1956 Le Jardin A Gravenchon

Our street was called l'Avenue de l'Admiral Grasset and we lived at #48.  My best friend Philippe Horeard (Fifi) lived right across the street and my other best friends, Catherine and Jacques Villeneuve, lived across the street a few houses down.  There was a wooden gate between stone pillars and big privet hedges on either side.  They were about 4 or 5 feet high and in spring they bloomed with very fragrant white flowers.  

Privet hedge

Flowering privet hedge

Privet flower

On the right side of the house were the stairs to the cellar with a wall on the side.  Every morning  would pick snails from my dad's garden.  Then I would draw lines with chalk on the wall and put the snails at the start.  By the end of the day, if any had crossed the finish line, I ate them.  (Not really, I just put them back in the grass.  Most of them had escaped by then anyway).

There was a garage (not ours) on the right side of the garden against which I grew my sweet peas and gladiolas.  Those were my specialty, along with tulips.  In the back corner were wild berries, currants and blackberries, I believe.  My dad cleared away a lot of these so he could plant his Golden Bantam corn.  At the time, corn in France was really for the livestock and wasn’t the delicacy that it was in the US.  My dad had my grandfather Earl smuggle in the Golden Bantam seeds when my grandparents came to visit us.
  

The corn grew wonderfully and we had a regal buffet one night with corn dripping with sweet butter.  Needless to say, the entire neighborhood wanted some seeds. 

My dad also planted dahlias, a lot of dahlias.  He had some exceptional dahlias and get really interested in the color genetics.  He loved to grow things

The back is also where my dad made me my 'weed garden'.  I had decided that it was wrong to banish pretty weeds to the trash heap.  It was overgrown and unruly, and it was my favorite part of the garden.  

In the back by the weed garden was a swing set, and a great climbing tree, I think it might have been a pear tree.   

I spent a lot of time in that tree.  

There was also a sandbox that I turned into a city with tons of highways and tunnels for all my cars.  I had hundreds of little cars, Matchbox and others.  

Right outside the back door was an area where grass didn't grow, probably because it was always shady.  That’s where I made my mud pit.  Within the pit, I had a highly complex series of walls to contain all my tiny imaginary horses.  I also liked to make mud pies of various flavors.

 It was a magical place.  

Drawn from memory in 2015

1957 Les Escargots

When my dad had to go to Paris for whatever reason, we often went with him.  One night, he decided to take us to Maxim's, the most expensive and most famous restaurant in Paris, and maybe the world.

It was June 26, my mother's birthday.  He and I hatched a plan that I would order escargots (snails) and I would eat them.  He basically trained me on how to do it, never to chew them, just to suck the garlic and butter out and then swallow them.  I was pretty scared, I was afraid I would throw up all over the beautiful white linen tablecloth and get us kicked out. 

When I told the waiter I wanted "les escargots s'il vous plait" the expression my mother's face was priceless.  But then they arrived and I wanted to chicken out.  One look from my dad though, and I knew I couldn't.  So I took a deep breath and in went the first one.  It wasn't so bad with the garlic and all, but when I had to swallow it, that was hard.  But I did it!  I don't know how many there were, probably at least one thousand, but I did it, I ate all of them!

My dad was so proud of me.