Two weeks in Alameda ... and the Tour de France 2015

Several months ago our youngest daughter asked if I would be willing to stay in Alameda, California, for two weeks while our two oldest grandsons (6 and 8 years old) were to attend an immersion Chinese language summer camp.  This is how I came to spend two weeks in the island of Alameda with my two grandsons and their Chinese au-pair.  My husband stayed near Nashville with our daughter's family that included our two youngest grandchildren (2 1/2 and 3 1/2.)

Our daughter took a week to drive the children across country from Nashville to Alameda, but I flew there.  She flew back and I had her car for transportation while in Alameda.  Even though I spent almost ten years in San Francisco (in the 1960s) I had never been to Alameda.  Alameda is an island, adjacent to Oakland and east of San Francisco across the Bay.   It was established in 1853 and incorporated in 1854.

The children had classes from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm then 45 minutes of Chinese language study at home with the Chinese au-pair (they have been studying Chinese for 3 years at least.)  The school was in the same block where we stayed, and we could see the shore from our window.  I have placed a red mark on the map below to show where we stayed (bottom right of map.)  The purple area across from our lodging is a big shopping center with many restaurants and shops, including a large Safeway grocery store and a Trader Joe's.

The first week there was very cool and foggy with sun only during parts of the afternoons so I did not take many pictures.  I went to the post office in the shopping center to mail several postcards and stopped to take the picture of some pretty purple flowers.  That is when I noticed how close we were to the shore.

I crossed the road and was surprised to see clearly the outline of San Francisco across the Bay.  The following week was sunny and I drove on this road, Shoreline Drive, often and stopped to take pictures and will show more in a future post.

Alameda is a laid-back city, a bit old-fashioned.  It is very quiet during the day with mothers walking with their baby carriages and children, seniors strolling and many bicycles driving around.  The automobile speed is 25 MPH everywhere on the island which was good for me - I could look around as I drove.  Alameda is popular for its Fourth of July celebration which is said to be the second oldest and second longest (3 miles/5 km) in the US, but I missed it since I arrived there on July 6th.  We were staying on Park Street - which is the main business street.  I walked a bit around it and admired the art deco Alameda Theater around one of the corners.  It was opened in 1932 and in 2006 the City of Alameda spent $16 million to renovate it.  (Interior pics courtesy Alameda Magazine.)  Click on collage to enlarge.

Parking is not easy in this city and it took me a while to take pictures of the many pretty houses I saw.  I read that Alameda has more pre-1906 earthquake era homes in the Bay Area than other towns along the coast.  Many Victorian houses are mixed among the old Mission and Craftsman style California houses.

Real estate is not as expensive in Alameda as in San Francisco, but it is still higher than the national average.  I checked the price of some of the least expensive houses for sale - and they were not very large houses.  Here are four of them:  the asking price for the house on top left is $800,000 with 2 bedrooms and 2 baths; top right house is $629,000 with 2 bedrooms 1 bath, 1100 square feet, built in 1913 with no updated kitchen.  Bottom left house is $719,000 with 2 bedrooms 1 1/2 baths and 1100 sq feet, built in 1920.  Bottom right house is $650,000 with 3 bedrooms 1 bath, built in 1915.  Some similar houses have just sold and in many cases they sold for more than their asking price.  An average house a bit more modern is over $1 million.

The downtown area along Park Street does not seem to have changed much from the way it looks in vintage postcards.  It is a designated Historic Commercial District on the National Register because many buildings date back to the 1880s.

Wi-Fi access was practically non-existent in the building where we stayed so I never opened my little notebook computer.  I could not even get internet access on my iPad.  There was a television there, but on the West Coast the Tour de France started at 5:00 am which was way too early to wake up the children.  I only saw the last hour or less each day and I missed watching the Tour.  I did see the last two days of the Tour when I returned home after staying near Nashville for several days.

I was able to look back at all the stages of the Tour de France on the French web.  This site had many videos and photos of the Tour.  The site tells viewers to share the photos with friends.  So, I am posting below some of these photos - courtesy Tour de France, France.  The Tour started in Holland this year.  When it went through Belgium, the King of Belgium came to greet the cyclists.

As the Tour rode in Belgium and the north of France they drove by and also stopped at some of the War Memorials along the way.  The Australian War Memorial is on the top left below next to Chris Fromme of the UK laying a wreath at the Commonwealth Memorial.  They also stopped by Francois Faber Memorial - he was the winner of the 1909 Tour de France and was killed during the First World War.

This year the Tour welcomed the first African team - team MTN-Qhubeka of South Africa.  The team was so proud when Steve Cummings, of the UK but a team member, won the stage on July 18, Nelson Mandela's Day.  Another team member, Daniel Teklehaymanot, of Eritra, won the polka-dot jersey twice (best mountain climber.)

As usual the viewers were shown beautiful landscapes along the way.  There were thousands of spectators lining the route from very young to very old - some in outlandish outfits.

What I like about the Tour de France is that it is really an international event.  The teams are made up of top cyclists from many countries.  Some of my favorites are not even from France - I like Peter Sagan of Slovakia, Mark Cavendish of Great Britain, Nairo Quintana of Columbia and Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland.  In the center of the collage below are the hostesses who deliver the prizes on the podium at the end of each stage.  (Click on collage to see better.)

This year the Tour de France started July 4, 2015 and ended on Sunday July 26, 2015.  It was made up of 21 stages and it covered a total distance of 3,360 kilometers (or about 2088 miles.)  There were 9 flat stages, 3 hill stages, 7 mountain stages, 1 individual time-trial stage, 1 team time-trial stage and 2 rest days.  It was raining on the last stage but when they ended on the Champs-Elysees in Paris the sun came out.  I was hoping that Chris Fromme of Great Britain would win the Tour, and he did.  He was born in Kenya, educated in South Africa and speaks fluent Swahili (see him below in Paris.)

On the side of my blog you can read more on the Tour under the category Tour de France.  I explained some facts about the Tour in a post in July 2009 - you can read it here.  The Tour de France is the world's largest annual sporting event.  It has a worldwide television audience of 3.5 billion people with over 188 countries broadcasting it.  With 4,700 hours of TV coverage 121 different television channels across the world show this race every year.  (Here, on TV in Atlanta, the ceremonies in Paris last Sunday of the end of the Tour were cut short and a NASCAR show came instead...sigh!)  More than 2,000 journalists from many countries attend the Tour each year.  It also attracts 12 million+ spectators along the route who do not have to pay to watch it.  Below is Chris Fromme winner of the 2015 Tour de France and also overall winner of the polka-dot jersey.

Where do you get to watch a live sport event like this for three weeks free of charge?  The French Air Force flies over the last stage of the Tour whether it is a French cyclist or not who is winning.  I don't think this would happen in the US which is so nationalistic about sports (USA!USA!) and somehow it would end up not be totally free to watch.  I may be wrong, but I attended the cyclist events at the 1996 Olympic Games here in Atlanta.  I still remember, sadly, that when the audience realized that no US cyclist was left running the 4,000 meter track cyclist race they left en masse before it was over.  Hardly anyone was watching the winner receiving his gold medal ... It was Italian Andrea Collinelli.

Recollection: The Liberation of Paris in August 1944 (part 2)

This is a continuation of my post on the Liberation of Paris, Part 1.  A few years ago, when I found my mother's postcard showing  the barricade in our street (see my last post) I knew I would show it and write a post on the liberation of Paris.  I kept notes whenever I read something, mostly in French, in books or articles on the liberation.  My document is now more than 50 pages long.  I was going to write just one post but, with some new facts that I found not long ago (because of the Freedom of Information Act) I thought I would include them.  My last paragraph was about the events that had taken place on August 22, 1944 - the Resistance in Paris, known as the Free French of the Interior (FFI) and Paris civilians had been battling German soldiers in the capital for several days resulting in many civilian and FFI casualties and deaths.  (Click on collage to enlarge.)

The head of the FFI had sent a request to General Leclerc of the 2nd Armored Division (2e DB) to bring reinforcements to avoid a civilian blood bath in Paris.  General de Gaulle had asked General Dwight D. Eisenhower to authorize the division Leclerc to move to Paris - since these troops were under the authority of the Allied forces.  General Eisenhower refused because the plans were for the US Army and the British Army to reach Berlin before the Soviet Army got there.  General Eisenhower had agreed that the Leclerc 2e DB would liberate Paris, but at a later date.  De Gaulle threatened to place the order himself to the French 2nd DB to move to Paris, and General Eisenhower finally agreed with one condition.

This condition was that the French forces entering Paris should be made up of "white" soldiers only, as already instructed by the US and British commands.  Early on de Gaulle had said he wished his Free French Army to be the one to liberate Paris.  The Allied High Command had agreed but, in January 1944, sent a "confidential" memo (released in 2009 by the BBC) from Eisenhower's Chief of Staff, Major General Walter Bedell Smith saying "It is more desirable that the division mentioned above consists of white personnel."  "This would indicate the Second Armoured Division, which with only one fourth native personnel, is the only French division operationally available that could be made one hundred percent white."  Below is a photo of the Allied Commanders.  General of the Army, Dwight D. Eisenhower is in the center holding pens, and Major General W. B. Smith is on the left holding a cigarette (photo public domain.)

In 1940, after the fall of France, de Gaulle had raised his Free French Army in Africa - it was now composed of 2/3 black soldiers.  General Leclerc 2nd Armored Division (2e DB) in Morocco was 75% white and thus was chosen, even though many of the "whites" were not French but North Africans, Syrians, Spanish and Portuguese.  Leclerc was instructed by the US and British high command to choose his soldiers with the lightest complexion as they could not imagine black men making such a symbolic entry into Paris and being shown on newsreels in US theatres (the short film on current news before the main feature movie.)  Below is General de Gaulle and Leclerc in Douala, Cameroon, October 1940.

General de Gaulle was against this "white only" rule as he did not separate his staff according to race as the Americans did, but he did not have any choice in the matter.  Accordingly, General Leclerc had to terminate 3,603 of his black soldiers - they could be demobilized or integrated into an infantry division.  He was able to keep one of his best officers, Claude Mademba Sy, a Senegalese sharpshooter, because Claude was born in France of a Senegalese father and European mother and had studied at the highest army French school.  Claude Senegalese grandfather had fought in the French-Austrian war of 1870, had been a colonel and received, in 1889, one of France top honor "La Legion d'Honneur."  His father had also been on officer and Claude himself was later made a colonel.  In comparison the American army was segregated and black soldiers judged not brave enough to fight in battles.  They were only allowed to clean trucks or be dock workers and such.  They were used in battle at the end of WW2 when it became necessary.  The US army was desegregated in 1948.  Below is Claude Mademba Sy arriving in Paris and later being decorated by Gen. de Gaulle.

As you can tell Claude was tall since General de Gaulle was himself 6 ft 5 (1m 96.)  Claude Mademba Sy landed earlier in Normandy and later participated in the liberation of Paris, the Alsatian countryside and Germany.  Sadly, Claude passed away on April 9, 2014, at the age of 90.  I find this "white only" request odd in a way because about 10 days before the liberation of Paris, on 15 August, 1944, the Allied forces had landed in southern France under "Operation Dragoon."  The invasion included two American troops and three troops from the French First Army.  The French First Army included 92% troops from Africa and 8% French soldiers.  But even though this second landing was a success for the Allied and it liberated the French southern coast, including the large port of Marseille soon after, it is not as well known as the Normandy landing - it was eclipsed by it.  Below are pictures from Operation Dragoon.

On August 23, 1944, at 9:00 am, under General Dietrich von Choltitz's order (The German commander in charge of Paris) two German "tiger" tanks shot incendiary shells into the Grand Palais (a FFI stronghold in Paris) and it burned.  German tanks also fired at the barricades in the streets and killed small groups of Resistance fighters.  On August 24th Germans who were occupying the Austerlitz General Stores set them on fire before escaping.  Many German soldiers were starting to flee the capital, or just waiting to surrender, but in the meantime they massacred anyone close to them, men, women and children.  German soldiers were also placing mines in the Metro and dynamite under bridges.  There was little electricity in the city and no gas for cooking - some women cooked meals in the streets.  Other women caring for the injured took them down Metro stations underground that were set up as hospitals.  Below on the right is Resistance fighter known as Nicole, posing with her MP 40 machine gun, on August 23, 1944.  She captured 25 Germans.

American General Omar Bradley had given orders to General Leclerc and his division not to enter Paris and Leclerc was waiting in Rambouillet.  Leclerc insisted that Germans were claiming many civilians' lives and it was critical to bring support.  Finally, Bradley gave his OK.  Leclerc sent his 9th Armored Company of the 2e DB ahead, as it was closer to the city.  This detachment, headed by Captain Raymond Dronne was called "La Nueve" because it was composed of Spanish Republican men.  In early 1939, after the Spanish Civil War, about 1/2 million Spanish Republicans had escaped to France and as many as 60,000 had joined the French Resistance.  Dronne and his men rushed to Paris and in the evening of August 24th, they entered the Hotel de Ville Plaza in Paris at 9:22 pm - the first liberating force to enter the city ...and they were mostly from Spain.  Photo of General Leclerc on top of collage below and a postcard of the 9th Company "La Nueve" with Captain Dronne at bottom.

On August 24, 1944, during the early hours, German soldiers were still placing mines in the Metro (such as the Tuileries station.)  At 3:00 am six German tanks with soldiers got out of the city.  At 6:30 am ten German tanks and several trucks loaded with ammunition and equipment left town, but there was still a cannon at the Luxembourg Gardens shooting at civilians, killing a dozen or more.  Members of the French Milice (collaborators of the Gestapo) were still shooting civilians from rooftops.

More German soldiers were escaping but shooting anyone as they left.  The FFI were rushing to Paris bridges removing German mines.  By 10:00 am ten more German "tiger" tanks were leaving town, followed by a convoy of vehicles and 300 soldiers, some of them taking French hostages.  Tanks were aiming their fires into buildings and houses as they left.  Some of the German soldiers who had especially been cruel (or tortured the population) were killing themselves as they were afraid to be lynched by angry Parisians.

On the other side of town, General Leclerc and his 2e DB had entered Paris, closely followed by the American Infantry Regiment.  The FFI, French and American soldiers started fighting, side by side, in the streets against retreating German soldiers and the milice.  By then 2,500 German soldiers had reached east of the city and were leaving.  French FFI kept rushing to defuse the German explosives and mines under bridges, the Metro and important buildings.  By noon the FFI and the 2e DB soldiers were Place de la Republique - another 2,000 German soldiers were disbanding but still shooting at the crowd; however many German soldiers were taken prisoner.  At 1:00 pm the 2e DB attacked the "Kommandantur" (German Administration) on the Place de l'Opera where, at 3:00 pm a white flag was placed on top of the building and 12 officers and 250 administrators and soldiers surrendered.

General Leclerc and his division reached the Hotel de Ville, removed the German swastika flag and replaced it with the French tricolor.  At 2:30 pm two officers of the 2e DB entered the Meurice Hotel where General von Choltitz had agreed to surrender.  They brought him to General Leclerc and the head of the FFI where he signed the articles of surrender.  Paris was free!  During the battle for Paris an estimated 800 to 1,000 resistance fighters were killed and 1,500 wounded, including 175 police officer killed.  An estimated 2,800 civilians lost their lives.  the 2e Armored Division lost 130 men, 225 were wounded.  The German losses came to around 3,200 men and 12,800 were made prisoners.  The 4th American Division suffered no casualty at all.  All over Paris you can now see little stone plaques placed where the Resistance and civilian fighters fell during the uprising of August 1944.

In the afternoon General Charles de Gaulle arrived in Paris by the Porte d'Orleans and then joined General Leclerc at the Hotel de Ville Plaza where, at 4:00 pm, he pronounced his stirring speech about Paris being freed by the Parisians and the Free French.  There were scattered shots from the milice on rooftops, 30 people were injured, some seriously, but de Gaulle was not injured.  In the afternoon, the 4th American Division was clearing the outskirts east of Paris, searching for isolated German soldiers.  In the evening, de Gaulle went back to the War Department as Head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic.  Below, bottom left are the FFI and Parisians with a seized German cannon and at top right General Leclerc 2e DB tanks on boulevard St. Michel in Paris.

"Une fois de plus, la justice doit s’acheter avec le sang des hommes …. Dans cette nuit sans égale s’achèvent quatre ans d’une histoire monstrueuse et d’une lutte indicible ….Mais la paix reviendra sur cette terre éventrée  …. Mais cette paix ne nous trouvera pas oublieux…. "

"Once again, justice must be bought with the blood of men ... in this unparalleled night come to an end four years of monstrous history and unspeakable struggle ... But peace will return to this destroyed earth.  But this peace will not find us forgetful."  - Albert Camus (1913-1960) French writer, in an editorial in the french newspaper Combat, August 25, 1944.

Below Albert Camus (in white shirt, center, holding a glass of wine) with his team at the newspaper Combat.  Photo courtesy Rene Saint-Paul.

More coming in my next post.  These Liberation of Paris posts are long because there is so much to tell.  Just think of each post as a consolidation of 4 little posts.  More to come ...

Recollection - Music from South Africa

Since last Thursday, December 5th, 2013, we have been mourning the passing of Nelson Mandela.  We have seen many of his pictures on television, read about him and listened to recollection of people who knew him or had met him.  It is a sad day for South Africa and for the rest of the world as it is difficult to say "goodbye" to such a great human being, but he will live in our hearts.

In many countries, including the United States and France, flags are flying at half-mast in tribute to Nelson Mandela.  I read that Archbishop Desmond Tutu asked the people of South Africa to unite in mourning as members of one family.  And indeed there was celebration for the life of Tata (father - the name the people have given him,) with singing and dancing in the streets of Soweto and other towns.  Listening to the music and songs of Soweto made me recollect all the years I have loved the music from South Africa.

Many years ago, when I was a teenager living in France, my teenage friends would listen to rock and roll or popular music but I listened to jazz.  As I mentioned in earlier posts one of the reasons I went to tour the United States was to listen to some good jazz, and I did (see my post here on San Francisco.) I was married on Saturday June 17, 1967 - that was the day one of my favorite jazz musicians was playing at the Monterey Pop Festival.  His name was Hugh Masekela, jazz trumpeter, composer and singer.  He was born in 1939 in South Africa but had left the country in 1960 because of the cruelty of the apartheid state.  In 1964 he had married another great artist from South Africa - the singer Miriam Makeba (they divorced later on.)  In the late 1960s I saw Miriam Makeba in concert in San Francisco,  Through her I started to enjoy listening to South African music such as Xhosa and Zulu songs.  I have several of her albums and CDs.  My favorite songs are "Pata Pata" and "Malaika."

Miriam Makeba (1932-2008) campaigned against the South African apartheid system.  The government retaliated against her by revoking her South African passport and her citizenship.  She was without a country.  In 1985 France made her "Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres" (Commander of Arts and Letters) and followed, in 1990, by giving her French citizenship.  After his release from prison, Nelson Mandela convinced Miriam to return to South Africa.  She went back using her French passport.  She was called "Mama Africa."  Nelson Mandela said "She deserves her title of Mama Africa.  She was the mother of our struggle and our young nation."

In 1987 Hugh Masekela wrote a song which quickly became a hit.  It was called "Bring him back home."  Nelson Mandela was a fan of Hugh Masekela and was successful in sending, from his cell, a birthday card to Masekela.  Masekela was so pleased and moved that he wrote this piece of music which became like an anthem for the people pushing for Mandela's freedom from jail.  I bought the cassette then and used to play it constantly in my car.  The song was in the cassette called "Tomorrow."  When I would stop my car at a red light, people hearing me sing about Mandela would look at me suspiciously.  Georgia is a conservative Republican state and at the time Ronald Reagan was president.  He had voted against the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, a bill that called for sanctions and travel restrictions to South Africa and for the release of political prisoners, Nelson Mandela included.  The melody is joyful and upbeat.  I remember at the time, I had a red Fuego Renault 1982, and would have the cassette in the car and sing along, loudly, with Masekela.

"Bring back Nelson Mandela,

Bring him back home to Soweto

I want to see him walking down the streets of South Africa - Tomorrow!"

When Nelson Mandela was released three years later, Hugh Masekela made a tour of the US and included this song in his repertoire.  I found out that in June 1990 Hugh Masekela would be performing in Atlanta at the National Black Arts Festival.  I certainly was going to drive to the streets of Atlanta to watch him.  My friend Charlotte agreed to come with me and so we went to Auburn Avenue, near the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center and watched the performance, free, on the street.  It was so much fun!  I may have been just one of a very few white people there but the celebration, the singing, the camaraderie around us was unbelievable.   I took some photos with my film camera, they are not very good, but they give an idea of what it was like.

 Masekela played "Bring him back home" and all of us sang and danced with him.

In March of 1988 a team from Safair, a South African cargo freight airline came to train in my company.  I was the customer trainee coordinator then.  I had never met people from South Africa and was a bit apprehensive.  They were very nice and friendly - we did not talk politics, of course.  Here they are below at a restaurant - one of them had brought his wife to tour the US after the training.  They invited me to come and visit them in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, where they lived.  I told them, maybe in several years.  I'd like to go now.

In 1988 a South African musical called "Sarafina!" premiered on Broadway in New York and closed in 1989 after 597 performances.  It was nominated for the 1988 Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Original Score, Best Choreography and Best Direction of a Musical.  It is set in South Africa during the 1976 Soweto riots.  A demonstration started by high school students protesting apartheid ends up into a brutal scene with many students killed by the police.  The music is uplifting though.  It shows how the teenagers are standing up for freedom, how they hope for better times and their inspiration in Nelson Mandela.  It is moving and cheerful at the same time.  It was written by Mbongeni Ngema with additional musical numbers by Hugh Masekela.  The musical came to Atlanta at the Fox Theatre.  My husband and I went to see it - the audience was 98% African-American - I wished the audience had been more diverse to listen to this musical celebrating human rights with great music and choirs.  I bought the cassette and played it often.

Hugh Masekela celebrated his 74th birthday earlier this year.  Last year, on July 18, 2012, he played for the 94th birthday celebration of his friend, Nelson Mandela.  He played again "Bring him back" with the Graceland Band and slightly changed lyrics.  So much has happened since I purchased my cassette in 1987 (I am surprised that it is still in a good enough state to listen to it...)  Freedom has come to South Africa, because of Nelson Mandela and also because of the help he received from all those exiled South African artists keeping apartheid and the oppressed in the international public eye and ear.

I have been listening to all my old cassettes and CDs on the music of South Africa.  I am sorry that my music recollection came about because of the passing of Nelson Mandela.  Our world is going to be poorer without him.

"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." - Nelson Mandela

So let's celebrate the life of Nelson Mandela.  Let us try to bring more justice and equality in the US and other parts of the world.  He said:

"Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity; it is an act of justice.  Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural.  It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.  Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great.  YOU can be that great generation.  Let your greatness blossom."  and    "While poverty persists, there is no true freedom."  N. Mandela.

The fight against poverty is difficult, especially in our highly indoctrinated country.  Negative and attack ads paid by billionaires and corporation lobbyists bombard the airwaves and television channels (owned by large corporations, too) against helping the poor and only for the benefit of the uber wealthy.  Some of the lowest wages are paid by many of the richest corporations in the US.

 "His day is done,

is done.

The news came on the wings of a wind, reluctant to carry its burden.

Nelson Mandela's day is done.

The news, expected and still unwelcome, reached us in the United States, and suddenly our world became somber.

Our skies were leadened.

His day is done ... No sun outlasts its sunset, but it will rise again and bring the dawn.

Yes, Mandela's day is done, yet we, his inheritors, will open the gates wider for reconciliation, and we will respond generously to the cries of Blacks and Whites, Asians, Hispanics, the poor who live piteously on the floor of our planet.

We will not forget you, we will not dishonor you, we will remember and be glad that you lived among us, that  you taught us, and that you loved us all. "  

Maya Angelou, American poet