lot. The city that is home to the Andy Warhol Museum has changed for the better.
Is San Jose still known as the Speed City? Can people run as fast as they used to in SJS?
I won’t forget the USA. I still watch every single Woody Allen movie – I don’t miss a Sharon Stone movie, like any French man-- I read Philip Roth and Simone de Beauvoir’s love letters to Nelson Algren and I go to the concerts of any Golden Gate Quartet when they come to my town on tour. So your country is still dear to my heart. But I have lost track of most of you, except for Carolyn who now lives in Berlin and who told me that Ernie is in Steckton, isn't he?
So I had this idea of this message in a bottle. Thank you to 43 Americans that I don’t know, thank you to all those that I have mentioned above. Thank you to my daugther who made this blog look more attractive as far as America. Thank you to her for translating these five pages.
She's finishing her studies in English/Spanish translation at ISIT in Paris. She's looking for an intership in Paris or New York, and why not in California, in Minnesota or in any other place in the USA or on earth.
Et en français...
During the past two weeks, 1643 people visited the blog 3535 times.
The big surprise was that people even visit from other countries, some of these might have been false hits but someone from Manchester, England who stays online for 4 min, a Canadian from Richmond Hill who reads my articles for 2.40 min and some other 34 views from the USA deserve special thanks.
One visit from Waco lasted longer than it takes one of its famous figures (the Waco Express) to run a 200-meter race. But a resident from Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota takes the prize with the longest visit.
Having fallen in love with the USA at a very young age, it's a real pleasure for me to know that there are Yankees from CA to TX to NY who read what I have to say here.
With the Bush administration in power, I must admit to all my trans-Atlantic readers that until recently it was difficult for me not to maintain that Americans aren’t all horrid capitalists, careless of the planet and of their own bodies, obese from too much fast food and Coca-cola ;
that they aren't all without historical memory; without respect for de Gaulle's countrymen; without mercy for the French people, who resisted and rebelled against hawkish cries for a war on Iraqi women and children; without pity for the Frenchman on whom they take their revenge by pouring bottles of Bordeaux into the gutter from New York to Los Angeles.
Since Obama's election, I've been able to breathe more freely, and I hope that things will continue to look up. Most of my compatriots no longer regret Lafayette’s efforts and once again, the graves of young American soldiers are in bloom from east to west across la douce France.
Like most young French visiting pupils in Verdun, I cried while listening to the poignant testimony of a 19-year old Middle West farmer who gave his life in order to save the country of love and freedom, in the blockhaus of the Maginot line that smelt of death and stank of shit (sic).
All French people of my generation, I’m 59, know that a band of young soldiers destined for slaughter inflicted rape and violence on too many young French girls, but our mothers and propaganda preferred to give us a different image of the land of Uncle Sam – an image weaved of cigarettes and chewing gum, jazz and swing and ‘true stories’ of love between brave cowboys and the pretty French girls they had liberated.
Kit Carson westerns, Marylin Monroe’s cleavage, Negro Spiritual choirs chanting the words of Martin Luther King captivated all the young people of my generation. On top of that, as an adolescent I could still hear the words of my Italian grandmother who, to get me to sleep when I was a child, used to talk about Milwaukee, the place where I could have been born if she had, like her sister, accompanied an emigrant bound for America instead of following her husband to France.
America was waiting for me, she would say
Another emotional shock for an eighteen-year-old French boy, athlete and left-wing student, were the unheard-of political and athletic gestures of Tommie, televised live from the 200 metres Olympic final in Mexico.
He was the epitome of technical purity and political courage, the birth of a legend in less than 20 seconds live on television – a world record despite an injured thigh, a sporting hero in and out of the stadium who would, to cap it all, marry Miss Black America and so capture the imagination of teenage sprinters everywhere.
The advertising industry still uses his act of bravery today.
By then both my grandmother and her sister from Wisconsin were dead, but her sister’s children – Blasco, her son’s name, is also one of my middle names – the Pagini family in Milwaukee, were still willing to take me in.
And so, in 1970, at the age of 20, with 90 dollars earned from a summer job and a return ticket on a student-rate Paris-New York charter flight in my pocket, I turned up at Kennedy Airport, passing, by the magic of air transport, directly from my council flat in a French industrial town to a room in Times Square Motor Hotel that had been rented by some new-found friends.
To this day it is still a mystery to me why I didn’t die of pleasure from so much emotion. In those first five weeks among Americans I passed through all the stages of love, from infatuation to an eternal affection, for this melting pot of people who had welcomed me with unfailing kindness and occasionally even with affection.
8000 miles of hitch-hiking and 5 weeks of daily encounters taught me words I had never heard before—computer, ecology, psychology, psychoanalysis of sport, and made me discover in real life places that had previously only existed before in my dreams—Disneyland and the Universal Studios for example, but also synthetic athletics tracks-- and incredible prophecies, when, in Pittsburgh, during the 70’s crisis, I--who came from an area of mines and steelworks in Eastern France-- was told that the job of steelworker, the work of my grandfather, uncle and many friends from my neighbourhood, was going to disappear.
Which is, in fact, exactly what happened in France ten years later.
I can’t possibly thank here all the African American, White, Asian, Indian (American) and Latino drivers who gave me a ride nor all the people that let me stay at their place but how could I forget the thickly carpeted New York apartment and its balcony with unimpeded view of Rochester, the Diamond District? Thank you, Doctor William Hornilck.
How could I forget the warm welcome and the generosity of the Hollister and of the Bates? From Yardley to Trevose, how could I forget the barbecue evenings we spent contemplating at the moon and trying to catch sight of the Star and Stripes? How could I forget the dinners in Atlantic City in a restaurant where an employee parks your king size Chevrolet for you?
How could I forget hosts who sent me out dancing with the New Jersey women's water skiing champion, slipping a few greenbacks in my pocket as I headed out the door.
How could I forget the way the Pagini family welcomed me, even including my cousin Nancy, who introduced me to her girl friends and then brought them to London to meet me one New Year's eve?
Outside France, any French person is immediately seen as an expert on love.
And from San Jose to San Diego, the student unions are full of students of French literature who have read Moliere’s Don Juan.
I thought my relationship with the United States had reached that perfect level of implicit understanding by the end of the initiation that was my first, fabulous stay . I was wrong.
On second acquaintance, in 1975 at the age of 25, I found that country even more enchanting. Full disclosure: I was on my honeymoon.
Once again, a heavily-discounted Paris-New York charter flight. Though we spent a few too many "free" nights on the Greyhound buses for my young bride's tastes, crisscrossing the continent on an unlimited travel pass -- from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas and from the beaches of Florida to the French Quarter in New Orleans -- did allow us to save money on hotel stays. It also helped us to avoid overstaying our welcome with any of our kind American acquaintances, who were always willing to help a couple of young newlyweds. And we were very young indeed: at 21, my wife was barely an adult according to French law of the time.
The Bates family took the prize once again, welcoming us into their home, taking us out to dinner at the same posh Atlantic City restaurant with valet parking, and even introducing us to the French chef.
Our "just married" status was like a back-stage pass to amazing invitations and privileges, including the master bedroom of the Bates' enormous home and a free consultation at the make-up counter in Lord & Taylors on 5th Avenue.
Our return flight left from Mexico. The Bates sent us off with a copy of a commissioned painting Mr. Thomas Bates had completed for the United States Bicentennial. As I sit writing these lines, his Hasbrouck House hangs before me on the wall of my office.
If anyone who reads this happens to know if the Bates are still alive, if anyone knows their elder son with the Studebaker, the one who picked me up when I was hitchhiking and drove me to his parents' home… Please give them my best.
Alas, the younger son of this extraordinary family, brilliant in class and on the basketball court, committed suicide. I was bewildered and stupefied by his death. At the time, I was myself barely beyond the naivete of adolescence, and I still believed that being young, rich, handsome, smart and good at basketball was a comprehensive insurance policy against the existential questions of life and death.
In 1987, my third trip to the USA was more comfortable—the direct flight to Los Angeles with a top airline this time, the rental car, the room at the Hilton University hotel at a special rate for teachers and researchers staff. Much to the surprise of the American university track and field coaches whose career relies upon competition results, my whole stay was paid for thanks to a French government grant.
This time, my stay was less hectic. I spent four weeks in the State of California meeting athletes and coaches and sports psychologists and doctors all day long. After that, I took a week off.
Thank you to Ernie Bullard, the USC head coach, and his now ex-wife Carolyn, for taking me in their family flat in Culver City and thanks for opening many doors for me.
Thank you, Tommie Smith, for the invitation to your house and for sharing your secrets, which made me jump for joy.
Thank you to William Quarrie and some other Olympic champions for their time.
Thank you, Art Venegas, Burt Bonnano, John Smith, Bob Kersee, and some other coaches of champions.
Thank you, Bruce Ogilvie and BJ Cratty, the pioneers of sports psychology, for your contributions and for your invitations to your marvelous homes looking onto the Pacific Ocean or hidden at the end of long driveways padlocked gates.
Thank you, Robert Nideffer and Rick Milan, for letting me into your sport psychology labs and for the shirtless jogging on the beach of San Diego in November.
I hope that theses thanks will come to the attention of some of you.
I apologize to all those that I haven’t mentioned, to Tommie for missing him twice when he was in Paris. The esteem and respect I have for him as an athlete and as a man have never lessened.
I learned from the papers that you and John had gone all the way to Australia to bury Norman, your friend and Olympic rival. It warms my heart to know good people like you. And I know you are because I saw you on TV, I read what Bud Winter said about you and Lee, which Burt Bonnano told me about.
In the fifth week, I kind of let you down, athletes, coaches and psychologists. I even turned down the offer for a ticket to fly from LA to Philadelphia to meet the Bates family. But I was waiting for Karolle, who came all the way from France just to spend a week with me on Venice Beach.
You know the French: for us love is more important than anything.
My fourth visit to the US was shorter. It was a family visit - two families actually: two couples and three children. We stayed on the East Coast and spent some time in Quebec, discovering how friendly our Canadian cousins are. This dates back from the last century.
It has been a while-- two or three presidential terms--since I last set foot in the USA. Now that Obama is there, I will go back, that’s for sure.
But I had lost sight of you, American friends. I know that Pittsburgh, the ex steel city that smelt like Longwy, my hometown, has changed a lot. The city that is home to the Andy Warhol Museum has changed for the better.
Is San Jose still known as the Speed City? Can people run as fast as they used to in SJS?
I won’t forget the USA. I still watch every single Woody Allen movie – I don’t miss a Sharon Stone movie, like any French man-- I read Philip Roth and Simone de Beauvoir’s love letters to Nelson Algren and I go to the concerts of any Golden Gate Quartet when they come to my town on tour. So your country is still dear to my heart. But I have lost track of most of you, except for Carolyn who now lives in Berlin and who told me that Ernie is in Steckton, isn't he?
So I had this idea of this message in a bottle. Thank you to 43 Americans that I don’t know, thank you to all those that I have mentioned above. Thank you to my daugther who made this blog look more attractive as far as America. Thank you to her for translating these five pages.
She's finishing her studies in English/Spanish translation at ISIT in Paris. She's looking for an intership in Paris or New York, and why not in California, in Minnesota or in any other place in the USA or on earth.
Et en français...
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