Hospitals, Boarding School, Cigarettes, and Hockey

On that picture, taken in the spring of 1963, when I was in boarding school, I am the 5th kid from the right in the front row.

This time, I have been “officially” tagged by La Dauphine to disclose five random things about myself. I doubt that mine will be as interesting as hers, but I will give it a shot. Well, there are actually some strangely more interesting things that have happened in my life, but that I choose not to reveal here.

1. On February 17, 1961, when I was eight years old, my brother and I were playing ball, and the ball landed on the roof. We went up on the roof, to discover that there was a whole new universe there that we just had to explore. As we proceeded in our exploration of the neighborhood’s rooftops, we came across our next door neighbor’s skylight. My brother crossed it OK, but yours truly did not fare so well and fell through it, to land on the neighbor’s patio – with a seriously broken leg. The neighbor, who had heard the crash, ran over, assessed the damage, and ran to get my father, who carried me back home, and laid me down on the kitchen table. The doctor came and, within hours, I was at a children’s hospital in Lille, where I was put in traction. I still remember vividly the entire procedure, the name of the intern who attended to me was Dr. Vinchon (whom I found quite attractive!), and he is probably retired by now. Within the next few days, I underwent two surgical procedures, and then stayed in bed at home for the next three months (I do not recall returning to school until early June.) My parents had been begging my school to send homework for me to do so that I could keep up with my school work, but they never did. I spent the entire three months reading anything that I could get my hands on, including a lot of weird books that belonged to my grandfather - one of them dealt with miracles that had happened at Lourdes. A year later, I had another surgery to remove the metal pin that had been in my left thigh for a year. The strangest thing I remember about all of this was how tough it was to “relearn” how to walk, which i did twice during that process.

2. As a result of that rather “idle” year, my parents decided that the catholic school in the little town where we were living at the time was totally inadequate, and that I should go to boarding school in Lille (roughly 30 to 40 kilometers away.) The school they chose for me was a rather posh all girls Catholic school called Sainte Odile, which my mother had attended for a while when she was a child (this was the kind of school were you took “etiquette” classes and learned how to curtsy.) Even though I had missed most of my 4th grade year, I took an entrance exam to the 5th grade and passed – most likely due to my reading skills, which I had had a chance to hone for the past half-year. Needless to say that I absolutely hated boarding school. I missed my parents, my home, my own bedroom and my own bed – all my comfort creatures. Very early on in the 1961-62 school year, my parents, in consultation with the school principal and my teacher, decided that I would repeat the 5th grade, because I was struggling in math. This was actually a good thing, because I remember my second year in the fifth grade being one of the greatest in my life – the teacher, Mademoiselle Simoëns, was a rather stern old maid, but she liked me a great deal and had nicknamed me “souricette” (little mouse) because I was very small. I adored her, and still have very fond memories of her. I thought, however, that many of the nuns were perverts (my early doubts about the Roman Catholic Church.) By the end of my first year in the 5th grade, however, my family had moved back very close to Lille and, even though they had yanked my brother out of his boarding school so that he could come back home every night, I remained in boarding school for two more years, and even started the 7th grade at Sainte Odile (by then, I really thought that my parents did not love me and loved only my brother – why else would they take him out of boarding school and leave me there?). Then, out of the blue, early in that school year (by now, the 1964-65 school year), when I returned home one weekend, my parents announced that I would be going to a day school starting on the next Monday. That is how I went to Institution Sainte-Claire, where I stayed until I had completed my secondary studies.

3. I forget exactly when this was, but it was probably before I went to boarding school. In that little town where we lived, my parents owned a café, where they sold cigarettes. At some point, I thought that it would be fun for my brother and me to take up smoking, so we hit the gauloises, gitanes and, oh, gosh – even the gitanes maïs! We used to smoke in this fairly large, but very cluttered storage space that opened onto our small courtyard. Our parents were very busy, and did not notice anything for quite a while, but then, one day, the cleaning lady found our cigarette butts, showed them to our mother, who read us the riot act. Interestingly, during this whole smoking episode, my brother developed intestinal problems that were worrisome enough for my mother to take him to our pediatrician, who put him on some diet. I never experienced any funky symptoms. Later on, by age 16 to 17 or so, I became a regular (and still a gauloise) smoker. By the time I was in my early twenties, I smoked at least one pack a day. I quit, cold turkey, when I was 24 – I did have some relapses, but never became a true-blue regular smoker again, although I would take up smoking again in a jiffy if I knew that it is not something that can actually kill you.

4. When I was 15, and this was probably some of the after effects of my leg injury when I was 8, I developed severe back pains. So severe, indeed, that I felt uncomfortable in any position – sitting, standing, or lying down in bed. At the time, my uncle, who was a doctor, assured my parents that I was just pretending to be in pain to draw attention to myself. However, my mother started dragging me to doctors, and the first one we saw was the pediatrician who had literally saved my life when I was a bit less than a year old. At first, this doctor thought that I may have developed tuberculosis, but sent me to a specialist who diagnosed that those back problems were due to a nasty curvature of my spine (I remember this guy, a friend of my family, and a bone specialist named Professor Desorger, surrounded by young interns and asking them why tuberculosis could be dismissed as a diagnosis, and then yelling at them because they could not come up with the answer fast enough.) Before I knew it, I underwent a procedure whereby my body was stretched (I was literally pulled by the feet and by the head – I probably grew by 1.5” in just one hour – I let you imagine what that does to one’s inner organs!), while I was being put in a body cast. I lived in the first body cast (and I was 100% mobile) for two months, and then underwent the same procedure a second time to be fitted with body cast #2, which I also kept for 2 months. Now, think of what it was like to be 15 years old, and looking like a freak in an ugly body cast. Of course, the back pains had vanished, but I looked like Quasimodo! Yes, these were pretty unhappy times.

5. Sometime in the mid 1990’s (I do not recall the exact year), I received a call from the department of French and Italian at the University of Pittsburgh (I was then a graduate student in that department), asking me if I could serve as an interpreter at a press conference that the famous hockey player Mario Lemieux was giving to announce his return to the ice after having taken time off due to his bout with Hodgkins disease and serious back problems. I agreed, and went to the press conference, where I met Mario Lemieux, who was very gracious. The reason why an interpreter was needed for this press conference was because Mario Lemieux’s native language is French, and there were a lot of French Canadian sports reporters at the conference, and they would be asking their questions, and Lemieux would respond to them in French. I did fare quite well, translating each question and answer as they came up. I was a bit afraid that the topic might become technical, since I hardly know any hockey vocabulary in French or in English, but the conversation remained focused on Lemieux’s health and outlook. I did not know this at the time, but this press conference was being televised live, at least locally, on Pittsburgh stations. Before I went to this press conference, some people had asked me if I could score autographs from Mario, but it was definitely not the appropriate thing to do then. One final aside on this adventure – it took me months, many phone calls, and, finally, a letter to the organization, to be paid for my interpreting work by the Pittsburgh Penguins (a measly $45.00!).

So, here it is - stuff I could actually disclose here. Now, it's time to tag a few of my fellow bloggers, and I pick Michèle, SRP, Tomate Farcie, and Bourgogne. Guys, your entries don't have to be as long as mine!