jm-urbani
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- Thread starter jm-urbani
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JM, the first genuine Frenchman I ever saw was a gentleman by the name of Joe Chavan (I'm not sure of the spelling of his family name, in English phonetics it would be: sha-van’)
Joe entered the US ~1900 by crossing the Mexico-Texas border where he worked in sulfur mines for a time before walking from Texas to Florida; several thousand miles.
He first took up residence with my father’s family’s neighbors on the other side of the bayhead but he didn’t like the food he was provided and went to work for my grandfather, much preferring my grandmother’s cooking. He was paid a small salary but after my grandfather died and as Joe grew older and more cantankerous, the salary stopped although he continued to live in a small cabin in the center of the family orange grove and my grandmother still provided his meals.
My mother, who had a talent for embellishing a good story, speculated that Joe had escaped from the French penal colony in Guiana (Devil’s Island). That seems credible as Joe was an educated man for the time and a voracious reader of my grandmother’s old newspapers although his spoken English was awful. Joe never received a single piece of mail from France or anywhere else.
Joe died while I was still in elementary school.
Joe entered the US ~1900 by crossing the Mexico-Texas border where he worked in sulfur mines for a time before walking from Texas to Florida; several thousand miles.
He first took up residence with my father’s family’s neighbors on the other side of the bayhead but he didn’t like the food he was provided and went to work for my grandfather, much preferring my grandmother’s cooking. He was paid a small salary but after my grandfather died and as Joe grew older and more cantankerous, the salary stopped although he continued to live in a small cabin in the center of the family orange grove and my grandmother still provided his meals.
My mother, who had a talent for embellishing a good story, speculated that Joe had escaped from the French penal colony in Guiana (Devil’s Island). That seems credible as Joe was an educated man for the time and a voracious reader of my grandmother’s old newspapers although his spoken English was awful. Joe never received a single piece of mail from France or anywhere else.
Joe died while I was still in elementary school.
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FRANK'S
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[h=1]Johnny Hallyday Very populor where I live he had 2 monster hits that still play before he dies and plays even more now.[/h]
Que je T'aime is the one I like the most. Il vas nous manqué mes sa musique est la pour toujour.
Que je T'aime is the one I like the most. Il vas nous manqué mes sa musique est la pour toujour.
Speaking of French music, when I was in France sometime in the 1950s, I gave a ride to a French acquaintance and the AM radio in my VW Beetle happened to be tuned to the US Armed Forces radio network when Tennessee Ernie Ford came on, singing 16 tons. My friend turned to me and said; “You Americans steal all of our French songs.”
JM’s post reminded me of this incident so I did a search and sure enough, here’s 16 tons in French. The singer even looks like Ernie Ford.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgsnlzEHOCI
JM’s post reminded me of this incident so I did a search and sure enough, here’s 16 tons in French. The singer even looks like Ernie Ford.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgsnlzEHOCI
