Cars in a Corner of Underground Garage Near Versailles

 

1970 Ford Mustang Mach I 351 with original paint in a Paris Garage

A few days ago I drove from Paris to Le Mans to visit the museum and track of the annual 24-hour race.  On the way back I stopped at Chartres Cathedral then got a hotel near Versailles.  In the far corner of the second lower level of the underground garage was a 1970 Ford Mustang Mach I with original paint and a Florida license plate.  

It was a delightful surprise to see a vintage American Muscle Car in a French parking garage.  Of the forty cars, trucks and motorcycles I owned during my 52 years of driving, Ford Muscle Cars were some of the best.  I owned a 1969 Torino Cobra, 428CID, Hurst shifter, Holley carburetor and functional ram air. Then I owned a 1972 Mustang Cobra Jet, 351 with a Carter Thermoquad.  Seeing that Mustang after visiting Le Mans was a real moment of nostalgia. 

Also along the back wall of the garage was an Aston Martin DB9 under a cover (marked with Aston Martin and DB9).  

Between the Mach I and the DB9 was a Peugeot RCZ, a lightweight (1404kg) powerful (250hp) little two-seat French missile.

In the far corner of the garage was a mid-1990s Jaguar XJ convertible.  

One of the oddities of the 1970 Mach I was louvres on the back window. By 1972 Ford dispensed with the sun-blocking slats, I wished they had not. My Mustang CJ had a back window so near horizontal that it was useless whenever the sun shined on it.  

Posts about traveling in France and neighboring countries in February 2022:

My favorite restaurant is a victim of COVID.

The Museum of the Great War.

The Waterloo Battlefield.

The Red Baron Memorial.

Chartres Cathedral.

High Performance Cars in a garage in Versailles.

Talking about Fathers and Careers at lunch.

50th Anniversary of My First Enlistment is This Month

 

Twas the night before Basic, and I drank way too much. 

I have no photos from my Air Force enlistment.

Fifty years ago today I arrived at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio. I was hung over with shoulder-length hair and at the beginning of an on-again off-again relationship with the United States military that would finally end 44 years later in May 2016.  The story of that first haircut is here. 

Since my first of my four different service branches was the Air Force, basic training was mostly marching and learning military culture.  We had one afternoon on the rifle range, one hike, and one meal outdoors--at picnic tables.  In the nearly three years of my Air Force enlistment I never saw C-Rations let alone tasted them.  Decades later I did a comparison of C-Rations and the current MRE meals that got 100,000+ views on YouTube. Here is the video.

When I left my home in Stoneham, Massachusetts, the Beatles were still together, Elvis was still alive, the Vietnam War was still raging, the Cold War was heating up, the draft was in its last full year, the Muscle Car boom of the 1960s was nearly over, and Donny Osmond had two songs in the top ten singles of 1971.  

Speaking of music, while my shoulder-length hair was shorn from my head in the Air Force barber shop, Merle Haggard's "Okie From Muskogee" played in the background. The only country songs I heard up to that point in my life were some Johnny Cash breakthrough hits that ended up on Top 40 radio, like "A Boy Named Sue." In one of the ironies of military life, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, was the place I trained to deploy to Iraq 37 years later in 2009. In one of the many coincidences of dates in my life, my basic training and pre-deployment training both began on February 1. 

In 1972, phones had wires and were often attached to walls. Every Sunday at basic training we lined up at phone booths to call home.  Cameras had film. Barracks had liars.  Extravagant liars.  My basic training flight was forty men either 18 or 19 years old, from more than twenty states across the nation, living in one big room.  Before lights out, we would shine our shoes in groups and talk.  Some conversations were about training or life in the barracks, or the food we ate, but when the subject was home, the lies swelled to the size of a Goodyear Blimp.  I wrote about those lies and how Facebook killed the barracks liar.  

When we marched we sang songs about killing the enemy, Viet Cong mostly, occasionally a Russian, we sang about our nearly infinite appetites for sex and alcohol, and we sang about Jody--the guy who was back home sleeping with our wife/girlfriend, driving our car, emptying our meager bank account, and in its best country version, alienating the affections of a favorite hunting dog.  

At my last military training school in 2013, we were not allowed to sing any of those songs.  All five military services were in our marching formations, and none of them were allowed to sing any marching song that could be considered sexist. And even though we were in two active wars, we could not sing about an enemy. Jody was off limits.  I wrote about the change in the songs for the New York Times At War blog.

The world in which I enlisted is gone.  I am writing this in a cafe in Paris on a computer with more processing power than the computers that put a man on the moon in 1969.  The flight from home to basic training fifty years ago was the first time I had been west of Cleveland or south of Pennsylvania.  It was my first flight on an airplane.  Earlier this month, my flight to Paris was the beginning of what may be my seventieth trip to another continent either on business, pleasure or a military mission.   

I have a love/hate relationship with the military. Three times, I got out, and said I was done: in 1974, 1979 and 1985.  Three times, I re-enlisted: in 1975, 1982 and 2007.  I finally left the Army National Guard in 2016.  Now I am far too old to change my mind again.  And I am happy with that.  I spent some of the best years of my life in the military, but even if I were not too old, I am happy to let the men and women born in this century defend the country.

 

Fathers, the Army and Career Paths in America and France: A Delightful Conversation at Lunch

Professor Christian Amatore of the Ecole Normal Superieure

At an award lunch at a history of science event in Paris, I was seated with Christian Amatore, a professor emeritus of electrochemistry at the Ecole Normal Superieure (ENS). Christian is a bright, funny and out-going man who smiles easily.  He said he lived in America for two years early in his career in Bloomington, Indiana.  

We talked about how much we liked visiting each other's country then turned to the differences in growing up in America and France in the middle of the last century.  Christian had a straight career path that began at ten years old, when a teacher identified him as having potential for a science career.  

Christian was born in Algeria in 1951 and spent his early years on French Army bases.  His father emigrated from Italy after World War II, his mother from Sweden.  Service in the Foreign Legion was a rapid path to citizenship for his family.  Christian's father was a career sergeant who told his son to get an education and be one of the leaders, "or you will be a nobody."  

In 1970, he started college at ENS, beginning his PhD program in 1974 and completing it in 1979.  He was a professor after completing the PhD and three years later began two years of research and teaching at the University of Indiana.  

As we talked about his linear career path I told him of the twists and turns of mine. Christian never served in the military. His father looked back on the Army as something he did to have a better life for his family.  During the years Christian was completing his PhD I was 600 kilometers east of Paris in a tank on the east-west border. I started college in America in 1980 when he beginning his first professorship.

For my father, world War II was the best years of his life.  He went in the Army on the eve of the war in his mid-30s with an eighth grade education.  When the war began, the Army sent Dad to Officer Candidate School. He was commissioned, commanded a several small units and ended the war a captain, commandant of a Prisoner of War Camp for 600 German Afrika Korps prisoners. My father loved to tell stories and loved to tell war stories most of all. From the end of the war to his retirement, he worked in a warehouse.

Talking about our fathers and the Army led us to talk of Napoleon, who talented in mathematics and had a high regard for science.  We talked of how math was the basis of his success as an artillery officer.  Napoleon restored many of the academic institutions leveled during the Revolution. On Christmas Day in 1797 he was elected in the seat of Lazare Carnot in the Institute de France. 

Talking about war led us to talk about the peace in Europe during our entire lives. "During my entire lifetime there has not been a land war in Europe," Christian said. "That is unprecedented in European history."  We talked of Putin and the threats from Russia.  It was comforting to hear Christian discuss President Biden. He was simply talking about the decisions of the American President.  During the Trump presidency, no one I spoke with in Europe could quite believe what kind of person America elected.

Amatore in his habit vert of the Institute de France

Near the end of lunch, Christian gave me his email, writing it in my notebook. Neither of us had business cards, really showing we are fully retired people.  I said I would look at his work on the internet.  When he wrote his name he said, "If you look me up on Google, use my full name. If you Google Amatore, you might get a porn site."  Amatore is Italian for Lover.

We already exchanged email messages.  I was fascinated with electrochemistry a couple of decades ago when I worked for Atofina Chemicals so I will look up some of his research.  Christian has published more than 500 papers in electrochemistry and related fields, so there is a lot to look at.  

When I am in Paris, I often have lunch or coffee with friends. I hope to catch up with Christian on a future visit to Paris. 

Posts about traveling in France and neighboring countries in February 2022:

My favorite restaurant is a victim of COVID.

The Museum of the Great War.

The Waterloo Battlefield.

The Red Baron Memorial.

Chartres Cathedral.

High Performance Cars in a garage in Versailles.

Talking about Fathers and Careers at lunch.

Book 8 of 2022: The Life of the Mind by Hannah Arendt

The Life of the Mind is the last of more than a dozen books written by Hannah Arendt in her life.  This book consists of two book published in a single volume, the first part on Thinking, the second on Willing.  She finished Willing on a Sunday and died the following Thursday.  In her typewriter was the first page of the third volume which would have been titled: Judging.

We finished a months-long discussion of the book with a review session. I have been part of the Virtual Reading Group of the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College since 2018 when I attended a conference on anti-Semitism.  The group meets weekly on Zoom with upwards of one hundred participants each week.  

In Thinking Arendt describes the activity of thinking as an inner dialogue. When thinking we withdraw from the world. She opens the book talking about how in our ordinary lives we are in the world of appearances.  We present ourselves to others in what we say, what we wear and what we do. These appearances, to the extent they are within our control, are the way we present ourselves to the world. These appearances may or may not represent reality, either what we believe to be our true selves or what we others believe. 

Arendt talks about how the age of scientific discovery ended the Common Sense people had. In the 16th and 17th Centuries, an avalanche of scientific discoveries overthrew previous understandings of the world.  I read a book last year titled Being Wrong  that has a lovely description of how we can't trust how the world appears.  And the rest of Being Wrong is about how hard we will fight to be right.

Thinking allows us to withdraw from the unreliable world of appearances into a place where we can consider possibilities.  Thinking always involves language, even when we consider images: thinking beings have an urge to speak, speaking beings have an urge to think.

She contrasts thinking with action: persuading through speech. When we speak, when our goal is clear, there is no inner dialogue. We say the words that will express our thoughts.  

In Willing Arendt shows acts of will to be the opposite of thinking. When we think, we deal with what has happened, with the past. In willing, we decide to project ourselves into the future.  There is an inner dialogue of urging, especially when there is hesitation, but the dialogue is toward an action in the future.  

Arendt shows the development of the concept of will in western thought using those she considers the philosophers of the will.  In her view, the Ancient Greeks never developed a concept of the will.  She credits the Apostle Paul with making clear the function of the will in the life of the mind.  She moves from Paul to Epictetus to Augustine to Aquinas, then has a chapter on Duns Scotus.  A contemporary of Aquinas, Arendt describes the philosophy of Scotus as the "primacy of the will." She credits him as being the most clear philosopher of the will among all those she introduces. I have read nothing of Duns Scotus and found this chapter fascinating.

The best philosophy brings clarity to life. I know so much more about thinking and willing than I did before reading and discussing this book. If you are interested in the Virtual Reading Group, contact the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College. 

First seven books of 2022:

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss

Unflattening by Nick Sousanis

Marie Curie  by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)

The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche

Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen

Book 7 of 2022: Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

 

In a famous toast at a White House dinner in honor of 49 Nobel Prize winners, President John F. Kennedy said, 

“I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” 

I started this book last year and finished it last week.  I am reading The Federalist Papers along with this biography and have reached Federalist 24. After the insurrection on January 6 of last year, I wanted to read about the beginning of democracy in America as the end of democracy approaches.  

The journey has been delightful.  I knew much more about the Revolutionary War than about the politics that led to the nation founded after that war.  

Most importantly, I now can see how much Thomas Jefferson did to preserve our democracy at its beginning.  It seems strange from this far remove to see the strife in the first years of America.  Jefferson's arch rival in George Washington's cabinet was Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson saw the royalist sympathies of Hamilton and was worried he would lead America into either subservience to the English crown or in establishment of an American monarchy.  

At the moment of America's beginning in 1776, it was Jefferson, age 33, who wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence--a document so well and forcefully written it largely survived the debate and editing of the Continental Congress.  Although the most significant passage that did not survive debate was a resolution to end slavery with the founding of the new nation. Jefferson would try again after the war, but once the new Constitution was adopted in 1787, he never again made a serious effort to end slavery.  

Jefferson was the third President of the United States, following Washington and John Adams. Jefferson spent a lot of time in France and saw our relationship with France as crucial to maintaining independence.  In 1803, he knew that Napoleon was striving for dominance in Europe and would be ready part with territory in America. In the greatest land deal in the history of the world, Jefferson made the Louisiana purchase, pushing Congress hard to close the deal before the French changed their minds.  Jefferson acquired the vast territory for four cents per acre, a total of $15 million.  The United States of America immediately stretched to the Pacific Ocean. 

Jefferson was far from perfect, as are we all. Jon Meacham's book is clear on his flaws.  He wrote the words that inspired independence for America, he struggled to keep America from falling into monarchy or tyranny. He led America in a way that set it on a course to remain free, if imperfect. 

During his presidency, Jefferson did everything he could to keep the United States out of war. He believed that when a republic goes to war the forces of tyranny become more dangerous. The history of the Roman Republic said this clearly. The road to eventual tyranny was paved with wars. 

Certainly in the past half century, the line from the lies that kept us in the Vietnam War, followed by the Gulf War leaving Saddam Hussein in power, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War all contributed to America electing a President ready to overthrow the government to stay in power.  

Jefferson kept the forces of monarchy from gaining control in the first years of the new American government.  I hope there is still time to keep those who want to establish a Mar-A-Lago monarchy from taking power.  Jefferson, alone at dinner in the White House, was smart enough to find a way to do that. 

First six books of 2022:

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss

Unflattening by Nick Sousanis

Marie Curie  by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)

The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche

Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen

Book 6 of 2022: Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

 

I wrote about this book when I read the first half of it late last year. I finished it and like it even more.   I wrote a post about the book when I had read just the first two chapters. It is here.

In this nearly 400-page book, Ferguson shows how in the past 500 years, Europe and the West went from a plague-infested, stagnant collection of petty warring fiefdoms to domination of the world.  

He makes the case in six chapters, each covering a major reason the West overtook and passed China and the Ottoman Empire: both dominant in the previous 500 years or more.  The chapters:

1. Competition

2. Science

3. Property

4. Medicine

5. Consumption

6. Work

Ferguson looks at the growth and change of each of these areas over the previous five centuries. The final chapter on Work begins with the importance of what is called The Protestant Work Ethic to the rise of the West.  He talks about the role religion played in the rise of the West and in the simultaneous decline of the Asian empires.   

In 1517 Martin Luther started the revolution that split the Christian world. That divide between the Catholic Churches and what came to be known as Protestant Churches led quickly to the freedom that allowed the scientific revolution. That scientific revolution led to the development of medicine. The end of Catholic Church dominance quickly led to the end of the feudal system, to more private property and to the revolutions that would eventually end hereditary monarchy.  

With the end of Church influence in commerce came the end of usury laws. Banking became legitimate. Consumption grew. The economies of the West flourished.

By contrast, China and the Muslim world became more unified and more oppressive in rule and religion. By the 19th Century, all of Asia from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean was under the sway of the West.  

Ferguson chronicles all of the horrors committed by European countries in the Americas and Africa.  He also makes clear how differences in religion and government made such a vast difference in the histories of North and South America.  

I like sweeping histories and this one is very good. I plan to read more of Ferguson in the coming year.  Next I will read his new book Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe.

At the end of Civilization, published in 2011, Ferguson talks about the rise of China and the end of Western dominance.  Doom was published in 2021 with China further ascendant and America falling further into the morass of Trumpism.  I heard Ferguson talk about Doom on the Honestly Podcast with Bari Weiss. He definitely had some gloom to go with his doom. I am looking forward to hearing the details.

First five books of 2022:

How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss

Unflattening by Nick Sousanis

Marie Curie  by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)

The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche

Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen

Book 5 of 2022: How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss

 

Bari Weiss wrote this book soon after the slaughter of Jews at prayer at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. Weiss grew up in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood. She and her family were members of Tree of Life.  

The book was published in 2019 before COVID-19 and before Weiss resigned from the New York Times in 2020. An article in Politico talked about the reason for her resignation:

Weiss described the Times as an institution where "intellectual curiosity—let alone risk-taking—is now a liability" and where the opinions of Twitter users have become the paper's "ultimate editor." She complained that she felt bullied by colleagues who "called me a Nazi and a racist" and who posted an ax emoji next to her name. 

“Showing up for work as a centrist at an American newspaper should not require bravery,” Weiss wrote.   

I listened to the almost every episode of the "Honestly by Bari Weiss" podcast before I read the book.  So I knew her positions on the anti-Semitism of both the Left and the Right before I started reading.  

In the first chapter she takes on the long history of Christian anti-Semitism, "the mere fact that Jews continue to exist in the world was an affront to the most foundational Christian idea, that the Messiah had indeed come. 

She says her intent is not to blame Christian doctrine, "It is simply to point out the historical and intellectual depth of the anti-Jewish conspiracy."

She then talks about the Unite The Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017.  She says, "That event was a shattering awakening for those of us who believed that the poisonous ideology of white supremacy was mostly confined to the lunatic online fringe."  

On Friday evening, August 11, 2017, I watched news footage of men with torches marching across the University of Virginia campus chanting "Jews will not replace us" and "Blood and soil."  Between then and now Great Replacement Theory has become the truth for Fox News viewers.  The most popular Fox shows promote Great Replacement Theory.    

My response to Charlottesville was to join a synagogue. In a country with a President who says there are "fine people on both sides" I knew I had to take sides.  

The next two chapters in the book explain the anti-Semitism of the woke left and radical Islam. The last chapter is titled "How to Fight."  Weiss says, "ethnic nationalism always puts us in grave danger."

The last chapter has a different category of advice every page or two. Under the heading: Trust your discomfort. she says, "If a politician you thought represented your values claims that Israel is among the worst abusers of human rights in the world, you know the truth about that politician."

Next she advises Call it out. Especially when it's hard.  She says it is easy to call out white racists, but when a Democrat is anti-Semitic, we have to call it out: "Ilhan Omar can espouse bigoted ideas [about Jews]. And Ilhan Omar can herself be the hate object of bigots, including the (45th) president of the United States." 

Weiss says we should maintain liberalism. Worship of the state, Christian nationalism expressed in America First, is bad for democracy. Since the writing of the book three years ago, the right in America has become openly hostile to democracy and praising Putin, Orban of Turkey and other right-wing dictators.  

We should also support Israel: ready to criticize its flaws, but in support of a political and historical miracle.  She later quotes Walker Percy on the extent of that miracle:

Why does no one find it remarkable that in most world cities today there are Jews but not one single Hittite, even though Hittites had a flourishing civilization while the Jews nearby were a weak and obscure people. When one meets a Jew in New York or New Orleans or Paris or Melbourne, it is remarkable that no one considers the event remarkable. What are they doing here? But it is even more remarkable to wonder, if there are Jews here, why are there not Hittites? Where are the Hittites? Show me one Hittites in New York City.

Percy is right. I have never met a Hittite, but Jews are everywhere I go. The book inspired me to do what I can to keep it that way.  

 -----

First four books of 2022:

Unflattening by Nick Sousanis

Marie Curie  by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)

The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche

Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen