Car brand and lapse in memory…

At my age it’s not infrequent that I’m looking for name, sometime so familiar, that I should absolutely remember. One day, as we were discussing automobiles, I was explaining the breadth of the Volkswagen empire to my wife in spite of my limited knowledge of the car behemoth. 

I cited VW of course, Audi, Porsche, SEAT in Spain and the brand from Czecoslovakia which name I couldn’t remember (that brand isn’t sold in the US). I tried hard all afternoon to remember it - without cheating with Google - to no avail. 

The following day, that frustrated mental search messed up my entire morning meditation, then I feel asleep, and at some point briefly and miraculously remembered it again, just to lose it for good as I fell back to sleep and woke up later… 

Now totally mad at me, I queried my vocal assistant that responded “Skoda!” But adding Škoda Auto, made me discover that the VW group was more motr than these five automobile brands.

I didn’t remember or ignored that there were also Bentley, Lamborghini, Bugatti, Ducati motorbikes plus both Man and Scania (trucks and buses). Quite an impressive selection that I would have ignored if I had not forgotten “Škoda”.  

Thanks, failing memory of mine!

Henri Guibelin, 1946-2021

I remember Henri from the ENH (watchmaking school) in Cluses. I’m not sure if he ever was in my class, but we were the same age and ended up together on the same French Air Force base of Salon de Provence during our 16 month mandatory military service. 

His dad was a custom agent and had been based for a while in Montriond, the village I was raised, before being stationed in nearby Samoëns, also in Haute-Savoie. During my service, I would ride a night train to return to the base and hitchhike to return home. I covered more than 6,000 miles this way. 

One day, I happened to hitchhike with Henri. We probably got a first lift and then a second. It was a young guy driving a white Peugeot 403 sedan. We were driving north on Route Nationale 7 (RN 7), a busy two-lane highway that was the only road from Paris to the Riviera. I was in the front seat and my buddy in the back; in 1968 cars weren’t even equipped with seat-belts. 

We were between Avignon and Orange, when my buddy got a sudden urge to smoke and after putting a cigarette in his mouth, tapped the driver on his right shoulder to offer him one too. Surprised, the driver turned around and, in so doing, lost control of the car that immediately swerved, rolled over and began spinning in the center of the road. 

By the grace of God, no car came across in these few seconds and we ended up in the ditch, my head bloodied because the sun roof was open and I hit the road as the car roof was scratching the road. Except for that, none of us was injured, so we said goodbye to the driver and resumed our trip hitch-hiking for the remaining 250 miles. 

I kept a mark on my skull to this date as a reminder of RN 7’s abrasive asphalt and life kept going on until I heard about Henri’s passing. 

Henri was 74. 

Heartfelt condolences to his wife Colette and his family.