Le Pere Jordan

It's been a "Journey" since I've felt I had the freedom of time, or the mental bandwidth to write anything. The fact that two years have passed since our last trip to France, that ended in a Medical Evacuation back to the US, is hard to fathom.

I now feel slightly guilty saying that there are some positive aspects to our life, in view of everyone else's  struggles.

My husband will always be "The Artistic One".

When friends ask him what he's up to, he  speaks about painting and possible upcoming art shows. His easel, paints and a fresh canvas are still where they were in our family room/Art Studio, although I have moved things over a bit to facilitate the passage of TAO with his walker frame.

He no longer paints or reads. He sleeps a lot and then sits and watches TV from the kitchen table. When it's not too hot we sit on the covered patio and watch the wind move the tree tops and the dogs run the fence to bark at delivery drivers and people walking by.

As I sit with him, I share videos, from my Facebook feed, of silly cats, redneck creative transportation solutions and familiar regions of France.

The image above is a stained glass window he designed and had made for our French house. The character "Old Mr Jordan" gave TAO hell seventy-plus years ago when he let the cows wander into the wrong field. He also sat in the barn with him in winter and carved wooden clogs, while telling stories about the village. I've heard more stories about him than of TAO's father.

TAO had sketched this image, which we still have,in pencil, long ago. You can see the rolling hills in the distance. The fence line takes your eye where the Artist intended.

When discussing subject matter for this tall bathroom window, I thought this image would honor a World that meant so much to TAO and be relevant to the surroundings.

The house is under offer. It's unlikely we'll ever go there again.

TAO's eldest daughter has been fantastic, shouldering the responsibilities of finding and making arrangements with an Agent, a Notaire and even going to the Department of Construction Permits to have them give the final signature on a project that was completed a decade ago.

She's had all of our paintings moved safely into storage for us. I told her to let her siblings choose any that they might like for themselves and to give away any furniture and household stuff that the potential new owners didn't want.

The one thing I wanted to remove and keep was this window. Unfortunately, the craftsman that came to try to extract it found it was installed in a way that can't be undone.

We now have a small chip of blue glass as a souvenir and these beautiful photos, taken by she who would be my Step-Daughter, if she were younger and I were older.

 

Burnished Copper Horses & Grey Stone Houses

Our house: a renovated stone barn in Lozere, South East France, but nowhere near beaches or tourists. The Artistic One had spent two summers here, in his early teens. Apparently, the French version of Apres-Guerre sleep-away camp was to find farmers who would share the work of herding livestock and harvesting, in exchange for fresh air, hearty food and a bed to sleep on. TAO loved it so much that he begged to be allowed to stay on through the winter months and not return to school until the following spring.
This is not where he was born, nor where he spent the majority of his life, but it is his Heart-Home and they still know him there.

 

The small building on the right is the communal bread baking oven. Once a month, wood-fires were set in the oven and maintained by all until the temperature was right for the baking to begin. Huge rustic loaves with thick brown crusts had to last until the next time. 

When we first purchased our barn, in 1999, the roof sagged and the rain was pouring in in several places. There were a dozen resident bovines in the lower level stable and the little boy from across the way came to ask what we were doing with his Dad's cows.

The old bread-oven had also been allowed to founder and so we proposed to restore it, as part of our project. We were later told that someone stood up at the community meeting and expressed concern that "The Americans" would be taking over. The Mayor's office was shamed into taking care of the needed restorations. The picture below shows the local roofing material, called Lozes, on the oven roof.

 

Below is a picture of where the cows used to live.We pulled out the foot-thick granite slabs that were the stable floor and raised the ceiling into the space above, to give ourselves some head-room. It's a great kitchen, if you don't mind having your stove and sink 50 ft away from one another. 

The articulated pot-filler, over the stove top, was unheard of by local plumbers. We went online from California and had one shipped to us, from Italy, then we packed it in a suitcase bound for France.

The upper level didn't have any head-room problems. This living space and Art Studio has the original beams from the days when it was storage for hay and straw. We put in skylights rather than change the character of the building by opening big windows in the sides. The whole place is heated by decorative cast iron radiators that we bought from a demo sale of an old Parisian hotel.

This high plateau is made up of volcanic hills, rocky promontories and rivers. It's the least populated region of France.Cows greatly outnumber humans hereabouts. Chestnuts, hazelnuts, blueberries and wild mushrooms are collected when in season. Goose, duck, wild boar and venison are on most restaurant menus. I had a creme-brule perfumed with pine liqueur. I loved the flavor, but it is green and does smell like a household cleaning product. Mind over matter, I enjoyed it.

Sturdy, burnished copper horses with ombre charcoal legs and milky mane and tail, punctuate the emerald landscape.
Conte draft horses; locally bred to work the fields and forests; low center of gravity; soup-plate hooves; stocky build; kind and willing disposition. The epitome of  a work-horse.

The warm weather was an unexpected bonus in early October. The clouds were beginning to edge out the blue skies, darkening to imitate the fir forests in the distance. I went for a walk down the grass track that arabesques toward the low lying lake, the unsettled air moistly slapping my cheeks in futile protest, as thunderclouds moved in. Splashes of crickets surged ahead of every step I took, chirping final au-revoirs to Indian Summer days. Curious caramel cows reposing in the field, by the track, lowing and chewing. By the time I came back up the path they were up and watching for me. I said "Moo" and "Hello Cows". (I haven't yet stooped to speaking French to cows, for all the difference it might make). They didn't respond so I walked on, turning several times to catch them playing Cow Statues, feigning disinterest. Despite their innocent eyes, the large bells clanging from wide leather collars on their velvet necks gave them away each time.

Ready, set...reschedule!

We have been trying to get to France all year. In the spring, we rescheduled due to TAO's pulmonary embolism. The new tickets were to be used last week, with TAO leaving a few days ahead of me and us reuniting when he was done with driving up, down and cross-wise all over France.
I was going to spend a day or two near Toulouse, reacquainting with an English woman, whose father worked together with mine long ago. Our parents became friends and we used to see each other from time to time, as kids, even after we moved away. When my Mum died, I took on her address book and continued the tradition of exchanging Christmas cards, with people all over the world.
Little by little, there are few remaining. Now my Dad's old friend's wife has "gone ahead" and he has Alzheimer's. Sadly, that's one more thing our families have in common. I still send him cards and have struck up correspondence with his daughter. 
Julie didn't live in France when I was there, so we haven't seen one another since we established our "grown-up" lives. We were looking forward to spending some time chatting and reminiscing together. Unfortunately, our new travel dates coincide with the moving company that is to pack up her belongings and move them back to England, where her husband is working at a new job. I'll have a new plan in place to connect with her in the U.K. next year.
Last week, we had a send-off lunch for TAO's granddaughter who has spent the summer with an American family nearby. We invited other family members, friends and the couple who hosted Liza. I chose to have our party on a Sunday, at lunchtime, planning that the youngest family members would leave us the heck alone, enjoy playing in the pool. I forgot that this meant I wouldn't be able to ride at my usual Sunday time. I still can't believe I did that!
The next morning I had reserved two horses for Liza and my Lovelydaughter to take a trail ride in the hills. LD called to say her car was blocked in by her roommate's vehicle, that wouldn't start, so I donned my boots for a Western style ride. The view of San Francisco Bay from the back of a beautiful, long-maned Mustang named Sally; strolling along the oak-studded ridge, is a perspective few tourists get to experience. It wasn't my original plan for the morning but I'm glad I did it. Back at the barn, which also doubles as a vineyard, I bought Liza a souvenir T-shirt, which carries the image of the farm's livestock brand, very rustic and tastefully done. I returned Liza to her host family and finished the monster clean-up that always follows a party.
TAO had the tail end of a cold. By Tuesday, he was still coughing a bit and wheezing at night. He finished up the dregs of a prescription cough medicine that he'd had since 2009. When I emailed his doctor to renew his prescription she said she'd have to see him in person. Age, lungs, wheezing being serious factors. I had sort of expected that answer. Better safe than sorry, especially before a long journey.
The architects who design Hospitals, Airports and other large public buildings think that a disabled drop-off area and an access ramp for wheelchairs is sufficient. It actually does work for those in wheel-chairs. However, so many people are in the category of walking-wounded; in pain, or just not able to walk with ease, that 100 yards/meters looks like 100 miles to them and then, when they struggle to wherever they're going, they have to STAND in line to register.
TAO signed in then had to walk down long corridors to the furthest  station, which was his doctor's. She is great. She listens, asks questions, knows past history. I always go with to translate. The doctor heard some reduced lung function on one side and sent us off to X-Ray. More walking, back the way we came and then over to the main hospital building. Hurrying a bit in the hope of getting back to hear the results before the doctor's lunch break.
We didn't even have to wait five minutes until being ushered in by a technician. Friendly, professional, considerate...we don't take this for granted. We are always praising Kaiser, our HMO. Back to our MD. By the time we walked back to her office, a radiologist had read the images, shared them onto her computer screen and discussed a treatment plan, taking into consideration the what-ifs of a trip to France the next day.
TAO came away with a cortisone vaporizer/inhaler to use twice daily, as a month long treatment to heal his lungs. He has an emergency inhaler, just in case of sudden shortness of breath. There's a course of antibiotics that he can start taking if he gets a fever or other symptoms and a repeat of the cough syrup, in case the cough returns. We sat at home and put each item in a sealed plastic bag with a note to remind TAO what each was for. He started the lung treatment and was good to go the next day.
I heard a saying "People plan and God laughs". That's a very true thought. By the end of the following morning, TAO had serious pain in his back and side and was calling off his trip; Laying in bed rather than driving to the airport for his flight out. We spoke to an advice nurse on the phone and she asked all the questions to establish we didn't have a life threatening emergency, but something that needed to be checked out. We decided to wait until the next day, to see our usual physician. This time I pulled up in front of the hospital and commandeered a wheelchair. After parking a ways away, and hurrying back over, naturally TAO was not where I'd left him. He'd wheeled himself inside the wrong building, so a short search ensued.
Once corralled and trundled over to the right office, the Doc. checked him out...AGAIN! Recurrence of osteoarthritis pain in spine, probably provoked by the prior visit's hiking all over the place. It's been a year and a half since the epidural that made such an improvement in TAO's life. He's been diligent about the exercises he was given to strengthen his core muscles. He does them every day, but he's just simply overdone the walking and the unevenness of his gait has caused a reaction.
We're always pleased when a diagnosis is not something from which one might die, as we've had a sprinkling of those over time. Unfortunately, TAO can no longer take any anti-inflammatory meds, which would be the normal solution. Bed-rest and alternating applications of hot and cold, is old-fashioned and tedious, but at least a possible path to recovery. The plan was to wait and see, for at least four or five days and progress to a course of Prednisone, as the next step, if needed. We discussed planning for another epidural, just to know all our options, and our doctor put in a request for that specialist to give us a call. Everything is so much more complicated now that TAO is on blood-thinners for life. It turns out we'd have to switch him from his Coumadin pills, back to the twice daily shots of Lovanox, which I learned to inject into his stomach, but neither of us were very happy about. Then we'd stop the Lovanox to create a brief window of opportunity in between the risk of excessive bleeding and the alternative of blood clots, either of which could kill him and increase the risk of paralysis.
Thankfully, there's been slow but steady improvement. TAO is newly full of vim and vigor after snoozing through the better part of a week, and he's seen the wisdom of taking things slowly and carefully.

Our tickets are re-booked for later this month. TAO is no longer traveling solo. I am committed to making all future plans inclusive of both of us. I need to wrangle this one in person from now on. I plan on requesting assistance at the airport, which worked well when we flew to St Martins at Christmastime.
Our extra time permitted me to take on a temporary rescue of a 10 year old dog whose owner had to go into a nursing home. Kato also has arthritis and had a visit to the vet. He's overweight and had very long nails. His owner loved him but couldn't go out for walks and fed Kato people-food. At 72 lbs, (about 15 lbs more than he should be for his frame) I had a hard time lifting him into my car and even getting him out was a struggle for both of us. I asked for help whenever I could and was as careful as possible not to mess up my shoulder again. Thank goodness my car is quite low to the ground.
Kato was picked up yesterday by my Collie Rescue Area Coordinator who had been out of town when the call came in that Kato was being relinquished. Lauren's SUV was dauntingly high, but luckily the guys who work for me have grown to love the dogs I bring to the office. Strong arms scooped Kato up and hoisted him onto the back seat. He's a happy passenger, lying quietly on long trips, popping up to look out the window if we slow down. I've caught people smiling and waving at him in morning traffic. Kato is old and creaky but he has charisma, not unlike some humans I could mention:)

Letters in the Sand...

In the latter portion of my Franco-British tour of friends and relatives; having unpacked my suitcase for the 5th, and penultimate, time in a fortnight; I find the familiar guest bedroom in the open-plan house of Chantal and Olivier, who qualify as both friends and family.
When I first met Chantal three decades ago in Southern France, I was her father's English girlfriend. Now, she introduces me, with a smile, as her step-mother. Last March, her 53rd birthday preceded mine by four days and her subsequent birthdays will continue to do so. The official description of our relationship matters little. We have a mountain of shared interests and memories in common.

The house is set into a gentle rise and the floor to ceiling windows look out over the tops of two thousand olive trees, past the grape vines below and onward to the large purple smudge of the Island of Porquerolle, just beyond a blue slice of Mediterranean.
The sliding glass doors are left open day and night at this time of year, which is why a rope barrier has been looped across the the accessible edges of the big wooden deck, to keep Pegase (Pegasus), the 36 year old bay horse, out of the house.

When we sit to chat or dine at the big teak table on the deck, Pegase keeps us company, his big rustic head nodding to dislodge any annoying flies that his long swishing tail fails to sweep away. The rest of the time Pegase can be found snoozing beneath the shaded overhang down by the olive mill, or persistently bumping the branches of the fig tree until the soft plop of a ripe fruit hitting the ground sends him bee-lining over to snuffle around and claim his prize.
After lunch and story-swapping for a while, I asked if Chantal wanted to go for a walk. She suggested a hike along the coastal path which sounded good to me. There are numerous little bays and coves around this part of the Mediterranean. Small beaches, with patches of sand or round, wave-smoothed pebbles. These inlets provide tranquil moorings for small boats and inviting, warm end of season water for sun-worshippers unfettered by school age children.

Some effort is required as there are uphill portions of the trail and even downhill it's wise to concentrate as there are tree roots and uneven wooden steps and much of the path is single file between shrubby undergrowth and only wide enough for a goat.

A hazy afternoon light isn't the best but it's impossible to resist some blatant photo-ops. As we clambered down to the next little beach, a couple with a serious piece of camera equipment are discussing his next frame. I offer to include both of them in a souvenir shot and they are pleased to accept. He quickly whips out a small point and click digital that I cannot harm and I snap the two of them by the water's edge, with the private island-fortress of Bregancon behind them. Summer retreat of French Presidents, the chateau on the island is visible from shore.
Monsieur Photographer reciprocates with pictures using my camera. His, unlike mine, show deliberate composition.

As we continue up and over one more time my phone rings. "You'll never guess what just happened to me" is a familiar harbinger of trouble from The Artistic One, whom I have left to fend for himself in California. "My car was just stolen out of the driveway. I saw it go by the window while I was having breakfast, a few minutes ago."
7 am California time and I'm at least an hour's walk away from anything. How to find the number of the local Sheriff's Department back home? I try dialing 411, the information line, with the international prefix for the USA but that doesn't work. I tried Lovely Daughter and a couple of friends but it's too early. No one is answering their phones. Finally we call Olivier and he gets a number from his computer. Chantal scratches it onto a rock with a pebble and I dial. The recorder message says business hours don't start for another hour and gives a number to call for immediate help. I give Chantal some digits to memorize and try to retain the rest. When I finally get through to a Deputy to make a report, Chantal wanders away, strips down and takes a swim.  I'm standing by the edge of the path, afraid to move and lose my connection. It feels very inappropriate to be talking on the phone amid such serenity.

I start by explaining the complicating factor that I'm calling from Europe as my husband speaks French. I am able to describe the vehicle year, make and color and give the name of our insurance agent and the home address so that someone can go out and take a statement from the victim.  We don't have the license number, without accessing the files in my office or until I can get hold of my insurer, as soon as his day starts. I promise to call back with that information.
TAO is calling again. He's found a photo of his car that shows his license plate. He rattles off letters and numbers. Whoa there! I have nothing to write with, which he seems not to comprehend in his excitement. This beach is all pebbles. I use my finger to scribe the information but it's barely legible as the little rocks roll down and quickly blur the outlines. Chantal, who is done swimming and has dried in the sun and redressed, comes back over to help and once again, I call the Sheriff's Dept. This time I connect with a female dispatcher who doesn't appreciate that I don't have my full case number at hand and she keeps stopping me to complain about the background noises. I do my best not to lose patience as I repeatedly explain that I'm inches away from the waves, which are not only noisy, but every ripple threatens to erase the information I need to impart.
TAO is on the line once more, asking me to call an employee to collect him and get him to our place of business. I first remind him he's supposed to wait for someone to take his report and then start racking my brain for a source who might help me find the phone number I need. Funnily enough, I don't have any employee files with me here.
I leave a message with one person who's number I have, who has borrowed a helper from us once or twice. I ask him to text me when he gets my call. Finally, I think of a neighboring fork-lift repair business, whose number I know by heart and who start work early. They immediately promise to go over and pass along the message that TAO needs rescuing. I'm glad that I've bought them chocolate cakes a couple of times as I try hard never to exceed the goodwill quota of neighborliness.

Tahitian Dreams

In my twenties, I lived and worked at an equestrian center near Nice, in the South of France. The stables and house were recessed in a wooded valley, set far back from the main road, leading to Grasse, where the perfume factories grow their jasmine, and where nightingales called to one another across the scented crepuscular calm.
FanFan was my boss's sister, who also lived with the family. Mature, but not an old fashioned "Auntie"; FanFan zoomed around in a rattling 2CV Renault; graceful, slender build, flaming red toenails and vigorous curls belying the marks of time that many decades of sun-worship had inscribed, like tree rings, on her neck and forearms.
Little by little I gleaned the story of some of FanFan's adventures. We would gather fresh raspberries from the garden and sit chatting for a while after work. FanFan had a secret recipe for a lethal rum punch, brought back from her life, with her husband, in Tahiti. An inch or two of her marvelous nectar,  combined with tales of her colorful existence, confirmed the incongruity of her presence in such rustic surroundings.
FanFan was living with her brother's family whilst her husband completed his prison term. On one voyage home from the islands, their yacht had been searched and some packages "they'd been carrying for a friend" turned out to be contraband. They had been charged with drug smuggling. The yacht was confiscated and their money was drained, whether as fines or legal fees, no matter, and FanFan made the best of it, in limbo.
I thought of FanFan this morning, when I came across plump, ripe, green limes at the vegetable market, ten for a dollar. First I scraped the zest with a fine grater, into a jar with brown sugar. Next I squeezed in the juices and added finely chopped crystalized ginger. I warmed the mixture to melt the sugar and release the other flavors and then I added dark brown rum. Well shaken and poured over ice cubes, that was FanFan's memorable secret sipping potion.
We varied it up today by adding pineapple juice, to make a long drink, more suitable for midday consumption. There will be other moments when we will open the potion jar again and sit outside on a warm evening with a glass of lime, ginger and vanilla scented memories.

Wake-Up Calls

The Artistic One is in France. It took the usual amount of stress and exasperation to get him there. Did anyone hear about the "new" rules? Apparently, the U.S. are a bit picky about documentation:)
TAO planned his trip and  purchased his ticket (without discussing it with me first), from a French travel agent we've known for years. Subsequent emails from Air France, warning that certain forms had to be filled out prior to departure, were shrugged off as unnecessary and "taken care of" by the French Agent.
One day prior to departure I forced TAO to open the most recent email and scroll down to actually read the request.
It's funny to think back to the days when our green-cards were so crucial, although TAO did manage to lose his at Charles de Gaulle Airport once, in a little "ADVENTURE!" I posted about at the time.
We now have dual citizenship and two passports to look after. TAO had decided that, as he was going to France, he would only require his French passport. He had to be reminded that there would, presumably, be a return trip and that U.S. Customs might not let him back in purely based on his word that he belong here.
Amidst the flurry of departure plans, I've been trying for the last couple of weeks to get some pricing from French suppliers, for custom orders for our clients. Factor in holidays for May 1st, Labor Day and May 8th, Armistice Day and the French habit of creating a "Pont" or bridge to the nearest weekend. A Tuesday holiday becomes Friday-thru-Tuesday and you lose the rest of the week in the "getting ready to leave" and  then the "getting over the fatigue" of so much forced recreation time. Toss in bonus distractions for election fever and I really haven't been able to get any answers for over two weeks. Is this country in need of business or not?
I've lost one client and have been grateful that another has pushed back our meeting a few times due to his business commitments. I was up at 1 am twice this week to match time-zones at the beginning of the French work day. Back to bed for a few more hours and then eyes-wide-open with the dawn and checking email to see if I had my answers. The planets aligned for me with my client asking for one more reschedule and the quote arriving in my in-box Friday morning.
I try not to give up my weekends to work but I was happy to have an 11:30 am appointment this morning with someone who has a proven record of not being a waste of a good Saturday.  This morning his housekeeper answered the door and said he was still in bed, as he'd returned home late the night before. I offered to come back but there was movement from the top of the stairs and we went ahead with our meeting; client tousle headed, in PJ's and clutching his coffee cup but gracious and asking good questions. He also produced his check book and ordered the stone that will be custom cut in France, before they go on vacation for the summer, we hope.
I held a private celebration, in a shoe store, on the way home....Because I'm worth it!

The Plane-Tree Massacre

by Julian Barnes July 23, 2001

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In "The Unquiet Grave," Cyril Connolly, the thinking person's hedonist, described the particular thrill of driving south through France: "Peeling off the kilometres to the tune of 'Blue Skies,' sizzling down the long black liquid reaches of the Nationale Sept, the plane trees going sha-sha-sha through the open window, the windscreen yellowing with crushed midges, she with the Michelin beside me, a handkerchief binding her hair . . ." Some may claim—perhaps because they are driving more slowly—that the trees actually make a softer sound, more schwaa-schwaa than sha-sha. But any argument about the correct onomatopoeia may soon become historical. The greater argument is about whether or not the trees should even be allowed to exist anymore. Jean Glavany, the French Minister of Agriculture, whose concern evidently does not extend to silviculture, has just declared that "plane trees lining the roads amount to a public danger," and that they should all be cut down.

This is a shocking and, on the face of it, un-French attitude. The arbres d'alignement are an emblematic part of the French heritage: the fat trunks with bark like peeling distemper, the carefully sculpted and pollarded crowns, the leafy canopy arching high above the central road marking. A further part of the heritage is the traditional right of drivers to aim their cars into these unforgiving boles without any provocation on the part of the trees. The killer plane trees' most famous victim was Albert Camus, on his way north to Paris in 1960 with Michel Gallimard, whose Facel-Vega HK 500 attacked first one, then another tree on the Route Nationale Cinq near Sens. (Facel-Vega ceased making cars four years later.) In 1999, a government road-safety report concluded that "lateral obstacles"—most of which happen to be trees—are involved in thirty-eight per cent of fatal traffic accidents in France.
It's certainly true that France has the best roads and the worst drivers in Western Europe. Portugal and Greece may kill a higher percentage of their motoring populations, but they have the excuse of lower-quality highways. The French are also European leaders when it comes to direct action. The Minister's death threat came as a response to an incident in the Hautes-Pyrénées. A motorcyclist died after colliding with a tree, whereupon a demonstration by grieving motards turned into a revenge mission: the chain saws came out, and a hundred plane trees, ninety-nine of them guilty by association, were levelled. M. Glavany, whose constituency happens to be in the Hautes-Pyrénées, sided with his potential voters. Not since Reagan blamed the forests for air pollution have trees received such high-level political condemnation.
By the end of the nineteenth century, France had as many as three million arbres d'alignement; now there are perhaps two hundred and fifty thousand. To those who defend them, the argument is based on rural tradition and, simply, beauty: the tree-lined alleys have the splendor of cathedral naves, with the light slanting in through the vertical slit windows. To solipsistic motorists, they are lateral obstacles, and the quick play of sun and shade disturbs those who invoke their civic right to drive faster than reason suggests. To the Minister, a tree is only a tree, and head count is all that matters: "For me, this is no time for hesitation. If we cut down all these trees, we can always plant the same number somewhere else." The notion of denuding the highways and replanting on harmless empty lots is dismissed by one protester—in a phrase only the French could invent—as "vegetal cicatrization."
One category of trees has at least escaped ministerial censure: the planes and poplars that for centuries have been planted along the towpaths of canals. In the future, those seeking the Connolly effect may be forced to do so by water, though whether the trees would make the proper sha-sha is dubious. And all it would take would be a drunken bargeman half blinded by the changing light, or a couple of speeding motorboats failing to negotiate a tree-lined bend, for M. Glavany and his motard chums to be out again with their chain saws.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2001/07/23/010723ta_TALK_PYRENEES_POSTCARD#ixzz0eQBY7P8n