Miss Satterlee's Student Goes to Paris

I am posting this on July 31, one day after our safe return from France.  Over the next few days I intend to bring my handful of followers up to date, day by day, on the adventures we experienced this month.  It is typical summer weather here in Highlands as I write, hot and humid, afternoon thunderclouds gathering in the west, and I am weary from the lingering effects of jet lag and Covid (more about that unfortunate turn of events later).  It never rained once while we were in France, so it is good to see such a lush and green world outside the window.

But before I begin my tale in earnest I have to talk about Miss Satterlee – Rebecca Satterlee, that is – my high school French teacher.  Until I unearthed my high school yearbook, I did not even remember, or perhaps never knew, the first name of this remarkable teacher from whom I took three years of French 55 years ago.  On our first day in class we were instantly immersed in this language, which is after all the basis of 30 percent of our English vocabulary today thanks to the Norman Conquest in 1066 A.D.  Miss Satterlee would not allow us to speak anything but French in her class, which was a bit of a struggle at first but soon became a challenge and ultimately a triumph of accomplishment.  If we wanted to know a word in French, we would have to ask, “Comment dit-on ‘chair,’” for example, and she would say, “On dit, ‘la chaise.’”  We sang Christmas carols in French, we learned which nouns were male and which were female, we learned slowly and tediously how to conjugate verbs.  And at the end of three years, we went to the home of a class member and had a sumptuous French dinner, which included, mousse au chocolat and, yes, escargots.  And we could speak French!  What an amazing thing it is to learn a language, the earlier in life the better, and to find it still embedded deep in the brain all these 55 years later!  Because yes, I discovered to my surprise that my French was surprisingly passable after half a century.

There she is in my high school yearbook, seated, third from the left, and now I realize that she was the chairman of the department.  At the time, we thought she might be a spinster, but now I see that she was a young woman, with an impish smile and a pixie hairdo, probably only a few years older than I was.  So thank you, Miss Satterlee – merci beaucoup!

On Monday morning, our bags already packed (one checked suitcase, one carry-on), we drove the three-and-a-half miles to Charlotte Douglas International Airport, one of the busiest in the country for passenger flights, with 700 flights each day.  That works out to about 30 per hour, one every two minutes, and when we arrived at the nearby Holiday Inn (were we parked our car for three weeks) we could hear the exciting, constant roar of aircraft taking off and landing.  I suppose those who fly regularly for business or pleasure may become accustomed to flying, but for a relative novice like myself it is still thrilling to experience this miracle of modern transportation as a 90-ton aircraft lifts effortlessly into the sky.

Our flight was on time, and checking our baggage and going through security was easier than we had expected.  In no time at all we were in the air, 38,000 feet above the North Atlantic, the outside air temperature in the minus 40s.  I always take Dramamine and have never been bothered by motion sickness when flying.  The food was surprisingly palatable, and we both watched movies that we had been wanting to see – Kenneth Branaugh’s Belfast for me, and Lady Gaga’s House of Gucci for Martha.  And we tried, unsuccessfully, to sleep during the flight to Heathrow, where thanks to a strong tailwind we arrived ahead of schedule.  Already we were being affected by time zones, though.  Our seven-hour flight had advanced through five time zones, so while it was 4:00 am. in Charlotte it was already 9:00 a.m. in London, and we could definitely feel it.

Heathrow Airport, where we transferred to a British Airways flight to Paris, was chaos compared to Charlotte Douglas.  Long, zig-zagging lines awaited us everywhere, and occasionally while standing shoulder to shoulder with other travelers, strangers from every nation on earth it seemed, there were signs advising us to maintain a safe six-foot distance due to Covid.  At last we were through it all, and sat down for a light supper at a place called, if I remember correctly, The Vagabond.  And then we were aboard our flight to Paris, bound for Charles De Gaulle Airport, our first glimpse of France appearing out the window, the deep blue River Seine curving back and forth below us.  “Prepare for landing.”