Encore Provence Read Free

cheerfulness. The French are not famous for being jolly; rather the reverse. Many foreigners tend to judge the mood of the entire nation on the basis of their first humiliating exposure to the Parisian waiter, not knowing that he is as morose and distant toward his countrymen—and probably toward his wife and cat as well—as he is to the tourist. But go south, and the difference is striking. There is an atmosphere of good humor, despite considerable social difficulties, high unemployment, and the financial guillotine of French income tax.
    One response to these problems has been to leave them behind, and the newspapers of the moment are filled with stories about young French business people moving from Paris to take advantage of
le boom
in England. But if that kind of ambition exists in Provence, it isn’t very apparent. Everyone agrees that times could be better; everyone hopes they will be. Meanwhile, they fall back on the philosophy of the shrug.
    It’s not a bad philosophy for the visitor to adopt as well, because life in Provence is never short of curiosities, and the national genius for complication is never too far away. There may be some mad logic at work somewhere, but there are many times when it is difficult to understand. Take, for example, the matter of the village garbage dump. It is discreetly placed, frequently cleared, designed to accept debris of any type and size short of a discarded truck, an admirable facility in every way. An official notice is prominently displayed above the garbage containers; translated it reads:
Large items should be deposited two days after the last Wednesday of each month
.
    I stood and looked at it one morning for some time, thinking at first that I had misread it, or that my French was letting me down yet again. But no. That’s what it said.
Two days after the last Wednesday of each month
. Why didn’t it say the last Friday of each month? Was there some plan afoot—doubtless another piece of nonsense from the bureaucrats in Brussels—to change the name of Friday to something more dynamic and politically exciting? Euro-day, perhaps. While I was wondering if this was a treat in store for the year 2000, a small van arrived. The driver got out and studied the notice. He looked at me. I looked at him. He looked again at the notice, shook his head and shrugged.
    Not long afterward, the notice was removed. I was told that everyone had continued to toss away their old refrigerators, bicycles, and TV sets whenever they felt like it, instructions or no instructions. The French love of signs is only equaled by their delight in ignoring them.
    Put this together with another national characteristic, that of keeping your money as much as possible out of theclutches of authority, and you begin to understand the parking problem. Every town in Provence now has areas set aside where you can park your car off the street. These areas, clearly indicated by many signs and thus easy to find, are more often than not ignored. The streets, on the other hand, are clogged with examples of imaginative and illegal parking. Cars with two wheels cocked on the sidewalk or stuffed into alleys with a bare six inches to spare on each side are commonplace. Miracles of stunt driving are performed as traffic backs up, tempers become frayed, horns squawk, and disputes erupt. And why? Because the official parking area has the audacity and the naked greed to charge five francs an hour.
    But—so I am assured by my friend Martine, who regularly parks where no others dare to park—it’s not just the money. It’s the principle.
Le parking payant
is an affront to the French ethos and must be resisted, even if that involves circling the town for half an hour in search of a place. Time, after all, is free. Moral and financial considerations aside, there is also the immense satisfaction to be gained by finding a truly exceptional spot. I once saw a man reverse his small Peugeot into the premises of a boutique that