HITCHHIKING THRU OLD EUROPE

Even though it’s spring, I’ve got cabin fever. Not from the weather trapping me in the house, but because we haven’t been on a vacation since the last summer and have months to go before we hit the road again.

So I’m reduced to hitchhiking through my memories of old Europe- England, Holland, France, Italy- when I was young and single and everything was possible. Everything meant that I could possibly meet a pretty girl who’d let me spend all my money on dating her.

I remember strolling around Nice on the French Riviera with my buddies Mike and Mark, wearing my Troop 91 explorer scout shirt trying to attract the girls who liked men in uniform. I couldn’t wear my U.S. Air Force blues there because of the rampant anti-Americanism due to the Vietnam War then.

It was 1970 and we were ahead of our times as we sipped bubbly bottled French water while standing in the sea on a rocky Riviera Beach. The water was so crystal clear you could see your toes wiggle under the waves. It was naturally stony, so they had to bring in sand for the rich to have sandy beaches like in America.

We drank wine at dinner because it was cheaper than coke. Breakfast and lunch was crusty torpedo loaves of bread and pungent French cheese. From Nice we looked up at the castle on the adjacent mountain in Monaco to see if the lights were on, indicating whether Prince Rainier and Princess Grace were home.

Grace Kelly filmed Alfred Hitchcock’s “To Catch A Thief” there with Cary Grant and returned later to catch a prince. The lights were on, but we never saw the royal couple. We did see rich men losing thousands of francs at the one and only casino that made Monte Carlo in Monaco so famous.

They played James Bond’s baccarat game where the cards are scooped up. All I did was buy a $5 poker chip as a souvenir. My money was too precious to gamble it away then.

However, money was no object when it came to buying an expensive book on my favorite painter Salvador Dali on the left bank of Paris later. I couldn’t read it because it was in French, but I could marvel at the photos of his surrealistic paintings. Mike and Mark were appalled that I had spent my beer money on a book.

But I shared my book with Elise, a pretty American girl at a dive called The American Bar. She loved Dali and hated Frenchmen philosophizing all day without getting to the point. She bought me my beers.

Like the old TV show “Ali McBeal” the bar had a unisex bathroom where men and women went to go. It was all stalls, sinks and mirrors, so you could keep eye contact with the opposite sex of your choice from bar to bathroom and back. Only a stall door separated you briefly till the flush.

We left the American Bar at 6 a.m. for another bar that opened at 6. I lost Elise there to a philosophizing Frenchman and ended up talking to the bartender who said that Dali used to get drunk there. I showed him my new book.

Another time in Paris, my new found friend Barry and I did dialogue from our favorite movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” on a bus through the city to meet some American girls we had befriended in Amsterdam.

I had stolen Barry’s girl from him in Amsterdam, so on the train trip to Paris I guiltily gave up my seat beside a beautiful Italian girl to Barry. So while I stood and watched the French countryside speed by, Barry turned on the charm and got her phone number to call.

As I walked around Paris’ right bank holding Barry’s girl’s hand I pointed out how beautiful an ornate bridge was linking two buildings. Barry’s girl said that they had one just like that in Cleveland. And they say that travel is so broadening.