Cote d'Azus

Winter, 1967, Danmark. It was supposed to be my grand adventure. Living abroad as a rambling vagabond (whatever that was supposed to mean?). Not some hostel-hugging student traveler but a resident somewhere, living as a local and understanding their culture, their history and hope-fully making some friends along the way. Didn’t quite turn out that way.

After six months of all work, little play, no friends and lonesome weekends, the kicker was a layer of snow outside my basement apartment. When I complained at work, they showed me a map with longitude and latitude lines on it. Who knew it snowed in Danmark just like in Minnesota?

That was it, enough was enough, I was heading for the South of France and the legendary bathing beauties there. It took me three days of bone-chilling hitch-hiking to make it to the outskirts of Paris. I never got any further than that. My worn-out thumb and city buses got me to the TWA offices downtown and a ticket home.

Fast forward some fifty plus years and I was sailing lazily down the Saone and then the Rhone Rivers. Two weeks on our way to that infamous Pearl of the Mediterranean; Nice, the South of France. I was finally going to finish my journey begun so long ago. A different person, my best friend alongside me but still curious about the rocky beaches and bathing beauties there. Time and maturity diminished the animal appeal but it was a fun trip nevertheless.

The Cote d’Azur (Azure Coast) has long been known in movies and songs as the French Riviera. This fantasy world encompasses the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France and includes the sovereign state of Monaco. While it has no official boundary, it is usually considered to extend from the Italian border in the East to Saint-Tropez, Hyeres and Toulon in the West. It’s here that dreams are made and visitors can pretend to be somebody else like me fifty years ago.

Many visitors come to Nice to live out their dreams and fantasies. Nice, the capitol of the Rivera is the fifth largest city in France and houses the country’s third busiest airport. Traffic from Cannes, St. Tropez, Nice and Monte Carlo all use the airport. Tourism is now the largest economic driver in the region.

Tram Cars                                                     img 5495

Although it still harbors some of the characteristics of the “Grande Dame of the Cote d’Azur,” Nice has managed to create a special modern-day flavor all of its own. Unlike the other cities that hug the rocky shoreline of the Mediterranean, Nice has distinguished itself from neighboring Cannes and St. Tropez to the West and Monti Carlo on its eastern flank.

It’s not just the youthful tourists who flock to its rocky beaches or speed through town in their flashy sports cars. It’s not just the modern bike share system or light rail cars that whisk visitors to its museums, galleries and historical buildings. Instead, there seems to be a freshness in the air borne of beautiful young women, strapping men and plenty of socialization going on all day and night. I was just passing through town for one day and yet I could feel that special vibe every-where I went.

The French Riviera is a major yachting and cruising area and hosts 50% of the world’s super yacht fleet, with 90% of all super yachts visiting the region’s coast at least once in their lifetime.

400,000 years ago, the first people of Nice were chasing elephants. In 400 B.C. a Greek commercial center was thriving there. In 154 B.C. the Romans were building a second city on its hills. But it wasn’t until the late 19^th century that its winter warmth and clear blue shoreline attracted a new kind of visitor. Gradually old fisherman’s shacks and commercial stone buildings were replaced by splendid palaces built on the altar of conspicuous consumption.

The coastline became one of the first modern resort areas in the world. With the arrival of the railway in the mid-19^th century, Nice became the playground and vacation spot for British, Russian and other aristocrats. It was finally the Americans who gave the region an aura of charm, incalculable wealth and a fashionable way of life that became known around the world. Think of it back then as a multi-cultural ‘Downton Abby’ by the seashore.

Speaking of seaside attractions, one of the monikers of French beaches is their reputation for topless sunbathing and other distractions for the mind and eye. I ran into a similar cultural phenomenon in Bali and found that shooting video there (quite innocently for my own cable series) could be easily misconstrued by husbands and boyfriends who spot you before you pan over to their half-naked girlfriends or wives.

This time around I only had a still camera but wisely kept it holstered so that my stroll along the promenade wasn’t misunderstood or challenged. No need for caution though. The only topless babes I saw there were less than one year of age or so old I was too embarrassed to look. Must have been an off-day at the beach.

Despite the Midwestern beach scene that day, there was still an atmosphere of casual sexuality all around town. Perhaps it was the rugged tan bodies of all the French, Italian and Spanish youth hanging out in the piazzas and corner cafes all hours of the day and night.

Speaking of flowering beauty, Nice hosts one of the largest flower markets in all of France. On any given day, flower vendors fill the large plazas with their fragrance and colors.

Compared to other large cities such as Paris or London or Hong Kong, Nice is relatively small in square miles. Yet what it lacks in square footage, it makes up for in a constant stream of new cultural, social and pop icons that gradually make their way out into the rest of the world. It’s a natural incubator for fresh ideas and bold strokes of innovation. It’s in the air and on the tattooed backs of youthful exhibitionists. It’s a rich tapestry of ideas and color woven into everyday items and life styles.

It took until the end of our journey through the region of Provence before I realized that one of my favorite films of all times “A Man and A Woman” was filmed in great part in that region of France. I shouldn’t be surprised.

The area, like the film, had a grip on my heart and imagination long before this present journey was over. Nice can do that to the soul. It still casts bright shadows of excitement whenever I go back there…if only in my mind.

Chemical Love

Some time back, I had a friend who wrote a book entitled “I’m in Love. Am I Crazy?”

The short answer to that question is yes, you are crazy-of sorts. Your mind, if not spinning out of control, is at the very least in another state of consciousness. Love is a subject that has been talked about, analyzed, reduced to statistics and become fodder for a billion songs and movies and plays and books. It’s the fuel that keeps civilization happily buzzing along century after century. It’s a universal phenomenon that continues to afflict people around the planet on a daily basis.

A quick Google search reveals a plethora of information on the chemical warfare that goes on inside your head when you ‘fall in love.’ Most of us know that estrogen and testosterone can be the fuel that ignites our sex drive. What I didn’t know, but apparently the scientists did, is that there are other chemicals that play a crucial role in our reaction to someone else we find attractive.

A chemical called Dopamine is thought to be the ‘pleasure chemical.’ So when you’re giddy or goofy about someone new in your life and your heart is racing and your palms are sweaty, you’ve just had an infusion of Dopamine. Another chemical called Norepinephrine backs up Dopamine with a feeling similar to that of an adrenaline rush. Phenyl ethylamine is a third chemical that backs up the other two to produce this cocktail of love.

This might explain how an argument between loved ones can not only raise tempers but also churn up stomach acid, weak knees, headaches, and confusion. What is it about love that can cause such a strong physical reaction between two people who fundamentally still like one another?

On another level, what is it about love that can cause someone to make what seems like very irrational choices? Taken to the extreme, how can someone give up family or career or life just for the love of another person?  Those are pretty powerful signs of the enormity of that strange and mysterious affliction called love.

I love my grandchildren differently than I do my own wife and kids. Yet it’s still a powerful emotion wrought with highs and lows, good times and frustrating times and everything in between. It’s a bond with five young adults who are just starting out and may need a little assistance along the way. It’s an opportunity to share with them the wisdom I’ve gleamed, taken, borrowed and mimicked throughout my own life. Eighty-three years on this planet has given me some insight into how things work around here.

What I now find fascinating are those silly pop songs of the 50s that used to put me into such a wonderful trance with their rhythmic melodies and catchy lyrics. They spoke of girls and cars and first love. Those songs, if listened to carefully, actually had some poignant things to say about love. Of course, back then I was caught up in the mood and simply thought it was a great song because it had such an emotional impact on my naïve confused mind. I heard the lyrics and knew they were talking to me but didn’t truly understand what they were saying – not really.

It turns out those tunesmiths in the Brill Building down in Tin Pan Alley knew what they were talking about. The beauty of those songs is that they were able to capture the innocence of that era before sex and drugs and rock & roll painted a much different portrait of the times. Now as a struggling wordsmith myself, I can really appreciate the strength of those lyrics and the truth behind the words and the mental images they painted through those picture-songs.

After reflecting on my own upbringing, I can now understand my confusion at those feelings first experienced in high school then on to college and finally that wondrous expanse of time and place euphemistically called ‘growing up.’ Me and my best friends and how it was going to last forever; not!

Writing one of my first novels was a step back in time for me. It was surreal to experience the thrill, angst and pain of a college romance again in “Love in the A Shau.” It was an opportunity to be able to say things through my protagonist Daniel that I wasn’t mature enough or wise enough to say back then to my girlfriend.

As it turns out, all of my novels have two story lines. The first is the main story line that encompasses the heart of the novel. The second line is a love story between the two main characters. In the case of “Debris” it is multi-functional and multi-faceted, each covering a number of interrelated relationships.

Creating two concurrent storylines wasn’t a conscious decision on my part, at least not a first. I just started writing the story as I saw it unfolding in my head. But as I set up the scenes and wrote the dialogue between characters, feelings started to grow between my hero and heroine. It wasn’t foreshadowed nor even expected. They started to talk; I wrote down what they said and their relationship started to grow.

After it happened in my third novel, I finally recognized a familiar pattern and accepted the fact that I find this intrinsic, vapid, mysterious thing called love a key ingredient in my stories. It was simply too powerful to ignore and too much fun to end halfway through the novel. The love element added flavor, depth, confusion and a million possibilities of where my characters might go next. It added layers of emotions to the story that was really fun to explore. It’s love on many levels and between different genders.

What has fascinated me from the very beginning is the different kind of love and affection and attraction that my characters have for one another. More often than not, they determine where to take their feelings and where to take their relationships. I just write down what they say and do.

The relationship between Daniel and Colleen (Love in the A Shau) is very different from that of Brian and Katherine (Follow the Cobbler). Robert and Miranda are yet at a different place (Debris) than Jeb and Charlotte (Apache Death Wind). Ree and Clare (Apache Blue Eyes) have the most subtle of attractions but I think my readers will still feel it as I did when I wrote their story.

My friend claims that love is a chemical imbalance that renders most rational folk’s incapable of any rational decisions. While I don’t quite feel that as my characters begin their dance of attention as part of their mating ritual, I can still vicariously feel those first pangs of confusion and excitement as my fictional characters circle one another and I, as an interested third party, get to experience the same chill and sweat that goes with falling for someone else…all over again.

It can still happen after fifty-four years with ‘the one’; a bit more subtle but still there never-the-less.

Minnesota Tough

A couple of years ago, Minnesota endured two polar vortexes back-to-back. It was hardly a new phenomenon; just another Minnesota season with a new label and dire warnings of impending doom. Call it the enthusiastic effort of news directors to get as many eyeballs glued to the television screen as possible…media rating wars and all that. Why not be honest and just say it was another cold winter with a polar ice cap nestled snuggly over Minnesota’s crown. Any veteran of the cold wars will tell you there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. It was hardly the first harsh winter and certainly not the last that Minnesotans have endured.

As a friend described the weather when he was growing up, he simply stated with a shrug: “It was either snowing or below-zero. Those seemed to be our only two weather options all winter long.”

Of course, everyone bitched and complained about the brutal weather because that’s what most Minnesotans do during the heart of winter’s assault. But they endured and persevered and survived the cold and white-outs and accumulating snow. And they will do so once again this winter.

I endured Minnesota winters for almost seventy plus years and wouldn’t want anything less for my own children and grandchildren. It’s what makes Minnesotans…Minnesota tough. I love Southern California during the winter months but four seasons beat plain vanilla temps every time.

When I was younger, I’d heard the cliché that where you are born and raised leaves an indelible mark on your consciousness no matter where you end spending the rest of your life. I personally experienced that phenomena first hand when I was in the service.

Back in stone-age of 1964, San Francisco was a pretty spectacular place for a young, untraveled, hungry soldier stationed just outside of civilization. Not far beyond those military gates were more than the Seven Wonders of the World. It was the Haight-Asbury neighborhood, North Beach, Stanford, Sausalito, the North Coast, Half Moon Bay and the Big Sur....just to name a few.

But I was forever struck by the fact that where a person is raised can forever imprint a pull back to home no matter how strong their wanderlust might be. Many a night over pizza and beer my comrades and I would reminisce about our ‘life back home.’ It was nostalgic, exaggerated and ripe with fond memories, real and imagined.

If given a choice, I would have returned to Minnesota in a heartbeat. My buddy Daniel wanted to go back to standing on a street corner in Brooklyn; not doing much of anything except just watching his life passing by. Joe wanted to go back to the Southside of Chicago where he and his buddies would also just ‘hang out.’ Johnson wanted to go back to Mississippi to be with his family. Cruz wanted to go back to East L.A. So, there we all were in this glorious cornucopia of entertainment but like sailors on shore leave every man one of us would rather have been back home.

Certainly, part of it was homesickness, missing our girlfriends, missing out on what our friends were doing. For me, it was a combination of a girlfriend back home and college which I left as a dropout; both now out of reach for at least two more years.

But what was it that was drawing my mind back to that hinterland of snow and ice and cold and long winter nights. Simply stated, I guess it was my place of origin. It was what I knew best and what ultimately had and still does define me.

Growing up in Minnesota wasn’t so much an exercise in toughness as it was simple survival. You did what you had to do to earn, learn and play. And you don’t let the stupid weather get in your way. Earning money meant a paper route starting in seventh grade that included sub-zero winter weather at 4:30 in the morning, wearing galoshes and walking uphill both ways. Learning was shuffling across the college campus during a white out without hat and gloves because it wasn’t cool to wear them. Play was the pure pleasure of hiking in the woods for the serenity there.

Both my kids have grown up in Minnesota. Melanie still runs outdoors year-round and Brian, having moved to Colorado, is usually on some mountain top, skiing or climbing almost every winter weekend…with his family following right behind him.

The grandkids in Colorado are as comfortable on a mountaintop as are the Minnesota grandchildren sledding in sub-zero weather or playing king of the hill when Papa is back in town.

Forget the lame attempts of ‘Fargo’ clichés such as ‘yeah, you betcha’ and other Scandinavian accents to define a Minnesotan. If you were born and raised here and even if you’ve move away, the toughness that helped Minnesotans endure Minnesota winters is ingrained in your very psychic.

Minnesota Tough is not just a learned trait, it’s homegrown.