Innocence Abroad

Scarce a year it was before my birth, that Lindy set The Spirit down at Le Bourget one night and all the old voitures as suddenly lit up the runway with their headlights. as he taxied to a stop. Thirty years beyond, I landed there from fair Bruxcelles and it was day; the city of the light took rest avant le gaiete of night— there was no welcoming: "Attencion Monsieur, you are in zee way," and my attempt at French brought only curious stare. "Et je n'ai pas de plus argent and little more to bear me home to Orleans. Je suis un etranger dans ma cite des grandes lumieres, " I thought, and sent my fond farewell to Brussels and its wondrous minature Etats Unis and Circarama still unknown in fifty years back here. Sacre Bleu! C'est incroyable that naked little boy in Belgium, and the Champs above the catacombs in Paris, now still flaunt their youth, their vibrancy, as I advance to that dim room somewhere when irony prevails—where Lindy, luckier than I, will share with me the just equality of death. ~