This came via email today from folks we met while Jim was teaching at the University of Toulon. I'm not sure it's a typical Christmas letter that people write in France but it does seem typically French. Jean Georges (who was chair of the English Department) and Christiane are lovely people and we very much appreciated their hospitality to us.
Dear friends and relatives
Some might say “What a year!” Indeed, what with all those Prime Ministers here and there getting the sack for mismanaging their countries’ finances or prospective presidents getting entangled in mysterious dealings with the cleaning team in American hotels or falling the victims of unexplained memory lapses.
This is rather comforting because it shows that the ordinary citizen is not the only that suffers from what William Somerset Maugham called “Human Bondage”.
Our local or rather national concerns revolve very much about the next presidential election, something which would have been complicated enough if foreign “candidates” did not try to interfere, I mean Mrs Angela Merkel of whom some think she is the model to follow blindly while others think they can hear German tanks rolling down the “Champs Elysées” once again. If you add to this another typical French dispute triggered off by the disaster which befell Japan and more precisely its nuclear industry, you will conclude with me that this was indeed an eventful year.
“Yes but” you will say. “We know about all this, and as far as I know, a newsletter is not a newspaper and our correspondent has not turned into a reporter in the world service of an obscure French magazine”. You are right but this is only to mask how uneventful our own lives were. Things go on as usual, which is not quite surprising as we all are or used to be, the children, Christiane or myself part, of that most sedate category of people the French call, sometimes scornfully, “fonctionnaires”.
So let’s come to the point. As you know, Christiane retired last year and she doesn’t seem to miss her former job too much. She enjoys a stressless and free life. She is highly active though, as she hikes every Thursday in the local hills and mountains with other retired people, a group from which I am still excluded, but just wait and see. She also goes swimming once a week in the swimming pool at her former grammar school and also exercises there. She has become really keen on gardening and spends much of her time weeding, planting, harvesting, and of course, considering the place, watering. Nothing serious has befallen us concerning the catastrophic flooding which hit the area as we live on the smooth slope of a small hill, so, the water just rushes past.
For my part, I still work but I will have to retire at the end of June. The French system does not allow wage-earners to work after sixty five, however strong your motivation might be. This is just the point. My motivation is no longer what it used to be. It is certainly invigorating to deal with young people and I will certainly miss that, but on the other hand, what I teach (literature and literary translation) are subjects which seem to require a discipline which our digital generations are no longer capable of. In addition, the system itself seems much more concerned with financial streamlining than educational efficiency and the “shopkeepers” get the final word and no longer the artists. So… I might soon no longer be excluded from the Thursday hikes.
Our children are all well. Stéphane still works in Montpellier, which, if you happen to visit France is certainly a place to go to. He travels a lot around France for his job. This does not seem to put him off traveling in general. He is what seems to be called now an urban trekker. He visited Stockholm, Sweden, then he came with us to the US last summer and led the way across Boston, Philadelphia among other cities. Then he went to Montreal in October to see his cousins who live there and after Christmas he plans to go to Nepal, which is also trekking, but not really urban.
Benjamin teaches biology in the same school. With his girl friend, he is still busy improving his house, building sheds for her horses, collecting hay or carting off horse manure. He used to be a man of the city (Marseilles) but he really seems to enjoy the country now.
Last summer, as I mentioned, we went to the US for the Ankenman family reunion, which took place in Tennessee in a Christian holiday camp. All was really perfect there and it is always a good experience to live among “real” Americans. We had a great time there with our American cousins we love meeting every five years. There were lots of activities for all ages and tastes, quite impressive. It corrects the vision we might have from France through papers, TV programmes or academic essays. We took advantage of this trip to visit Virginia, Philadelphia, the Amish country, where we had never been, and also to go back to Boston and Washington, places we really liked. Academics cannot avoid being academics so we stopped at Charlottesville, Yale, and Harvard. Going to the US is still exciting though, what struck us this time was a more visible poverty, more dilapidated roads or housing.
Well, we all seem to share the difficulties of the domination of the financial system (sorry for those who worked in it). It is also comforting to note that the French, who are often mocked for this, are not the only ones to be able to botch air travel. On our flight back, we were delayed because of thunderstorms at take off in Philadelphia and rerouted to Marseilles over Munich, instead of Brussels. The people from American Airlines just forgot to reroute our luggage so that it was not on the flight. It was Lufthansa, the company which brought us from Munich to Marseilles which had to track the luggage which had actually gone to Brussels, the people in Philly didn’t really seem to have cared. Fortunately, it was delivered to our house two days later. We did not really enjoy flying with American Airlines. There was an atmosphere of suspicion for passengers, which does not really make your trip enjoyable. I know, there is terrorism, but there is no need to look down on every passenger as a possible criminal. The French administration is often called meddlesome and scornful. I am pleased to note that this is not a national characteristic and that, given the chance, you might find such people among all nations.
This is it. I must admit that when I started to write the letter, I feared I might not have much to say, hence the long introduction. You may skip it, but once you get to this point, it is too late, sorry.
We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
