La Primavera II

It's the first day of Spring today: Saturday, March 21, 2009.


Today, with the running of the 100th Primavera, the annual Milan-San Remo bicycle race, "Official" Spring is here once more. Another Winter has passed.


Four years ago, on the first day of Spring in 2005, Amerloque began this blog to share his experiences, correct exaggerations and misunderstandings, and inform his readers about France and its differences from the USA. Things were going fairly well, blog wise, although pounding out a weekly entry soon came to resemble ‘work’, rather than being the ‘fun’ he expected. Too, Amerloque participated frequently in selected blogs and discussion groups about France which interested him, which took up a lot of time. Yet Amerloque continued ...


However, in the middle of a frigid, rainy night in February, 2008, seated in his living room, Amerloque had trouble breathing. Serious trouble, so serious that Mme Amerloque called the pompiers. It should be noted that when such problems occur, calling the fire department is a well-honed reflex in France. Far better than SOS Médecins, in Amerloque's view. A squad was dispatched to the scene and arrived in seven minutes (so Mme Amerloque attests), ready to administer immediate first aid and take the measure of the situation. The accompanying trained medic decided that an ambulance was required, and the SAMU (Service d’Aide Médicale Urgente) arrived forthwith. The living room was crowded: Mr and Mme Amerloque, one adult child, five burly members of the pompiers (well, OK, the medic was female and far less, er, burly that her teammates), and five members of the SAMU.



The SAMU doctor (in general they are considered to be among the best in France) examined Amerloque and said: “It’s three thirty in the morning, Monsieur. If you remain here like this, you’ll be dead by seven. Off you go, Monsieur !”. The attentive reader will correctly assume that such a statement focused Amerloque’s attention immediately - and irrevocably !


So Amerloque was unceremoniously bundled onto a stretcher and equally as unceremoniously trundled down several flights of stairs in no uncertain manner. He was then quickly gurneyed into the SAMU ambulance parked in the middle of the street, blocking traffic – where he remained for an hour and a half, while he was stabilisé. This is standard French emergency medical procedure, by the way: these SAMU vehicles are wonderfully equipped and designed for treating the patient immediately. Only after the stabilisation phase does the vehicle wend its way with blaring three-toned horn and flashing blue gyrophare to the hospital which offers the most specialized care … and has an empty bed. Not the nearest hospital, necessarily – the one offering the best chances for the patient.


The diagnosis of Amerloque’s illness finally turned out to be - well, not particularly joyful, as the French say. It’s the kind of illness that can be treated, but not cured. M and Mme Amerloque’s lives have been radically changed: what with physiotherapists, daily medications and nebulizer sessions, doctors' visits ... the lot. Bouncing from clinique to maison de repos (rest home), with, fortunately, significant periods at his own home, Amerloque found himself somewhat cut off from the world that he had constructed for himself. Today, walking is difficult, for example; only in June of 2008 was Amerloque able drive a car, as a matter of fact. His visits to the country became few and far between, alas, and are only now resuming with any kind of regularity.


Amerloque's internet access and participation were also substantially affected, alas, becoming sporadic and ephemeral: not too many French medical establishments offer links to internet for their patients ! Not too many even offer facilities as basic as cable TV. Amerloque was exposed for days and weeks on end - far, far too long, to his way of thinking - to the standard French media: TV, radio, newspapers, periodicals. In some venues, the food was excellent - copious four-star !- while in others it was less good: say two- or three-star, but no less copious. Nowhere was it unacceptable or tasteless.


Finding himself in a world totally unknown to him - the French medical system - Amerloque spent an enormous amount of time conversing with those around him: hospital personnel, therapists, other patients (and not all were French). Always with a smile on his face and in his eyes, too, since in a hospital or clinique, no matter where in the world, a patient is fully at the mercy of the staff. Always. Amerloque must confess that playing a role became somewhat wearing at times, especially when le petit personnel, generally non-French, explained gleefully to Amerloque how many supposed brothers and sisters and children they had brought to France to take advantage of the social system and collect unemployment insurance. Since Amerloque was not French, they assumed - quite incorrectly, of course - that Amerloque would be of like mind and was prepared to suck everything he could from the French social system.


Amerloque had a relapse during Thanksgiving week, 2008; he was hospitalized in réanimation ( i.e., in the ICU) for several weeks. He missed participating in his usual Christmas activities in Paris, although one of his children went to many of them and described them to him during visits. Mme Amerloque visited him every day. He can also state that spending Christmas in the hospital is no fun at all ! Fortunately the family was able to smuggle in smoked salmon, oysters, goose with stuffing, and the inevitable buche de Noel, as well as the mandatory Christmas gifts !


Be it said in passing that the French social safety net is indeed well developed. Amerloque's medical expenses - 100% - are taken care of by the state. Since he is on a congé longue maladie , his full salary - yes, 100% - has been and will continue to be paid to him for three years. Naturally Amerloque has been paying his fair share into the system for nigh on forty years, so Amerloque is pleased to see that what goes around, comes around.


Amerloque rarely frequented the web (including blogs about Paris). He did, however, do a lot of reading and thinking during his forced sojourns in various hôpitaux and cliniques. During the past year, Amerloque found himself rubbing his eyes in disbelief many times, but three instances stand out.


The first is M Bertrand Delanoe's re-election to the Paris mayoralty. He is a committed leftwinger and internationalist with ambitions for the Presidency of France. The Delanoe administration has devoted itself to making Paris a venue for the politically correct, almost unlivable for productive businesses, business people and people who think for themselves, while driving out investment and significant taxpayers and speeding the day when Paris will be nothing more than a museum for tourists and bobos.


The second is the great global warming scam. Amazingly, the media has managed to convince the gullible populace in France - and around the world, apparently - that global warming is man made (so-called 'AGW') and that the human race can do something about it, notwithstanding scientists' flawed and dishonest computer models and skewed or bowdlerized data. With the whole AGW scare - and the attendant upcoming 'water shortage' - the politicians' and their fellow travelers' intentions are clear: tax and control. Over in the United Kingdom the concept of the 'envirocrime' is alive and well. Amerloque was flabbergasted to learn that the new water laws voted upon and coming into effect here in France mean that, after filling out the proper form at the local city hall, Amerloque will pay an annual tax on the pipes and barrels that have been used for several centuries to harvest rainwater from the roof of his country house. (Fat chance of any declaration to the Mayor, states Mme Amerloque.)


The third is the nomination and election to the US Presidency of an arrogant, incompetent, inexperienced, fast-tracked-affirmative-action, smooth talking nostrum salesman from Chicago's South Side and its Cesspool Politics. Did America voters even glance at the man's suicidal program, almost guaranteed if completely implemented to reduce the status of the USA to that of the Third World ? Do Americans understand just how much they stand to lose ? In his own mind Amerloque called the man 'Chrysologus' from the very beginning and thought him a man of many words but very little substance; his only asset during the campaign, after all, was that he wasn't George Bush. Amerloque remembers that old saying "Salute the office, not the man" and hopes that the wheel will turn - as rapidly as possible.


Nothing he has seen since January 20th has caused Amerloque to change his mind. Alas, it even looks like the realities of the upcoming catastrophe will be far worse than feared, what with the man's about-faces and blatant backtracking, and politics-as-usual. As Shakespeare would have it:

"...the spring, the summer,
The chilling autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world
By their increase, now knows not which is which ...”


For readers of an even more classical bent, Plutarch was clear enough, too:

The real destroyer of the liberties of any people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations, and largesses."



L'Amerloque

Text © Copyright 2009 by L'Amerloque
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