Memories

Memories.
 In 2007 I went to Strasbourg (Alsace) for a few weeks on a holiday. It is a city of 300 000 with old splendid architecture and a slim river with many bridges. One of the three seats of the European Government is located here, that may be the reason for the modern transit system that is very popular and very beautiful.
All the downtown street signs have the German name on top and the French name underneath to remind people that this city changed hands several times. A man I spoke to on the street told me that only people in some villages still speak German at home.
One reason I chose this city: it has the Tomi Ungerer Museum. It was closed for an overhaul and I was livid. He had a life that no movie could realistically describe; one of my all-time favourite artists.
The food in this area is French and often has German specialties in it, a successful mixture.
http://www.upperrhinevalley.com/tourism-network/region-of-stars/michelin-starred-restaurants-alsace
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Part of my plan was to visit the nearby little town of Creutzwald, where as a young man I had worked in the coal mine for two years. When I mentioned it at the hotel desk, I was warned not to go there. The mine had been closed a while ago and unemployment was almost 100%. I shelved my plan; the last thing I needed were conversations with desperate people.
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That evening in bed I thought about my life a half century ago and the good and bad times I had seen. Being a free man in Creutzwald was so unusual that I kept looking around waiting to see someone pointing a gun at me. To be able to walk into a store and buy food was like a fantasy. My greatest worry was to steal anything that was not anchored to the ground. My Sunday school upbringing soon forced me to behave myself.

On my first day below I was taken to a little Algerian who assured me that we would be the best team soon. We spoke French and he was very patient with me. The coal seam was one metre thick so we had to spend the six hours on our knees, protected by leather patches on the knees. Within a week we had a routine which felt better every night. We worked the night shift and in the morning I was nice and tired. Before walking home we all went into a huge and high room with a hundred shower heads on the ceiling. What seemed like a thousand men showered together and I washed backs of all the races in the world, it seemed.
Soon we were the best pair of the shift. We worked well together and he saved my life several times. We joked around a lot and never discussed politics or religion. I wonder
what became of him, the funny looking guy who was a great man and my friend.

What I like.

Sunrise, walk in the park, earphones, string quartets, chickadees eating out of my hand, hot coffee, toast and jam, Scandinavian design, Tapio Wirkkala, the sound of waves crashing on the shore, soft leather, b&w French films, Jacques Brel and George Brassens,

 writing essays, nostalgia, self-assured women, dogs off the leash in parks, children laughing, Joe Pass in Fat Tuesday's, looks crossing in a crowded cafe, Dylan Thomas, giving a massage, M. M. Prechtl, getting a massage,

 arrogant cats, classic jazz, finding amber on a Baltic beach, plowing a field with horses, Mont St. Michel, shaving with a new blade, a duck dinner, working with wood, kir royale, Hoagy  Carmichael songs, Villa Cimbrone, childhood memories, Stratford, ON, bread still warm from the oven, soaking in a hot bath, New Yorker cartoons, Django Reinhardt, a Schnitzel in Vienna, klezmer, swimming nude at a lonely beach, St. Paul's Fondation Maeght, 

little loons sitting on mama loon, thick snowflakes dancing by the window, handmade butter, Goon shows, walking in the warm rain, sunsets in Hawaii, Etretat, Negril and Lake Winnipeg, falling asleep listening to Astor Piazzola.