Editor’s Note: I started the morning with a jolt. Sure it is Monday, and yes, the rains may make the bit of business I have over at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling a soggy pain, but I can always get dry. My pal JoeMaz sent along an article from Congressional Quarterly’s 
May 9, 2016 issue called “2017 Appropriations: Regular Disorder,” by Kellie Mejdrich and Ryan McCrimmon. It is a good read, and describes how the Federal budget has turned from twelve discrete bills, (debated within an inch of their lives) into an endless series of Continuing Resolutions, which is to say that there is little oversight on anything the Government wants money to do, and has not passed the standard appropriations bills in almost twenty years. That has caused power to migrate to the Executive. That in turn made me realize we had had our big Constitutional Crisis and no one noticed, or even whimpered about Congress committing suicide. Oh well. It was a great Republic while is lasted, and we are someplace else now, in terra incognita. Accordingly, I am going back to France during the time the Berlin Wall was falling and enjoy the holidays.

-Vic

23 DEC 1989:

Cannes and Marseille: More Adventures in Voitures.

We must return to the ship because Deputy has to have his car back for reasons best known to himself. We are woozy as we stagger down the stairs and pour ourselves into the car.

Mr. Toad is at the wheel as we embark en route Marseilles in a self-induced fog. The day is sunny and entirely too bright. We blunder past the perfect gas station in which to fill the tank in order to set ourselves up for the classic adventure of being in an alien land, running on fumes, and smack in the middle of nowhere.

We coast into a fortuitously placed gas station about fifteen miles from the autoroute only to be confronted by further problems. The pumps offer a variety of types of gasoline and diesel fuel. The trick is clearly to avoid introduction of home heating oil into the tank of the rental voiture.

With my unparalleled language skills I take command and translate the signs on the pumps. I run down the choices available: high-test, regular, Benzine and gasahol versions. I arrive at the Petrol sans Plume button and finish with a flourish.

“Sans Plume. You know, the stuff without the feathers.” Toad was putting it into the tank as I spoke, and I could see I suddenly had some credibility problems.

We had to put Lutt-man in restraints to get him into the back seat. We get lost an unprecedented second time when we took the St. Maximum’s exit from Hell to take gratuitous photos of ourselves before the ice-clad glittering mountains in the distance.

Naturally, we can’t get back on the motorway and thus are driving aimlessly through the pretty countryside until we discover to our horror that we are somewhere near Aix en Provence.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” says Monsieur Toad and it 
becomes the standard phrase for the rest of the cruise.

Eventually, though, we stumble across a likely motorway and the bad boys return home with the commitment to return to Cannes upon the morning via the train so we can assist Madam Avery in the preparation of a real down-home Christmas Feast.

There is just enough light left in the sky to go jog on the Pier and watch the sun set on the hills above Marseilles.

Later, we countenance a violation of some minor Naval Regulations
regarding the consumption of Scotch and endure the Karate Kid parts 2, 3, 4 & 5 and the latest update from the fighting in Panama.

According to CNN, we seem to be ahead on this one. I wander off to bed about 0230, still dazed.

24 DEC….Christmas Eve. I bat my alarm clock into submission and oversleep. The Boys are not happy with me as I join them in the CAG Admin office. Moose gives us a ride through the still dark streets to the Marseille train station where we get to hang around until the 0909 train to Cannes. We enjoy New Adventures on the French train system but manage to find seats and doze until we arrive at 1101 for Cannes
Part II.

We stroll along the streets to Avery’s, dragging our bags. There is a lot to do to get ready for the feast. The Kitchen Elves roll up their sleeves and go to work. The makings of the party are a thing to behold. Chop has been seconded as Avery’s personal butler and is moving wine, cheese and pate for 110 people through the sunlit kitchen.

Lutt-man and I make stuffing; frantic phone calls come in about the jambon, the delicious Gallic version of ham, which is being cooked elsewhere. Mr. Toad is busy making his patented home-made apple pie.

Meanwhile, Avery’s flat is like Grand Central Station. The Flag selection board has reported out, and Mike McConnell is our next
Intel Admiral. Partly in celebration, we start drinking a pedestrian but entirely adequate red wine about 1300; The Navy
League begins to arrive at 1900; the white wine, when we turn our attention to it, proves to be exceptional.

Soon there is a wild crowd spilling through the flat, composed of a bizarre mixture of Fleet Officers and multi-national bon vivants and hangers-on. The average age of the eligible (or not so) females in the crowd is somewhere around fifty.

Avery has a refrigerator magnet that says “When you are over the hill, you pick up speed.” Chop goes for a very attractive young law student who is the daughter of a retired yacht captain.

One of the big hits of the evening is a pleasingly plump steel saleswomen from Toledo who is accompanied by her chaperon. All the single or single-minded men make four engine runs at her and one of the thousands of questions of the evening is who will make it to the Finals with her. Her chaperon 
is formidable, but Doc eludes him in the clinch.

We Elves are photographed with our culinary efforts and we are confident that within weeks we will have “Made the Wall” and be enshrined in Avery’s snap-shot Hall of Infamy.

We hear Avery’s remarkable story over shots of frozen vodka with the awful realization it is 0630 already and the sun is rising over a sleeping Cannes. It is Christmas day.

Joyeux Noël

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com