Driving between Tennessee and Georgia ... and memories

In my post of June 11, 2018, I mentioned that our black walnut tree had been uprooted by the wind and fallen on the roof of our Georgia house.  I drove from Nashville to Georgia to have it removed, then found a roofer who agreed to replace the roof in August.  In August I drove back to Georgia but he did not show up.  I had to find another roofer who agreed to replace the roof last Tuesday, September 18, so I drove back to Georgia on Sunday 16th, 2018.  Because of Hurricane Florence the insurance company had delayed our claim and not approved the new roofer.  The new date for the roof will be in October and I'll drive back here then.  Last month I stopped at my usual rest area on highway I-24 near South Pittsburg, Tennessee.  This time I could see a white blanket near the banks of the lake and as I approached was greeted by a million of little flowers with a sweet aroma (similar to jasmine.)  They formed a cascade of delicate flowers on the fence.  Their name is "Virgin's Bower" (aka Devil's Darning Needles or Old Man's Beard.)  This little flagrant flower is from a vine, the clematis virginiana, from the Ranunculaceae family (buttercup) it is aggressive and invasive.  The Cherokee Indians used it for medicinal purposes.

When I stopped again last Sunday the flowers were gone as well as the sun.  Below is a map showing where the rest stop is located between Tennessee and Georgia.

I am still in Georgia, working in the house, clearing, cleaning, giving away but I did hurt my back a bit as well as my recently operated knee by moving some heavy objects, so am taking a break today.  I'll drive back to Nashville in a couple of days.  All the closets are still packed full and while cleaning I always find some items I have not seen in years.  Again I found bags with old photos.  These are film pictures, taken years ago.  My scanner is now in Nashville but I copied some of the photos with my cell phone so I could show them here.

Looking at some of these photos brought back many good memories.  I did not look at all of them as I need to spend as much time as I can on clearing out the house.  I don't even watch TV apart from the news and weather, and lately the news brought back some memories that were not that good.  When I left Paris, France, in the early 1960s, to travel to the USA, a friend who had lived several years here gave me some advice.  He said that the US culture was very different from the French, that it was male-oriented.  He added that in France boys play with girls from an early age and feel comfortable with them and respect them.  They can have close female friends for years without any sexual situation.  But in the US, maybe because of boys' dominated sports, starting in schools, gender inequity starts early, and girls are supposed to care about boys' feelings but not vice versa.  He also said that there is a great deal of violence against women in the US that goes unreported because abusers are protected and women are discredited, disparaged and blamed.  So he added ... "you are pretty, so watch out."  And this was back in the 1960s ...  Below are some pictures I found of me from about that time.

On my way west I stopped in Washington, DC, to visit a girlfriend from college in the UK.  I remember that it was a lovely week-end.  My friend said that she had planned to have a picnic in a park with her boyfriend and that he had found a friend for me as a "blind date."  She added that he came from a very rich family in Maryland and had just been given a fabulous convertible car.  I did not know what a "blind date" was as we don't even have a French word for date, and told her I did not need one, but she said it would be fun.  We went to a secluded area of the park along a river, placed a blanket on the ground and the basket of food.  They had forgotten the ice for the sodas, and told me to get acquainted with him while they went to get ice.  I remember his car as being huge; I looked on Google to find one like his.  It was or similar to the Chevrolet Impala below.  He was proud of it and wanted to take me on a ride but I declined (I was not awed by that car as at the time my favorites were British sports cars, like the MG,  Morgan +4 or Jaguar.)  Then he asked if I was impressed that he attended an academy in Annapolis.  I did not know what that was and he made fun of me, saying I didn't know much but then I also was a foreigner, so that explained it.  He told me that it was the most prestigious naval academy in the world.  (Below pictures of the car, and of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.)

He said something like "You are from Gay Paree, then, you know more things like this ..." and he proceeded to pin me on the ground and grab my shirt.  I was terrified and did not know what to do.  I tried to move from under him but he was big.  I started to panic as he was grabbing my bra and pulling my trousers down.  But then I heard my friends coming back and he pulled away.  They could see I did not look right so I told them I had these terrible cramps and needed to get back home for medicine and they took me back.  I never told anyone ever, this is the first time I mention it.  I felt terrible shame that he would think because I was French I was easy and tried to forget it.  I'll give you one more time I was assaulted, at my first job, in San Francisco a few years later.  Here are pictures of me at about that time.  I found these yesterday, and they are not technically good.

My office in San Francisco was on Post Street, close to Union Square.  It was not very large, maybe about 50 employees or so.  I really enjoyed working there and had made many friends, male and women.  My best friends were a woman from Texas and also two gay males, who were wonderful gourmet cooks.  I was a purchasing clerk and had a kindly manager.  I never had to interact with the president of the company, an elder man, who was often away on business.  Below are pictures of San Francisco in the 1960s, with Union Square.  The postcard of Post Street is vintage, early 1900s.

About 2 or 3 years after I started working there one Friday (I remember it was a Friday because most people did not stay late) I decided to work late to finish some work.  I needed to count some items and went into the warehouse in the back - a huge warehouse.  It was very dark because of the week-end coming up.  I was not sure where the items were and walked up and down the aisles.  The president of the company came behind me and asked if he could help me.  I told him what I was looking for and when he led me to the back of the warehouse in almost total darkness I was not suspicious.  Alas, he turned on me, grabbed me and tried to undo my blouse.  I started to shout but he placed his hands on my mouth.  Again I was petrified and remembered my last encounter.  It was so dark there.  He pushed me against the shelves and I fought to get him to move his hands away, doing so I knocked a bunch of boxes on the shelf that went crashing down making a huge noise.  Unbeknownst to us there was a warehouse employee working and he came running to see what the noise was.  The president said it was a mouse that had scarred me.  I don't know if he believed it but I was able to get back to my desk and leave.  I was sick about it the whole week-end but did not tell anyone as I needed the job and knew no one would believe me since he was the president.  I did not even go to my Clairol hair modeling job that I had on week-ends.  (More pictures I found in the closet from that era.) 

I had two more instances like these in another company, but not as bad.  I never told anyone about any of them until now.  The first one happened in the early 1960s or more than 50 years ago!  But you know I have never forgotten and as I was writing this tears were falling down my cheek.  It's silly I know, it was such a long time ago.  I tried to forget but it had been traumatic and I could not.  I researched and found out that the US has 75% more rapes than in France, that it is one of the top 3 countries in the world for sexual assaults.  Every 98 seconds a woman is sexually assaulted in the US and one out of every 5 women is assaulted in college.  The US Justice Dept estimates that 300,000 American women are raped every year (but the CDC estimates that because it is highly unreported the number is closer to 1.3 millions.)  The US audience, male and female, does not seem to care and more assaults go unreported as the victims are usually not believed and blamed if they come forward (63% of assaults are unreported and 99% of aggressors go free.)  I read a couple of weeks ago that some men reported that when they were children (40+ years ago) and Altar Boys, they had been sexually assaulted by priests.  Those men were believed and not ostracized and harassed and no one sent them death threats - but then, they are men, aren't they?  As long as women are not taken seriously (women make 51% of the US population but only 19% of the Congress) there won't be much equality under the law.  The Parliamentary Union compared in 2018 women in parliament in 193 countries,  France came no. 14 and the US no. 103.  Well, I better talk about better memories from my old photographs.  Below, the top pictures are in Bruges, Belgium.  The bottom left is at Butchart Gardens, Victoria, BC, Canada and on the bottom right the Tezcuco Plantation in Burnside, Louisiana, built in 1855.

The top left picture below was taken during the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta.  We had purchased tickets to attend the bicycle racing games in Stone Mountain.  The top right picture was taken in Browning, northwest Montana, the site of the tribal government of the Blackfeet Nation, an American Indian reservation established by treaty in 1855.  I had visited my younger daughter who was spending the summer in Montana for her Master's Thesis from Jones Hopkins University.  She was studying something about the health of Native American women.  The bottom two pictures were taken at Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada, that borders Glacier National Park in Montana.

More pictures of the Blackfeet Nation festival.  The bottom right photo was taken on my 60th birthday with my two daughters. 

There are more pictures that I have not seen in ages.  It will be fun to go through those, once I am finished with the Georgia house.  But that won't be for many more months - after additional driving between Nashville and greater Atlanta, Georgia.

End of Summer 2016, kudzu and Bucatini all'Amatriciana

The calendar tell us we are in autumn already.  Here, it still feels like summer, albeit the end of it.  Last Sunday the temperature was 93 F (33.8 C) but this week we are starting to have a "cold front" which means the temperature will be in the low 80s F (28 C.)  The little flowers you can see in my heading picture bloom in late summer and have a pleasant sweet fragrance.  What type are they? you may ask.  They are flowers of the Pueraria montana plant, from the pea family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae, or in plain English, they are the flowers of the kudzu vine.  (Click on collage twice to embiggen.)

I understand you can make jelly from these kudzu flowers, but I certainly don't want that many vines in our front yard as kudzu is invasive and will kill trees.  In the top photo in the collage above you can see a large black pipe in the background.  The county Water Commission cut over 30 of our trees (see pictures in my January post here) and their machinery propagated the kudzu vines to our front yard.  Kudzu is from Southeast Asia and was introduced in the US in 1876 as an ornamental shrub then later on, in the Southern US, to feed goats and as an erosion control.  But it grows rapidly and will cover everything in its path.  There was a field close to our house with a small abandoned house in the center of it.  Within 2 or 3 summers the field was totally covered with kudzu and the house was just a bump in the field.  Below are some photos from a road about one mile away, kudzu around our mailbox and climbing on pine trees in our front yard.  (The barn covered in kudzu courtesy UGA.)

Throughout August the Water Commission worked on our road, digging and installing big water pipes for their water main.  They even used dynamite which made our house shake.  They also cut our cable often and toward the end of August, for over 10 days, we had no cable access (no TV, no computer) from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm.  Some days we could not get out of our driveway for hours, or get back home.

I took pictures as the work progressed.  It was noisy and dusty.

But the summer had some highlights - such as the Tour de France which I followed on TV.  In the evenings, from August 5 through 21, we watched the Olympic Games held in Rio de Janeiro.  The U.S. women's gymnastics team was spectacular, as well as champion swimmer Michael Phelps.  Congratulations to the athletes of Team America for winning 121 medals.  It was fun to watch small countries winning medals, such as Ahmad Abughaus, 20 years old, who won the first medal in the history of Jordan, in men's taekwondo.  Dilshod Nazarov of Tajikistan won the Olympic men's hammer title and captured the first gold medal for the Central Asian country since it gained its independence with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.  Majlinda Kelmendi made history by becoming the first athlete from Kosovo to win an Olympic medal (the first medal since Kosovo became a state in 2008.)  The Fiji men's rugby team finally landed their country its first medal, a gold one, when Fiji beat its former colonial ruler, Britain, by 43-7.

How about France's golden boxing couple?  France's Tony Yoka won the gold medal against Britain's Joe Joyce.  Tony is the first Frenchman to win gold in boxing heaviest division.  His girl-friend, Estelle Mossely, competed in the women's lightweight boxing match against Chinese boxer Yin Junhua and won the gold as well.  Tony and Estelle are planning to be married, and France is super excited = boxing and love! C'est magnifique!

But not everything was fun and love this summer.  There was the terrible tragedy in Nice, France.  When a tragedy happens in one's country, a city visited many times, it seems to hurt more.  We see so much bad news on TV that, unfortunately, we often cannot grieve as well for unknown parts of the world.  One year I purchased my flight on Delta Airlines months before flying to Paris to see my mother.  Then Delta had a sale.  They gave me a coupon for the difference in price.  The coupon turned out to be the same price as a round-trip flight to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  So, I flew there, by myself, and stayed several days.  Baton Rouge means "red stick" in French.  It was translated by explorer Sieur d'Iberville and his exploration party in 1699 from the native term "Istrouma" or the Choctaw "iti humma" which means red pole.  I took photos with my old film camera and also purchased postcards.  Here are some below.

I rented a car and visited many historic plantations along the Mississippi River.  I'll try to find my old film photos and if some are OK I'll have a post later on.  Below is a postcard showing some of them: Nottoway, Houmas House, Oak Alley, Destrehan and San Francisco plantations.

In mid-August I was so sad to watch on the news the extreme flooding in and around Baton Rouge.  It was difficult to look at the devastation - 60,000 homes damages or destroyed in Louisiana.  I remembered the city well with its friendly citizens.  I had even spoken French with several Cajun families.  Below are some photos showing the flooded Baton Rouge area (courtesy Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper.)

In high school in France we had to study two foreign languages: 1) English or German, 2) German or English, Spanish, Russian or Italian.  I took English as my first language and Italian as my second.  We were about 37 in my English class, but only 3 students in my Italian class.  Consequently, I spoke much better Italian than English when I finished high school.  I had an Italian pen-pal who invited me to stay in her home for several summer vacations and I went there during the months of July and August.  She lived on the bank of the Adriatic Sea in the town of San Benedetto del Tronto.  I remember when I arrived there the first time I was in awe.  Coming from grey Paris here was a town with palm trees and flowers in the avenues and a turquoise colored sea.  I did take pictures, but they were small and in black and white.  But here are some old postcards below.  I placed a blue dot under Ancona (under San Marino, on the right) in the region of the Marches, to show where San Benedetto is located.

The parents of my pen-pal Marisa, had a farm/winery inland also, in the surrounding area of Ascoli Piceno, near Arquata del Tronto (shown in pictures below.)  The Tronto is a river that ends in San Benedetto del Tronto.  We would drink the wine from their farm and it was very good.  They had a rose wine, like a sherry, in which we would place pieces of peaches and then eat and drink this as a dessert.  They also had an amber colored wine, sweet and strong, which was a good accompaniment to smoked ham and melon.  I was able to achieve a similar taste with a Serrano ham, a "melorange" melon from Arizona and a glass of Ipsus Pantelleria Passito.

On August 23, 2016, at night, before turning the light off I checked my iPad and saw that there had been an earthquake in central Italy at 9:36 pm US Eastern time, or 3:36 am August 24, in Italy.  I stayed up to find out where this earthquake had been.  The epicenter of the 6-2-magnitude quake was in Accumoli, 9 miles from Arquata del Tronto (where the family had their farm/winery.)

The next several days I was on the computer as much as possible (whenever the Water Commission did not turn our cable off...)  reading on Italian internet sites.  This quake caused the death of 297 people and flattened most of Arquata del Tronto, Amatrice and Accumoli.  Many injured were taken to hospitals in San Benedetto del Tronto, 44 miles away (71 km.)  Such a terrible tragedy - I'm deeply saddened by the loss of life and all the destruction.  (Pictures below courtesy La Repubblica.)

What a devastating loss for these close-knit communities that have been there for centuries.  These picturesque mountain villages are sparsely populated.  As you can see by my collage above most buildings have crumbled.  I heard an old man saying on TV "il mio paese non esiste piu" /my village does not exist anymore.  It is heartbreaking.  I read an article talking about the seniors living in these villages, saying (in Italian and I translate)  "...Old people who have lived their whole lives in familiar four walls saw them collapse in a matter of seconds.  They are lost in the crowd of desperate people who have lost everything, like them.  Almost.  Because when you're old you no longer have the time to reconstruct a different life.  You do not have time to get used to a house that is not yours, and that you never knew.  No time.  And perhaps not even want to.  They are left there to watch the ruin of their past and the massacre of their future..."  Below are photos of Amatrice from before (on left) and after the earthquake (on right,) courtesy USA Today.

I went to look at the internet site of the city of Amatrice, which had been voted last year as one of Italy's most beautiful historic villages.  It still showed an ad for their upcoming festival for the 50th anniversary (on August 27 and 28) of their famous sauce for spaghetti called Spaghetti all'Amatriciana (invented by local shepherds in the Middle Ages.)  I copied the artwork you can see below.  It also showed the welcoming sign, at the entry of the town which said "Amatrice, 955 meters above sea level, citta' degli spaghetti all'amatriciana/city of the spaghetti a l'amatriciana."

But the festival did not take place, alas.  For a sad remembrance of their beautiful festival and to honor the people of Amatrice I drove to the DeKalb Farmers' Market in Atlanta (40 miles away/64 km) to buy the necessary ingredients to make Bucatini all'amatriciana.  It is a classic, simple but hearty Italian pasta dish.  The dish has six ingredients: bucatini pasta, not spaghetti (bucatini pasta is thick and hollow,) guanciale (cured pig jowl) but pancetta can be used, pecorino cheese, red pepper, white wine and genuine tomatoes from San Marzano.  I added a small onion in mine.  I was pleased to find the bucatini pasta and a genuine can of imported San Marzano tomatoes.  It did not take long to cook and it was delicious, but bittersweet.

I wished to finish the end of the 2016 summer with something positive.  To bring these villages back to life, they should not be just names on a map.  There was joy there, the love of good food; so we need to keep alive their famous pasta sauce, Amatriciana (there are many recipes on the internet.)  (for those who wish to help, here is a link to ItalianAmericanRelief.org .)

I hope all my blogging friends had a good summer 2016, filled with good memories.

Above is a photo of the Frecce Tricolori (Tricolor Arrows) the aerobatic demonstration team of the Italian Air Force (the Aeronautica Militare Italiana.)  This is to express my sympathy to the members of the Italian Air Force (I enjoyed working with them for almost ten years) and to Italy.

Medals per Capita - Olympic Games 2012

In my post of Saturday July 27, 2012, I mentioned that I was sad that the Tour de France had ended. I had written the post the night before and published it at 1:00 am on Saturday morning. When I turned the TV on later than morning I was surprised to see some cycling event – I thought it was a Tour de France rerun, truly. Then I realized that the background did not look like some French country village and noticed a pub – it was a biking event for the Olympic Games! I kept watching and was very happy when Alexander Vinokourov of Kazakhstan came ahead of all the others and won the gold medal. Here he is below at the Tour de France 2012 (photo Wikimedia Creative Commons.)



Vino, as he is called, started bicycling when he was 11 years old. He was in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games as an amateur and finished 53rd. I saw him in many Tours de France, wearing the Kazakhstan’s colors of turquoise and gold. Last year I was watching the Tour de France live on TV when Vino plunged into a deep ditch with his bike. Two people had to go and retrieve him. I was hoping he was not hurt but he was – his femur was broken and he had to abandon the Tour. At the time he decided to retire but this year he returned into competitive cycling for one last year and made this unexpected victory. At 38 he can be very happy to have been victorious at the Olympic Games and defeating, by himself, the British cycling “dream team” and obtaining a gold medal for the men’s cycling road race. Vinokourov shown below with the gold medal (image source: Creative Commons Flickr user Lee.)



I watched a number of events on television during the Olympic Games but had to stop several times because there were too many commercial breaks. I read that television coverage was much better in Canada and Norway where a great variety of events were shown to completion with minimum commercials. Here, both the opening and closing ceremonies were edited for the US viewing audience. The British public was shocked to find out that the tribute to the victims of the “7/7 terrorist attacks” performance had been censored by NBC. NBC Spokesman said “Our programming is tailored for the US audience” - an interview with swimmer Phelps was inserted instead. I read a blogger who wrote “Can you imagine the BBC opting to cut out a tribute to 9/11 at a future Olympics held in the States because it wasn't "tailored for a UK audience"?' Since I did not see the Olympic Games in London I have to rely on photographs in the public domain, those without a copyright or some very mediocre shots taken from my small TV. Below is the Olympic Monument at the International Olympic Committee Building in Lausanne, Switzerland (public domain photo.)



During the week, I watched the US Men’s National Basketball team play against the Lithuanian Basketball team. LeBron James of the USA scored 20 points against the Lithuanians. The US team won by 99 to 94. I read about the US Men’s National Basketball team (Team USA) and saw that they were talented professionals picked from several states. They include players like Lebron James from the Miami Heat (originally from Ohio,) Kobe Bryant from the Los Angeles Lakers (originally from Phladelphia, PA,) Tyson Chandler from the New York Knicks (originally from California,) Kevin Durant from the Oklahoma City Thunder (originally from Washington, DC.) Then I looked at Lithuania – it is slightly larger than West Virginia with a population of 3,192,800. Below is Team USA player Kobe Bryant in pre-Olympic game (US Air Force public domain photo.)



I also watched the women’s handball Montenegro team playing against Russia. Montenegro, slightly smaller than Connecticut, has a population of 620,029 which is less than the city of Detroit, Michigan (713,777.) Russia has a population of 143,056,383. Thinking about this it seems to me that large and rich countries have an advantage as there is more money available and a larger pool of talent to choose from. The city of Los Angeles alone has more people – 4,065,585 than many of these other countries. What if Team USA members could only be chosen from the city of Los Angeles rather than from the whole USA? Below is Tower Bridge in London with the Olympic Rings (source: Wikimedia Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike.)



On another blog this week I saw a commenter who wrote that he wished US and China wouldn’t win so many medals. Another commenter replied that he was wrong – that US athletes trained very hard and had the same chances. I still think that larger and richer countries have an advantage. For example I was raised in France –I liked swimming, ice skating and horseback riding. I could only practice if I went on my own - no coach, no trainer. In college it was the same thing – there certainly was not a football or basketball field at La Sorbonne in Paris then – and I doubt that there are some now. But my husband was able to be on the rowing team at his college in Marietta, Ohio – he did not have to go and join an expensive club. Photo below – Rowing at the Summer Olympics (image source: Creative Commons Flickr user Steve Elliott.)



In the USA sports are a priority. Children can start early, then in high school sports are part of the school program. There are summer sport camps. Sport scholarships can be obtained to attend colleges and universities. In addition there are more sports clubs at the community level in a variety of sports to pick up promising young athletes. Then when professional athletes are chosen for Team USA, for example, it is easier to choose from a country of 313,382,000 (USA) than Tunisia (10,673,800) which played against them 10 days ago. This is not taking away from what the US athletes accomplished but it has to be acknowledged that sports are well funded here and other rich countries. Many poor countries don’t even have one Olympic size swimming pool and their athletes cannot afford a racing bicycle. "USA Swimming” a 300,000 member organization promotes swimming from the youngest ages. Look at their site here. Population is not as important, I believe, as a country’s wealth, because I don’t think Bangladesh with a population of 161,000,000 even entered the Olympics. Photo below is the 1896 Olympics Gold Medal (Public domain.)



While I was looking at the statistics of various countries I found a site showing the “Medals per Capita.” Their motto is “Olympic glory in proportion.” They also have calculated Olympic medals by each country’s gross domestic product. I thought it was quite interesting. New Zealand won 13 medals or 1 medal per 340,970 residents- so their rank is 4th. America with 114 medals comes in 40th place with one medal per 3.4 million residents. Here is the site: Medals per Capita. – I found it fascinating – it certainly gives a new perspective, but many may find it boring - or won’t care. Here are some shots of the closing ceremonies from my TV screen.



We watched the Closing Ceremonies last night. I enjoyed the “Imagine” performance with the pictures of John Lennon. London and all the participating countries should be proud of these Olympic Games – they were a success.

The 14 of July, the Tour de France and Olympic Games history

Those who have been reading my blog for a while have already seen my post on the 14 of July, which is a National Holiday in France. In Anglophone countries it is called “Bastille Day” but I don’t remember hearing it called Le Jour de la Bastille in France, it is always “le Quatorze (14) Juillet.” You can see my earlier post below –

Recollection: 14th July Fete Nationale and interesting history - July 2009 here

Below is the traditional bouquet showing the French tricolor, blue red and white, painted by Vincent Van Gogh in 1887 (Dutch painter, 1853-1890.)

Vase avec bleuets et coquelicots, 1887, Van Gogh

Again this year, France will celebrate Bastille Day which, as I mentioned before, is the commemoration of the storming of the Bastille prison on 14 July 1789. This was more a symbolic gesture than the deliverance of the prisoners since there were only from 7 to 11 prisoners there at the time. It was a fight against oppression, the end of the monarchy and transfer of power to the people. The starving people of Paris revolted not only against the King, but also against the powerful and wealthy Church, the taxes levied by the Church and all the privileges the Church clergy had. They rebelled against high unemployment, taxes and inflation. French King, Louis XVI went about bankrupt helping the Americans rebels win their independence from England and had incurred massive debts. So, in a strange way the American Independence could have been instrumental in bringing about the French revolution.

The celebration starts the evening of July the 13th with parades, walking bands and balls in the streets. On the 14th there is usually a parade down the Champs-Elysées in Paris and great fireworks everywhere.



It is a happy time, just like the 4th of July in the US. French flags can be seen in the streets and on some houses, which is an unusual site. Flags are not as prominently shown in Europe as they are in the US. I am not sure why. It could be that people there think that too much national pride can result in the type of nationalism (believing other countries are inferior) which brought so many devastating and bloody wars to their countries for centuries. Too much flag-waving makes them a bit uneasy I believe.

Le 14 Juillet painting by Roland Dubuc, French 1924-1998

Last year when we were in Vienna, Austria, I had a hard time finding an Austrian flag – finally found one on top of the palace. It was the same in Malta – I don’t recall whether I ever found one. In Bordighera, Italy, I walked all over town and finally found one small Italian flag at the police station. But along the route of the Tour de France many flags can be seen – from a variety of countries. Below from top left is the flag of Belgium next to the flag of the USA, then the French flag next to the flag from Luxembourg (almost the same as the French.)

The 99th Tour de France started this year on Saturday 30th June in Liège, Belgium and will end in Paris, on the Champs-Elysées on Sunday, July 22th. It will have covered a distance of 3,497 kms or 2,172.94 miles. I have written several posts on the Tour de France and its history, such as -

What is the Tour de France, July 2009 here
At the bottom of my post on Song of France and Ohio State University, July 2010 here
Tour de France in Alps - Galibier, July 2011 here

bike 102 (Courtesy Bicycle Clipart)

The route of the Tour changes every year. For 19 years now it has started in another country like Belgium, England, Italy, etc. Every other year it switches from a clockwise to counter-clockwise direction around France. It winds across flatland to high mountain tops in the Pyrénées and the Alps. Below is the route for this year.

The race is watched by millions of international fans on the roads and on TV. It really is an international event. Where can you find live sports that include members of many nations in the same teams and, in addition, a sport that can be seen every year free of charge, day after day, for three weeks? For example Sylvain Chavanel of France is in the same team as Levi Leipheimer of the USA, and Ryder Hesjedal of Canada is in the same team as Tyler Farrar of the USA, Robbie Hunter of South Africa and Johan Vansummeren of Belgium. So this is why there are so many fans waving a variety of flags. Below on the left is Yukiya Arashiro of Japan, then top right is Cadel Evans from Australia (who won the Tour in 2011) followed by Mark Cavendish from the Isle of Man, England, a sprinter who so far has won 21Tour de France stages and Peter Sagan of Slovakia who, as I am writing, has already won three stages on the tour this year.



Watching the Tour de France is like taking a trip there as helicopters hovering over the cyclists also show views of the surrounding landscape and monuments. We saw the cathedral of Rouen as well as picturesque villages, streams and castles. My photos are not too clear as I snapped them from my TV.



I have listened to TV commentators talk about all the cyclists both on US and French television. French fans would obviously be happy if a French cyclist won a stage (day-long segment of the Tour) on the 14th of July since it is a holiday and they can go and watch it live or on the television, but foreign cyclists are cheered just the same along the route. I was happy when Lance Armstrong won the Tour and am pleased to see a young American or French win a yellow, white, green or polka dot jersey, but all the men on the Tour are great fearless athletes. Right now my favorites to be the 2012 Tour winner are Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, Brad Wiggins of the UK or Cadel Evans of Australia – the country has nothing to do with it – may the best man win. I was also very excited when a young cyclist, Chris Froome, born in Kenya and a UK citizen, unexpectedly won a stage. The young Fredrik Kessiakoff from Sweden is also showing much promise.



To see the Belgians cheering the German cyclists, the Swiss cheering the Swedish cyclist and the French cheering whoever rides by make me so happy. It is so unlike the Olympic Games we watch in the US. In 1996 the Summer Olympic Games were in Atlanta. My husband and I were fortunate to buy some tickets to watch the men cycling competition. I remember it well. It was a warm and sunny day. There were different types of cyclist competition - time trials, pursuit and race. Below is one of the postcards I purchased.



All the seats in the velodrome were taken – the place was packed. When the competition was about 1 hour from being finished many spectators left. I mean a lot of them. I was quite surprised and asked my husband if he knew what was happening. He replied that the last US cyclist has been eliminated so that spectators were not interested in watching the rest of the game without any American cyclist in it. I was totally dumbfounded.



We stayed to the end. By then you could almost count the spectators. I remember the gold winner was an Italian, the silver was a Canadian and the bronze was Stuart O’Grady of Australia but there were a handful applauding at the award ceremony. I felt ashamed really as these were guests here and we were not showing them much courtesy or respect. I thought then that it was because Atlanta was not a very cosmopolitan town; however I was saddened because there had been thousands of volunteers who had worked tirelessly for the games to ensure everyone’s pleasure.



These were the “Centennial” Olympic Games, the modern games that French aristocrat Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded in France and which first took place in Athens in 1896.



The history of the Olympic Games is a long one. The games started in Greece around 776 BC but then declined in importance and ended around 390 AD. The games were started again, in a fashion, between 1796 and 1798 in revolutionary France and called “L'Olympiade de la République.” Then other European countries held similar Olympic Games festivals. But in the 1890s, at a French Federation of Sports convention, French Baron Pierre de Coubertin suggested that a modern version of the Olympic Games should be established. He organized an Olympic Congress at the Sorbonne University in Paris in 1894 to re-establish the games. Over 2000 people came, including some from the USA, UK, Jamaica, Sweden and New Zealand. They voted to modernize the games and the first Olympic Games took place in Athens in 1896. Below are stamps in honor of Pierre de Coubertin.



The prototype for the Olympic flag was conceived by Pierre de Coubertin and made under his direction by the Paris department store “Le Bon Marché.” It was presented the first time on 17 June 1914 to the French President of France – Raymond Poincaré.



After founding the modernized Olympic Games, Pierre de Coubertin became the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC.) The “Comité International Olympique” (IOC) is based now in Lausanne, Switzerland. Pierre de Coubertin, president of this committee, moved it there before the First World War so it would be in a neutral territory. To this day Pierre de Coubertin’s ideological stamp is still bearing on the Olympic Games which is the reason why French is the official language of the games (without de Coubertin’s vision, hard work and dedication. the games may not have ever become popular again.) English is also spoken at the games. Below is a French book called “The Fabulous History of the Olympic Games” by Robert Parienté and Guy Lagorce.



Pierre de Coubertin (1863-1937) was an educator, humanitarian and historian. (His grandfather had served under Napoléon Bonaparte.) Pierre dreamed of renewing the antique tradition of the games – “cette œuvre grandiose et bienfaisante : le rétablissement des Jeux Olympiques” (this majestic and beneficent masterpiece: the restoration of the Olympic Games) (de Coubertin.) He felt that “Olympism” was tightly joined to Culture. He also felt that it should be an ideal on fair play, gentlemanly amateurism and goodwill among all countries. Here he is below in a 1996 postcard.



But when I watched other Olympic Games on television I saw that the US cameras were most usually pointed toward the Americans to the exclusion of the others. Many American flags would be waved on the screen behind the athletes – and spectators in the US would shout “USA-USA.” I read that the Olympic authorities formally complained in the Salt Lake City games that the American televisions were too chauvinistic. They would not show a good competition if no American athlete was included, or at least, not for long. I read an article from Europe asking at the time if ABC or NBC (can’t remember which) realized that non-Americans were also competing at the Olympics and had also trained vigorously. The Olympic charter stipulates that the Olympic Games are about competition between athletes, not competitions between countries. Here is a map showing all the countries in the 2012 games. I know that American people are ultra sensitive about comments on their country and rarely say anything negative, but I am speaking honestly.



People here should be proud of their athletes – they win many medals that they deserve. But we also should be sensitive to other international athletes. National differences should be set aside during the games. Cheering is good but not the misguided über-nationalism and patriotic fervor that we have seen here during the last few games. It is disgraceful. The Independent newspaper in London said that there was "something sickening, even menacing," about the rhythmic chanting of "USA! USA!" at the games and the newspaper concluded "America is interested only in itself and cares only for itself." I was so happy to see thousands of people in Paris cheering Cadel Evans of Australia last year at the end of the Tour de France. I hope that the Olympic Games in London will show interest in all the athletes and that the American television channels will prove that in the US we can admire and cheer athletes from other countries, too.

Mohammad Ali holding the Olympic Torch at the Atlanta 1996 Centennial Games (author unknown)

“The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.”

- Pierre de Coubertin (1863-1937) founder of the modern Olympic Games


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