Exploring the unexpected.
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Tapestry

A few years ago my husband’s college roommate Ken invited us to join him on a trip to Normandy.   I had a bit of a hassle replacing my missing travel documents,  but eventually all was resolved.  (See The Purloined Passport)

We flew first to Paris where we visited with family and friends, then rented a car and drove to Caen  where we met Ken,  and for the next several days immersed ourselves in World War II and D-Day history.  And as we expected,  we found our time in Normandy both very educational and very emotional.

Towards the end of our stay the two men decided to go to another of the several Normandy museums in the area but I wanted  to spend some time in Bayeux to see the celebrated tapestry,  and so I went alone.

There I found the 230 foot long tapestry mounted behind protective glass and encircling the walls of the Bayeux Tapestry Museum.  An excellent auto-guide took me through the 58 scenes,  embroidered with colored yarn on the tapestry’s 9 linen panels.

Thought to date from the 11th century,  the tapestry depicts the events leading up to the 1066 Norman conquest of England and the British King Harold’s  defeat by Duke William of Normandy at the Battle of Hastings.

I was captivated by the tapestry –  the pain-staking work of the artisans who wove it centuries ago; the imperative at the time to record the historic battle in art;  and the story of how the tapestry survived and was preserved.

When we left France we took with us a clearer understanding of the events of WW II and what happened in Normandy,  and I left with a deeper appreciation of my father’s part in the war.  (See Captain)

And I also left with the story of another battle – one fought in Hastings ten centuries ago,  and immortalized in the extraordinary work of art I saw in that lovely museum in Bayeux.

– Dana Susan Lehrman

The Peacock

Both my husband and I bear the scars of early burns.  Mine is under my chin and dates from a very minor,  almost funny childhood accident;  his scar is on his arm, dates from the hour of his birth, and tells a more somber tale.

As I child I loved summer camp and went on to be a camper waitress,  and then a drama counselor. (See Frenched!,  The Camper-Waitress Goes to the Fair, and Piano Man – Remembering Herb)

One memorable summer when I was a young camper we were sitting around a campfire toasting marshmallows on sticks as a counselor told a ghost story.  Intent on the scary story,  I took my stick out of the fire to eat my toasty marshmallow  but as I raised it to my mouth it hit me under the chin instead.  Now decades later I have the scar of what I affectionately call my “marshmallow burn”.

How my husband was burned is quite a different story.

On the cusp of WWII and the Nazi horror,  my husband’s parents fled Europe.   (See Family Photo and  Tracing Our Roots)

They were able to get visas for Bolivia where they lived for the duration of the war and where my husband was born – prematurely.   The hospital conditions were relatively primitive and there were no incubators for premies.  Instead the 5 pound baby was placed on a shelf under the table where his mother had labored, and where she was then being treated for a serious post-partum complication.   Meanwhile a hot water bottle was placed beside the infant and altho it kept him warm,  it badly burned and scarred his arm.  But thankfully mother and baby survived their ordeals and after the war the family sailed for the States.

Of course my husband doesn’t remember the kindly Bolivian doctor who delivered him and treated his mother,  and has only heard the hot water bottle story that explains his badly burnt arm.  But he does have wonderful memories of his early years in Cochabamba, a city of beautiful fountains, squares, and parks.

And as a three-year old he remembers playing in a Bolivian park where a peacock frightened him by suddenly spreading its beautiful feathers.

– Dana Susan Lehrman