Paris
Thursday, July 28, 2005
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Statue with
pigeon and yellow roses in the Place Adolphe Chérioux. This little park is in one of our favorite
neighborhoods in the 15th arrondissement. The town hall for the 15th is
nearby.
This building,
facing the park mentioned above, is the kind of place where Tom and I
wouldn’t mind owning an apartment.
We’d prefer the one with the bigger balconies, near the top.
Carefully
shaped shrubs in the Place Adolphe Chérioux lead to the little kiosque that
houses the park’s guardian. Here is a
professional photographer’s view of the park. I notice that several schools are named
after Adolphe, who was a member of the town council for the 15th. He lived from 1847 to 1934. Many of the buildings on this park were
built in the 1930s. |
I’ve been
walking around this neighborhood for years now, and I’m getting to know some
familiar faces and personalities, even though I don’t know their names. There are beggars here and there, of course,
and I see a few more of them on market days (Wednesday and Sunday mornings in
our neighborhood). Two of these
habitual mendicants seem to be of the neighborhood, and they’ve been here for
years. I notice older people giving
them coins. They are treated with
courtesy and respect. I give them
money, too, now that I “know” they are okay. One is a woman,
probably only in her 40s, but her long hair has gone white. She is trim, and always dressed stylishly
if somewhat shabbily. She does not
appear to be a drunk. Every once in a
while, I see her looking mildly disturbed, muttering to herself. But usually she looks okay, or even almost
normal. She has a strange quality that
I have seen only in schizophrenics. I
lived near a group home for schizophrenics in The other local
mendicant is a man who is probably in his late 60s. He is a bit short, and a bit chubby. He has gray curly hair and a thick dark
mustache. His face has leprechaun
qualities. I think his eyes may even
twinkle. He probably drinks too
much. Yet he remains pleasant at all
times. Neighborhood people stop not
only to give him coins, but sometimes to chat with him. He sits on the sidewalk near the Monoprix
(small department store plus supermarket) or a nearby ATM, where the sidewalk
is roomier. He has a sheet of paper in
a plastic sleeve that he puts on the pavement in front of him. On the paper, words are printed that say
something like “coins so that I can eat.”
It is hard to read the words because there are always coins scattered
on them. Sometimes he asks me for
coins as I walk by. Other times he
doesn’t seem to recognize me, and he says nothing. But then I surprise him by putting some
coins on his plastic covered paper.
His head snaps up, he looks at me with a big smile, and says “thank
you, madame, thank you very much.” Once I saw a large, older woman from the
neighborhood chatting with him. She
had asked him if she could get him something from the McDonalds across the
street. He asked for coffee. She asked if he would like to have milk in
his coffee. I cannot remember his
answer. It was a very pleasant,
friendly exchange. Meanwhile, over
in the zany 5th arrondissement, some jokester has been covering
all the plaques with the names of the streets with stick-on plaques that have
those same street names in Latin. It
is the In fact, the 5th
and the |
