I'm reading a book that I missed when it was a big hit many years ago -- The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy, about the silly, antic, sexy, crazy, emotional and ultimately life changing experiences in Paris of a single young American called Sally Jay Gorce,

This female ushered in the dawn of outrageous characters like Holly Golightly (Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's) and Isadora Wing (Erica Jong's Fear of Flying).. And the reason I missed the book when it came out is that I was in France myself -- young (just 19) but far from single and with none of Sally's wild times.

However, from Easter Sunday when my drafted-into-the-Army husband met me and our jolie petit five-month-old daughter in Paris, to the drive to his station in Orleans (say it orelee-ahns), and on to daily life with none of the conveniences of home, to the birth 9 months later of a bouncing baby boy, to travel to the Riviera, Monaco and Geneva, Switzerland to a horrendous 10-day Atlantic passage and return to Brooklyn Army Base -- my life was forever changed.

• We had to stay in a hotel until qualified for an apartment through Army Billeting. We couldn't speak French, we couldn't read French and so when it came to dinner, every night for 6 weeks we had the one menu we mastered -- jambon, petit pois and pomme de terres -- ham, baby peas and potatoes.
  

• Our eventual furnished apartment was quite nice but it had NO refrigerator or oven or hot water or bathtub or shower and just a 2-burner gas hotplate to cook on.

• The WC (water closet) took going out the apartment door, left down a marble (!) hallway, out a rear door and into an oh-so-cold shed housing only a commode.

• Heating was by cast-iron monstrosity that needed to be fed chunks of wood every 20 minutes or the fire went out.

• We had no television or record player and radio reception was not good. 

But beyond the day-to-day difficulties, I had so many positive mind openers and life changers:

• Music from the town square carousel we would walk to on the weekends.

• Wonderful landlords -- a married couple who were Translators for the U.S. in WW II.
  They owned and resided in a 5-Star hotel in Casablanca, Morocco.
  

• The graceful bridge over the Loire River where Joan of Arc fought the British.

• A 5th Century Roman aqueduct still in service.

• A small green park dotted with gleaming white marble Rodin sculptures.
  (And the first Stay Off the Grass sign I had ever seen.)
  

• Exquisite custard-filled cornucopia-shaped pastries to die for.

• "Joanie on Her Pony" as the GI's referred to the chrome statue of Jean d'Arc, the patron saint of Orleans.

• The French people -- boys marching with a baguette on their shoulder like a rifle, frilly girls prancing together, gendarmes scrubbing paint off the nipples of a nude statue, the mademoiselle across the hall (who bought black-market American cig's and wore stiletto heels and long painted nails (oh my).

All-in-all, 14 months in France imbued me with a wanderlust and deep curiosity -- an affinity for travel and feeling like the world was out there waiting for me.

Played: 16 | Download | Duration: 00:02:14

Positively,
Carolan