homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Battle of Britain + Battle of Britain II Here's what happened (Continued)

Folks,

It will be a warm but rainy day around our house today with the temp rising to the high 70s. Yes, the windowpanes are drippy and the skies overcast. The birds seem to have suspended flight operations for the time being. It can’t be the cold for it is already a warm 63 degrees F.

Overcast skies, rain in the forecast all day, and my favorite radio station is having a pledge drive. Not the most auspicious start for any day yet we all know every day is a good day, some are just better than others. I should have that maxim printed up and posted because it seems I need to remember it quite often.

All our French and French Canadian readers should be upstanding as I hear they are playing the Marseilles for some odd reason on the radio. Is it Bastille Day or the day Antoinette became a full head shorter? Frankly, I haven’t a clue mes ami.

The French National Anthem....That reminds me of the time back in the early 60s when my friend Rodney and I jumped happily into his four-wheeled death trap, AKA a Chevrolet Corvair, and hit out for Culpepper, Virginia to visit his sister on their big horse farm. It was fall and the drive was most pleasant.

We arrived within minutes of our ETA with no difficulty. It was a beautiful place indeed. White fences surrounding beautiful, green pastures dotted with handsome horse flesh if ever I had seen any. The barns and farm houses were picturesque, to say the least, and the greeting we received warm and welcoming. Most important of all perhaps, we were invited to table and the vittles were second to none.

Perhaps the food was actually the second most important of all, did I mention there were two gorgeous teenage girls in residence? There was also a gaggle of other subteen cousins as well from about 8 to 12 years in age. We all went riding and did other things you do on a farm with two lovely girls. My pal was at a serious disadvantage until one of his cousins invited a cute neighbor to join us. I fell head over heels for one of the older sisters. Literally, head over heels. To my credit, I hadn’t done much horseback riding up to then, you see. Anyway, if I had broken my neck and died a heroic death in that girl’s arms I would not have minded it all that much.

Ok, it was not all THAT serious. I was falling in love about three times every week back then. One day we all decided to go into Culpepper proper and visit the local public swimming pool. We all piled in the death trap and headed down hill. It was a sweltering hot day and the water was refreshing if a tad over chlorinated. We were all having a great time. Then, for some reason, no longer clear to me, we both started speaking our high school French and speaking English in our best French accent. We found we were quite good at it.

Eventually, we had the whole crowd in the pool convinced we were exchange students from, guess where? If you guessed France you would be correct. Good for you Dux, your guess was no more than a thousand nautical miles off. Pretty good for you this early in the morning. Anyway, we were really having a ball. All the girls crowded around us and wanted to hear us talk. Word was spreading about us as it can often do so very fast when people who still run everywhere they go find out about something and spread the word.

Suddenly we realize there are as many kids there without wet hair and bathing suits as there were with them. It was getting out of hand. The crowd was getting pushy too. With a hint of the first skepticism in his voice, an older boy asked us to sing the Marseilles. Oops! Well, thank Dieu we at least knew the tune. My pal and I did the singing or rather a kinda humming of the basic tune. I came up with the excuse for the obvious lack of lyrics buy saying, in my best French accent, “In America...how you say, you do not sing the national anthem without there is a, how do you say, a good reason.” I looked around me. Everyone seemed to be nodding. A good sign I thought, so I continued. “In France, it is the same.”

Our pitiful rendition of the French national anthem, though quite crude and seriously lacking in either pomp or musicality seemed to satisfy even the most skeptical in the crowd and they surged forward to get a closer look at us. My friend and I traded worried looks. The girls were beginning to show fear in their eyes too and the kids were about ready to re-wet their already dry swimsuits.

We made our apologies as sincere as possible and began a fleeting retreat to the waiting Corvair just after one lovely young girl in a yellow bikini (odd how you remember some details) mentioned the fact that one of the kids had just gone to get the high school French teacher to come and meet us. With that terrifying thought ringing in our minds, we flung open the car doors and slammed them shut just in time to prevent two bikini clad girls from stowing away. Pity, that. Off we went back uphill, the struggling Corvair engine whining behind us in a valiant effort to put as much distance between us and that crowd below, and as quickly as possible.

We were leaving for home the next day. Word seemed to have gotten around town that there were two French exchange students staying up at the horse farm. The French teacher called and asked to speak to us. Mercifully she did not speak in French. She wanted to invite us, she said, to her home for lunch the next day with her and several students. I’m sure she was a very nice lady and the invitation sincere. However the slight chance the jig was up and someone had somehow stumbled onto the truth nagged at us. Pictures of tar and feathers steaming in a big, black cauldron and a pair of well tied nooses hanging from a convenient limb crowded into our guilty minds.

We gave the lady our deepest regrets. We said we’d give her a call the next time we would be in town and I think there were a good many Au Revoirs thrown in there somewhere. Early, early, early next morning, the sound of that rear-engined Corvair starting up woke the roosters as we turned once again toward the flatlands of North Carolina and headed speedily downhill toward home. That Corvair, by the way, was truly at its best going downhill.

A true story, with no elaboration or embellishment.

Fittop:
You mentioned coming here every morning. You do have preferences set to have new posts on this thread e-mailed to you, do you not?