Since You Missed It ...

I'll run it here in segments …  South Bay Stories Show, Sat. night and Sunday afternoon.

La Connexion Francaise

When I was a kid, my Dad and all of his relatives loved to poke into the family's history.  Our main ancestor, Giles Vermillion came to America in 1698.  They said he was running from the French Huguenots.  They said that he married and had six sons who also married and had sons and then (triumphant shout)  "He's the reason for everything in this country that's named Vermillion!  Lakes, rivers, towns and everyone alive today with that name!"  Dubious news at best, but we all loved it!

Now interested in France, I learned to speak French in case I ever got there - where I expected to see monuments and so forth to Giles.  I made a lifelong French friend, Michelle, who was a flight attendant for Air France, traveling the world.  She's 11 years younger, but easily 11 years wiser.  She gave me one of her old boyfriends while simultaneously warning me that he really wasn't much good.  A discovery I made for myself much later on.

He was a photographer for a French motorcycle magazine.  He didn't have a car.  I did.  He was too cheap to rent one.  I went to a lot of motorcycle races that summer.

I'll always remember him asking me, "Would you like to know the story of the Battle of Wounded (rhymes with rounded) Knee (sound the K)

He took off for Brazil with another photog and that was that.  But he did re-awaken my old love for photography.

Part 2 tomorrow