4/23/23

 Sunday, April 23, 2023

I typed up a long narrative describing a trip Geri and I took from Paris to Abbaye St. Pierre in Solesmes, France, in December, 1994.  I tried to paste a copy of a photo of the dining room in the Grand Hotel de Solesmes into the text and failed but also somehow made it impossible to see any of the narrative.  Alas, it is a good and true story.😡 but I am too tired after last night's dinner with the Goldbergs and the Lowes to tell the tale again.  Maybe later.👃

Bony Maroney

In December 1994, Geri and I went to Paris and decided to visit Ckartres and the Benedictine Abby at Solesmes, in the Pays de Loire district while we were in France.  Correction: I wanted to visit the monastery to listen to the monks chant, which they are famous for.  Geri agreed to come along, though she had no particular interest.  We got out of bed in our cheap hotel, walked in the cold, dark Paris morning to the Montparnasse train station, and caught the early train to Sablé-sur-Sarthe.  After a near 2 hour ride through the dark predawn hours, we arrived at an empty train station in Sablé: no people, no taxis, no buses.  We started walking into town to look for a taxi (no luck) and encountered a man whom I addressed in my college French, asking where the monestery is and how we can get there.  He informed us we were going the wrong way and that there were no taxis at that hour.  We retraced our steps and started walking in the direction of the abby but by this time it was raining.  We walked on the road paralleling the Sarthe River for about an hour without encountering a taxi or a car that would offer us a ride.  It rained the whole time soaking my trenchcoat and Geri's heavy wool winter coat.  By the time we reached the abby, we were worn out, cold, wet, and thoroughly miserable AND we couldn't find the entrance to the chapel where the morning mass and chanting were to be found.  I wanted to forget about it and seek shelter in the hotel across the road from the abby but Geri, having endured so much to get this far, insisted we persist in finding the door to the chapel which we eventually did.  As we entered the chapel, the mass was already in progress with only a few worshippers in the pews.  We were so cold, wet, and stiff from the freezing rain that we were unable to sit, kneel, and stand along with the other folks attending the service.  When the service was completed, we went across the road to the hotel where a very gracious hostess told us that, alas, we were too late for breakfast in the restaurant and too early for lunch, but she brought us some very welcome hot coffee while we waited.  Before lunchtime, I told Geri that the chanting we heard in the morning service was part of the canonical hour known as Prime and that we would soon be able to hear more chanting at the canonical hour known as Terce.  For some reason, this propect did not excite Geri (?!?) so she stayed in the dry, warm, hospitable hotel with more comforting coffee while I trudged across the road again to hear more chanting and to buy a couple of CDs in the abby gift shop.  The CDs have long since disappeared.  I returned to the hotel where we had a delicious lunch, of what dishes I can't recall, called for a taxi to return us to the Sablé train station, and returned to Paris, exhausted.  The remarkable part of this story: Geri never complained to me, much less smote me about the head and shoulders, for leading her on this miserable misadventure.  She never took me to task for my failure to plan and make arrangements for transportation from Sablé to Solesmes so as to avoid the need for an hour long hike through the French countryside in the cold and rain of a bleak December morning.  Sablé-sur-Sarthe is near the 48th parallel; Milwaukee is at about the 43rd parallel, which is to say, lousy weather in December in that region was predictable for a savvy traveler, which I clearly was not.  I knew on that day, and I know today,  that I was and am a fortunate man to have a wife who did not berate me, if not revile and smite me, for devoting a day of our French holidays to seeking out a chorus of Benedictine monks chanting in the middle of nowhere in west central France in December.