Paris 1951: The American Connection

I have heard nothing back from Le Bistrot regarding the former occupant of their location, Au Porte d'Attache.

Today, I sent a similar request to the property management firm, G. Mauduit, which occupies the ground floor of, and presumably manages, the apartment building 36 rue Pigalle, the location of the late Morgan of Oregon, American Bar (The Only Yank in Montmartre). I am hopeful that a real estate firm may know more of the history of their property than a mere successor cafe, in the case of Le Bistrot, does.

My next step, if this line proves unfruitful, will be to try the Paris government property records. (The Hotel Metropole is no longer a hotel and I doubt any of the residents has the slightest knowledge of the history of the building. Also, I have no names or contact info for any of the residents, anyway.) I presume records of sale/purchase transactions, business licenses, etc. are all held at the city level and not the arrondissement.

I wonder what the possibilities of tracking down/identifying Mr. Morgan are?

UPDATE:

Imagine my surprise. I found a reference to Morgan of Oregon, of all places, in a copy of the June 2006 Pawcatuck Pilot, Official Newsletter of USS Pawcatuck AO-108 which reprints a section of a 1952 story of an apocryphal amalgamation of an engineer named "Alfred." As the tale recounts . . .

". . . His greatest sight was the Follies [sic] Bergere, in which he took part as a jockey on a wooden horse. After a day of events, he would always end up in Pigalle at Morgan’s of Oregon, an American bar. He would sit and talk for hours on end to anyone who was within earshot. After spending his last francs he would go to the door and leave and fall back at the sight, for outside was sunlight...then starting another day. After gathering his senses he would take his friend, Mrs. Morgan, and everyone else in the party to the Market Square for Onion Soup—the best in the world.. . ."

So, Mr. Morgan may, in fact, be Mrs. Morgan.

The game is afoot!

. . . And the End of Civilization As We Know It

Today is the day Florida's judicial stay on the enforcement of the declaration of unconstitutionality of the state's ban on same-sex marriages was lifted. It's convoluted.

Several years ago, along with a bunch of other red(dish) states, our legislature managed to work up enough of a paranoid frenzy among the insecure and easily frightened to get a constitutional amendment passed limiting marriage to the "traditional" one man, one woman format and besides, it's what Jesus wants. (Let's forget that "traditional marriage" as they defined it is barely more than a century old and for most of history was a transfer of property contract between men, and Biblical marriage was even worse involving slavery and polygamy (lookin' at you, Solomon!).)

Anyway, last year a federal judge, upon complaint from two guys wishing to wed in the north end of the state and two women in Miami, declared the ban unconstitutional under the federal 14th amendment which requires states to comply with federal law and ordered the clerks of the county in which the betrothed lived to issue the marriage licenses.

The state, in the full majesty of its official capacity, immediately freaked out and requested a stay of judgment to give it time to appeal the decision, which the judge granted.

Now, the thing about appeals is: higher courts are not usually required to hear them and, if they refuse, the original ruling, whatever it may be, stands. And no higher court, not even the Supreme Court where the extremely conservative Clarence Thomas was the justice who heard the request, agreed to take the case.

So the stay was set to expire at midnight last night.

And then the fun started. The state attorney general, still in full freak-out mode, declared that the ruling only applied to the plaintiffs and anyone else seeking a same-sex marriage could still be discriminated against. And the law firm for the county clerks' association warned the members that the clerks of all the other counties not covered by the ruling risked breaking the law by applying the ruling. So on New Year's Day the judge issued a clarification making it plain that his injunction against the constitutional ban applied to everyone across the state.

At which point some counties (specifically those encompassing Miami, Tampa and Key West) began celebrating, most counties began adjusting their forms and procedures, and a dozen counties in the deep redneck north of the state began contorting themselves to do the barest minimum mainly by refusing to perform any marriage ceremonies gay or straight on the logic that the judge's ruling applied only to marriage licenses not actual marriages. (At least they were smart enough to realize that continuing to perform straight marriage ceremonies would open themselves up to discrimination charges. And there are plenty of other options, both religious and secular, for couples to hold their services.)

And so, despite the trembling of the earth, rising of the waters, lightning splitting stone, and howling winds, society has not yet collapsed. And Florida is being dragged kicking and screaming right up to the edge of the twenty-first century.

2015 So Far

Well, this new year seems to be starting off different.

Three police cars showed up out on our main road about 1:45 a.m., parked in a line about a hundred feet apart with lights flashing and stayed there for an hour or so encouraging a party down that way to break up. It was a pretty good party, too, from the sound and sight of it, with music, fireworks and a large bonfire. (I'm pretty sure it was just a bonfire despite looking as if the host house was burning down with flames rising above the roof and thick smoke billowing out since the fire department never showed up.) It took a while for the dozen or so cars to leave.

Fortunately, the police didn't come any sooner since one of the neighbors down our street had been shooting off commercial-grade fireworks from the pavement in front of his house. They were very impressive (Literally. You could feel the force of the shockwave when they exploded.) and quite beautiful and very loud. The cats hid. They started well before midnight so after an hour and a half someone came out and yelled at them to knock it off. They yelled back, "Happy New Year!" The complainers yelled back, "Happy New Year, to you!" and went inside. A couple of shots later the fireworks ended. That's how civilization is supposed to work.

January is a Blue Month for my platelet donations this year: my every-four-weeks schedule means I will donate twice this month. The first one was scheduled for the first of the year which wasn't going to work for anybody so we moved it to Friday, the 2nd. The regular RN was still out on vacation and the hospital was low on platelets so the sub asked if I'd be willing to do a double, which I was. All went reasonably well with only minor beeping of the machine. When we were done, however, the bandage was not applied tightly enough (can't place blame since I participate in that process). I mentioned that I was feeling a little light-headed when I stood up and another donor said, "Maybe it's because you're leaking all over the place."

Sure enough, the bandage was soaked through, blood was running down my arm, and drops were spurting out all over the floor. I hadn't felt a thing. I sat back down and we got it stopped quickly enough. They spent several minutes scrubbing and decontaminating the floor. I went home, threw my shirt in the wash and took a nap. We all promised to be more observant next time.

My brother decided to put the cats on a diet. It's only the mom, Jasmine, that's fat but they all eat at the same time from shared plates so they're all being cut back in both volume and frequency. One of the enterprising little buggers quickly figured out how to self-serve by nibbling/tearing a small hole in the kibble bag. It was perfectly done and only released food when they stuck their faces in the hole. The only reason I noticed was because they acted totally disinterested when I put out the scheduled meal, instead of the hunger-fueled frenzy that had quickly become the norm. So now the bag is in a sealed bucket and they're unhappy again.