Mark Greenside - (Not Quite) Mastering the Art of French Living

Copyright 2018 by Mark Greenside

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Jacket illustrations and design by Jessie Kanelos Weiner

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-3110-3

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-3111-0

Printed in the United States of America

To Donna Umeki, my wwwwife

Note to the Reader

If youre lucky, some of the things that happened to me will happen to you. If youre luckier, some of them wont.

Several names of people and places have been changed to protect them and me from everyone.

In the spring of 1991, against my wishes and all my judgments, my girlfriend persuaded me to spend the summer in Brittany, Finistre: The end of the world. I wanted to go to Saskatchewan where people speak English, where I could get to by driving instead of flying, and where Americans, if not actually liked, werent actually hated. This isnt the last time I was wrong.

We rented a house in Plobien, a village of about six hundred people, from an English lady named Sally, and within days, I fell under Brittanys spell: its shimmering light, white cotton candy clouds, and blue-green sea; its granite viaducts and dolmen; ambling rivers, heathered hills, huge skies, beaches, and tides.

I met Monsieur and Madame P and their two sons, Henri and Philippe. Madame was the keeper of the keys to Chez Sally and the knower of everything I needed to know, my first friend, and future Aladdin and guardian angel.

I also met Jean and Sharon and their boys, Yann and No. Jean is Breton, a filmmaker, Sharon is Canadian, Quebecois, a painter, and teacher. They are soixante-huitards, sixties folks like me, and unlike Monsieur and Madame P, fluent in English: she from birth, he from her.

As it turned out, eight weeks were four weeks too many for my girlfriend and me. By the end of the summer I was out of love with her, in love with Brittany, and ready to return to Californiathen I bought a house in France.

I, who dont speak French, dont like to fly, who owned nothing at the time but the clothes in my closet and an eighteen-year-old Volvo, borrowed money from my mom and bought a 120-year-old stone house six thousand miles and twenty-one hours (door-to-door) from California. That was twenty-plus years ago, and Ive never regretted itwhich I cant say about a lot of things Ive done.

Over the years, Ive met and become friends with many people: Bruno, Franoise, Gilles, Tatjana, Hugo, Nadine, Jean-Pierre, Jolle, Ella, Rick, Martin, Louise, Sally, and Monsieur Charles. These people, along with Monsieur and Madame P and Sharon and Jean, have become my family and have served as a combination Red Cross and Salvation Army, as they have repeatedly saved and rescued memostly from myselfmore than they can believe and I want to remember.

All of them are in this book, along with my American friends Peggy, LeRoy, Jerry, Sheryl, Bob, Loni, and Donnawho entered my life and changed it forever, for better, and who unbelievably speaks French, likes France, and agreed to marry me and live part of every summer in Plobien.

This is my world, the Old World that is constantly new to me. Ive been coming to FranceBrittanyfor more than twenty years now, and Im still trying to master the art of French living. For a guy who likes to think he knows what hes doing, its been an unexpectedly bumpy ride.

I started driving when I was seventeen and had my first accident when I was seventeen and a half. Id successfully completed drivers education in high school and was convinced I knew what I was doing, which is often the first and best sign that I dont. In those days, driving was a sign of adulthoodmanhoodeven more than sexual experience, probably because it was easier to get a car than a girl, and definitely easier than getting a girl into a car, which was my chief aim at the time.

My drivers ed teacher was Mr. F, a pleasant man who was also a history teacher and tennis coach. He liked teaching drivers ed most because it was where he could pay the least attention. I passed the class easily (we all did) but I didnt learn anything about driving or safety or sanity or adulthood (no one did), which is why I had the accident.

It was one thirty in the morning. I had just dropped Shelly Grebin at her house after summoning the courage of Jeanne dArc, Socrates, Galileo, and Shackleton to kiss her under the strobe lamp her parents left on to dissuade her, or me, or us. I was elated, having accomplished my two chief goals in life: getting a girl into my car and kissing her. I was also slightly drunk from partying all night. I sped through a red light, hitting another car and totaling mine. Amazingly, no one was hurt.

I had my second accident twenty years later. A woman named Bea Bee, a name I will never forget, dead-stopped her car at an all-clear, open-all-the-way freeway entrance, and I nicked her impetigoed Volkswagen. I gave her a check for five hundred dollars for invisible, caused-by-her damages, and that was that.

Since then, Ive had my share of speeding and parking tickets. Nothing unusual, reallyuntil I started driving in France. Driving in France, especially before GPS and Mapquest (but even after), is more complicated and difficult than Magellans sailing and navigating the seven seas: he had the stars and a guy in the crows nest to guide him; I have myself and French signage, and more often than not, thats not enough.

Every summer begins with a telephone call to reserve my car, and even though there's never been a problem, and I know I'm going to get my car, it's always a surprise when I do. Surprise is my new routine.

I start in January, when Im feeling most optimistic (about the Giants and a new year) and most pessimistic (about the Giants and a new year), and call Rob. He has his own agencyLiddiard Traveland always manages a discount greater than everyone elses. Plus, hes friendly and thorough, and answers all of my questions no matter how many times I ask them. I tell him my pick-up and return dates and locations, and he goes into action, searching for the cheapest combination possible: Renault or Peugeot, gas or diesel, rent or lease. I do this even though we both know the outcome: Renault (sans GPS), gas, and lease.

This year isnt any different: its Renault (sans GPS), gas, and lease. What is different is Im getting my car at Aroport Charles de Gaulle and driving to Brittany, something I havent done in more than a decade. When I made the reservations six months and six thousand miles ago, it seemed like a good ideathe way invading Iraq must have seemed to W.