Articles about Imagine
- Barge Shopping ( Escape Artist)
Short Stories (coming soon)
The Mini:
Buying a Car in France
“You’re lucky the police didn’t stop you,” the young man behind the rental car counter in Dijon said to me. “The car has been reported as stolen. You are very lucky.” He shook his head.
Now, to someone whose only brush with the law was a speeding ticket twenty-two years ago, I received the news with equanimity. After all, I had righteous indignation on my side. True, we’d kept the rental car longer than the original contract stated, but I’d called the Paris airport rental office on three different occasions to postpone the return date. I explained this to the young man after he showed me two faxes from his Paris office stating that the car has been placed on a list of stolen vehicles for several weeks. He appeared to believe me and again shook his head.
“Those people in Paris,” he said. “They don’t know what they’re doing.”
In retrospect, we were lucky. Being language-impaired and trying to explain the situation to the police in our Tonto French would’ve been dicey at best. We’d kept the rental Citroen Saxo since we’d arrived in April, about six weeks, hoping to find another car that we could afford to purchase. Last year my husband Paul and I bought a boat to cruise through Europe for six months every year. Our 1906 Dutch steel barge, Imagine, was originally designed to haul cargo under sail and has the graceful lines of a klipper. In the 1950’s it was converted to a houseboat and offers us 1000 square feet of living area: three bedrooms, three baths, a galley and a salon, all for a fraction of the cost of a new cabin cruiser. A 1959 Volvo Penta diesel engine now powers us down the rivers and canals of France, at the majestic speed of approximately four miles an hour.
For an entire season, we had lived without a car and walked, rode our bicycles or called a taxicab when absolutely necessary. While this contributed to our weight loss on the “Barge Diet” (lots of exercise to counteract the delicious French food and copious amounts of Cotes de Rhone wine), there were locations, like our homeport in St. Symphorien, where shopping was not convenient. The French have a partial solution for people in remote places like this – a bread truck arrives daily, honking its horn and like Pavlov’s dogs, people emerge from their boats to purchase their daily baguettes and croissants. On Fridays, a Pizza Truck, complete with a wood oven, parks within walking distance from the port. But we also hoped that having a vehicle would expand our horizons and allow us to see even more of the French countryside.
Besides, we could not live on bread and pizza alone.
Since we charter our boat for up to four guests, a six person minivan would be ideal, but très cher, very expensive. We looked in used car lots, scanned the ads for cars, and looked at cars that were for sale by owner. We considered a motor scooter to at least get us over to a store when we were moored at some remote location. This option, while a cheaper alternative, wasn’t without its limitations – rainy weather travel wouldn’t be very comfortable, carrying loads of provisions difficult. We always have a building or painting project going on with endless amounts of boards and paint to carry, and I was concerned as to how a scooter would solve our dilemma. I envisioned us, two middle-aged people in flashy helmets, balancing packages and lumber like something out of Cirque du Soleil. It was not a pretty picture. We tried to go to the scooter store in Dole, resignedly ready to buy something, and it was unexplainably closed for several days in a row.
Then, driving along in our rental car on the way to Dijon one morning, Paul came to an abrupt halt, right in Saint Jean de Losne, a town near our homeport .
“What?” I said, shaken. Maybe we’d hit something.
“Didn’t you see it? A Mini, A Vendre, a For Sale sign in the back window.”
There it was, a red Mini with a man sitting in it, parked by the side of the road. We backed up and pulled in next to it. We’d narrowed down our list of cars that would work for us if we were able to find them used. We had carefully measured an indentation in our boat’s foredeck where a car might fit and we would then be able to bring our transportation with us wherever we went. A French Deux Chevaux, a Citron 2 CV, was narrow enough, but too tall and would block Paul’s vision when piloting Imagine. We’d surreptitiously measured a Mini we’d found parked on the street. It was the perfect height and width for our boat. We both had a weakness for Minis; Paul has owned British cars all his driving life, I always thought they were cute, like little cartoon cars.
The man inside the car spoke no English, but we communicated that we would like to know the price. I had him write it down in a notebook I now carry, just to be certain. Numbers are my nemesis in English, let alone French. The car was affordable, had low mileage for a 1990 model and would fit nicely on the deck of Imagine. In fact, the seller explained, the car has been on his barge, Tulipe, which was also a vendre. We introduced ourselves and he told us his name was Freddy. Paul test drove the car for a few minutes and felt it was worth pursuing the purchase.
Working out the details was difficult with our language problem, but Freddy had an idea. We should follow him to one of the boat ports in town where they speak English and French well and they could act as translators. Unfortunately, it was the port in town where they have been arrogant to us before, but we couldn’t think of a better idea.
A truculent man helped with the translation and the details of buying a car in France. Freddy worked for this port and occasionally piloted boats for the yard so you would think they’d want to help him with the sale. One of the English owners made it clear he was doing this for Freddy, but not for us since we are not customers. We explained for the umpteenth time that we tried to find a boat here when we were barge shopping, but they didn’t have anything for us. Silently, I added, “And since you’ve been snotty to us every time we’ve met, I’m glad.” Next encounter, I wouldn’t keep silent. At the time, I wanted the car and could use their help.
We were told that Freddy will be moving a boat and leaving the next day for a week and we would be gone for a week after that. Now wanting to lose the car, we realized that we must do the deal that day. We didn’t yet have a French bank account, or the time to get one established, so our first challenge was to draw enough cash out of ATMs. We didn’t know exactly what the transaction limits would be, so we spent about a half an hour getting cash from various accounts and machines. I felt like we were playing the slot machines in Las Vegas after a while, counting the bills that spewed out and then recounting them. One account finally cut us off, but the other pulled through and we had just enough cash for the deal. We went back to St. Symphorien, our homeport, and found out the details from Roger, our harbormaster, of how one goes about purchasing and registering a car here.
First, the car must be tech inspected at a state-run Control Technique (seller pays) and it may be sold only if it passes the inspection. Then, a corner must be cut off the current title. The title must have two lines drawn across the face of it with the sold date and the signature of the seller. A standard transfer form also needs to be completed. The method of payment must be cash or a check drawn on a French bank account. There was no such thing as a cashier’s check, Roger explained, as they weren’t necessary; if you wrote a check that was overdrawn, the police came to your house and you went to jail, no questions asked.
I made a mental note to self: 1) get a French bank account. 2) Never overdraw it. Never. Then we must register the car at the Prefecture in Dijon, with all the papers of sale and a letter from Roger establishing our part-time residency here. A new title would then be given to us at the Prefecture and must be carried with us at all times (called a Carte Gris – Grey Card). Insurance would be available from the insurance companies in St. Jean. It might help our rate if we had a letter from our United States car insurance agent stating an absence of claims for over five years and we would also need the letter establishing our part time residency.
At five o’clock, we met Freddy outside his house in St. Jean. He was five feet tall and in his early sixties. Long gray sideburns framed his face. He was dressed up for the occasion in a shiny blue tracksuit with white stripes down the legs, a polyester shirt with a nautical print of boats and steering wheels, topsiders and a black captain’s hat perched on his head. He was the most boat-loving Frenchman we’ve met.
We followed him for about ten minutes to Brazey-en-Plaine the closest inspection location. The official tested the car more thoroughly than we expected and the Mini went through a series of gyrations bouncing the suspension around. He tested the brakes, inspected the undercarriage and engine, and finally a hose was stuck up its exhaust pipe. Freddy stared down at the paperwork given him when all the tests were completed and a great deal of conversation took place between him and the inspector. We were puzzled and trying to figure out if there was a problem, and if so, what it was. Time was running out. Finally, the woman in the office who spoke some English explained to us, “It failed the pollution test.” Now what?
Closing time for the test facility was seven o’clock and it was now six. Undaunted, Freddy told us to follow him to a nearby garage. He spoke with the man there and for half an hour they made adjustments under the hood. Again, another hose was stuck up the Mini’s exhaust pipe. Freddy and the mechanic nodded, money changed hands, and we followed Freddy back for a re-test at the facility. This time, the Mini passed. It was six forty; we’d made it with twenty minutes to spare.
We returned to Freddy’s maison, met his wife, Germaine, and their dog “Shippi” and got a chance to go inside a French person’s house for the first time. Located on the Saone River, the immaculate interior of his home was done entirely in a nautical motif. There were boat paintings, boat models, ship’s wheels; even the hall wallpaper was a nautical print. Freddy went around pointing everything out proudly and we nodded enthusiastically. He showed us the bedroom, done up in a king-size bed with the only non-nautical art in the house, a large barroom nude oil painting – Madame? I wondered. They explained that they will be selling the house and buying a camper van to live in. We tried to explain that we live in our motor home in the winter. I thought how much Freddy would miss the nautical life once the barge and house along the river sell. Maybe like us he will carry a small boat with him on the camper to satisfy his nautical passion.
Money and paperwork were exchanged, we declined the invitation for a drink, and we arrived back in port by seven thirty, with the Mini, our signed papers, without a centime in our pockets.
When I tell people that my husband, Paul, and I bought a steel barge to cruise through Europe for six months every year, they often think of huge industrial rectangular things that are pushed down the Mississippi River. Our 1906 Dutch barge, Imagine, originally designed to haul cargo under sail, has the graceful lines of a klipper. In the 1950’s it was converted to a houseboat and offers us 1000 square feet of living area: three bedrooms, three baths, a galley and a salon, all for a fraction of the cost of a new cabin cruiser. A 1959 Volvo Penta diesel engine now powers us down the rivers and canals of France, at the majestic speed of approximately four miles an hour. It has been a lesson in learning that a snail’s pace has its rewards.
Before we sold our house, our cars and quit our jobs to cruise, we took a course in barging from an American, Rodger Van Dyken, who wrote the book Barging in Europe.
The training convinced us that this was the time in our lives to try something different – we’d both been working in the computer software industry for almost 30 years and we needed a change. In our fifties, we had just reached that time when our responsibilities were minimal to aging parents and grown children while we still felt healthy and fit enough to handle a seventy-ton boat.
We bought the barge last year in Holland, using the Internet to locate various brokers who specialize in selling boats of this type. After a month’s delay at the shipyard where we had necessary work completed, we spent three weeks trying to reach Reims France in time to meet our first guest and friend, Suzanne. While cruising down the Meuse River at top speed (eight miles an hour) in the pouring rain, we both smelled a suspicious odor and saw steam pouring from the engine room. After pulling over to let the engine cool, Paul diagnosed the problem as overheating due to a broken water pump impeller.
Unfortunately, we had no spare.
We limped into port at Chateau Regnault, a small French town in the Ardennes region of Northern France. After two weeks of cold, pouring rain and several misadventures up until then, including being stuck in a harbor entrance blocking all traffic, I was ready to quit. This was not what I had envisioned. For a week, we tried to find the part we needed, first by telephone alone, which was a disaster with our Tonto-like command of French especially in the technical area. By enlisting the aid of fellow boaters who spoke the language better and by finding a helpful taxi driver who acted as chauffeur and mediator, we finally obtained a new part – and a spare.
In only a few minutes, Paul fixed the engine that then showed no signs of overheating again.
We discussed where we should go that afternoon - we could make it to the Charleville-Mezieres’ nice port de plaisance, and then I asked Paul, “What do we gain? A shorter train ride on Monday to pick up Suzanne, maybe saving ten minutes each way. So what? We liked it here, we knew where to shop and the mooring was fine. What was the hurry?” Paul agreed. We had finally adjusted ourselves to the European pace and set out to enjoy our extra day in port.
We took the train to Reims and Suzanne was delighted to see us – she didn’t speak any French, and her knowledge of Spanish hadn’t helped her communicate. For breakfast, she’d ordered a “latte” and received some hot foamy milk, minus the coffee. To atone for the disappointing breakfast, we fortified ourselves at a café with a lunch of moules et frites, tender juicy mussels and fries, accompanied by two bottles of white wine. Big buckets of mussels were served, Suzanne and I had them marinière, in a light white wine sauce, while Paul indulged in a bucket of the briny mollusks covered in a Champagne, mushroom and cream sauce.
Next on our itinerary was a guided tour of Mumm’s Champagne cellar. The cool, crypt-like caves were filled with magnums of Champagne stored on their sides. Our tour guide told us that most of the actual production takes place elsewhere, closer to the vineyards, yet there were millions of bottles stored here. We learned that the appellation ”Champagne” can only be used in this region and it is illegal for any other bubbly wine, or even Yves Saint Laurent’s perfume, to use the name.
After the fall harvest, pinot noir, chardonnay and pinot meunier grapes are pressed and then fermented in stainless steel vats for ten hours and then transferred to casks. In the spring, other wines are blended in from previous vintages. If grapes are judged to be of such quality that blending will all be from the current year, this is then fine enough to be labeled “vintage” Champagne. Once the blending is complete, the wine is bottled and sugar and yeast are added. This second fermentation creates the distinguishing bubbles and takes anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. Finally, in a procedure called dégorgement, sediment is removed by plunging the head of the bottle into a freezing solution, the cork is removed and the ice containing the sediment is ejected. The wine is then sweetened, re-corked and the familiar wire-hood is added to hold the cork in place. Voila – Champagne.
At the end of our tour we tasted a glass of the Champagne of our choice. As the bubbles tickled my nose and tongue, I thought of a quote from Madame Bollinger, one of the grandes dames of Champagne: "I drink Champagne when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company, I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I'm not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty."
It was a one-hour train ride from Reims back to Imagine. It would take two weeks of cruising for us to get to Reims again. Our lesson learned, we realized that our slow speed allowed us to see more and, most importantly, living by deadlines had no place in this lifestyle. There was no way to anticipate all of the variables that must be taken into account: broken locks, traffic on the waterways, weather and a boat that was almost one hundred years old. Instead, we sat back and glided along, knowing that arriving in one town or another by such and such a date wasn’t significant. What was important was that we were here, doing what we set out to do and that was enough.
I was perched on the back stoop of our white ranch house with my dad. Our diminutive yard bordered a dusty alley alongside five pairs of railroad tracks. Across them were the backsides of ragged shops lining “uptown” Franklin Park, Illinois. Cicadas chanted in the stifling heat and a thunderhead bloomed over the cottonwood in the corner of our yard.
I sported a red bandana tied roguishly to my head, a leftover from a game of pirates. “Look, Daddy,” I said pointing to the south. “That cloud looks like a ship. I want to fly there and sail away in it like a pirate.”
He dragged on his unfiltered Camel, looked up and shook his head. A puff of acrid smoke hung over us. “No, Pookie, you wouldn’t. Even a twin engine prop would have its wings torn off if it got anywhere near that thunderhead.”
I flinched with this new knowledge. There was danger in something so beautiful. Danger when storms blew through and bent our Lombardy poplars to the ground like a row of peasants bowing before royalty. I became deathly afraid of storms, especially tornadoes. “A Wizard of Oz” complex, one of my friends called it.
Later, I’d better understand my dad. An amateur radio operator, he’d yearned to sail the seas on a merchant vessel as a ship’s radio operator. Instead, saddled with a mundane factory job, he’d never traveled further than New York. He deadened his feelings of failure with shots of Jim Beam followed by Hamm’s beer chasers and was fond of saying, “Others look at the world through rose-colored glasses. Mine are tinted brown.”
I vowed I would tour the globe, especially Europe. I planned go to college and then become a flight attendant. Instead, I married my high school sweetheart, then fell out of love and divorced. I stumbled into a job in the computer software industry in its infancy and went from punched cards, to disks the size of Frisbees, floppy drives, hard drives, and finally to the Internet.
Fantasies of traveling the world? Well, they for vacations. The rest was reality, what I expected from life and what society expected from me.
I met Paul at a computer software company where we both worked. His conservative preppy exterior belied the adventure-seeker inside. In one of our first conversations, Paul told me his hero was Charles Kuralt.
“Wouldn’t you like to travel all the time and just see what’s around the bend in the road?” I agreed, but thought Paul was thinking about retirement, years away.
After we married, we bought a motor home and vacationed around the United States like gypsies in a caravan. But “full-timing” was for when people retired at age 65, after they worked hard all their lives, probably in jobs they either merely tolerated or outright hated.
Wasn’t it?
Then the company where we both worked disappeared when the dot-com bubble burst and what seemed like a devastating turn of events began the greatest adventure of our life together.
Like Magellan, we dreamed of circumnavigating the world. We studied teakwood sailboats, but my adventurous thoughts turned to roiling and upchucking. Seasickness can’t be unlearned.
Mesmerized by the TV show Barging Through Europe, in one minute I changed my mental image from barges on the Mississippi filled with cotton bales to sleek steel behemoths fitted with galleys and sleeping quarters for a family and guests. Or a watery inn – a barge and breakfast.
Now this was it. Adventures on our own ship, one we could both pilot. We’d float down quiet canals through Impressionistic landscapes.
But to sail on our beloved barge, we’d need to sell everything we owned.
We disassembled the exterior of our lives. Everything had to be examined and categorized: sell it, give it to someone, donate it, throw it away, recycle it, bring it to France, place it in storage, or put it in the motor home.
At our a massive garage sale, a couple bought our log pine master bedroom suite for their mountain home in Estes Park, Colorado. They wanted everything – the mattress, the bedding, even our pillows. We had to schedule the removal at the last minute since we needed this bed to sleep on. I winced when another couple carried out our antique icebox. Paul’s darkroom equipment went next. People test-drove his reliable Jeep Cherokee and my “mid-life crisis” SAAB convertible. Both cars sold immediately. We took to driving our 1969 VW Bug instead.
I was delighted to be rid of other things like our home office furniture and boxes of paper records, anything reminiscent of our computer careers. People wanted to know why we were moving, where we were going, how we could leave such a “lovely house.”
“We’re going to be living six months out of the year in our motor home, and the rest of the time on our boat in Europe,” I told one woman as she started to carry out our stereo system.
She set her booty down and looked at me for a few seconds with a raised eyebrow. She smiled and shook her head. “You and your husband are very gutsy.”
I smiled. “Either that or very foolhardy.”
Paul caught me looking at him and flashed me a roguish grin. He stood by his treasure chest toolbox while two men rifled through it. My co-conspirator metamorphosized from a middle-aged man into a trim swashbuckler, determined to rescue us from convention and boredom.
An anvil-shaped cloud spread over the horizon. I’d seen firsthand the worst these storms could bring when a tornado once snaked out of the southwest and leveled the building behind me. I’d survived my worst fear come to life. I thought of my dad, who had died an early death from his addictions, and felt he would’ve been proud of my vagabond plan. I considered the thunderhead an omen and dreamed of tomorrow, what might be, the endless possibilities derived from hope.
