Awestruck, Dog-Tired, and Decidedly Smelly
I know, I know. Only one post a day. Yet, I really do want to tell my first story. My colleague and friend Lisa Bauman and I took a trip–the trip–to France in 2022. We had arranged to meet our friend, Peter Feigl, who was then 93, and his significant other, Jackie Stover, in Marseille and took a 10-ish-day trip through the south of France. What a ride. In part, I do mean that quite literally. But that’s a story for another day.
While boarding at College Champollion, a high school in Figeac, Peter wrote in the 4-2-1944 entry of his teenage diary: “Today it was announced in the Official Bulletin that all young male persons between the age of 16 and 60 must join the STO.” Then, on May 12, 1944, a round-up. Peter, who was almost 16 and living under the false identity Pierre Fesson, knew not to obey. Because he had been baptized a Catholic in 1937 and had served as an altar boy, he knew the nooks and crannies in various Catholic churches including the Church Notre-Dame-du-Puy de Figeac, where he had the nerve and the quick thinking to hide himself for hours upon hours, occasionally working up the courage to peek out, below, and beyond.
Figeac’s city leaders were kind enough to allow us to go up almost to the top to get almost the view across the city that Peter had as he crouched, hiding, in the bell tower. The very, very top is no longer accessible. I mean, it barely was in 1944! It was so hot in France, and Figeac was no different, although what a lovely, lovely city. No doubt about it; I should have (would have, could have) conditioned better or — more accurately–even at all. I felt like we were always walking uphill and then up, up, up further into an ancient, dark, dizzying church tower. But, man, what a view! Click here for some footage. If it looks kind of scary that’s because it was kind of scary. Props to Lisa for fearlessly leading us and taking out all the spider webs as she went. That’s sisterhood, right there.
