My Story

#17

WHAT’S THIS ? When I was 26, and living in Maryland, USA, I made a wanderlust trip through Europe, Africa, USA, Mexico and Central America that lasted over 35 months, almost three years. That was in 1957-60. When I returned home I began writing a memoir during 1960 and ’61. When I finished, I put it away in a closet and forgot it. I really didn’t forget it. I just didn’t think I should publish it because there were so many episodes and descriptions in there that would prove awkward to people like my relatives and my friends along the way. So I left it all alone. It’s now 2010, almost 40 years later and my family and me are living on a farm in western Wisconsin. I’ll dust off the manuscript and publish it here for the first time. –RE

After the first leg of my voyage through Europe and Africa, I sold my photos and story to the Saturday Evening Post, a popular magazine in 1958. This taught me that maybe I was cut out for a career in photojournalism.

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A FAREWELL TO PARIS




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MONTMARTRE




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ROHN PLAYS A TUNE




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TOBY AT WORK

My Story

# 17

Toby and Rudi were asleep when I returned to the studio. I tiptoed in and hit the sack immediately. When I woke up Toby was washing up and Rudi was gathering our belongings, preparing for our goodbye to Paris. I went out to bring back some baguettes for breakfast. By the time I got back, Rudi had rounded up just about everything of ours for the trip. As you can imagine, we had collected a lot of stuff in Paris- but we couldn’t take them with us. No room on the scooter! A couple of things I mailed to my parents. I think Rudi sent some stuff to Wuesterheide.

“What did you say the name of your girl friend was?” Toby asked Rudi as we munched on the baguettes and cheese.
“I didn’t “ Rudi said.
“Well what is it?” I said.
“Why do you want to know?” Rudi answered.
That was strange, I thought. It’s not that Toby or me were going to steal the girl away
from him.
“Well, if you don’t want to tell us, that’s O.K. too” Toby said.
Rudi grudgingly got his wallet and pulled out a picture of a girl, a nice-looking French girl.
“Her name is Genevieve,” He said.

I was beginning to see that some things were very personal with Rudi and he just didn’t think they deserved to be talked about in public. Maybe back in Germany he left a girl behind and he felt he was being insincere. Or maybe a guy’s love life wasn’t proper to talk about back in Wuesterheide. During the trip I learned later that his love life wasn’t the only thing he chose not to talk about.
I’m pretty good at getting information out of people. Rudi didn’t have to be forced to ‘spill all’ -- but he wasn’t someone to jibber jabber all the time. That would be annoying. And he wasn’t anyone for just shootin’ the breeze, that sort of thing.
I didn’t press the point, and Toby didn’t care anyway. Rudi started whistling. I guess it was a way of his saying that the case was closed.

Toby got the point too and said, “Well, I must say, you guys have spent a worthwhile three days in Paris! Most tourists spend a couple of weeks and half a bankroll and don’t experience a fraction of what you guys have.”

“Rudi acknowledged Toby’s comment with a slight smile as he put our sleeping bags under one arm and his suitcase under the other. I was learning that a slight smile from Rudi meant approval.

“Here, let me help you with that stuff.” Toby accompanied us down to the patio where we loaded up the scooter. “I’m going to miss you guys,” He said kicking the rear tire of the Vespa.
“We’ll see each other again,” I said confidently.
“See you later, Toby, and thank you!” Rudi said as he shook hands with him.
Toby was still waving when I looked back.

We headed out into the lively Paris afternoon, this crazy Paris that was saying, “Don’t go!” and then on the other hand, “Get the hell outta here!” We had tasted Paris and wondered if we would ever return. It didn’t matter. The world was waiting for us; we knew it. There was more on the platter to enjoy, and we were anticipating it.

In a half hour, we were breathing gulps of the French countryside air as the skyline of Paris behind us disappeared out of sight. Next, -- the skylines of Lyon! Barcelona! ! Madrid! Lisbon! Tangier! Casablanca! --- they all awaited us.

The landscape of rural France stretched out. It looked much like the land between Belgium and Paris -- rolling hills, well-kept farms, honey wagons (manure spreaders) horse drawn wagons full of hay, narrow tree-lined roads, vineyards on hillsides facing south. We were headed south toward the Mediterranean shoreline, and then west to Spain and Portugal. Our music supported us but also other things like washing restaurant windows, painting signs, sketching portraits, working on farms.

We did anything that would get us into homes of people and getting to know them. Well, I did anyway. Rudi was more interested in dinner and a dry bed at night and performing his songs. He was really good at singing his songs. Back in Paris, one of Toby’ friends had invited us to visit a music academy for singers. Rudi could’ve given any of those students at the music academy a run for their money. Rudi was really an untrained opera singer at heart. He had the right voice. It just needed some polish.

On the other hand I was the opposite in many ways. I enjoyed singing harmony to Rudi’s songs if it meant it would allow us to introduce ourselves to the people. Sure, music is universal. Never fails. We figured that out. And I think we would have been only half as successful on our trip if we didn’t have our guitars.

We never knew what we were going to get into when we stopped at a farm in early evening before the sun went down. Everybody’s a stranger until you get to know them. Even the roughest-looking peasants wouldn’t shoot at a couple of foreign strangers who had nothing more than guitars as their weapons.

I told that to an American guy in Paris and he said, “Wait a minute. That may be true in Europe but what are you gonna do in Morocco with the A-Rabs or in Black Africa? They might have never seen a guitar before and they might think it’s a club or something and come at you with sabers and stuff.”

Well, he had me there. I had no answer to that. But he was on of those guys you meet all the time on a trip like this. They want to discourage you. They don’t mean anything by it, they’re just envious. They’re just mad as hell that they see some guy doing something they wish they could be doing. They start building up scary scenarios and possible tragic evens for you. Sometimes it makes me mad, but then if I put myself in their place, say back in Baltimore. I wouldn’t be surprised that I’d do the same thing myself. I’d be so jealous.

Maybe I was biting off more than I could chew on this trip. But then I would say to myself, “First things first. I’ll see how far I can get in Europe.” I wanted to know these folks in Europe. Also, I was beginning to realize that I was depending a lot on Rudi’s experience with these kind of dangers, over there in the Near East or the Far East and he never talked about that sort of thing. Maybe he had some kind of experiences about killing that he wasn’t telling me about.
I dismissed these thoughts. Back to my mission. I wanted to learn more about Europeans. Yeah, I’m European - way back. My father’s family came from Norway and my mother’s grandparents came from Ireland. But, so what? I’m American. I don’t need to learn like how many centuries some French family has been living at some farm, or why their uncle emigrated to New York City a couple generations ago and then to a farm in Missouri. Instead, I wondered what made the people happy if they happened to have a contented style about them, or if they didn’t seem to be happy. I wanted to cut down into a deeper level of understanding of the person. I wanted to dig down farther than the usual information that strangers are willing to share with you...

I’m not a scholar-type or anything like that. I guess I just had a strong curiosity about how others were living their lives and how they got along with each other and their community and what they did when they didn’t get along. For me, maybe the good things would sink in and the bad things would be exposed and there would be some consistency in all this in the different countries we would go through, even Africa. So otherwise, why was I making a trip like this? If I didn’t want to dig into their lives, I could always read a book about these countries we were traveling to. Or I could go to a movie or a lecture about these countries and satisfy my curiosity. That kind of information didn’t appeal to me. As I said, I wanted to know what worked for them and if I could borrow any of it for myself. I wanted to lift up the curtain of privacy that people have about themselves and their family. Naturally people anywhere want to protect their privacy.
It was rewarding to me to see a farmer come in from the fields at sundown, wiping his forehead and watch his face change to a smile at the entertainment of our songs or to see the delight in the face of a grandmother as I showed her my sketch of her grandchild. Everywhere, so far, we were usually given lodging and meals. It was working.

We arrived at the farm of Monsieur Blanchard in late afternoon. He was a barrel-chested man with black eyes that sparkled when he smiled. After a few words of conversation with him, his expression changed from doubt to curiosity and finally to acceptance. “Why of course, you two can sleep in the hayloft tonight. Have you fellows had any supper?” He asked as he opened the large wooden door of the barn.
“No yet,” Rudi said. His French was getting better.
“No, well then come on in the house when you’ve got your things arranged; we’re just sitting down to the table!”
“Thank you!” We set up for the night in the hayloft. Our hungry stomachs could taste supper already.
An aroma of baking bread hit us first and then a dinner table of whispering and giggling children, awaited us when we came in the back door of the farmhouse. Two small boys, maybe 8yrs and 10 and a young girl maybe 16 or 17 awaited us. Madam Blanchard, a stout woman wearing a plain cloth white apron, was at a huge wood-burning stove stirring a large pot of potato soup. She nodded and smiled when we entered.
The evening meal in the countryside in France is usually light. The main meal of the day is around noon and usually a couple hours long. At night, it’s usually a hearty soup of some kind, some fresh bread leftover from the afternoon meal, a salad of green leaves mixed with oil and vinegar. If there’s dessert, it’s usually a local cheese, like goat cheese, plus apples or pears.
And then there’s the wine. At the farms we would visit, wine was always served. Someone told us to expect wine with every meal because the French farmers always served wine because the drinking water was not always pure. The alcohol in wine killed the bad bacteria they said. As for the children drinking wine – the mother or father always poured rain water out of a large vat and served it two thirds water and one third wine to the children.

After supper, Rudi and I got our guitars. The two young boys, Henri and Paul, competed with each other to sing songs with Rudi and me. The girl, Yolande, was shy and was satisfied only to listen. But Madame Blanchard joined in on a couple of the French songs. She had a high lovely voice. Monsieur Blanchard smiled through the whole evening.
The sun had gone down and it was getting chilly. Madam Blanchard sent the children to bed and Monsieur Blanchard put some more kindling in the wood stove and opened another bottle of wine. Pouring it in our glass and smiling he said, “This is some of our better year, 1955.” It tasted the same to me but it seemed to help me in my finger work with the guitar as Rudi and I broke into a few more American folk tunes.
When we were ready to go to bed, we heard a tumbling noise over by the head of the stairs. One of the boys, Henri, had snuck out of the bedroom and settled at the top of the stairs to hear more music. He dozed off. He wasn’t hurt and we all had a good laugh. We sang him a lullaby and all retired.

Monsieur Blanchard yawned and said, “I want to show you fellows my American tractor tomorrow if you’ve got time, “
“Sure!” I said, realizing for the first time our trip had no time restraint on it unless we made it ourselves.
When we arose the next morning, the children were already eating breakfast and we joined them with a cup of coffee and some more fresh bread and jelly.
Monsieur Blanchard started up his brand new tractor, an International Harvester “Cub” and hooked up a trailer. “Jump aboard,” he hollered to us.
He had a 60-acre farm that was considered large in middle France. In addition to his grape crop, he showed us his corn and wheat. .
“Thanks to your American machines we can use our fields to the fullest.” He shouted to me, patting the bright red fender of the tractor.
By the time our tour was over, it was nearly noon. “Why don’t you boys stay for the mid-day meal, and then head off with a good French lunch under your belts?”
That sounded fine to us and we gladly accepted. In fact we were learning on this trip you never want to disappoint your host when they want to give you something. That tactic became a little more sensitive when it came to giving you more booze.
Madam Blanchard had worked up something special for us: Rabbit.
I never tasted rabbit before. It was something like veal, but the way Madam Blanchard marinated it overnight, or spiced it up, made it taste special. We also had some of that “’55 best year” Burgundy wine again and local-made cheese.
After dinner and just about the time we had everything packed and ready to go, Rudi announced, “We’ve got a flat tire.”
There was nothing we could do but take everything off the scooter again and repair the tire. With all the running around we did in Paris, we didn’t think to check if our spare tire had air in it. It didn’t.
The whole family gathered around. “You all take it easy,” Rudi was on the ground and looked up at the group of us. “Yolande and I’ll fix the tire.” He said, winking to their 16-year-old attractive daughter. “Can we help, too?” The boys asked.
“O.K., “ Rudi grumbled.
“Yolande started to leave, but when the boys said, “And tell us more of what you did in Paris.” She elected to stay around and listen.
“Well, Rohn, let Rudi have his fun, Monsieur Blanchard winked at me “You and I are going to visit the wine cellar.”
“Fine!” I said, happy to see I was finally getting to see what one looks like.
“You’ve never been in a wine cellar?” he asked, opening a cellar door that was built at a 45-degree angle to the farmhouse.
“Nope - first time.” I said as we descended into a dark clammy room.
“Watch your step,” He warned in a voice that was deadened by the dampness.
When my eyes grew accustomed to the nearly black interior, I saw seven or eight large wine kegs on each side of the musty room.
“The temperature is always around 55-58 degrees down here he said.” In the hot summertime you can come down here to get cool and in the frozen winter you can get warm!” he chuckled. We produce the best wine of the whole Burgundy Region right here in our cellar!”
He washed out two glasses under the faucet on the wall and filled them with wine from one of the nearer kegs. Holding his glass up to the light of a small window he asked, “Do you know why I’m doing this?” He knew I wouldn’t know and said, “We do this to see if they’re any impurities in the wine.”
I raised my glass to the light of the tiny window but couldn’t see anything unusual in the bottom or floating around the top. “Must be fine wine!” I smiled at him.
“Try it!” He said punching my shoulder. “Try it!” he said again, throwing his head back and emptying his glass.
“That was 1955; how’d you like it?”
“Delicious,” I said. It was mellow and not sweet.
“Good boy!” He said, giving me a healthy slap on the back. “Now last year, there wasn’t much sun in August so the wine isn’t as good as this vintage. And he filled our glasses with 1956. I couldn’t taste the difference.
“This year we won’t have a good wine either. The frost killed most of the blossoms this past spring. But we have enough down here to last us two more years!” And he filled my glass again.
“You mean the wine in these barrels is just for your family?” I was amazed.
“Sure!” He laughed. “You can never tell when there’ll be a bad year. If we get some good years in a row, then we sell some of it on the market.” He filled our glasses again, this time from a smaller keg.
“That’s fine wine!” I remarked, lowering my glass.
“And now - my special wine made from table grapes.” He said proudly.
“All the grapes aren’t the same?” I questioned.
He filled our glasses again. “Of course not.” Ordinary wines are made from ordinary grapes. And special wines are made from special grapes.”
“That sounds like a singing commercial on the radio,” I laughed, and I put it to a melody. . singing… " Vins ordinaires sont fabriqués à partir de raisins ordinaires. et… vins spéciaux sont fabriqués à partir de raisins spéciale” … …
He laughed, and poured our glasses again. Locking elbows, and tripping lightly on our feet, we sang the refrain together in harmony. Monsieur Blanchard was a good-humored guy.
“Here is my oldest wine, 1953, -- five years.” We clinked our glasses together, and the delectable bouquet disappeared down our throats. “Don’t be bashful, pour another.” He said when he saw how much I was enjoying his wine tasting.
I tried my hand at turning the nozzle on the wine barrel and to avoid a Marx Brothers scene of the wine gushing out onto the cellar floor, I straightened up, put on a forthright face, and as professionally as possible, turned the vat’s handle. It worked just fine. Proud of myself, I sat down on one of the smaller barrels. So did he. We began to doze off. I heard his wine glass drop to the floor and smash. So did mine.
Later I heard voices, “ Here they are” … “Wake up you two!” .... “Supper’s ready!” It was Madame Blanchard’s voice. I opened my eyes slowly and remembered Monsieur Blanchard and I had cleaned up the broken glass and then wobbled over to the barn for him to answer my question about how the wine press works and then decided to take a short siesta in the straw. Rudi and Yolande and the boys had taken a walk down to the river and had just returned.
Rudi and I stayed another night at Madame and Monsieur Blanchard’s farm, but the evening’s conversations avoided the subject of wine.
The next morning, as we were preparing to take off, Monsieur Blanchard presented us each with a bottle of his ’53 vintage, “Treat some of those people down the Rhone Valley with some good wine!” he said with a wink and a broad grin.

NEXT:

On to Cravant.