Wednesday, June 10, 2015

It Is All About the Stories--People Part II

Before I travel I tend to collect a few books of fiction and non-fiction on the place I am going to visit.  I involve myself in the idiomatic expressions, the geography that molded the history of the country, the foods that are most traditional and I try to see what makes the people laugh.  I read one Gertrude Stein book on the people of Paris, but did not find it enlightening.  She refuses to use commas, which can be a distraction for someone, like me, that uses commas like salt.  I also read the novel "The Paris Architect" which I mentioned in a prior post.  It is a fictional account of two very different French sisters that found themselves fighting the Nazis from within their own limited world of that time.

Stop for a minute and think back to when you were 18 years old.  Imagine waking up to a war in your country.  Imagine your father leaving to fight that war and not seeing him for 9 years.  Imagine blackouts, bombings and ration cards.  This prologue leads me to writing about the people one meets on a cruise.

One of the best experiences on these cruises is the open table where you eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with other passengers.  You can avoid people to some extent, but the true pleasure is meeting and talking to people who have lived very interesting, long lives and are strong survivors of those lives and are in a great mood because they are on a travel vacation!  (Even an introvert like me gets sucked into the small talk.)



This lady wearing the red scarf above was on the cruise.  She was always dressed to the nines.  Earrings, several bracelets, finely knit sweaters, etc.  She stood about five feet tall and was full of energy and enthusiasm.  She was 80-something and traveling alone. She was also very religious as I saw the time she almost missed the bus because she forgot her audio guide machine she crossed herself while rushing back to her cabin. One evening as we sat at one of the round tables she asked to join us for dinner.  Oddly I had not noticed her on this trip until this time.  Her accent was unusual and while she spoke clearly I had to lean in carefully to understand her.  Asking enough questions I slowly got her life story.

She had owned and helped run a cattle ranch in Ohio.  She even raised meat for the Cincinnati Zoo.  She talked about the price of beef on the hoof and the hard work ranching entailed.  When I asked where she was from originally she said France!  (I thought about it and realized that her accent was a version of French, but after decades in the U.S., not easily identifiable.)

She smiled and said that she had fallen in love with a U.S. soldier when just a teenager in France during WWII.  She and her mother and sister were trying to survive while her father had gone to fight the war and they feared he had become a POW.  She married the U.S. soldier while in France and lived in France with her mother and the soldier where he was stationed for several years.  Late one evening there was a knock at her door.  Although the Germans had fled and the war was almost over, she and her mother were afraid to open the door.  Then they recognized the voice.  It was her father!  They had not seen or heard from him for nine years.  She said she almost did not recognize him when she opened the door as he had lost so much weight and was so bruised and weak.  I cannot imagine the emotional reunion, repeated many times across Europe.

Later when her husband was called back she moved with him to the U.S. only to find he was not the man she thought.  He was cruel and demanding and she eventually divorced.  Perhaps the war had changed him more than they both knew until he was back home.  (I did not know at the time she told this story that she was Catholic, but I should have expected as she was French.)  She tells of meeting  another soldier whom she marries and they went on to Ohio to ranching and that is where she spent the rest of the decades of her life. (A lot of the best story of her life is unquestionably during these times.)  She was most certainly a survivor, one for whom the twists and turns of life were just a dance move to be mastered.   She is now a widow and said that, at the end of the cruise, she was going to visit her married sister who still lived in France. 

On these two cruises we met many people of interest and perhaps in the next post I will touch on a few more.

14 comments:

  1. So interesting. We have a family friend who grew up in Hungry. He was 6 or 7 when the Germans moved into their home and later when they left, the Russians used their home. He has an extreme limp as when he was a teen he left during the Hungarian revolution and he Russians shot him in the leg...there was no medical treatment available. He came to the US as a refuge. I keep telling him he needs to record all his experiences. It takes a while for him to open up, but when he does, much like your cruise friend, WOW, what these people lived through boggles the mind. Sad to think so many in the mid-east are going through these kinds of horrors today.

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  2. Wow, that is fascinating. Thank you for sharing the stories of other people. I suppose every person, even the ones we might think are boring, probably have a fascinating story to tell. Life happens to us all.

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  3. I am impressed that you learned so much, but then introverts can be really good listeners.

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  4. I’ve never been on a cruise. The primary reason has always been that I don’t think of people who go on them as particularly interesting. But perhaps I’ve been wrong all this time?

    The thought of being trapped with a bore and unable to get away in the narrow confines of a boat frightens me.

    Should I ever find myself on my own it might not be so bad to go on a cruise. At least there’s safety in numbers and I wouldn’t have to find my own way around the world. Your cross-Europe river cruise first whetted my appetite. We’ll see.

    I am glad you had a good time.

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  5. People you meet while traveling are often the highlight of the trip.

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  6. I love meeting new people. And you've just shown us why -- the fascinating stories people have to tell.

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  7. A few years ago we visited with cousins in Germany who were children during the war. They took us to bunkers where they went during air raids on their city. Their father was in the war and held captive in Russia, and they didn't recognize him when he returned after the war...never knowing if he was dead or alive for several years.

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  8. What a life! Most people do have an interesting story if you take time to listen.

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  9. That dinner must have been one of your hilites.

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  10. Great life tale that woman has to tell- n traveling so far to see her sister is amazing.

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  11. Oh my gosh! What an interesting life this woman had. She sounds like a very courageous, adaptable, strong lady. I can't imagine traveling alone. I also love meeting people on our trips. She must have been one of the highlights. I hope her dad was able to recover and have a good life with her family.

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  12. it is fun to hear the stories of other people's lives.

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  13. Makes me wonder if she would understand my French. Or the reverse!

    I am not particularly sociable with people that I don't know, so I likely would not have met any of these follks.

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Take your time...take a deep breath...then hit me with your best shot.