13 - Grim Postcard from Nice

Nice fireworks 2015

       I have lived part time in Nice since reconnecting with Brenda in 2006.   She had been there in a rental apartment for several years then; she would have probably preferred spending more of our time in the South, but I wasn't keen on leaving Paris, and we ultimately decided --for financial and logistical reasons-- to give up the Nice apartment.  We visited in the winter of 2007 in order to recuperate a few bric-a-brac for Paris and give notice to the owner.

      She put up little resistance about giving up the apartment, and I have sometimes wondered if she hadn't somehow planned it all along; but before that week was up, I had fallen in love with Nice and the French Riviera.  We left the bric-a-brac where they were, and we've never seriously discussed giving up the apartment since.

     So every few months we find ourselves back on rue de France.  There isn't an enormous amount to do.  We walk, and bicycle, and occasionally swim.  We don't hide from the sun.  We have an exceptional list of wonderful little restaurants for lunch, then we often head for a park to play a game of Scrabble.   Other than that, we go to the movies, an occasional concert or exhibit, and consume a steady flow of DVDs.  To some, with its stunning blue azure backdrop of the French Riviera, life might sound idyllic, to others downright boring.

     Last summer was special, though not in a good way.   It will be remembered as the year of L'Attentat, the terrible terrorist attack on the beachfront Promenade des Anglais the night of France's national holiday.

      When in Nice, we go to the elaborate fireworks display just around the corner late on the evening of July 14.   With tens of thousands of spectators, it is usually too crowded for comfort, but in 2015 we finally managed to find a really good spot away from the worst of the crowd.   We had a near perfect view, and for once were not too pushed and shoved by other spectators.

     I decided to quit while I was ahead.  I announced I would not be going this year, and Brenda was not pleased.  She said she would go alone, but instead we ended up watching another DVD.

     It was just as well, because around 10:30 I looked out in the direction of street noise below, and I could see people running in all directions, and two ambulances were stopped beneath our window, lights flashing and sirens blaring.

     "Sit down and finish the film.  It's just the excitement of the holiday." Brenda said.  And I did, not quite assimilating what I had just seen.

     It wasn't until midnight that we began to get radio reports that ultimately confirmed 86 deaths and many more injured.   As most in the world now know, a deranged newly-minted terrorist succeeded in slaughtering the maximum number of pedestrians leaving the fireworks, running over them with a giant refrigerated delivery truck, often plowing through four or five at a time.

     In the days following the attack, normal summer life pretty much came to a stop.  A lot of hotel tourists left, and many more (one report said over 35 percent) canceled upcoming reservations.  The Promenade des Anglais quickly transformed itself into a shrine in memory of its victims, and floral tributes sprang up at the spots where they had perished.   Long lines often formed outside neighborhood florists, waiting to buy one or two roses to leave on the Promenade.

An unending floral tribute along the sea front

   
     The first fallen were probably children, waiting around a well known ambulatory candy stand.  It was here, near the Negresco Hotel, that the first flowers began to appear.  By the following evening, piles of stuffed toys and candles and flowers covered parts of the boardwalk and spilled across the street around the hotel entrance.

 

Late into the night in the Negresco lobby (Twitter)

     (The Negresco, Nice's best known hotel, opened its doors to those in need throughout the night.  Its lobby area was turned into a makeshift hospital where those touched by the drama waited to be treated.)

    

    For over a mile, innocent victims perished under the wheels of the crazed assassin.   The carnage route only ended when police shot and killed the attacker in front of the Canne à Sucre, a local terrace café where we sometimes go for breakfast.  Here, there were no flowers.  Instead, a shrine of a different sort sprang up.  Angry residents threw bricks and trash on the spot, and spit on and cursed the memory of the man responsible for all of this heartbreak.  

End of the route ...

      Nice is a friendly city, much more at first glance than Paris.   It is very much a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual city, with good relationships between the communities.  These bonds were sometimes challenged in the days following the attacks.  There were occasional insults and at least one serious scuffle along the Promenade.  But for the most part, residents remained calm.  There has been no official list of  victims by nationality and certainly not by religion, but along with those who lost their lives from the U.S. and England and Japan and Italy, one of the biggest groups represented in this tragic statistic was certainly the French Muslim population, itself.

     Things here will undoubtedly never be quite the same again.   Nevertheless, little by little, life returns to what passes for normal.   We have always felt very much at home in Nice, but living through such a dramatic moment in its history,  we now feel a more intimate connection with this very seductive city that we once took too much for granted. 

Your input is welcomed:  frank.pleasants@libertysurf.fr

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

The Negresco was featured in Hotel Musings No. 17 "Celebrating The Holidays Away From Home";Nice and the French Riviera are also featured in "The Paris Hiltons and the Ukrainian Mafia" and "A Great Gatsbyesque Lunch", Hotel Musings No. 21 and 41.  The Negresco Hotel is featured in "The Decline of Madame Augier", Hotel Musings No. 37.  Brenda pops up in numerous musings, most notably in "Around Africa With Brenda" and "An Encounter With Keith",  Hotel Musings 14 and 29  (to access, click on highlighted title).

 

12 - The Pinebluff Sanitarium, Doctor Kemp, Robert Mitchum and Aunt Henrietta

    

Bad boy Mitchum (photo RKO)

     I had almost forgotten about the Pinebluff Sanitarium until Johnny Mills, an old family friend and blog supporter, reminded me of its place in local history.   Johnny is a passionate collector of history of the Sandhills, and as a native of Pinebluff, he is particularly fascinated by its heritage.

      Just for memory, my hometown of Aberdeen, North Carolina, is ringed by other little towns of varying interest --Southern Pines, Pinehurst and Pinebluff-- none further away than two or three miles.

     When I was growing up, Pinehurst was a decidedly upscale, rather exclusive privately-owned village, renowned for its golf courses.  We Aberdeenians more often than not had little reason to go there. Southern Pines was more down to earth, but still much more prosperous than Aberdeen, and at that time boasted a number of quaint hotels and golf clubs, of which Aberdeen had none.  Lastly, there was the sleepy little village of Pinebluff, which had once aspired to some of the tourist luster of its other "pine" neighbors.  By my day, it was pretty much an extension of Aberdeen, sharing its school and some of its churches.  It had nevertheless maintained a special, picturesque demeanor with many acres of beautiful longleaf pines, recalling its earlier, mostly unsuccessful ambitions to attract wealthy tourists.

      Pinebluff's most ambitious tourism project was undoubtedly a grand hotel built in 1925, an impressive Tudor structure modeled after a Swiss watch factory.  It was framed by a lush woodland of nearly 50 acres, and built to lure seasonal visitors from the North.

      Whereas restaurants in the South, then as now, have always touted "southern cooking", the Pinebluff Inn distanced itself from its cultural environment by promising in its publicity "only the most refined northern cooking."

      Unfortunately for its investors (which included the aforementioned Johnny's grandfather), the hotel had its fate sealed with the arrival of the Great Depression in 1929.   It limped along for awhile, but soon shut its doors, later declaring bankruptcy.

      A young psychiatrist discovered the property a few years later, and  bought the hotel along with its plush pine woods for what was said to be a song.  Most of the elegant inn's furnishing was still intact, and Doctor Malcolm Kemp --a debonair, chain-smoking lady's man and a Northern transplant himself--  turned the property into a psychiatric sanitarium with a minimum of refurbishment.  When I was growing up, the Pinebluff Sanitarium was to many Sandhillians a mysterious and foreboding institution.  Some of the more uninformed simply thought of it as the loony bin hidden in the woods.

          In fact, although shock treatment was used with a disconcerting frequency and some now-questionable LSD experimentation was carried out long before the hallucinogenic drug was discovered by the hippy generation, the majority of Dr. Kemp's "guests" were there of their own volition for a fairly pampered drying-out vacation.  The clinic was to a large degree run like a sophisticated vacation lodge.

     Some were not so attracted by a Pinebluff vacation.  Like my Aunt Henrietta, who in widowhood had developed an increasingly noticeable penchant for scuppernong wine.   When she showed up tipsy at church two Sunday mornings in a row, it was the last straw for my straitlaced Grandmother Pleasants who reached out to other family members for assistance. 

     When Aunt Henny saw herself railroaded into the sanitarium by one of her equally hard-drinking sisters, she steadfastly refused to cooperate. The first night the nurse brought in a tiny shot of whiskey, part of the drying-out process, and placed it on her bedside table.  She never so much as acknowledged its presence.  She didn't drink it, and she refused subsequent medication of any kind.  Two days later, when she finally obtained a rendezvous with Dr. Kemp, she calmly explained that any further detainment would result in a law suit.  She was released within the hour.

      The sanitarium's most notorious guest was undoubtedly film star Robert Mitchum.  His stay became part of Pinebluff folklore, now difficult to separate fact from fiction.

      
      Mitchum was known as Hollywood's bad boy.  He had served a well-publicized jail term for smoking marijuana back when people cared, and he was generally known as a hard drinking hell raiser whose binges could play havoc with a film's budget.  Producers were wary, but his star power was enormous in 1957 when he came to North Carolina to film "Thunder Road" near Asheville.  

     When he reported for work clearly off the wagon, it was decided by producers and insurance representatives that a few weeks at Dr. Kemp's Pinebluff establishment would be of mutual benefit to all concerned.   Mitchum was not in agreement, but he was given little choice.  Under a certain coercion, he signed himself in for an undetermined period of abstinence.

 

Mrs. Collins circa 1963

   It is at this point that accounts tend to diverge.  The only certainty is that the film star was one of the sanitarium's least pleasant visitors.  He was said to have taken an immediate dislike to Doctor Kemp, and refused to even speak to the sanitarium's occupational therapist, Mrs. Collins, a charming Southern lady who was eager to meet the star and get him involved in basket making.  Throughout his short stay he regularly made fun of the doctor in front of other patients and repeatedly ridiculed Kemp's old-fashioned spats.

     There is no documented evidence of how long the uncooperative actor stayed, though it is generally agreed that he left earlier than planned and against doctor's advice.  All accounts concur that he did not depart entirely cured, as tales of his alcoholism continued throughout his lengthy and successful career.  

     The Pinebluff Sanitarium had a much longer life than the hotel which preceded it.   Dr. Kemp continued to run the institution into his seventies; and by the time he finally retired in 1967, he was unable to sell the imposing property.   Left to abandon and still fully furnished (including a fine concert grand piano in the main salon), it burned to the ground in 1975.   I had my own dealings with Dr. Kemp and the sanitarium in its later years, but then that is another story altogether.

Your input is welcomed:  frank.pleasants@libertysurf.fr

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

 Grandmother Pleasants was also mentioned in Hotel Musings No. 2 "Grandmother Pleasants and Mrs. Kennedy";  Hotel Musings No. 4 "A Two-dollar Hamburger Under A Silvery Dome" and in Musings and Meanderings No. 10 "Ousting Mrs. Oliver".  Aberdeen was earlier featured in Hotel Musings No. 26 "Babe Ruth's 60th Home Run."   (to access, click on highlighted titles).

11 - A Career in the Movies

Paris 2010 --On the set and ready to go! (photo Yves de Marseille)

    
     Figuration is what it's called in French.  

    Fee-guuu-rahh-see-ohhn.  Bit parts and faces in the crowd.  In Hollywood they called it extra work, but I think it definitely has a better ring in French. 

    I used to dream of being in the movies.  For a long time I was bored with my office  job at UNESCO and imagined a kind of stimulating parallel life working with a film crew.  

    Actually, it started long before that.  When I was about ten, I wrote to Hollywood proposing my services.  In those days I aimed high; I was thinking more about being a child star, though I did point out that I would be agreeable to smaller parts.  I no longer remember to whom I wrote, but think it was someone at RKO Studios.  Don't ask me why.  My letter remained forever unanswered, but that didn't stop me from recounting various fantasy versions to friends, mainly that I had heard from an important producer who would be letting me know when something turned up.

     When I started the art business, I had a client-friend, Yves, who was a successful set designer.  Over the years I followed his films, and I shared with him how much I would have enjoyed being a part of his world.  It was implicitly understood that whenever I took my retirement he would use his influence to find me extra work.  

     I guess I'd have to say that for much of my life the idea of working on a film set had become a special, if odd, dream.  Everything about it appealed to me.  Not the movie star kind of glamour, rather the stimulation of associating with interesting, creative people, participating in the making of something permanent and unique like a motion picture.

     (I once had a psychiatrist acquaintance in New York who occasionally filled in as a spear-carrying extra either at the Metropolitan Opera or the NYC Ballet.  Whichever it was, that always appealed to me as the epitome of a certain eccentric worldliness.)

     So when the time came and I was able to leave UNESCO, I did all the necessary paper work in order to be employable. Yves was in touch with the top casting director for extra workers.  He explained I would need a press book with plenty of photos, and then he would speak to his contact about me.

     My neighbor, Annie Tresgot, the documentary film maker, agreed to take photos of me.  Unfortunately, by the time we got all this done, Yves was considerably less enthusiastic about my chances.   He started talking about hard times in the industry, and I understood that my future in the movie business was not looking so promising.

    I nevertheless did send off my resumé, along with the photos, and I waited.  And waited!  In fact, I waited for over five years.  Then one day Yves came for lunch, and he was reporting on a new film he would soon be starting.  It was to be a four-hour television movie based on the writings and life of Marcel Proust.

     Out of the blue, he remembered my enthusiasm.  Better still, he volunteered that he could probably find me a few days work on the set when the production moved to Paris later that month.

     And he did.   Convoked by the casting agent and the production company, my hopes were surpassed: I was assigned an actual role, that of an old British general, and though without spoken lines I was to be prominently featured in some of the film's most important scenes.

     Two of the most iconic moments in Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" are the Duchess of Guermantes' grand dinner and its lead-in reception.  I was in both, and to cap it all off, I was assigned a place, both at table and during the reception, next to the star.  That way I figured my moment of glory would be less likely to end up on the cutting room floor.

     Once on the set, I quickly realized that the glamour I had imagined was, to say the least, illusory.  We spent an inordinate amount of time waiting between takes; in fact, most of our time --hour upon hour-- was spent doing nothing. The worst part was the weight of my costume, replete with tassels and sword.  After an afternoon standing in the summer heat, fully dressed in formal military garb, I began to really feel my almost seventy years for the first, though not the last, time.

     The actress portraying the Duchess of Guermantes just happened to be the daughter of the director; she exuded a keen sense of her star rank, and she didn't waste any time in idle chit-chat with the rest of us mortals.  Whereas just about everyone else was deprived of all extraneous 21st Century paraphernalia --watches, telephones, magazines-- Ms. Star did as she pleased.  During the long waiting periods she was generally glued to her cell phone.

    An inveterate eavesdropper, I found it relieved the monotony listening to her conversations.  At one point she received a call from London, and to my surprise her English was virtually perfect.   Afterwards, I asked how it was that she spoke my language so well.

     Her reply was one for the annals. "Please don't speak to me, I am trying to concentrate," she snapped.

     I didn't let this somewhat humiliating social rejection get me down, as I immediately sensed an unspoken support from other members of the cast, and it was abundantly clear that the star was held in no esteem. 

     The banquet table was set in the elegant manner befitting the world of turn-of-the-century French aristocracy, and the meal was catered by a specialist film food company.  It looked fine, but after a few hours at "dinner", you can hardly imagine how unappealing can be a plateful of gooey boiled fish and cold soggy Brussels sprout purée!   As the filming continued intermittently throughout the afternoon, I soon caught on that no one was really eating.  We would just keep putting bits of bread on our forks, and nibbling from time to time.  It looked exactly like the fish and tasted less dismal.

     I may have had no lines to memorize, but I was certainly not reduced to silence.  The banquet was intended to be a sophisticated and merry affair, so after many of the clever Proustian bon mots were uttered, the rest of us were told to emit great guffaws of laughter.  Between nibbles of soggy bread, I thus spent most of an afternoon howling with laughter.

     As I was in a state of rather foolish excitement when the movie was finally premiered on television, the ensuing disappointment was all the greater.  As it turned out, I didn't much like the film at all, and the fact that my presence was virtually non-existent did nothing to endear me to it.   You could sometimes glimpse my shoulder or the back of my head, occasionally a long shot where I was fairly unrecognizable.  The director had opted for extreme close-ups of the principal characters, particularly at the dinner.  The result was that the old general had pretty well disappeared.

     Still, the experience was fascinating in its way, if not quite up to expectations.  No calls from Hollywood, that's for sure, not even another local movie proposal.  Never mind, it's something I always wanted to do, and I did it.  Another project ticked off the old bucket list.


Your input is welcomed:  frank.pleasants@libertysurf.fr

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

 Annie Tresgot is also featured in "Best and Worst [hotel movies]," Hotel Musings No. 19  (to access, click on highlighted title).

 [NOTE:  All Europe will soon be on vacation, so there will be no new posting for August.  See you in September!]

 

10 - Ousting Mrs. Oliver

Piano playing days circa 1955

        
       Mrs. Lucile Oliver was my grammar school piano teacher.  She was from one of the Dakotas, and she used to tell me no matter how cold it got in Aberdeen, that South Dakota was a lot colder, how it started snowing in October and didn't stop until March or April.  I have always liked extremes, whether it be weather or anything else; and when I was a kid I dreamed of finding somewhere extremely different from Aberdeen, so for awhile I thought of one day living in South Dakota.

     She was a little on the dumpy side, with a sheaf of salt and pepper hair piled atop her head much like the hairdos at the turn of the 20th Century.  Her 1950's horn-rimmed glasses completed the schoolmarm look.   Which is all to say, no glamour girl was she!

    I was kind of her star pupil when I was about eight or nine.  I had no special talent, but I seem to remember managing an okay-version of  “Fur Elise” at about that time.  My Aunt Ruth in neighboring Southern Pines was particularly proud of my musical abilities, and she once  arranged for me to perform on the new grand piano of one of her daughter's boyfriends.  My big memory of that occasion was when my host pulled a cord and tassel, and summoned the butler to bring me a Coca-Cola.  Needless to say, there were no butlers in Aberdeen, and I shouldn't think there are any left in Southern Pines by now either.  

     My grandmother Pleasants, who was an accomplished musician and who played the church organ for several decades, also sang my praises, but I don’t think anyone outside of the family was very interested one way or the other in my piano playing.  At any rate, I was never very motivated, and preferred playing the sheet music of the day rather than my more serious assignments.  I was nevertheless always fond of Mrs. Oliver, and I feel sure that it was mutual.

     She had her piano classes in the grammar school building. I don’t know exactly how it worked, as I don’t suppose she was officially part of the faculty; but she was somehow subsidized by the school, and her pupils also paid something extra for the lessons.  It was certainly considered a plus for the Aberdeen School, and for a number of years it worked out well for Mrs. Oliver also.

     I guess it was when I was about twelve that people started to whisper.  It is one of the unfortunate things about small town life, as opposed to a more anonymous bigger city.  When there is anything perceived as gossip-worthy, things can quickly get out of control.  Long before personal computers, gossip could go viral in no time.

     That’s what happened with poor Mrs. Oliver.  

     Apparently she was having a liaison with a married man.  I don't think I ever knew who the other party was.  The scandal clearly centered around her, and it was almost as though he were considered an innocent bystander.  It wasn't long after the rumors began that I heard there was a movement to get rid of her. 

     
     Mrs.  Lewellyn was the ring leader.  She was a former school teacher and was known as a busybody.  She was also a rather astute politician, and had recently been appointed to a place on the school board.  My mother had never much cared for her, and when it came to light that there was a petition being circulated, Mother uncharacteristically jumped to the defense of Mrs. Oliver.  I say “uncharacteristically” because both my parents tended to flee confrontation.  Along the way, they communicated this dislike of open conflict to me, and I must say that it has served me very poorly throughout life, because it is pretty certain that those who know how to confront get along a lot better than those who don’t!

      Mother did enlist some of her friends to start up a counter petition, but it was too late.  The anti-Oliver movement had taken off like wildfire, and there was no turning back.

       It split the town, at least in my eyes.   Even one of our family's oldest friends signed the vigilante petition.  The friendship didn't really survive, though the initial hard feelings mended as the years went by.  I never forgot, however, and I never forgave.  
  
     Anyway, Mrs. Lewellyn finally had her way.  The school board gave little resistance.  The fact that the families of most of Mrs. Oliver’s pupils counter-petitioned for her to stay had little effect.  It was a moral issue, and she was pronounced not up to standard to teach Aberdeen’s little musicians.

     When  her contract was terminated (dramatically before the end of the school year) I joined a handful of her students to follow her, and she tried to make a living teaching in each student’s home.  But it was a losing battle.  Thinking back on it, I still feel a tiny bit of guilt, because I chose this moment when her classes must have been so important to her, to decide I no longer wanted to play the piano.  I was oblivious at the time, and no more than 13, so it was hardly a condemnable act on my part.   

     She soon folded up shop and left the area for good.  I think she went back to South Dakota.  It turned out she had been diagnosed with a terminal cancer about the time that petition was being circulated.  No one had known.  I corresponded with her for a short time --with a lot of parental pushing-- but I wasn’t very persevering, and like so many teenagers encouraged to do the right thing, I soon lost interest.

     She died a little more than a year after leaving the area.  Her funeral service was held in Aberdeen, I cannot imagine why.  It was the first funeral I ever attended, so I remember it well.   The thing I recall the most was seeing Mrs. Lewellyn there, she and some of the others who had signed the petition.    

     There was a rather tawdry novel at the time which had a huge national success, “Peyton Place.”    It was a study of the dark side of small town America, and had recently been made into a hit movie with Lana Turner.  I remember thinking when I saw Mrs. Lewellyn at the funeral, what a great scene to slip into “Peyton Place!”    


 

... Some more Southern reminiscences

Friend Joel Fletcher, art dealer in Fredricksburg,Virginia, author and grand raconteur, responds to today's posting with some of his own Southern memories, growing up in Louisiana:

     It is the kind of thing that would have happened in Ruston, Louisiana, the
town in northern Louisiana where both my parents were born; not as likely in
then Cajun and much more tolerant Lafayette where I grew up.

     Mother told me a story about a young couple who moved to Ruston in the
1920s.  The husband got a job coaching at the local high school. One day,
just as the wife was about to get in the bathtub, she remembered that she
had forgotten to put in the window the card that indicated to the ice man
how much ice she wanted. She wrapped herself in a towel and went to the
kitchen. She was halfway across the room when the back door started to
open (doors were never locked in Ruston then)  and she did not have time
to run back to the bathroom; so she ducked into the kitchen closet and was
squatting uncomfortably on the gas meter when suddenly the door to the
closet opened and there was the gas man come to read the meter.  With no
presence of mind, she shouted: "I was expecting the ice man!"   Everyone in
town knew about it by that evening, and the couple were shunned by the entire
town and soon moved away.

     Lafayette, in the heart of Cajun country, was very different from Ruston
where my grandmother and aunts lived on what was known as "Presbyterian
Hill."  Even as a young boy I knew about the whore house on Jefferson Street
on the other side of the railroad tracks. And I grew up hearing whispers of
adultery.  When one prominent business man was caught having an affair, his
wife punished him, according to my father, by not leaving him so she could
make him miserable for the rest of his life.

     When I was again living in Lafayette in the 1970s, one day my mother
startled me when the name of the wife of the town photographer came up in
conversation and Mother casually mentioned that during the war, when her
husband was away, the photographer's wife "worked as a prostitute at the
Terrace Hotel," as if it were a perfectly normal thing to have done.

     I also took piano lessons, but only very briefly.  My teacher was Miss
Rosenthal, sister-in-law of the wealthiest man in Lafayette, Maurice
Heymann, who owned the local department store and after the war built the
Oil Center for offshore business that was responsible for much of
Lafayette's prosperity during the oil boom years.  Mr. Heymann had met his
wife in France during the First World War and she came with a spinster
sister who was a musician. I began taking piano lessons from Miss Rosenthal
when I was about 7 or 8. Somehow I was terrified of  her. Not only did she
have a strange accent, but she made me balance dimes on my fingers when I
was practicing. I was almost relieved when I came down with a very severe
case of scarlet fever that kept me at home for many months of convalescence.
When I at last recovered, I never went back to piano lessons.

     When I returned to Lafayette in the 1970s, I got to know Miss Rosenthal
slightly and realized that she was a very sweet, shy person, and I wondered
how I could ever have been so frightened of her.  By the early 1980s, she had
become a little confused. I once saw her driving slowly through town with
her purse on the roof of her car. And about this time I heard that she had
gone into the First National Bank to make a deposit wearing only her slip
and a pair of shoes.

Your input is welcomed:  frank.pleasants@libertysurf.fr

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

Aunt Ruth is also featured in  "Renata" from  Musings and Meanderings No. 4; Mother and Aunt Ruth in "Thanksgiving, Ruth and Dickie" from Hotel Musings No. 49; Grandmother Pleasants in Hotel Musings No. 2 "Grandmother Pleasants and Mrs. Kennedy" and Hotel Musings No. 4 "A Two-dollar Hamburger Under A Silvery Dome"    (to access, click on highlighted titles).

9 - Wedding in Zafferano

        I returned to Taormina last year for the first time in well over 30 years.

       We didn't stay at the Timeo this time, Airbnb having changed all that.  Instead, we found a wonderful rooftop apartment with a panoramic view of all the region --the Timeo's gardens below, the Ionian sea down to the right and Etna perfectly framed in the distance.

       My first trip to Sicily was in the Spring of 1978, and Etna was then in eruption.   At the time, I didn't realize how rare that was.   After dark, it looked like the peak of the mountain was ringed in multi-colored neon lights.

     I must have been to Taormina a half dozen times in the intervening years, but left to my own devices I can be a pretty lazy tourist, and I never bothered to get any closer to Mount Etna than the hotel terrace.   Brenda is a much more dynamic traveler, and we arranged with our airport driver for a day trip up Etna (which of course was not erupting this trip), plus a few hours drive around the surrounding countryside.  

     Other than Palermo and Taormina, and undoubtedly a few other exceptions, Sicily is filled with towns which give all appearance of being extremely poor and under-animated.   Traveling from Taormina to Mount Etna, you go through several of these sleepy communities which time seems to have forgotten.

      Zafferano-Etna, at the bottom of the volcano landmark, is more colorful and animated than most.  It has a stunning view of the valley below, and undoubtedly attracts a few tourist stopovers, like ourselves, on the way up Etna.  But make no mistake about it, Zafferano is not exactly booming.  Less than prosperous it may be,  but the town church is vast and grand, sumptuous even.  Somehow incongruous with the simple wedding party upon which we stumbled.

      Brenda and I had just arrived in the main square one morning last Spring when we saw them preparing to climb the church stairway.   

      Neither bride nor groom was in the first bloom of youth.  The bride's hair was Marilyn Monroe-blonde, except at the roots, and it contrasted with her dark Sicilian eyes and eyebrows.  

     We initially steered clear of the group, because before seeing the bride-to-be, we had somehow assumed it to be a funeral. 

     The local photographer was posing everyone in pre-ceremony group portraits when we arrived upon the scene.  The bride's father was missing one of his front teeth, and he looked ill at ease in his dress suit.  When he could bear it no longer, he unbuttoned his shirt collar before going into the church.  The groom seemed in a kind of daze, staring at the ground and looking the most uncomfortable of all.

      The bride's dress was mainly white, but with peachy overtones and mauve sleeves; the bridesmaids wore nearly identical miniature versions.  Bride and bridesmaids wore elaborate make-believe paste necklaces.   The mother was in dark burgundy, but the other women were dressed in black.  Apparently black is the tradition at Sicilian weddings, which explains why we originally took them for a funeral party.

     The bride entered first with her father, and the groom followed immediately after with HIS mother by his side.  All to the organ accompaniment of Wagner's Bridal Chorus.    We stood in the vestibule, and watched them proceed down the long aisle.  As the ceremony began, I suddenly realized that we were about the only "guests."   There were not more than a dozen people, not even filling the first two rows.

     With the exception of the little bridesmaids, no one seemed at all happy.  In fact, most of the principals appeared seriously morose.  There was undoubtedly a story there somewhere, but I was never to know what really led up to that moment in the Santa Maria della Provvidenza Church. 

      I look back at the photos sometimes, and I wonder how their lives are going.  Not great, I suspect, but then I could be wrong.

 

 Your input is welcomed:  frank.pleasants@libertysurf.fr

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

 Taormina was first featured in  "Room Without Bath" from Hotel Musings No. 5, again in "Clementina, Still Lady of the Manor" from Hotel Musings No. 7; lastly in Hotel Musings 12, "The Beginning and the End of Duncan" (to access, click on highlighted title).

8 - Hazeline and Josephine

Hazeline and Josephine, Midway 2003

     Hazeline and Josephine were twin sisters who sometimes looked after me when I was a small child.  They were little more than a dozen years my senior, so they would have still been in their teens then, and their job was presumably confined to baby sitting.  They were the children of Leanna who worked for many years for Renata Fairchild (see musings no. 4, "Renata").  Hazel and Jo sometimes worked for Renata also, helping out in the kitchen.

     Growing up in the Sandhills as black females was certainly no bed of roses in the 1940's.  As soon as they were old enough, they headed North where life was supposed to be easier.  In many ways it was, but they were disappointed to discover that the same racism they had grown up with was just as prevalent in Philadelphia or New York as back in Aberdeen.   Prejudice manifested itself differently, often more discreetly, but it was never far away.          

     They eventually found relative financial security, working in a variety of factory jobs, sometimes taking domestic work. They had several husbands between them, and plenty of children and grandchildren.  When I next saw them in the 1990's, Hazel was already a proud great grandmother.

     For as soon as they were able to retire, they had what seemed to me to be an odd dream --to move back to Aberdeen!   And even odder in my view, the first person they thought to reacquaint themselves with was one of their old employers, my mother.

     Mother was never anything of a liberal, but neither was she particularly retrograde.  During the South's difficult period of desegregation, after the federal laws had long been passed, she tended to say that she wasn't against change, just thought it needed more time.  Most of the blacks felt that a hundred years or more was plenty long enough!

     Things may have been tough when the twins were growing up, but by the time they returned as mature women, life in the South had profoundly changed.  More than the North, they told me more than once.  For people like themselves, of modest means, living in the Sandhills now seemed infinitely preferable to the alternative in a big city ghetto.   I think Mother was as happy to see them as they were to see her, and she enthusiastically  piled them into the car, and off they went to visit all the old ladies --Juanita, Gala, Ulma and the others-- who had once been employers to them or to their mother. Everyone was truly delighted to see them and to welcome them back to the area.

     As children, they couldn't do most of the things that I would have taken for granted.   You tend to  read more about separate water fountains or riding in the back of the bus, but these were ultimately minor inconveniences when you think that they couldn't even go into the drugstore to spend their money.  And of course they weren't allowed anywhere near the town lake!  So it must have been a special satisfaction to return to their hometown with all the rights they were once deprived of.

       We went with my friend Judy (another one of their cares) to a deli in Pinehurst some years ago.   Pinehurst is a particularly chic golf resort a few miles west of Aberdeen, and I hadn't realized what an exceptional treat it would be for them.   Josephine told me that, growing up, she would have never dreamed of  one day going to Pinehurst for lunch.

     Their younger brother, Lacy, had also returned to Aberdeen after a successful career as a brick mason.   He had built a fine home for himself, and when his sisters arrived, he had the means and talent to convert Leanna's old run down  cabin into a  comfortable and attractive home, too.

 

    Hazel's pride and joy was Brandon, her five year old great grandchild.  His mother was dealing with her own problems, and Hazel's big dream was to have him start school in Aberdeen where she felt he could have a real head start.

     Though already  over 70, she and Jo brought Brandon  South to begin first grade in the new Aberdeen Primary  school.   The experiment only lasted a year, but he got a taste of  community life and personalized small town schooling before returning the next year to Philadelphia.   He was an especially bright and personable little boy, and the year in Aberdeen seemed to be a success.
 
     Unfortunately, the twins were too old by this time to be raising a small child, and they had no choice but to return Brandon to the care of one of his  grandmothers at the end of the year.  It broke Hazel's heart, but she had the satisfaction of having tried.
    
     When Brenda arrived on the scene, they seemed crazy about her, and we always visited with them when in North Carolina.  I never actually remembered their caring for me as a small child, but I developed a special affection for them in later years.

     Josephine had never learned to drive, and she always depended on Hazel for getting around.  By the time the twins reached their 80s, she was feeling more and more isolated living on the outskirts of Aberdeen.   In 2014, a few months before Hazel's death at 87, she moved back to Philadelphia.   The last I heard, she was missing Aberdeen.  I wish I had a more upbeat ending, but then that's life.



Your input is welcomed:  frank.pleasants@libertysurf.fr

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

Renata is also featured in  "Renata" from  Musings and Meanderings No. 4; Mother in "A Christmas Gift ... or the Little Red Lamp", Hotel Musings No. 51  (to access, click on highlighted titles).