That's my dad in France. I really can't remember a time when he was ever so happy for so long. He had a few good hours during his Marx Brothers fad. He liked helping his five kids with their math and seeing the moment when the lights would go on. He laughed a lot at The Far Side, Doonesbury, and The Devil's Dictionary, but otherwise I don't remember him as really being very happy. In France, he was happy.
We had a great time together. It was the first time we really spent any long period of time together, just the two of us. We had a bit of a role reversal from when I was a kid. I made the executive decisions, I did most of the required interactions with strangers, I planned most of the itinerary, and he got to be the good sport to go along with everything. He did a great job! The first day he stayed up for over 24 hours and never once complained, even though it was cold and snowy at the Eiffel Tower.
Before we went, I knew there were things he would love, but he surprised me with just how much he loved them! All men love war monuments, so I took him to some great WWII sites. Sure enough, he loved it! Not only did he love the sites, he loved the D-Day Museum enough to take 167 pictures of the inside, capturing possible every piece of history.
He always dreamed of seeing the Chateaux of the Loire. We spent a day checking out the best of. I knew he would love the castles, and I had a sneaky suspicion that he would also enjoy "the dog show," where a ton of dogs chaotically devour a gigantic pile of food in a matter of minutes. We saw a couple beautiful chateaux, then watched the hungry hounds before we went off to the grand finale chateau, Chambord. We walked back to the car after spending the day fulfilling my dad's dream, and I asked him what his favorite part of the day was. He didn't say anything, just opened and closed his mouth like he was eating an entire chicken in four bites. Looks like reality is sometimes even better than dreams.
One of my favorite memories took place on the day we planned on going to Versailles. We didn't make it to Louis XIV's hang out spot. We went with something less refined instead. We spent the day at the French equivalent of Super Target and might have enjoyed ourselves even more. In retrospect, we really should have brought a camera into the grocery store. If I could have captured the look on my dad's face when he saw all the cheese, I would have won a photography award. He saw the deli case filled with cheese and couldn't believe how many different kinds they had. "Wow!" Then his eyes wandered beyond the edges of the deli case to the refrigerated aisle filled with an even larger selection of cheeses. "WOW!!!" Then he looked across that aisle to the other refrigerated aisle also filled with cheese. "WOW! WOW! WOW!!!" I just stood there beaming, knowing I showed him something that no one else ever had. While we wandered through the store, we saw something unusual in the meat department: a wild boar that had been to the taxidermist. The next couple days my dad regretted not taking a picture of the wild boar at the grocery store. Instead, we took one of him standing next to one at the Louvre.
I knew we would love seeing the beauty of Paris, wandering through museums and daydreaming in castles. We did! We saw a lot of really cool stuff, but the best thing I saw was ten consecutive days of my dad being unquestionably happy.
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