Potholes

I admit it -- I am a Francophile. I enjoy the French language, French art, French history, French food, French ... My friend Steven thinks it is some sort of disorder but I know better!

I come from a multi-lingual family. While I was born and raised in the US speaking English, my mother and one of my sisters have advanced degrees in French and Spanish. Another sister has studied in Spain. And my eldest son has changed his major from Music to French.

My love of all things French began when I was in junior high school. I was living on Guam (my mother is from Guam and my father took us there in sabbatacal from the university.) I was into bicycling at the time and had just joined a cycling club with my best friend, Lee Browder. That summer the South Pacific Games were to be held on Guam. These games are similar to the Pan-American or Commonwealth Games.

Since he met the residency requirement and Guam had no cycling team, my friend Lee entered the games and I served as his mechanic and trainer. We had beat up old Schwinn bikes that actually weighed around fifty pounds each!

The competition was the Olympic cycling teams from many of the French Polynesian nations like Tahiti and Nouvelle Caledonie (New Caledonea). These international class cyclists though it humorous that we would enter and represent the only US territory in the games. None of them spoke a word of English and we certainly spoke no French. But they adopted us and gave us access to the Atheletes Village. We were probably not even officially on the Guam Team roster but we were allowed to participate in every cycling event and we and our families received special recognition at the awards banquet.

I went on to take French in high school and visited France twice with my French class. In college I toyed with majoring in French for a time. Since then I have been to France another four times and to French Canada at least six times (once by bicycle). In fact I am writing this text from Montreal.

Enjoy and ... Bonne Route!!!