Surviving Driving in Europe’s Mountains

My dad, once a driver’s ed instructor, taught me to drive on the backroads of Illinois and Wisconsin. I’ve never had a collision as a driver, but as a passenger, I have been in major accidents, one for each time period of my life from adolescence, to college, to the pro’s, to living abroad.

I thought passing my drivers license in Paris France a decade after my basketball career ended in a car accident was the scariest thing I’d ever done. But getting behind the wheel after a major brain surgery in Switzerland takes balls.

Four decades after a traumatic brain injury, I have to learn how to drive again. Never one to shy away from a challenge, I take my driving lessons in the Jura Mountains where we now live.

The drive from Nyon, down by the lake, is a six and a half mile climb on a treacherous road with sixty curves, six of which are hairpin turns.

73 injured and 4 dead

marks the number of accidents

Before we begin the ascent, a sign warns that 73 were injured and 4 people died in the last decade. At every sharp turn, road markers remind driver where an accident or death occurred on the Route Blanche aka the corkscrew.

On weekends youth play motorcycle madness, a type of Russian roulette where they attempt to see who can beat the record for the fastest up or down.

If that isn’t challenging enough for other vehicles, the rugged route is also a favorite for hardcore bicyclists.

Luckily, I can practice my skills on the route d'Arzier, the other road from town that has wider turns and loops through villages.

“Allez, allez … faster!" Gerald insists.

“I know,” I answer, “I am going at a speed where I feel in control.”

“Okay, Pat, but we haven’t left the parking lot yet!”

When I turn onto the highway, clutching the steering wheel, Gerald insists that I loosen up and use finger tip control. I hit the brakes before every curve, lean into every corner.

“Focus straight ahead. Don’t look at cars coming the opposite direction!” Gerald barks. “If you keep swerving into the field, you’ll hit a cow!”

Invariably as soon as I see another vehicle approaching, I jerk the wheel and hit the brakes, as if I am on Mr. Toad’s wild ride at a Disney park.

“Don’t cross your hands when turning the wheel, you could lose control,”
he reminds me,“If you squeeze the steering wheel any harder, you’ll break it. Besides, it's is illegal in this country and could cost you CHF 120 a ($135) fine.”

“Relax. Lean back. You’re sitting on the dashboard!”

Arrhhh.

As I swerve around curves, cling to the mountain side and try to maintain the 50 mile an hour speed limit, I scream, “Wheeee, I feel like a race car driver!”

Obstacles abound: logging trucks, farm vehicles, train crossroads, pedestrian crosswalks, motorcycles, buses, cars, campers and bicycles.

But the greatest distraction is the incredible view. The spectacular Swiss panorama makes it difficult to focus on the highway. To my right the snow-covered Alps rise above Lake Geneva. Mont-Blanc, the majestic crowned jewel, reigns over the land. If I look to my left, cows graze in green pastures and golden rapeseed fields wave in the wind.

Honestly, I don’t think I will ever master driving in Europe.

I’ll keep practicing, but the world will be safer, if I just ride shotgun daydreaming, window gazing, writing stories about my sublime Switzerland.

The Fine Art of Cleaning à la Swiss

When my sister, a neatnik, first visited us in Switzerland decades ago, she was delighted by the orderliness.

“Wow the streets are so clean you eat off of them!”

Almost.

Switzerland is the only place I know where sanitation workers regularly sweep the streets, pick up litter and blow leaves away from fountains and monuments.

The sight of the bright orange clad service technique (technical branch) brushing leaves off the forest-lined highway leading to our village was so remarkable, I wanted to stop the car and snap a photo.

Unfortunately, tidiness may be a lost cause for a Pig-Pen, pack rat like me. The Swiss inherit the “clean gene” as a birthright. My sister was the only McKinzie born with that chromosome .

In Switzerland garbage is verboten. Litter taboo.

Citizens pay a trash tax and also must discard household waste in special designed bags that cost 3 dollars a piece. Most towns and cities have garbage collection service, but in our village, there is no garbage pick up for people living in chalets and single family dwellings. Most residents carry their rubbish to dumpsters, housed in mini chalet-like sheds, dispersed throughout town.

Our state of the art recycle center is so efficient, it could become a tourists attraction. Surrounded by pine trees, our disposable hub could win awards in cleanliness and sanitation. With the Swiss flare for organization, waste materials are separated into labeled compartments. Citizens drive to our wooden-framed building carved out of mountainside to recycle bigger items of glass (by color) wood, paper, electronics, batteries, metals, plastics (two categories), aerosols, paints and oils.

Litter is extinct. The propre en ordre “clean and orderly” is ingrained as part of one’s civic duty. Training starts at a young age. Even tiny tots learn how to pick up trash and recycle. In front of our primary school, blue, green, red and black colored Crayolas-shaped bins help teach children to discard plastics, papers, and disposables items in separate containers.

Switzerland is the only country I am aware of where the city’s technical department employees regularly sweep sidewalks, blow leaves, pick up litter and wash the lamp posts’ light fixtures.

Snow plowing in our mountain village is also impressive. With every fresh snowfall, we can hear plows out at 4 am to clear the streets.

The government is fully committed to conserving energy and preserving the environment. They require new homes and buildings to use renewable energy sources like solar panels, heat pumps and pellets. Natural gas and oil furnaces are banned.

Get this! 24 Heures (Swiss newspaper) recently reported 40% percent of its residents even clean their homes before the cleaning lady arrives! No kidding!

This country looks like a postcard. Tidy Swiss chalets with flowered window boxes and painted shutters dot the countryside. Villages, like ours in the Jura Mountains, offer gorgeous, pristine views of the woods, Lake Geneva and the Alps.

Natural resources are precious resources and Swiss folks do their best to keep it that way.

The sheer beauty of the land inspires people who live or visit here to respect nature and protect the spectacular vista.

As for me, my house remains a cluttered mess, but I have learned to automatically remove my shoes before entering any one else’s home.

Easter Tradition in Normandy

Though Gérald and I will dine tête a tête this Sunday, our hearts are filled with memories of holidays past when our children were younger and we were surrounded by family. As with every celebration in France, Easter begins and ends à table.

Normandy is appreciated the most at mealtime when land and sea are perfectly marinated. Mamie cooks the traditional Easter favorite, leg of lamb. At the head of the table, Papie carves the tender meat fresh from a newborn romping on the rolling green hillside only days before. But back up, each course is an event worth savoring.

toasting champagne

First a toast of champagne and a light aperitif. Next is naturally an egg based, a soufflé as light as cotton candy, followed by a platter of seafood: shrimp, crab legs, clams, oysters, something for everyone’s palate.

The main lamb course is always served with flageolet, a mini lima bean, that reminds me of the word flatulence and of course, bean jokes inevitably enter the conversation, sending the children into gales of laughter. Mamie always has a special dish for every family member, so a garden of vegetables -beans, broccoli, potatoes, spinach, tomatoes - also grows out of the linen tablecloth.

The children eat with the adults where they risk being reprimanded to sit up straight. However, I never notice table manners; my fork and knife are usually in the wrong hands. Softhearted Mamie excuses the grandkids early and they scamper upstairs to read Lucky Luke or Astérix comic books until called for dessert.

Each course is accompanied by wine, a light white Burgundy for the seafood starters and then a heavier Bordeaux for the meat and cheese. Every big meal is followed by a green salad and cheese platter with triangles of creamy local cheeses like Camembert and Pont L’Evêque.

family feast

Dessert always includes seasonal fruits, which in the spring means luscious strawberries. Like little elves, the children reappear to gobble up berries dipped in fresh cream. The kids magically disappear again when they smell the coffee brewing. Papie ceremoniously opens the antique Normand hutch and pulls out his bottle of Calvados offering, “a little taste.” True Normands swear that the fiery apple brandy aids the digestion. During weddings and christenings, the “trou Normand,” a shot served on sorbet in the middle of the feast, is customary.

boy with easter basket

Throughout each course a lively repartee of sarcasm, word play and arguments ensue that to a soft-spoken Norwegian American sounds like verbal abuse, but is only part of the French art de vivre and their love of language and debate.

Just when you think your belly will burst, Mamie rings a bell and the children race downstairs, for in France, bells, not bunnies, deliver eggs. As a token of mourning for crucified Christ, church bells remain silent from Good Friday until Easter Sunday. On Easter, when the chimes ring again, children rush outside to see the bells fly home to Rome, after dropping chocolate Easter eggs from the sky.

The children crowd onto the wrought iron balcony to find eggs tucked behind the potted geraniums and tulips. While they devour the chocolate figurines, the adults, too, savor a delicacy from the local chocolate shop . Everyone moans of stomachaches and swears they will never eat again, but a few hours later after a stroll by the sea, we are à table again discussing the favorite French topic, food.

Happy Birthday to Me, E.T.

Oh dear, how do I tell my 91-year-old mother that she gave birth to an extraterrestrial being? What else could explain my extraordinary quirks, peculiar ailments, and uncanny ability to survive against all odds?

I’ve recovered from accidents that no mortal should have survived. I suffer from maladies so bizarre that no one has ever heard of them before.

Then again, how many people survived a rabid skunk bite as a toddler and lived to tell the tale?

My latest episode involved the right side of my mouth festering until my gum line resembled the embers of a dying fire. A thread under my lip pulled my gum away from my tooth, exposing the root.

My Swiss dentist pried open my mouth and exclaimed in awe, “Très intéressant! I’ll do a frenectomy!”

Frenectomy?

In the past, when diagnosed with other strange ailments, I had no idea what my American, French, German, Greek and Swiss doctors were talking about.

I’ve always been different.

After all, I was born in Sandwich.

“Which kind? Baloney!” friends teased.

According to my mother, I was the only planned baby of her four children.

Good grief! Who in their right mind would have planned to birth an extraterrestrial being?

Fortunately, back in Sandwich in 1957, I was a bargain baby! The doctor who delivered me charged my folks only 50 bucks.

Since then, I’ve cost a fortune!

Braces, glasses, orthodontia, orthotics, and umpteen surgeries. Disintegrating discs, temporal mandible dysfunction, neuroborreliosis. I had strange conditions before they became common knowledge. My treatments, considered controversial quackery at the time, have become part of standard care, like chiropractic and TMJ dental treatment.

Why me?

Blame it on that rabid skunk bite!

My poor mother! How did she survive my childhood?

My poor Frenchman! How does he endure my adulthood?

After each calamity, he picked up the pieces, paid medical bills and waited for me to heal. With his help, I am still ticking, albeit slowly.

Today, doctors suspect I was born with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS). EDS? Huh? It’s part of a group of genetic connective tissue disorders, which could help explain
my proprioception issues and propensity for falls.

We’re all unique beings, trying to move forward, stay strong, and beat the odds.

No one chooses their family, the genes they inherit, the beliefs they assimilate, or where they grow up. No one can predict what physical, emotional, and mental challenges they’ll face.

Wouldn’t it be easier if we didn’t see ourselves only as Democrats or Republicans, Americans, Europeans, Asians, Africans, Indians, Australians, Muslims, Jews, or Christians?

Could we live better harmony if we didn’t identify so much with one religion, nationality, race, or ethnicity, but more as tiny specks in the universe?

What if we all came from somewhere beyond Earth?

How’s this for conspiracy theory?

What if we’re all aliens?

Who knows?

I am here still questioning, still yearning, still learning.

Time is running out. I may never get it right. For now, I exist in a state of grace, warts and all, grateful to be here even during these troubled times.

Thank you, my beloved mother, for bringing me into existence and guiding my path!

Merci mille fois mon courageux français for staying by my side.

Happy Birthday to me, E.T.

Buggy Ride Back in Time With Lil’ Prince of Gaydon

How about a buggy ride back in time through an enchanting village in England’s heartland? Mormor, (that’s me) is driving! Mormor is grandmother in Norwegian, giving a nod to my Norwegian mom and our family in Norway. Lil’ Prince of Gaydon (nickname I gave my grandson) and I are taking a wild ride through town!

Gaydon, though not mentioned distinctly from Chadshunt in the Domesday Book of 1086, was a separate settlement. It became known as Gaidon by the late twelfth century, taking its name from the proper name “Gaega” and the Old English word for hill “dun”.

Homeward Bound

Gaydon is at the gateway to the Cotswolds in the Stratford-on-Avon District of Warwickshire. Surrounded by rolling hills and rich farmland, Gaydon is known for its picturesque countryside and meandering walking trails. While the rest of the England races by with its twenty-first century angst, the 500 or so residents of Gaydon can chill away from the big city hustle in a community where time stood still.

I bundle Lil’ Prince into his buggy and wheel down his street lined by stately, red brick homes with colonial windows. As we pass by, I wave to the young couple next door and hope for a sneak of their new baby.

It’s a boy!

Lil’ Prince will have a new playmate soon.

Allez op, off we go ‘round the cul-de-sac and down the other side of the street past the home of the proprietors of the local pub, The Malt Shovel.

On the corner, the decrepit Gaydon Inn, notorious in the eighteenth century for violent highwaymen, still stands, barely. In 1725, a Parliamentary Act brought the stagecoach trade to the village, increasing Gaydon Inn’s importance. It has since has fallen into disrepair due to zoning laws.

Across the street on Banbury Road, a busy highway for commuter rushing to the cities, the Esso station and a quick stop shop, reminds me modern civilization is never far away.

We turn and wind along Church Street, which leads us to the St. Giles Church, as does Church Lane. Like in yesteryear, all roads lead to the church.

Now at the site of original thirteenth century medieval chapel, the current one was rebuilt in the gothic revival style of the mid 1800s. Only the bell survived from the original church, but worn gravestones from past centuries remain in the churchyard.

Lil’ Prince appears to be enthralled by the bewitching stories I spin of ghosts lurking among the ancient tombstones tilting in the heavy Warwickshire fog.

“They look like Hobbit Houses!” I exclaim pointing out low stone dwellings across the lane from the churchyard. Anyone in my family would have to duck to enter the doorway, but I would love to see inside even if had to crawl through the visit.

Just past the church, in front of the town parish, I read aloud the Parish Council News and update Lil’Prince on village events. Next to town hall, a white stone, blue-shuttered thatched-roof house stands magnanimously.

Next we stop to admire the Manor House on Kineton Road, which dates back to the seventeenth century. Surrounding the village, open fields, farms and estates, date back to the nineteenth century and bear the titles Manor Farm, Gaydon Farm, Gaydon Hill Farm, Gaydon Field Farms and Poplars Farm.

: Thatched Roofed Stone House

: Eclectic Town Hall

: Poplars Farm

“How about that?” I laugh as I tell the Prince, “Now we are on Pimple Lane.”

Then, we stroll past the local village shop that opened May 2010. Volunteers run, the non-profit coop providing local produce, homemade gifts and daily essentials.

Last stop, The Malt Shovel, the local pub, which offers a cozy welcome to village life. With baby in tow, we pop in for a quick pint of apple cider, popular in the region.

This village is definitely worth a look see, but,”shh don’t tell anyone.”

If I advertised this gem, villagers would be dismayed. Gaydon’s natural beauty, unaltered by tourist buses, gift shops and fast food joints, is part of its charm.

Like the British would say, “Gaydon is a great place to stop and ‘ave a nosy.’”

Jump Start Brain and Body – Learn a New Sport

Feeling old, achy and foggy brained? Experts say learning a new skill is recommended for our rusty bodies and aging brains. For me, relearning old skills is equally valuable. It is never more important than after suffering a traumatic brain injury (TBI) which can effect spatial awareness, balance, proprioception, executive function, listening, speaking and emotional stability.

Like so many people after injury, illness and accidents, I was forced to reframe my life. Once I retired from playing pro ball, I dreamed would learn to scuba dive, alpine ski and surf. I’d run marathons and bike mountains.

Well, that hasn’t been an option for decades.

So when my chiropractor in Geneva (Switzerland) suggested that I try “rope flow” to help strengthen my core, align my back, retrain my brain to better coordinate both hemispheres and work my lazy left side, I was all ears.

In Dr. G’s office, I watched in awe as he demonstrated swinging a heavy rope around his body.

“Jump rope sans the jump for injured adults!” I said.

“Actually, a heavier marine rope like sailors use works better,” Dr. G explained. “The sailboat boutique across Lake Geneva in Nyon carries all different sizes.”

Then he went onto explain the history.

“David Weck, an American, created rope flow to help people recover rotational movement and to reinforce how we walk, run and move. Rope wave, quickly adopted by elite athletes and movement coaches, has become a valuable training tool for improving mobility symmetry, coordination and striking power.”

At first glance, rope wave looks easy. It’s not. It involves swinging a rope around your body in coordinated patterns like figure-eights, while shifting your weight and rotating your spine, shoulders, and hips with rhythm and control.

I was delighted to discover a game that I can play without getting hurt as long as I don’t whip myself on the back of my legs or lips.

If you perform rope flow properly, the rapid rhythm builds a smooth, effortless coordination across both sides of the body. Rope flow is symmetrical. You rotate both left and right, retraining your non-dominant side and this helps smooth out imbalances.

Rope flow is ingenious for its affordability, convenience, practicality and simplicity. This portable habit helps rewire the way I relate to my body. It is probably even more valuable for people like me who suffer from the effects of a stroke or TBI where message systems in the brain are damaged and to weakness on one side of the body.

After my time at the Functional Neurology Clinic in Minnesota, I learned how neuroplasticity allows the brain repair itself. After my brain surgery, messages did not get to my left side. Rope flow trains the brain and the body simultaneously and I would recommend it for anyone recovering from a TBI.

I am learning to accept my limitations, no more hooping, running, jumping. No kayaking, canoeing, golf, tennis, pickle ball or any asymmetric sport requiring lateral movement. For me, traveling in cars and planes or even sitting must be minimized.

So I was encouraged to finally find a sport I can perform with my broken body; it’s even good for me.

Granted I look a bit crazy, but who cares? I swing my rope, whistle like my dad used to, hang out with cows up in mountain meadows and admire the panoramic Alps.

It is highly unlikely that you can find an instructor in your area, but David Weck, Tim Shieff and other experts offer detailed videos breaking down movement into steps.

So pick up a rope, put on your favorite song and swivel those hips.

Yahoo! Clear the way! Look out! I’ll lasso you…my first dream was to be a cowgirl!