The Guide: A Memoir of My Adventures in France

By Kathleen A. Turitto

Kathleen A. Turitto is in her late sixties when she tries something new: taking French classes at Palomar College in San Marcos, California. Under the guidance of Professor Ray Adams, she learns to read and even understand conversational French. She is feeling confident when she sees a notice on a classroom bulletin board that reads: Enroll at the Sorbonne. One month$999 including meals, lodgings, excursions, and air fare from Los Angeles.

As someone who is always looking for a bargain, she jumps at the chancenaively thinking that if she can read and understand French, she can easily learn to speak it.

In this memoir, she looks back at her journey to France, and how once there, she navigated taking exams, finding her way through Paris, networking with students, and conquering her fears. Along the way, she meets people shell never forget, including an Australian named Paula Burk, who she runs into by happenstance at a cafeteria. Soon, the two women are enjoying each others company over coffee, meals, and warm conversation.

If youve ever felt too timid to try something new or embark on an adventure by yourself, then youll be emboldened by these recollections.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Aug 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9781480834293

Kathleen A. Turitto

Kathleen A. Turitto was born in Akron, Ohio, in 1915. She began her professional career as a legal secretary to her father. She had two children and briefly lived in Indiana before moving to California, where she lived many years. She moved to an Oregon retirement facility in 2010.

Book preview

BACKGROUND

In the fall of 1983 and spring of 1984 I took French I, II and III plus Conversational French at Palomar College in San Marcos, California. I had the crazy idea I was going to learn to speak French. One would think that a person who could read a foreign language with ease could easily learn to speak it. This account proves there is no connection between reading and speaking.

Our Professor was Mr. Ray Adams, tall, burly, 40ish, extremely neat in appearance. He taught French and Russian and was qualified to teach German, Spanish, and Italian. In other words, he was no dud as a linguist. He was endlessly patient with the slow learners; never tired of getting the finer points of grammar across, often saying I’m not here to teach English grammar but this is the way it is in French, logical. English is not logical. He also conducted classes in French History, Culture, and Literature but his class in conversation was a joke. He was a born exhibitionist, beating his chest with his fist and muttering Mon coeur! when someone made a blatant error in speech. Although we enjoyed his witticisms and clever gests, so many of them were made at the expense of a confused, embarrassed, and hapless pupil, that we dreaded being called on. He had a knack of calling on those least able to carry on a conversation, like not understanding a word he said, then carrying on an entirely one-sided conversation, leaving the victim (a word he used frequently) squirming while the pupils with a good working knowledge of French became restless and bored. His many eccentricities were often discussed outside the classroom one of which was his unpredictable reaction when one showed him a newspaper article bearing on the subject he was teaching. He would shove it aside without looking at it and say he didn’t have time for such things. We compared him to a robot, teaching by rote, very effective sometimes, but never allowing for innovation. Since conversational French did not require any written work, how would one test the progress of a pupil? Orally? Not Prof. Adams. His tests were written questions on grammar. Some of the most fluent speakers of French, natives of France failed them while I who had difficulty saying Merci got high grades. A few of these people got irate with him and on one occasion when I whizzed through the test before anyone else, he ran out into the corridor and caught me so he could give a self-justifying speech about how some of the advanced pupils couldn’t understand his insistence on having a very good comprehension of grammar. I smiled and nodded but in my heart I sided with the complaining pupils.

In spite of Prof. Adams’s weird way of teaching conversational French, by the end of the second semester I was beginning to comprehend most of what he said if he spoke slowly enough, although my replies tended to still be monosyllabic.

In January I observed a bright yellow notice on the bulletin board at the back of the classroom. So many notices had accumulated on this large board, some half concealing others, it is a wonder I saw the one which said: Enroll at the Sorbonne. One month - $999 including meals, lodgings, excursions, and air fare from Los Angeles. Wow! There was a bargain if I ever heard of one, to say nothing of the prestige one would garner. How many people can brag they were lucky enough to go to the Sorbonne? I couldn’t wait to plunk my money down. I realized I’m afflicted with a disease called Bargain-Hunter’s Madness. Sometimes it works to my advantage, sometimes not. Mostly I get stuck with things I don’t need, won’t ever use and will end up tossing out. But this was different and a challenge far greater than I dared guess. After all, in January 1984 I was sixty eight years old. Just being alive was a challenge. It wasn’t like I’d never been to France before and loved every minute of it. I’d never felt so alive before! Didn’t this ad mention a guide? The answer to a traveler’s prayer. I didn’t have a guide on my previous trip the year before. I jotted down the company to contact - Student World Holidays, sponsors of the Sorbonne program for American students. Their office in Paris was called British European Centre. In no time I made my down payment. In a follow-up letter, SWH informed me that if I paid the second installment promptly I could reserve a room at the Maison Suisse at the Cite Universitaire. Even though I did not know the significance of those two names, I got the idea I’d better grab the chance when it was offered. It turned out to be a very wise move.

Almost five months lay ahead before the July 1st departure. I made lists and lists of things I wanted to take along, things I wanted to ship ahead, and I thought it would be a good idea to open a checking account in a French bank (see section entitled BANQUE REGIONAL for particulars on this fiasco). I was unsuccessful in finding any person or organization in France to receive whatever heavy items I wanted to ship ahead. Of course after I returned home, I found a list of such places in my mailbox. I invested an inordinate amount of money in wall plugs and a converter so I could use my hand-dandy, vertically held, steam iron and my device for heating water in a cup (see additional section for THE BEST LAID PLANS OF MICE OR MEN.)

I never intended to spill the beans to Prof. Adams. I figured he would make some crack before the class to humiliate me even though he might have meant them to be complimentary. Eventually I couldn’t resist telling him the good news. He was genuinely pleased and surprised. He didn’t make any wisecracks but got quite friendly and confidential with me, trying to advise me where to stay. He gave me the name of an inexpensive hotel on the edge of the Luxembourg Gardens within walking distance of the Sorbonne (Oh yeah? for his long legs!) I pointed out that I had already paid in advance for my room and board at the Cite. No matter, he listened not. I pretended to go along with his wonderful idea. They didn’t tell you, you had to take the subway every day to get to class did they? Well, yes they did but it didn’t sound too difficult. Then he got into the horrors of the entrance examination. It was given under duress, not enough time allowed, uncomfortable surroundings, large crowds of students, rampant confusion. He was right about that, but actually there was nothing to fear as the exams were given merely to determine what level each student was at. It had nothing to do with being admitted to the school. That was a given.

Another bonus SWH offered for early payment was a roomy, heavy, well constructed, and fairly expensive tote bag with shoulder strap. I received mine in plenty of time and was certainly not an accessory to be ashamed of. I got the strange idea that all the students, assuming they were as prompt paying as I was, would sport these distinctive looking bags and when we all congregated at LAX I would recognize who my fellow students would be. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The first one I spotted was at Bill de Gaulle Airport under slightly painful conditions, more on that later.

I must stop to comment that there ought to be classes taught at the High School level on how to cope with arriving ignorant, old, and alone at an International Airport. The course should include speed reading directional signs, interpreting directional signs, how to get up and down steps with heavy bulky suitcases which keep slipping off your lightweight luggage carrier and high speed mind reading to locate the ticket desk of the airline whose plane you are going to board.

It is evident from the above that I didn’t have an easy time locating British Caledonian Airways ticket desk at LAX. Do you want your bags sent through to Paris? the young lady clerk, dressed in Scottish style uniform inquired. Without weighing the matter, I replied Yes. For once not thinking paid off, because I was not burdened with my bags during the lay-over at Gatwick Airport in London.

The plane departed LAX late in the afternoon. After dinner, I got into conversation with the young lady seated on my right. I, of course, had an aisle seat, an absolute must for my claustrophobia. Her round, dark-skinned face suggested Mexican or Polynesian ancestry. Her nose was so small it could hardly support her glasses. Her name was Kelly O’Brien (could have fooled me), daughter of an ophthalmologist in Orinda, California. Even if she hadn’t mentioned her father was a doctor, the address in Orinda would have clued me in that her parents were well off. She was traveling at a bargain rate through SWH but her destination was the University of Salamanca. Ironically her trip had been paid for by her getting a winning bingo number at a Safeway Store