I just got a call from my mother a few minutes ago and I told her what I was doing and I asked her to think about and to tell me any of the dishes that she liked to prepare in our early days in Paris and she immediately remembered the one of welcoming Jim Myreck and his wife to Paris and to working with Dad in the Consular section of the American Embassy there where dad was the Consul of Visas and then later of Passports, and then again of Visas before he was stationed in Panama City as the DCM.
Grand times.
Mom was laughing and smiling as she told me this story just now over the phone. We were then living in the 16th arrondisment on the Avenue Paul Doumer, number 93 on the fourth of fith floor was it? I had my own private chambre du beaune back then. Funny, I cannot remember how to spell that word , so I spell it like it sounds and it is the wine capitol of burgundy that I write! Oops, hope you all find this charming. I will leave it ' as is ', as I want to write this story while it is all fresh in my mind.
She was making a French meal and she wanted the Myreck's to feel comfortable and welcome and so, when the dorrbell rang she was mixing something in a bowl, had an apron on, put the spoon she was using in the pocket of the apron, picked up the bowl and answered it like this.
Jim remembered later after Dad's passing as he spoke with Mom on the phone ( he was very sick himself at the time and was in a military hospital at the time and told Mom he, too might not be around much longer, and he died shortly after himself. My mother was so sad that she never got to see Jim again, ' He would have been able to fill in many of the holes about Harry ' she told me. She is probably right, too. She said that she wishes that the Foreign Service could have cloned Jim as he was so stellar, and so good at his job. What a nice thing to say Mom, really nice. I hope that Jim is up in heaven and seeing me type this, reading what I am writing, hearing what you said to me over the phone. ) ....
" Jim remembered the dinner better than I did. He recited it to me over the phone course by course. " Mom just told me.
" I remember the dessert that I made. It was a simple pear dessert, the pears cut in half and so fresh and I filled their centers with brown sugar and other things and baked them and they were so good."
" What wines did we serve that evening Mom? " She did not remember but she said that we probably served champagne as we were welcoming him to Paris and to working at the American Embassy.
Jim said that as soon as they saw Mom dresses as she was with an apron on and a bowl in her hand that everything would be okay. That is how she broke the ice. Bravo Mom!
" It was a family meal, you were there I believe, so were Eric and Larry." said Mom on the phone just now.
Speaking of Paris then she said : " A very memorable time in France and in the Foreign Service. "
Mom added about Dad : " He was very good at it. He handled it very well. " She was speaking about his job and that time there, as there was a transition then and more people were being allowed to enter the Foreign Service than before she said. More people were being welcomed, it was changing.
" I wish wish wish wish wish I could write them down. " This is what Mom said when I asked her to remember and to share more of these stories with me.
She felt better after just talking to me, I felt and feel better after talking to her just now, too. I am glad we had this time to chat and that you called me MOm. I love talking with you and we can be each other's cheering team and help each other along as it is tough as we both get older, especially tough for you as you just said : " Tough when you have to deal with each bone in your body. Nice to speak of happier days when getting old is so miserable. "
I agree Mom, thanks for the stories, thanks for sounding so good, love hearing your voice. You almost sing to me as you speak to me, you almost dance to me as you speak to me, and I often smile braodly and blossom and open wide like a flower when the sunshine touches and kisses it! " Thanks Mom, I love you.
Love you, too Dad. Miss you now. Wish I could talk to you again. Miss your calls when you would just call to ask me how I am doing and just want to hear whatever I would share with you. priceless that, I carry it in my heart always. That is a gift to want to know, to love, to appreciate, and not to attach a lot of baggage to a relationship or a conversation when you have one. Thanks Dad, that was priceless to me.
You both have molded me and helped me be the man I am today, and I am still working to be an even better man and a person connected with life and his family and community. So important all of this.
My real start in wine was with my father in the really early seventies in Paris, France when we would shop in the neighborhood Nicolas stores and then I would work really hard to soak and scrape and remove these labels and others for the memories that they would help to bring back with more clarity to me later, and I am so glad I have them. They all tell stories that mean so many different things to so many different people. Cheers, Happy Monday all, January 12th, 2015 .... TONY
Anthony Quinn added 3 new photos.
15 mins ·
A wonderful wine slice of the past, from the eighties, from the nineties? The brochure does not say so I look at the vintages and they are from the seventies and older, thus it is from the seventies when we arrived in Paris, France and my father and I would trekk down to the local neighborhood Nicolas stores and start to shop and buy our wines for the evening meals that my mother would make us five Quinns! Cheers, TONY Wonderful memories, really quite splendid.
