![](https://culinarytravelsinfrance.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/fd799-coursmontaigne.png?w=200&h=200)
When I returned to Paris and Neuilly in 2003, I found the school had moved or closed forever and for a while, doubted myself if there had ever even been such a school. It was one of those pieces in my life that was doomed to be left, in some respect, unfinished or unresolved. I have a thing about going back and tying up, wherever I can, loose ends from my past. I don’t know why maybe it’s where I find myself these days. With the above as general background information, the curious part begins. In December 2011, I received a comment on my blog from a reader regarding the Neuilly trilogy, part three, stating in so many words, that I should “hold on to my hat” because the writer had also attended the very same school on the Avenue du Roule and apparently, so it seemed, at the same time as I. He recounted that some of my crazy antics with my brothers reminded him of his youthful days in Neuilly playing soldier with his friend and hiding in the various garage in Neuilly. If you recall, I was involved in such charming antics as throwing firecrackers (aka bombe Algerienne) from our apartment porch down onto unsuspecting passers by. If we were operating on the street, then we would throw our bombs then run and hide in the garage. I suspect that somehow I am still paying for those antics. When we left France, I know there had to have been an audible sigh of relief from somewhere in the Mairie de la Ville de Neuilly, the Gendarmerie and la Republic Francaise in general. “We thought those American boys would never leave our country!” or something along those lines.
In any event, as you can well imagine, I immediately responded to my mysterious blog reader telling him that I lived at 61 rue Perronet. His answer? Well, that was his address as well which prompted a flurry of email conversations recalling life in Neuilly, living on the rue Perronet, landmarks such as the movie theater on the rue de Chezy, green grocer, tabac store, the wonderful bakery and many others. I told my new found blog friend that in late 1961 -early 1962 I was yanked out of the Cours Montaigne and placed with my brothers at the Ecole Pascal in the 16, (I presume that I was either shown the front door of the school by Madame la Directrice or my father may have felt it was easier to control three little truants under one roof.) I wrote about my encarceration at the Ecole Pascal in an episode entitled “My Personal Rentrée Scolaire – School Daze.) While I went in the direction of Pascal, my blog friend went to the famed Lycée Pasteur directly across from 61 rue Perronet. We both recalled being able to peer into the classrooms of the lycée from across the street in our apartment.
Now you must be asking yourselves did I know this mysterious classmate from Montaigne? My answer is that I had no idea who he was. So there we were two American kids making our way through the French school system in 1961 unknown to each other yet going to the same school, living in the same street at the same address and doing many of the same typical kinds of activities one would expect like trips to the Bois de Boulogne and the Jardin D’Acclimatation. He sent me a picture which I have included, with his permission, that shows several the students sitting on the school steps which led into the stately residence/villa turned school’s administrative building. The bigger boy, the one seen on the first step with one knee on the ground is my new friend. The second little boy leaning against the black ornate railing in a dark sweater and short pants, and who appears to be standing somewhat apart from the other boys, watching but not participating, is yours truly. I’ve looked at that little boy for some time now and have asked myself had I been able to return as an adult, at that moment in time, what would I have said or done. I’ve been thinking an awful lot about that but I know one thing for sure, it would have included a big, long and much needed bear hug.
How strange that an event that took place in 1961 should, some fifty years later, come full circle thanks to an isolated event in California, a web search on the Cours Montaigne school which ultimately connected my new friend to my blog and ultimately to me in Maryland. Now thanks to him I have a real link to a particular moment in time in Neuilly that I never had before. Thank you Kevin.
Please let me know what you think of this most unusual little Christmas story.