Recently, I told my brother that a mutual friend of ours, who we had spent much of the summer of 1989 in France with, got into contact with me via Facebook.
Well, he sent me a couple of pictures from that summer, and it seemed worth sharing here.
The first picture may have been taken by me, although I cannot say for sure. But my brother is on the left, our Algerian friend Riad is in the middle (he is the one who recently got into contact with me, and who sent me these two pictures), and Bruno, who is from France, is on the right, looking at Riad (or so it seems to me). We were in Leffond, a small town in eastern France, not too far from Dijon, which is the most famous large city within the vicinity of the area where this picture was taken.
The second picture was also taken in Leffond. This one features only Riad, and he is in the Renault 5 (back then known here in the United States as "Le Car") that belonged to my aunt, who was the one who took us in during those summers of the 1980's. This was the last such summer when we visited, and my guess is that my brother, like me, has fond memories of this summer. Leffond is a very small town, and there was usually not all that much for kids to do. But we were all teenagers (the three pictures below, as well as me), which made it a lot more fun, I think, for all of us. We played a lot of ping pong, and generally had some good times, despite a language barrier particularly with me.
Indeed, that summer was fun, and I mostly have positive memories from it. Being in Leffond for what turned out to be the last of our summer vacations in France of the 1980's, and being able to enjoy the company of young men who were more or less our age, it made it especially fun. If memory serves correctly, Bruno was the oldest among us, and Riad just a little younger than him. My brother was likely a year or two younger than them, and I am just shy of three years younger than him, which made me the baby and the brat of the pack.
Still, it was good times, and it seemed particularly timing, given the confinement that we are all subjected to nowadays with the Covid-19, to remember this summer.
Enjoy!
Wow, it's a trip seeing these pictures. Have you managed to chat with Riad on FB, and if so what is he up to these days? I wonder whatever became of "Brrrrrrrruno"? As far as I can remember we were about the same age, but I think Bruno's hair loss set in at an earlier age than it did for us. As for me, it's staggering how much I've changed since then. I was never buff, but between the fact that I probably weighed about 200 pounds tops and that I was probably not much shorter than my present height, that's probably as close to "buff" as I ever got by default. And that full head of hair, none of which was gray... It's too bad you're not in any of these, although I'm sure you're in other pictures from that summer.
ReplyDeleteYes, I have been chatting with Riad a bit. He did not mention too much about his personal life, but it seems that he has a wife or girlfriend, and at least one child, seemingly a son. He mentioned the Covid-19 situation in Algeria, which is bad, but not as bad as it is here in the United States. He mentioned a curfew there, from 7pm to, I think, 7am. He asked about you, as well. I might be in some pictures from that summer, although I don't know where they would be. But those pictures were pretty funny after all of these years.
DeleteP.S. It's too bad I didn't remove my watch, or rotate it slightly – it looks like part of my left hand has a radioactive glow...
ReplyDeleteI was under the impression that it was from the glare of a camera flash, presumably while he was taking a picture of the pictures, because it is in both pictures. But you could be right, it may be a glare from your watch. But I don't think that I'll ever see that picture in quite the same way again. Lol!
Delete