A ‘victory’ walk along Ave Champs-Elysees from Arc de Triomphe to Place de la Concorde

While visiting Paris we’ll walk from Arc de Triomphe, along Ave Champs-Elysees, to Place de la Concorde, many people will be in my thought, the likes of Churchill, FDR, Ike, Omar Bradley, Patton, de Gaulle and also Hitler.

After the victory in the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, Napoleon promised his troops, “You shall go home beneath triumphal arches,” thus born the Arc de Triomphe.  We saw the victory parade along Avenue Champs-Elysees after WWI and WWII.
 
When Churchill visited Paris on 11/10/1944, de Gaulle treated him with a splendid parade along Ave Champs-Elysees from Place de la Concorde to Arc de Triomphe.  He laid a wreath beneath the statue of Clemenceau, who was much in his thought on that occasion; Churchill so wrote in his The Second World War (Vol. 6).

He stayed at Quai d’Orsay (We’ll visit Musee d’Orsay—just across La Seine from Place de la Concorde, after the walk along Ave Champs-Elysees.)  Churchill was assured to “sleep the same bed and use the same bathroom as had Goering”, used by Goering means the best of the best.
 
We often see the photos of German troops marching on the Ave Champs-Elysees with the Arc de Triomphe in the background, but there was no official parade for Hitler when Paris fell in June 1940.
 
When asked why no parade held for him in Paris, Hitler reportedly said, “You cannot do this to highly cultured people.”  If it were true that he said that, I think it was the security concern, not that he was so sensitive.
 
Hitler did tour Paris for three hours; I’ll talk about this when I come to the Opera House (Palais Garnie).

There are many buildings to see during this walk including Palais de la Dccouverte and Petit Palais (both are museums; one science, the other art), which are sandwiched between Ave Franklin Roosevelt and Ave Winston Churchill.  French are appreciative people; without FDR and Churchill France or Paris couldn’t be liberated.

American troops on Ave Champs-Elysees

de Gaulle on Ave Champs-Elysees

Place de la Concorde

All the flowers paint our garden with delight

Our gardening aims for two Bs (beauty and bounty).  I have shown bounty the past few posts, let’s the beauty takes its place.  “All the flowers paint our garden with delight.” (Love’s Labour Lost : Act V Scene 2).  These photos shows “This garden has a world of pleasure in it” (Two Noble Kinsmen: Act II Scene 2, uttered by Emilia.)

Tomatoes galore

While asking for green tomatoes Janice said she only wanted 10 tomatoes; that means one of our tomato plants can provide 10 tomatoes and still has more than 10 left.  Yesterday I noticed there were two tomato plants next to each other and each carries more than 20 tomatoes.

More than 20 tomatoes on a tomato plant is not the rule, neither is the exception.  Katy counted 25 tomatoes on one plant today and that was not even the two plants I counted.

To daughters with love

  As the label (made by Joy) says these are grown with love; we are sending these with love and with a big heart—as large as an Ox Heart (tomato).

A couple, good friends of us, will go to Boston; they will bring some of the produce from our garden to our daughters.

Only a fraction of tomatoes are ripe/red, so we’re glad to learn that Janice likes green tomatoes.   We’re also sending Taiwanese cucumber, Chinese celery, kale, flowering Chinese chives (韭菜花, a delicacy), Taiwanese spinach (應菜, 空心菜).

We’re busy harvesting this morning and that reminds me of reading one of Emily Dickinson’s letters, in which she wrote she got up early in the morning harvesting the peas so they would be in time for the early morning train for her relatives in the neighboring town.

We try to plant the same flowers as she did; we also do what she did for the produce.

 

 

 

 

The kale and the fig tree in Thomas Jefferson’s restored garden at Monticello and in ours

I wrote an article about fig trees after visiting Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello last year,

http://doctorjytsai.blogspot.com/2013/09/if-i-were-director-of-thomas-jeffersons.html

 

In the spirit of imitating Jefferson’s garden we now have fig trees in our garden; thanks to Dr. Liang’s (a retired surgeon and a seasoned gardener) kindness.

 

The kale in our garden also came from Dr. Liang last year.  The smaller ones came from the seeds from Monticello—Jefferson’s favorite.  We planted it very late in the season.

 

It should make sense to you now that I put kale and fig trees together; both involve Dr. Liang and Thomas Jefferson.

My grandmother listening to the phonograph

My cousin, 英毅, posted this photo of our grandmother in Facebook.  She was listening to the phonograph so absorbing that she was oblivious to her picture being taken.  It was said she was listening to 梁山伯與祝英台 (A Chinese folklore, a love story).  She was then in her late 70s.

I attended middle/high school in Chia Yi.  I vividly recall that whenever I was home to Po-Tzu, I would ask my mom where 阿嬤 (grandmother) was as she rotated living with her several sons in Po-Tzu; my first order of business would be going to see my 阿嬤 wherever she was.