I've got just the thing

What follows is a snippet of dialogue from the movie Chocolat.

The movie opens with a shot of a small French village in Burgundy. It is February, the sky is grey,  and a cold north wind blows leaves down a deserted cobble stone street. All the doors are closed, the windows shuttered.

A stranger, a dark haired woman, and her daughter arrive. Vianne Rocher, is the stranger. She proceeds to set up shop as a chocolatier. A chocolatier is not just a chocolate maker, but an artiste, one who makes chocolate seem a most beautiful piece of art. And Vianne makes the most extraordinary confectionaries. Each chocolat is special, each chocolat has its own qualities, each chocolat has a story.

Her timing could not be worse, for it is the season of lent in this most traditional of French villages. Vianne works hard to open the shop. Meanwhile, a parade of curious town characters come to inspect her delicacies. Each of them have a story to tell.

Vianne and a Cranky Old Woman 
[An old woman enters the shop and inspects Vianne's chocolats]


Vianne Rocher: What do you see?
Armande Voizin: Not a damned thing.

Vianne Rocher: Come on, it's a game. What do you see?

Armande Voizin: I see a cranky old woman too tired to play games.

Vianne Rocher: Oh. I've got just the thing for you.

Duty, Honor, Country

“Duty, Honor, Country,”  is the motto of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

These three words set the impossible standard that required former four-star general David Petraeus, then Director of the CIA to resign after disclosure of affair was made public. Petraeus was, for those who don't know, the person who in 2007 brought Iraq back from the brink of disaster after he assumed command of U.S. forces. He is considered by many as the best military strategist since General Dwight David Eisenhower.

The affair was with Paula Broadwell, his biographer. The FBI discovered the relationship after monitoring Petraeus' emails. Investigators were alerted that Broadwell may have had access to Petraeus' personal email account.

I am reminded a similar situation during World War II when rumors surfaced of an alleged affair between General Dwight David Eisenhower and his wartime driver, Kay Summersby. Thank goodness, then cooler heads prevailed and Eisenhower remained as Commander in Chief of European Operations.

Another West Point Graduate, General Douglas MacArthur, famously said:

Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

I hope that someday the American people can have the courage to stand behind those who have given so much in service to their country, the faith to see it though troubled times, and the hope to believe that brighter days are ahead. 

Sad, that it has come to a different conclusion for Petraeus.

Left or Right

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume Two (1840), Book One, Chapter II.

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

The Old Man would suggest that both political parties attempt to define the debate by definition. Thus, whether one is left or right depends on who is standing next to you.

Bitch, bitch, bitch

Bitch - (verb) Complain.

Any gender can bitch. Bitching is an activity not exclusive to women. Men can and do it all the time. It's just that when men do it, it becomes a whine. Whine, whine, whine - sounds more pathetic, and it is. Do you want some cheese with that whine?

The old man is not apolitical. In point of fact, he is intensely political. But, nobody listens to an old man. Moreover, he finds that 95% of the people out there have already made up their minds about who to vote for. No matter what you say, nothing makes a difference.

All he has to say is VOTE!

Then quit your bitchen and whinin'. And let's get back to work as Americans to make this a better country




*If you are not a native English speaker then you might not know that a bitch is a female dog. Cur is the male dog. Bitch is also a cranky, assertive female, the young female counter to a grumpy old man.  It is a few other things too, which I need not repeat here.

Red River Valley

The Red River Valley

From this valley they say you are going
We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile
For they say you are taking the sunshine
That has brightened our pathways awhile

Come and sit by my side, if you love me
Do not hasten to bid me adieu
Just remember the Red River Valley
And the cowboy who loved you so true

I've been thinking a long time, my darling
Of the sweet words you never would say
Now, alas, must my fond hopes all vanish
For they say you are going away

The Red River Valley, is perhaps as old as 1870. The Canadians claim it, but I think of the Red River Valley as the border between Texas and Oklahoma.

My mother used to sing this song to me when I was a child. Often, she would sing these words to me just before I would nod off to sleep. Many artists have recorded the song, including Jo Stafford in 1955 and an earlier version by Woody Gurthrie , but the words and the melody that I remember are my mother's. The sound is a soft and sad good-bye. The song conveys a sense of loss, a wish that our lives could continue on, but the knowledge that time moves on and, with time, our hopes vanish, but never our memories.

Joan Fletcher was not my mother, she was the mother of my brother-in-law, Andy Fletcher. She passed away the other night, peacefully I hope. I will miss her bright eyes and sweet smile. I will remember her for her wit and spunk. A favorite topic of hers was politics. We might disagree, we might even agree, but talking about it was always fun. And, I will think a long time of the good times we shared.

Poudre Canyon

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife

Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;

Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751):

Poudre Canyon, the locals pronounce it Poo-der.

The Old Man is visiting his son who is now in his first year of college at Colorado State in Fort Collins. Fathers and sons never get along at this time. They seem to eye each other like wary boxers in a ring, both trying to get in the first jab.

With relief the Old Man took the day off to drive up Highway 14, north and west of Fort Collins. The route takes you into the Rocky Mountains, west though desolate Larimer County. The fires which raged all summer long are now put out. The hillsides are bare, except for the skeletons of blackened trees. Here and there is a patch of green, the lucky trees that escaped destruction, and the sign from above that life goes on. There are signs of thanks to the firefighters which grace the driveways to the saved cabins. The river itself, once clear, is now dark, carrying enough hydrocarbons to ensure another degree or two of global warming. There is much to consider.

You are not going anywhere in particular. The next town is Walden, population less than 800, unless you head to Red Feather Lakes for solitude and serenity. Estes Park is to the south. Its route is filled with tourists heading for the wonders of Rocky Mountain National Park. Better to stay off the beaten path.

Poudre Canyon, pronounced Pooder

Highway 14 winds though Poudre Canyon, a 40 mile stretch of ancient granite rock that was carved eons ago by the Cache La Poudre River. Poudre is the French word for gun powder. And the story is that the river and the canyon were named by French miners who in 1820 were trapped by a blizzard and forced to bury their gunpowder. The Old Man wonders who lived to tell the tale.Today the narrow route through the high canyon walls is marked by numerous turnouts. In the spring and summer, kayakers hazard the river. Now in the fall, fly fishermen in waders stand knee deep fishing for mountain trout. All year round, city folks, from Fort Collins, Longmont and all along the eastern range, come to escape the frenzy of city life.

Here in Poudre Canyon, the Old Man could wonder about the passage of time. After all, the rocks, mostly Precambrian Metamorphic granite  - the Old Man looked it up - were formed over a billion years ago and then thrust up in a cataclysmic shift of tectonic plates. In the back of the Old Man's mind he hears Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

Today all is peaceful. The Old Man and his dogs Sammy and Tobie, wander along the river bank, marveling at the round granite boulders made smooth by the force of glaciers eons ago. Watered by the river and the rains, the grasses have already reappeared. Here, cooled by the mountain water, the Old Man is far from the maddening crowds.

The Boche

The Boche, a French slang word for Germans used first in WWI. Boche means pig-headed or obstinate.

Graffigny viewed from the hills my grandmother once owned

I know nothing (Je ne sais pas, Ich weiss nicht) of my grandmother's German side of the family. Marguerite Chevallier Meine was born before the turn of the last century and her mother's family was rooted in the small French village of Graffigny-Chemin, near the Vosges mountains. She always preferred her French surname Chevallier, and avoided use of her German surname.

On the subject of Germans, she was obstinate.