The Time I ALMOST Spent the Night in a French Jail!

Okay. That may be an exaggeration. Or, maybe not. First some background.

For eight years in the ’90s, I had a corporate Human Resources job where I got to travel a lot … nationally and internationally. One of the places I traveled to, four times, was France. A quick aside – my first trip to France was a fluke. Rental cars in France were only stick shift. My boss couldn’t drive stick. I could. “Denny, you’re going to France!”

The other three visits, I traveled alone. I flew into Limoges, famous for porcelain, and got a stick shift rental car and stayed in a charming French town called St. Junien. It was about the size of Emmaus , but much more charming. (No offense Emmaus people). I stayed in an old rustic hotel with a front desk like that in The Shady Rest Hotel in Hooterville.  Just off the desk was a small bar and small restaurant.  It was a lovely place.

My first morning there, I got up early and headed to our small plant in Saillat, a couple miles away.  I got to know our French employees very well. That day, one of our employees invited me to his home for dinner. He picked me up at my charming and rustic hotel and we went to his house for dinner. It was an old stone home, just what you would picture in the beautiful French countryside.  I met his lovely wife and toddler. I remember we had fish and baked potato and green beans (French style, of course). At the end of the evening, he took me back to my hotel. Have I mentioned it was rustic and charming? Now things take a bad turn.

The town is quiet, very quiet. It is only about 9 PM.  He drops me off in front of my hotel and quickly speeds off to the bucolic French countryside.  I go to the door of the hotel. It is locked. I have no key. I start to panic. What do I do now?  Do I wander around the town looking for help? I spoke zero French and this was before cell phones. Do I bang on the door and try to wake another sleeping guest? Not likely, with the thick walls and the layout of the place. Do I walk around and try to find a police station?  Again, I do not speak French!  Will I have to spend the night in a French jail?

I see a group of people walking on the street at the back of the hotel. Luckily, it was the front desk clerk, the bartender, and the waitress. I recognized the waitress. She looked like Bobby Jo, from Hooterville! They had just locked up for the night. They rescued me and the desk clerk apologized to me. She was supposed to have given me a key for just such circumstances. Whew! If I had arrived just a few minutes later I most likely would have been, for one night at least, a homeless person on the streets of St. Junien or spent the night in a French jail. Les Miserables!

One of the best things about my years of foreign travel was to see the everyday life of the citizens of whatever country I was in. One of the worst things was having to work and not see any tourist attractions. One exception was that first trip to France. We flew into Paris just to spend the night, before traveling in the stick shift car, to St. Junien. My boss, paid a taxi driver to take us around to see the major Paris attractions through the windows of the taxi. I got to see the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Arch de Triumphe, and Notre Dame Cathedral (did not see the hunchback!).

But, like Simon and Garfunkel said “Gee but it’s great to be back home. Home is where I want to be.”

If you are reading this on Saturday, don’t forget to set your clocks ahead.