Other states, other lives, other souls

In 1965 I spent six months as a college student in the Loire Valley of France, completing my sophomore year and an additional summer quarter. That would later allow me to graduate early in 1967, get a short job at Stanford Research Institute cannulating a colony of monkeys for blood pressure research, and then marry in June.  By May 1968 France was near collapse and President Charles de Gaulle had temporarily fled to Germany, as student and worker protests shut down the universities and commerce. This was only one leg of a worldwide centipede of revolutionary student fervor.  My husband-to-be was a high school student in France at that time, in the midst of it all. To get back to the U.S., during the transport workers’ strike, he found a gypsy bus to Spain to take an ocean liner home. 

But in 1965, in bourgeois Tours, there was little sign of the coming storm except for the anti-war graffiti spray- painted on our campus wall.

To encourage travel in France, classes ended on Thursday every week so that we had 3 day weekends.  On one of those weekends a student friend Dave invited me to hitchhike with him out to Brittany and the Atlantic coast.  He brought camping equipment, being a ROTC future officer, and we prepared a sign to elicit positive feelings about who we were standing by the side of the road.

Our first ride was from a young woman driving a Deux Chevaux.  If you have never ridden in a tin can on wheels, this is it.  Even cheaper than a VW Beatle.  The peoples’ transport; no padding whatsoever.  I know a man who took his bride on a nostalgia honeymoon to France in the early 2000s, where he picked up a used Deux Chevaux for a romantic road trip.  He reported back at the end that shortly after starting out, he was compelled by his bride to sell it and get a car with some padding and shocks.

Our driver dropped us off near a farmhouse at the end of the day.  We went up and knocked on the door, asking if we might sleep in their barn for the night.  They agreed.    They invited us to come in for breakfast in the morning.  That was the first time I tasted café au lait, steaming in a handle-less bowl.  I was hooked.

From there we got a second ride into a Renaissance town named Locronan in the far southwest end of Brittany. We saw signs indicating that the weekend would feature a “Grande Tromenie” through the town and into the square. It would include villagers in traditional Breton costumes, reliquaries with the bones and relics of St. Ronan, borne by children, and other festivities. It was a religious procession or “pardon” with stations of the cross along the way.  It only happened every six years.  What luck!

Locronan dates from the 1200s. St. Ronan, the patron saint of the cathedral, is credited with bringing Christianity to Druidic Celts.  It appears now to be christened  “One of the Most Beautiful Villages in France.”  I would agree.  Its early claim to fame was linen weaving and canvas sail-making.  From its strategic location, it served the new Trading Companies on their ways to the Orient and Pacific islands, and eventually to North America.

After watching the procession we repaired to a little creperie and hard cider shoppe in the town square. That was our dinner.  I was not yet much of a drinker and had never tried hard cider.  Before the sun set, we walked out to the edge of the town, overlooking the coast, and Dave put up his tent.  I felt very woozy and nauseous from the alcohol and sweet crepes.  But my memory is that I managed not to throw up before sleep.  Sunday morning we headed back from Brittany to the Loire Valley.

In 2015 I met up with Dave, his twin brother George, and Dave’s long time wife Paula at a 50^th Stanford-in-France reunion in Paris.  Dave is long done with the military, retired and living with Paula alone on a small island in Lake Michigan. That is how I got a few of these pictures.  Instead of hitchhiking, Dave and his brother annually bike the RAGBRAI.  I see on the web that in July 2018 the Tour de France  will pass through Locronan. Might make a fun little vacation.