Analyzing a Puzzle

“Why France?” Thrim asked as we took our walk in the desert.

The question was so strange to me that I couldn’t think of an answer. I didn’t blurt out my first thought, a puzzled “Why not France?,” but kept walking and, odd for me, trying to figure out “why?” I’m impulsive rather than analytical.

Why, indeed, did Mary and I want to ramble around France for five weeks?

Stalling for time instead of answering his question, and curious, I asked, “Where would you go?”

Without hesitation, he replied, “England. The castles, the history, the stories. England.”

What a great idea, I thought. Why didn’t Mary and I think to do that instead of France?

Maybe it’s because France is where we first hitchhiked, taking just a week to get in close touch with people and places. It was such a good experience that hitchhiking became our main type of transportation throughout Europe except in Spain and southern France where we rode our motorscooter.

We had so many friendly, harrowing, exciting experiences that the time stretches in memory to take up a much larger space than ordinary weeks or even years do.

In addition to that first week, we found jobs for six months near Chambley, a tiny town in Alsace-Lorraine, at a U.S. Air Force Base. Waking up every morning in the French countryside, walking the farm road to St. Julien (the sketch above is of a roadside shrine near St. Julien), eating at Renee’s tiny restaurant where I first discovered quiche Lorraine, shopping in Metz and Nancy, also endeared France to me.

The jobs came about because Russia began constructing the Berlin Wall in August 1961, and in October detonated a 58 megaton hydrogen bomb known as Tsar Bomba that still holds the record for the largest man-made explosion. President Kennedy, judging those to be unfriendly acts, called up the Air Force National Guard and sent them to Europe to man a few old unused bases from WW II.

At that same time in bleak December we hit a low point in our adventure, hitchhiking on icy roads, cold all the way through, and maybe even a bit homesick. When we heard that the Air Force might be hiring, we immediately went to Wiesbaden (or Frankfurt?) to apply.

I was hired as the Service Club Director and Mary was my Assistant (they didn’t check qualifications, so desperate were they to have us). For the six months the base was open, we did a good job of running the recreational activities and planning trips for our guys all over France and Europe.

Since we were being paid on a U.S. government payscale and had housing on the base, we were able to save enough to keep us traveling cheaply and slowly for another five months as far as Japan.

“That’s what I mean,” Thrim continued, still puzzled. “You went all the way around the world, you saw all those places, and yet you want to return to France?”

“Yes. Yes, we do.”

My attempt at analyzing the “why” only came up with, “We both loved our time there.” That’s it.