From the handwritten journal Robert Gaudino kept during a National Student Assn. (NSA) summer trip:
“On a bus I crossed my country…I talked to some people and some talked back…with an apparent belief in the inevitability of another war…[and] of donkey rides in the Grand Canyon and cable cars in San Francisco…
Uncomfortable are nights on buses shifting around ’till you’re comfortable. Lights at late hours when lights shouldn’t be…Indians got off and on around Albuquerque–stolid, silent men…I saw for the first time an automatic shoe-shining machine when we stopped for dinner in Emporia, Kansas. A woman on her way to her sick mother’s in Detroit put her feet into it and it frightened her. It made vicious noises and shook….I laughed and the other people did too and so did the woman…We laughed a lot…
As the bus pulled out of Detroit…I met Audre…she had all her lawyer friends saying goodbye at the station…We settled into the preliminary ‘where-you-froms’…Most people are interesting at that stage because they are as yet unexplained and as such offer a new experience in human judgment and character recognition…
[In] Quebec…the lady lawyer and myself took a tour out to see the shrine of Saint Anne de Beaupre…the most famous cure-all in the Western Hemisphere and the scene of many miracles…stacks of crutches and discarded braces… The interior is beautiful but coldly majestic as are most big worshiping places. They are awe inspiring but seemingly built of stone rather than spirit… When I returned to the bus for Quebec, my feet hurt…
Just outside of town, the guide thought it significant to point out a multiple storied insane asylum…I wondered why, but no one else did so I stopped wondering.
I started getting the feel of the people on the tour … at the docks, others at the boat…dinner aboard [was] G.I. down to the metal, partitioned trays…up on deck there was much singing before sailing…the spirited young were they—singing, playing and talking important things–important because they were done with each other with the noble purpose of community in action and ideals…At night we saw movies on a torn sheet…lectures on foreign customs turned up and turned out useless trivialities…
Aboard were American Youth for World Youth, American Youth Hostels, Experiments in International Living, students traveling or studying alone in Europe (the non-orgs), Work and Reconstruction Camps…A good voyage with thinking people.
June 29…up the channel to Rotterdam…the Dutch have done an amazing job in clearing out the rubble in this ill-fated city…the object of a Luftwaffe …bombardment while peace negotiations were being held between Germany and Holland…
The simple character trait…of the majority of Dutch people…something you feel…a hospitality of purpose or communal feeling for friendship…unmarred by materialistic considerations…we were received by a firm handshake, a smile and an offer to share.
In Brussels, Dave started talking through the [train] window to an Army major which ended up as a discussion between an idealist and a militarist on what should be done by our country in Europe. Both had valid arguments but it was impossible for them to find a middle ground…extremists know no compromise.
There were 42 of us now together and our destination was Grenoble…Paris University’s Cite Universitaire was the site of our lunch…Kiki was wearing a plastic head covering and…as she entered the main dining hall there followed a clatter of trays, silverware and fists, coupled with derisive shouts of “Chapeau, Chapeau.” Custom dictates that young ladies wear no head covering in student mess halls and the din increased…until the female offender does as requested.
Big proud uncompromising chateaus staring stonily down from high cliffs, bastions of forgotten power…there was an old villager who shook our hands and told us interesting facts we never understood because he spoke in French…
We flocked out…onto the…cobblestone…through the mist to a sprawling high ceilinged nitery on the river called the Casino….the lights went down a, a girl entered, did a striptease and left. Overflowing ashtrays and flowed out wine glasses we …spoke of student life, languages and Sartre’s Existentialism. Other acts appeared but few took their clothes off…
In the morning a little French maid drew us a hot tub in a public bath house and suggested seeing the old Italian castle in town. That noon we had one of our finest meals…we devoured asparagus with garlic sauce, French fries, steaks, salad…fruit, cheese and crackers, and for the climax champagne. It was no wonder that we fell to singing French country songs and American Christmas carols and experienced a deep sense of contentment. Sailing was satisfying that afternoon on Lake D’Annecy…to glide over the crystal surface in that inkwell of paradise nestled between two ranges of powerful peaks…
Carnival in Chambery…the farmers and shopkeepers laughed, fought, pushed, danced, swore, drank played…painted women and organ grinders, red balloons and French fries, samba and cobblestone…La Marseilles and La Vie en Rose, hand holding and fist flying…tied together with a loud military band…followed by fourteen blazing torches and a mad marching group of Americans and Frenchmen with arms locked. The next day was our country’s birthday with weather that was as bright and happy as a firecracker. The morning was so fine we stopped the bus in a meadow ‘neath a distant waterfall and lolled in the grass.
On the broad terrace of the Bastille…there were toasts to independence, France, U.S….and laughter, dating and dancing.
A good amount of the electrical power for Central France originated in the Grenoble area through water. Patriot bombs of Free France dynamited generation centers during the invasion period. Their casualties were high…On a long slope…we visited their cemetery and read their gravestones.
That morning, Bernard had taken Peggy for a ride on his bicycle and ended up in jail …for insulting a gendarme…We visited three jailers…seeking the release of our guide but he had said too much of too many things and the authorities refused to release him.
Paris…In the days we became acquainted with the city. In the nights we got to know her. An organ vibrated during mass at Notre Dame–in the vastness we heard it and were uplifted…the Eifel Tower…the tomb of Napoleon…Upper Montmartre, Ruth, Tom and myself investigated…those Bohemian bistros one endless eve…The student sang and a hat went around to pay for his food…
In a hotel room with a balcony overlooking the Blvd. Montparnasse…a group of us sat around on the floor, on the bed, on chairs and listened to Jenine [whose] capacity for enjoyment of all things spread to the rest of us like the fire she herself generated….At the war’s outbreak…she did background checks on the underground’s members, testing their loyalties…It was not surprising to see a philosophy like Existentialism develop here in the post-war period…It meant what it said… “Man exists and there’s not much he can do about it. He’s a victim of fate, of his circumstances, of his environment…To exert free will, to free himself of the limitations, he can do two things. First, he can kill himself, which ends the farce of living but solves nothing for those who want to stay alive.
“There is another way…A human being can make a decision to follow a given course in any situation or at a particular stage in his life, but the making of that decision is not a free choice…It has been conditioned by a totality of influences…The real freedom comes…in the dogged perseverance of the course regardless of all the forces of environment. It is not a good philosophy. It places little faith in the integrity of man…,” Jenine laughed.
“In your country, your people [make] such elaborate claims to being individuals. I think sometimes they are trying to convince themselves. In reality, Americans must be part of the group, a part of the whole. They join societies, clubs, fraternal organizations sometimes only with a secret fear of being left out…They all try to conform. A woman in the United States is well-dressed if she wears what others wear (the new look) but a Parisian woman is chic only if she dresses as no other woman.”
Knowing Jenine was knowing France. Knowing them both was an experience I’ll not soon forget.”