March 2, 1951
THE SALEMITE
Page Three
Report From
(Continued from page two)
prunes.” There is rich farmland
and little else for miles around,
and it takes more time than my
schedule allows to get much of
anywhere—twelve hours and three
train changes to reach the Py
renees, for instance. Agen has
some small industry, a big rail
road yard, a section of the slow,
green Garonne, endless rain, and is
altogether a pretty drab looking
place. Nor can I say much for its
stuffed prunes.
To continue in this lachrymose
vein: Physical is the only kind of
Culture that’s thought much of, it
w o u 1 d seem. Every day or so
there is a “match de boxe” or “de
rugby”, but the concerts have been :
a Chopin specialists who was fair
to middling, a twin-sister team
which I avoided, and another
pianist whose efforts were merely
distressing. We’ve seen some
Racine and Corneille which—had
the actors not been so serious
about it all—would have been rat
tling good melodrama; and the
movies are generally such gems as
“Lassie la fidele” and the “Les
Filles du docteur March.”
I spent a good part of my first
weeks at the Ecole Normale in
finding out what I could about the
school—a rather arduous chore,
since most of the explaining
was done by the S e n o r i t a, a
dour but kindly old Spanish poli
tical refugee who is assistante
d'espanol and whose French accent
is second only to mine. We put
in some grueling hours, but I’ve
finally gathered that the place is
Lot-et-Garonne’s small size equiva
lent of North Carolina’s E. C. T.
C. There are both boys and girls
here, 18 to 22 or so, all of them
considerably more intent on pass
ing “Pedagogie A et B” than on
improving their English or learn
ing about the U. S. A. That, and
the fact that I’m something less
than an inspired teacher, makes it
a little difficult to get much ac
complished along the lines set up
by the Institute—Sing “America,”
I was told—but my classes usually
degenerate into my sitting and
looking at the students rather
helplessly while they just wish I’d
go away.
There is another American girl
in Agen, Mary Farrington of Mon
tana, who, is the English assistant
at the girls’ lycee; and at the
boys’ lycee, a walking caricature
of an Englishman—hyphenated last
name, an idea that American men’s
neckties are just this side of . im
moral, a yen for cricket and crum
pets, and so on. We get together
now and then to speak the mother
tongue, for the three of us are
obviously regarded as curiosities
by many of the local citizens and
it gets a bit lonesome at times.
The people here are difficult to
meet, or even to know. By devi
ous means we are beginning to get
acquainted with some, though.
There’s the old cure, for instance,
who invites us occasionally to
enjoy his cog au vin, aged Armeg-
nac and long, involved, usually
pointless tales. He’s a ruddy,
cheerful soul; obviously not one to
forego the good things of this
world so long as the Next is not
imminent. Then there is Mon
sieur Guye who, having read all
of Faulkner, looks at me" some
what askance since he learned that
ah’m from the South; and Mile.
Bourdil, wJio likes to laugh at my
French, and her amateur bull
fighter friend. And several other
less picturesque types who have
been a help.
My real problems are along
other lines. The coffee here, for
example, and the language, and—
let’s face it—the plumbing. All
other inconveniences fade into in
significance beside these.
The coffee has almost succeeded
in disillusioning me about the deli
cacy of the French palate. If I
thought anyone would believe me.
DISTINCTIVE BOOKS
MUSICAL
Victor Operas 3.50
Victor Concertos 3.95
Mozart 1.98
Handel’s Messiah 5.00
Beethoven 2.49
SALEM BOOK STORE
Salem Square Phone 3-1122
In Chicago, Illinois, there is always
a friendly gathering of DePaul
University students in Wangler
Hall on the campus. And, as in
universities everywhere, ice-cold
Coca-Cola helps make these get-to
gethers something to remember. As
a pause from the study grind, or
on a Saturday night date—Coke
belongs.
Ask for it either way . .. both
trade-marks mean the same thing.
BOntED UNDER AUTHORITY OF THE COCA-COLA COMPANY BY
WINSTON COCA-COLA BOTTLING CO.
© 1951, The Coca-Cola Company
I’d say that Mr. Welfare’s worst
moments never produced anything
like it. Lest my friends become
too alarmed about my well being,
though, I hasten to add that I am
sustained by my private hoard of
Maxwell House.
The language difficulty exists
chiefly, I keep telling myself, be
cause of the accent of this region.
Surely I never heard anything like
it in Dr. Jordan’s class. Also
there are a number of pretty es
sential phrases that I didn’t glean
from “French Literature of the
17th Century.” The people here
are quite patient, though, and speak
to me slowdy and distinctly—as to
a not very bright but harmless
child of six—so I’m making some
progress.
The plumbing is another matter
and I won’t go into detail. Suffice
it to say that after these four
months I am more than ever con
vinced of the essential hardiness
of the French people.
And now, lest you think I am
disenchanted with this business, let
me assure you that even the afore
mentioned problems are minuscule
compared with the compensations.
Christmas, for instance, Mary and
I and a couple of G. I. Bill stu
dents from England and Denmark
went to Italy. None of us spoke
Italian, but we got along famously
with the aid of a little phrase book
which went into such detail that
we could have said “Please put
pommade on the ends of my mous-
tachio”, had the occasion arisen.
We had about five days in and
around Nice, five in Rome and
four in Florence. Of course we
did all the regulation thing s—
visited Monte Carlo and Cannes
and saw the Colosseum by moon
light and stopped at the Keats-
Shelley house in Rome and ate
pizza and drank chianti. There
were other things, though, that
made the trip one I’ll not forget
for awhile—like walking around
Florence at night when all thq
windows were shuttered and the
only noise was the clattering of
horse-drawn cabs along the crooked
little streets, and time seemed to
have turned back a goodly number
of years. Or like seeing the breath
taking little fishing villages along
the Mediterranean, away from the
glamour of the tourists’ Cote d’
Azur.
Then, come Spring and a sur
cease to this rain, there’ll be some
trips, to places within weekend
reach, cahors, and the prehistoric
caves of Les Eyzies and a few
others; and I'll have a week at
Pentecost for the Pyrenees or more
of Provence. I’ll do the best I
can with Paris in our 15 day
Easter holiday, and when school
is out there’ll be about seven weeks
left in which to visit the Alps,
Switzerland, maybe Germany, then
England. That’s more than I can
do properly in such a Short time,
but I aim to try.
And in the meantime I’d like to
hear from you and your gentle
readers.
Best wishes to all,
“Waldo”
Margaret Raynal, ’48
Ecole Normale
Agen (Lot et Garonne)
France
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