iamhome

I met Frenchie 4 years ago on the way back from the Innisfail DZ on a Sunday afternoon with Gerry Dyck, who had known him from Zepherhills, and visited him once he came to Crossfield. Frenchie always made us his famous wonderful/awful instant coffee and told us his latest health issues, latest travel stories,and how he was doing in his Calculus self teaching. He lent us books he thought we might like about physics, mathematics, and astonomy. I still have his Steven Hawkings book on quantum physics. When I told him I should give it back because I hadn't gotten through much of it he said..."no no no..you just keep at it,,I don't need it right now. You keep at it ... When Frenchie went to France to visit his sister a few years ago he brought me back a gift of a t-shirt and scarf from Paris. I was very touched by his thoughtful gift. Frenchie's room seemed like a disorganized mass of papers, clothes and books, that he would tell you to move to make room to sit down, and we should stay overnight sometime...he could clean off a couch... but he could find almost anything he was looking for in an instant..."Oh merde, now where did I put that?" he'd often say. His furniture was very worn and he sat on an old broken down chair that had the springs poking through. On one of our visits we brought him a comfortable recliner rocker that had been my favorite comfy chair for years, but I had retired to my garage. We hauled it into his room and removed the old chair and he sat in the new one and said. "Oh ya ya ya.this is much better than that old one." I hope that is the place he took his last breath and I will think of him often, as the caring, and honest man i knew and came to love. I will miss the Sunday afternoon visits, instant coffee and Frenchie's clutter, and even the phone calls at 7am to tell us he would "be away for a week in case you try to visit me." or "I am at the Bay downtown"...Gerry didn't find him many times, because he always hung up before you could ask him for more details. Fly with the angels Frenchie....au revoir for now....