Yo La Tengo, ”The Asparagus Song”
Their legs and knuckles interwoven
They've been together for so long
They've all grown up just like asparagus
Don't you let Ma know
She’ll want to feed you
Lyrics: Emily Hubley, 1984
You may have come across the about page for “A Zoetic Message”. If so you know the first line states ’Moving in life, listening to movements, moment by moment!’.
That phrase encompasses many notions in a very short length. It also has much to do with the recollection of this story. The story begins 60 years ago this week. It is truly a tale of moving in life, in this instance, from one country of the world to another country on the globe. The moving involved listening. The listening had to do with an American culture and a foreign culture and the combination of cultures. I cannot write this piece, unless I recall the moment by moment that transpired.
One of those many moments is retrieved from Our Mother’s obituary, (Dorothy Flournoy Scarmack).
As a devoted wife, Dorothy was dedicated to the nurturing, education, character development and cultural enrichment of her children, whom she claimed as her most important gifts and “masterpieces.” Dorothy provided her children with multiple opportunities for personal growth by reading to them, encouraging them to do well in school, cultivating their appreciation for history and the arts and tending unceasingly to their emotional health and physical well-being.
Have you travelled to Paris?
How our mother with her 5 children from age 1 year old to 10 years of age, I nearing 11, made it to the Parkersburg WV airport from Athens, OH, remains unknown to me. Some sort of van like vehicle must have chauffeured us there, with a military personnel escort. We were without our father’s presence. He had two months earlier advanced to France. On this 10th day of December in 1963, these 5 children of Dorothy and Vincent, Sr. were taking their first flights on airplanes to reunite with the ROTC Sargent from Athens.
The day described above was fast approaching the darkest day of the year, the winter solstice. Thus much of the next 24 hours occurred under dark winter skies. Recalling the hours that day, our mother keeping her three sons and two daughters assembled, suggests a mental picture of a mother goose leading her little ducklings all in-line with her steps, she, hoping above hope the little ones followed her.
It may be that you find what you read and hear, here, is of a little value to you, perhaps without purpose. I think, however, four of my five siblings upon reading this story might admit to themselves the ten year old ‘Airman Mike’ somehow will find purpose that he, Mike, did just that. Mother, with the youngest one in her arms, and the oldest one strategically sweeping the end of the line, to keep strays from straying, bantered onward.
Military dependents, well at least ask Airman Mike, are as if they are also enlisted within the service, full of the ‘Yes Sirs’, and the ‘No Sirs’, the cropped haircuts, the pristine edged lawns, the entire Chain of Command as ordered. Quite patriarchal, as well, in the 60’s. Coincidentally the US of A Commander in Chief was assassinated a mere 18 days before our touchdown on the European continent.
Not to digress from the emphasis of the message, 8 years later the same siblings, plus one, revolted against Airman Mike, who, without any conscious awareness had just been following the dictates that encompass a military lifestyle. We shall not digress.
The family meandered through the doors
The family meandered through the doors of the air terminal, darting for a fast few minutes eating of food fuel, before takeoff, a time before fast American cuisine had entered the ethos.
Walking to an awaiting plane, Mother managed all 6 individuals to cluster safely on the tarmac to the open door of the military cargo plane. Not a jet, but a modified C-46, two propeller engined Air Force aero plane. The C in C-46 is for ‘Cargo’. The Machine had been fitted with a dozen, or three, seats to carry humans, in this case, not supplies of war or peace.
Being dependents of a soldier in the US Air Force we had the undistinguished seat assignment in the back of the plane. This placement made for sustained and substantial bumpiness. Little brown bags were placed at the back pocket of the front facing seat. I experienced its usefulness on this first flight, unfortunately. Fortunately, for me, in the next sixty years of air travel, that was the last such required use of a motion sickness bag.
This connecting flight led the immigrating clan to MaGuire Air Force, Burlington County, New Jersey. Some fleeting memories suggest another walk on a tarmac, up a single story exterior stair to the body of a 707 dual engine jet, much smaller than the jet I road today landing in Paris France at 2:17 AM eastern daylight time April 30, 2023.
What is one landmark you know?
Yes, of course the one you certainly know, is the Eiffel Tower, world renown for its place in the 1889 Paris Exhibition, designed by Gustave Eiffel, commemorating the 100th centennial anniversary of the French Revolution.
This message centers on the 60th anniversary six American citizens arriving in France for the first time in their lives. Our Dad, met us at the airport, on the tarmac (cannot do that much anymore in Paris) and proceeded to chauffeur us to Laon (pronounced ‘Lon’) France. One notable figure from Laon is Jacques Marquette born there on June 1, 1637. The explorer joined the Society of Jesus at age 17, became a Jesuit missionary. Marquette University, in Milwaukee, WI is named in his remembrance. I always pick Marquette in the NCAA March Madness bracket, which the basketball team often shows.
Laon, France
The hilly district of Laon (Latin: Laudunum) has always been of some strategic importance as it was fortified by the Romans. At the end of the 5th century, Saint-Rémi, archbishop of Reims, instituted a bishopric in the town, and it remained a religious and intellectual centre until the Renaissance. Laon was the medieval capital of the Carolingian kings. Hugh Capet, however, who became king in 987, seized the town with the connivance of the local bishop and then moved the capital to Paris. In the 12th century Laon revolted against the authority of the bishops, but Louis VI quashed the rebellion.1
The French in us all as part of the Scaramuzzo-Flournoy family. We lived on the fifth floor walk-up apartment in the City of Laon. I was caught dropping glass jars from that level. I may tried to excuse my ill thought-out actions as a Galilean science experiment gone awry. We played with French children our age, shared conversations of what they took for lunch to school, our mustard on white bread sandwiches versus their French chocolate infused soft dough baguette. Yes really! We tried to be conversant with the French language we learned in our American school studies.
As a side note I received my Sacrament of Confirmation in 1964, from the Bishop of Soissons, Alphonse-Gérard Bannwarth †, with a slight tap to the face in the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Laon) built in the twelfth/thirteenth century. It was with great significance, both physically and spiritually, that I took the name of Anthony of Padua within this grand unified style of early Gothic architecture.
Laon presided as the capital of France from 936 to 987. It was one of the first towns to obtain a charter, and that was granted in the year 1111.
Laon Air Force Base 1963- 1964
The air base, about 7 miles from the City of Laon. It must have had as much of a strategic importance for the American Armed Forces as it had for the Roman Empire 2000 years earlier. The air base while our father was stationed there was part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, we all know as NATO. NATO at that time had a group of 15 “free” nations held in alliance to protect the countries against communist aggression. Just as today, the thirty-one sovereign NATO nations (Sweden inclusion is pending) the original 12 country of the Washington Treaty, in Article 5, ‘an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all’.2
Loan airbase was a tactical field, responsible for enemy reconnaissance and aside housing missiles, incognito, the flight deck was populated with F101 Voodoo Jets. American airmen and Airmen dependents had access to more than one could ever find in the Mall of America. American Family School, I attended, was the most significant facility for me personally. The nuns of the parochial school I had attend the previous four and one-third years had instructed me well. I excelled in the school.
The actual facilities on the base conjoined as an Americano Oasis.
Let’s start with the rod and gun club, photo shop, hobby shop, woodworking shop, writing school, bowling center, auto hobby shop and social services. There was the Officers club, the Non-commissioned Officers club, and the Airmen’s club. The press was present in American newspapers like, the Stars and Stripes, New York Herald Tribune, and the New York Times & Tribune. Further there was a library, movie, theater, auto parts store, class VI package store well stocked, commissary, (grocery store), and of course the post office.
The base exchange held a barber shop, beauty shop and salon, bakery, and just general type merchandise. A Family Service Center, Air Force Aid Society, American Red Cross organizations were present. Further in place was a watch repair, education center, banking, hospital services, family dental, two chapels with Protestant, and Catholic chaplains, and a Jewish synagogue in nearby Reims. In France, it existed for and by the people of the US of A.
Why France?
Sure wish I knew that answer. I often trace the family tree to residents that immigrated from France to other countries, some landing in the US of A in the years of pre-revolutionary war dates.
After nine year tour in Athens, OH, Ohio University ROTC Air Force program, Sargent Scarmack, was transferred to Europe. He had already had tours in Nome, Alaska and Korea and places in between, and others were to follow in an Air Force career. Why nine years? Yes, why France?
Why Not France?
President Charles De Gaulle, the one that rewrote the French Constitution, decided for his countries national interests to remove Frances’ military forces from NATO, then on April 1, 1967 all US military installations were closed permanently. No countries have left NATO since its founding.
Our Mother miscarried a fetus within the rooms of the fifth floor walk-up. I saw her, then secretly cried for the loss. We moved on to the next air base soon there after but before the boot of the US Military from France by De Gaulle.
Zoetic Message:
A contradictory Zoetic Message would be this. Grow asparagus, if one can, travel.
Asparagus produces rootedness, stability, order, nourishment, spring hope, greenness, delectable dishes, and will see the fruit of this labor, year in and year out. If one, as part of a culture, protect our lands, our waterways, and the air we breathe, one’s asparagus will perennially keep one’s values and life’s purpose, close to home, clear minded. All life will be safe and prosperous.
Fair chance bullets pointed to kill will not replace asparagus tips sautéed to eat. Airman Mike need not worry the parents frolicking in bombed out ruins of buildings with unexploded ordinance.
Tours of duty to supply the war effort will not take flight, instead, the ships become sea bound only for guided tours for tourists. Airman Mike’s march for patriarchal control will not leave love unattended, as his heart allows his spirit to flow through a space in a time.
Grandma Angelina explains to me a few months before we move to France, as paraphrased here, “Michael you are a very fortunate boy. There are not many children your age that have such an opportunity to travel the world. Remember that and make the most of the experience.” I took the sentiment to heart. Travel has been good.
Bon appétit and Bon Voyage!
Thanks for reading A Zoetic Message!
https://www.britannica.com/place/Laon-France
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_17120.htm?selectedLocale=en
1963 revisited with French dressing