Thursday, February 22, 2007 - Sascha aka Saschlinger
I've had it on my mind for months to blog about this guy, our friend Sascha who will be 79 years old in March and is maybe the coolest dude in all of France. Sasha started out being German with German parents in Berlin. His dad was a journalist who saw the writing on the wall with the advent of Hitler, and made tracks out of Germany while the going was still good for Jews. I'm not super clear on everywhere they went, but they were in France and Switzerland and buzzing around Europe during Sascha's childhood. He speaks fluent German, but since he was in school in France during his childhood he's also fluent in French, and I would have to say he is now more French than German in the most lovely of ways of course. He lived in Israel for awhile and also back in Frankfurt in Germany before eventually ending up in Provence. He's an eternal optimist to the point that it makes no sense to ask him how the weather will be tomorrow, because in his mind it will always be sunny and warm. He has a girlfriend, the lovely Odile who lives in Paris, and they travel back and forth about every month to see each other, and they also vacation together once or twice a year. Odile says I can come and visit her in Paris and we'll go shopping ONLY when my French improves! I just met Sascha's daughter (who is my age) last week in a restaurant in Provence, and she seems to have her father's sunny disposition. We love how open this guy is, how he has gay friends, how he learned to use a computer in his 70's even though he does not find it all that interesting, how you can always reach him on a cell phone, how his new car has a navigation system, and how he's willing to try new things even though he's no longer a spring chicken. He has a kind and loving nature and we are proud to call him our friend. We asked him to come and visit us in Germany and his comment was that when we live full time in Provence that he'll come by then.
|
