A wonderful surprise visit!

Bill Bocquet, my only French schoolmate who lives in the US, stopped by this past Wednesday to visit us in Park City and we showed him around town to make him envious of our colorful Fall foliage, catch up and reconstruct the world. We had not seem him in person since 2003, so it was time for us to finally get together. 

The day was beautiful and the moments spend together too short, but almost instantly this impromptu get together morphed into a working session. That's how we came to consider building a retirement home for our alumni friends of the ENH (National School of Watchmaking) in Cluses, probably around the freeway and the old Carpanos Pons factory. 

It’s going to be located in the toughest part of this unforgiving valley pummeled by ice-cold weather in winter, unbearable heat in summer and situated in the middle of a strong wind draft blowing though the narrow canyon, as a way to test our comrades endurance, and verify Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous words: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” 

The place will include a clarinet school headed by Jean-Marie Peyrin, an art section under Mychel Blanc’s guidance, electric walkers everywhere, and even a small business school section of continuing education headed by Michel Deletraz who would admonish his students to trade their conviction for some solid certainty. 

Bill agreed to be in charge of financing that institution and I forced him to let me work on its architectural design. To be continued down the road...