May-June 1940: The Exodus in a Peugeot 402 Longue/Familiale

     As I mentioned earlier, the taxi my grandparents used to escape the invasion of Western Europe might have been a Volvo PV 802, which, according to an internet source I found somewhere, was the more likely candidate out of the two possible models, so planned for the taxicab to be a Volvo.

    Well, I've changed my mind.  I've decided that the other possible model, a Peugeot 402 Longue (long), also called a "familiale," is the one I'm going to go with.  Here is why:

Peugeot 402 Familiale retrofitted with a wood-gas generator.

According to Wiki:

    In 1939 Peugeot were already investigating the adaptation of petrol/gasoline engines to run on gas created by the controlled burning of charcoal. The technology would prove particularly suitable for the long bodied Peugeot 402 ... On the car it was possible to fit the necessary components without excessive modification of the bodywork. A charcoal burning boiler, able to accommodate 35 kg of charcoal, was mounted on a stout platform at the back of the car. This provided sufficient power for approximately 80 km (50 miles) before more charcoal needed to be taken on board. The controlled burning of the charcoal produced carbon monoxide, known as gazogène, which was captured and transferred in a stout pipe mounted on the outside of the right-hand C-pillar to a roof mounted gas tank. From there another stout pipe mounted on the outside of the right hand A-pillar drew the gazogène down to the engine. Between 1940 and 1944 more than 2,500 Peugeots were equipped with a gazogène fuel system.

    My grandfather helped develop that very fuel system!  On a memorial page to him, it says, "Before World War II he worked on the development of devices generating motor fuel from coal," and I took that to mean he worked on Coal Liquefaction technology.  But when I looked back at a copy of his CV, I found the following: "In his first job, he worked on the development and manufacturing of a gas generator used in wartime for the propulsion of civilian buses, trucks, and cars. Gas, produced in the generator from coal, charcoal, or wood, was used in conventional internal combustion engines."

    Gazogène fuel systems, also known as wood-gas generators, burned wood or charcoal, which creates a producer gas, a mixture of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and methane. It's filtered and then piped into an internal combustion engine. But you could run a car for about 50 miles with 80 pounds of charcoal. Not very efficient, but better than nothing in a world without gasoline.

    When writing stories, you try to reuse characters and themes as much as possible to create an interconnected world. This model of car was particularly well-suited to a wood-gas fuel system, and when installing the system, Arthur would recognize the car where he spent two miserable weeks of his life.  It's a connection, not between people, but between artifacts

    Anyway, here's a video that thoroughly explores a 1936 model (it's in German, so if you don't speak the language, you can leave the sound off). Just skim through it to see the interesting bits, including how the jump seats fold down from the back of the front seats. You'll also notice there's a lot of leg room without them, but almost none when they are in use.   It shows the gas tank, the trunk space, and even how you access the engine compartment (the panels lift up on either side of the engine like gull wings).   

1939: Teofila's Brooch

Source: DropofDifference. Used with permission.

 My great-grandparents on my mother's side lived in a very similar manner. They also owned vast amounts of land, which was cultivated by tenants.

--Liliane Lubinski McCullar, 1955

    I grew up hearing stories of my great-grandparents, who had been very wealthy, but lost nearly everything (I think) during the depression that followed the stock market crash of 1929, and what remained was confiscated after Poland was invaded by the Nazis in 1939.  But there is family lore about my great-grandmother Teofila's brooch, a bit of inherited wealth that she held onto as long as she could. Supposedly, it had two big diamonds and many small diamonds.  

    Anyway, her son Jakub was a brilliant student, a mathematical prodigy, and he wanted to study physics and engineering, but wasn't allowed to study at the University of Poland due to the racist numerus clausus policies implemented across the nation.  But Teofila's husband, my great-grandfather Isak, was opposed to Jake leaving Poland. She didn't agree, and to fund their son's travel and living expenses for his studies at the University of Brussels, Teofila sold one of the big diamonds without her husband's knowledge.  

   When Isak found out that his own wife had given Uncle Jake the means to leave, Isak got so angry that he hurled a big ring of keys across the room, smashing a bunch of glassware in the process.  My grandma was present; Roma was their youngest child, and she would have been about 12 years old at the time. Grandma told us later that she had never seen her father act with such violence before. She (understandably) found it pretty scary.

    Then, around 1928, when Uncle Jake wanted to get an advanced degree from a school in the United States, she sold the second big diamond to send him to America. That's why he was able to ride out the war in the United States (he became a citizen in 1942) while the rest of the family was trapped in occupied Europe.

    We know what happened to only one of the smaller diamonds. It wound up in my Grandma Roma's possession, and she brought it with her to the United States in 1947, and wore it on a ring. I don't know for sure when her mother gave her the diamond, but I think perhaps it was during Roma's last visit to Teofila in Łódź in late August 1939, just days before the invasion of Poland.  We don't know what happened to the rest of the small stones. Did she give them to Roma, who was pregnant at the time? Or did she use them to buy safety for herself, her husband, and her oldest daughter, Lola?  Or were they just confiscated by the Nazis?

    Anyway, I do my best written descriptions when I can SEE the item I'm describing, and in this case, I imagined a glammed-up snowman (or figure 8) surrounded with diamonds like an aura, and that struck me as being quite ugly.  I also had no idea what jewelry styles from the 1800s even looked like, so I did some internet searches ("vintage brooch two big gemstones surrounded by small gemstones") for a piece of vintage jewelry to use as a model for Teofila's brooch, because the sparkly snowman design just wasn't doing it for me.  I eventually stumbled on the one in the picture in an Etsy listing.  It's massive, about 3.5" (8 cm) tall and 2.6" (6.5 cm) wide, and it is almost certainly much larger than Teofila's actual brooch, as the remaining small diamond was much smaller than the ones shown.   

Source: DropofDifference. Used with permission.

    The Etsy listing describes it as an antique setting from the 19th century (Georgian/Victorian), a sterling silver and quartz brooch. You can see more pictures here (many thanks to Marie from DropofDifference for granting me permission to use her photos).

    I imagine Teofila would have sold the bottom diamond first (because she could have the entire dangling part removed, and it would still be a nice brooch) to send Jake to Belgium, then the big central diamond to send him to the United States.  I like to think my great-grandfather changed his mind about the wisdom of his son leaving Poland. Isak and Teofila Najfeld died in 1942, but I imagine they were glad that at least one of their children was somewhere safe.

Spring 1942: The Miller's Tale (deleted chapter)

     Then, at nighttime, the grain which I got, I put in a buggy, which I pushed myself, a couple of miles to the mill. The mill was a water mill, and the miller took half for himself, and half he gave back to me in form of flour.

--Arthur Lubinski, 1988

    As I write (and in this case, re-write) the book, I try to imagine what the mill and miller were like. I read up a little on water mills, and I totally found myself geeking out about how they worked.  And if I geeked out over this ancient technology, then I'm certain my grandfather would have, too.

    However as much a I love this scene, it doesn't move the story forward (like at all) so I killed off my darling (an intimidating miller) and his super cool mill.  Enjoy.

The Fountain Mill in Beaumont-lès-Valence

The Miller's Tale

    Very late Saturday night, he loaded the winnowed grain, which now filled the big bucket and was quite heavy, into Mr. Durand’s cart, and took it to the miller.  The mills were monitored too, but less stringently.  Perhaps because flour was more perishable than grain?  

    Mr. Durand told him the miller ground the illegal flour at night, and to avoid suspicion, he also regularly ground legal flour at night, too.  

    When he got close to the mill — he could hear the river — he left the cart in a small stand of trees and, trying to be surreptitious, approached the mill.  The lights were on, and the wheel was turning, though he realized that did not necessarily mean the mill was in use; a gear inside could probably be engaged or disengaged to turn the millstones. He walked in a wide circle, looking for signs of surveillance but saw none.  He picked up the bucket, lugged it to the mill door, and knocked.  

    The miller opened the door.  He was a big man, but unlike most Frenchmen, he was merely trim and not skinny. He was dressed plainly, wearing an apron over his work clothing. He looked at Arthur and waited for him to say something.  When Arthur did not speak, he finally asked, “You have some grain?”

    “Yes.”

    “Well, bring it in.”

    Arthur carried the heavy bucket inside and set it down.  He gazed at the huge stone wheels at the room’s far end.  There were two, one stacked on the other, with a metal shaft rising from the stones and into the floor above, and a second, massive wooden shaft stood next to the millstones, extending floor to ceiling.  

    Before the miller started on Arthur’s grain, he explained the rules. “I take 50% of whatever I grind illegally.”

    Arthur stopped looking at the millstones and gave the man his full attention.

    The miller went on. “Yes, I use it to keep my family well-fed and comfortable because they are more important to me than anyone else in France, and  in these Godforsaken times, I should be well-paid for the risk.”

    Arthur was not accustomed to such plain speech about dangerous activities, particularly from a stranger.  Having no idea how to respond, Arthur simply nodded at what he hoped were the appropriate times.

    “The leftover, however, I give to the very hungriest of people. It is in your best interest to never tell anyone what I am doing for two reasons: One, word gets around, and no one else will grind grain for you, and two, because there will be reprisals.  I feed many people, and they will be … disappointed if their flour source disappears.  Do I make myself clear?”  The miller stepped slightly closer and stared into Arthur’s face.

    Arthur was intimidated, which he knew had been the miller’s intent. “Very clear, yes. I have no intention of talking about you to anyone.”  Arthur also realized that the man was risking his life, so perhaps his threats were appropriate.

    “Good. Nice to meet you.” The miller stuck out his hand. 

    Arthur realized that the handshake was not just a greeting but a promise, an agreement.  He shook the miller’s hand.

    After releasing Arthur’s hand, the miller hooked the bucket’s handle to a chain hanging through a trap door in the ceiling and hoisted it up through the opening. He then climbed a ladder to the floor above. 

    He could hear the miller dump the grain all at once into a hopper, which he guessed was metal from the sound.  The miller descended the ladder to the basement, where he apparently engaged a gearing mechanism, and the upper millstone began to turn.  “May I come down to see the machinery?” he called.

    “Of course!” the miller answered from the floor below.

    Arthur climbed down and found the miller affixing a flour sack to the bottom of a chute.  Arthur examined the system of gears and grinned. It was ingenious. He knew from his studies that the Romans had designed the apparatus two thousand years ago. Modern engineers had merely improved it.

    The miller caught Arthur’s smile. “I see that you admire it.”

    “Yes. I am an engineer. We studied the technology a little at University.”

    “Then you’ll be interested to know that 20 years ago, I converted it from a breast shot wheel to a backshot, which increased the efficiency from 50 to about 90%.”

    “You are an engineer, too?” Arthur asked in surprise. 

    “No. I studied engineering for a year, though. My father wanted me to finish, but when he got too sick to run the mill, I came home.  But, I’m smart enough to know a good idea when I see one.”

    Flour started pouring down the chute and into the flour sack.   When the grinding was complete and no more flour came out, he disengaged the gears. He carried the flour to a set of big scales and removed half, which he dumped into a barrel.  He handed Arthur the sack of flour. “Save the sack for next time. Supplies are limited.”

May-June 1940: Eight People and one baby packed like sardines into a Volvo PV 802 taxicab

    I rented a taxicab – and in the taxicab, big taxicab: Roma and myself and the baby Lillian, a few days old, and my father and my mother, and Felicie, who was like family, and in addition, the cab driver and his wife and a child, were all squeezed in one big taxicab.

--Arthur Lubinski, 1988

    During the 1940 Exodus, my grandparents escaped the invasion of Western Europe in a taxi, traveling from Brussels to Montreuil-sur-mer, a trip that normally took three hours, but took them 2 weeks.  Most refugees were on foot or bicycles; cars, while there were enough of them to clog the roads (particularly after being abandoned due to lack of fuel), they were comparatively rare.  However, my grandfather had several serious issues to deal with: his wife was one week postpartum, his father was elderly, and his mother was late middle-aged and had tuberculosis.  I imagine that he felt there were only two choices:  either stay in Brussels as it fell to the Nazis, or find transport that would allow them to ride.  They took the second option, but probably should have taken the first, given that they ended up returning to Brussels six weeks later.

    Anyway, they needed an eight-seat taxi: seven adult passengers and one child (plus a newborn, but she rode on my grandmother's lap).  There weren't that many taxis in 1940 that carried 8 passengers. There were a few American models that did, and a few of them were imported (primarily to southeastern Europe), but they were uncommon in Belgium and France.  I did find two eight-seat European models, though: the Volvo PV 802 and the Peugeot 402 Familiale.  Both are essentially six-seaters, but with additional seating that could fold out as needed.

    Of the two models, research suggests that the Volvo was perhaps the more likely vehicle. The pages I looked at didn't explain why it was more likely, but I'm going with it. (Added: I changed my mind and am going with Peugeot).

Click on any photo to enlarge.

The Taxi:

1938 Volvo PV802. Volvo Museum. Photography by Serhii.
See the end of the article for more pics of the car.

    It had two large bench seats (front and back). The foldable jump seats were situated between the two rows of seating, and could be tucked away when not in use (though the legroom surrounding the jump seats must have been minuscule).  It was also designed to be a small ambulance - the right side of both bench seats could fold down, and a stretcher could be loaded through the trunk.  (If you are interested, there are more photos of the taxi at the end of this article.)

    Note: Belgium didn't have standard taxi colors in the 1940s. It could have been any color.

The Travelers: 

    This little band of travelers spent about six weeks together, first on the road, then as refugees on a dairy farm in Montreuil-sur-Mer, France.

    First, we have the taxi driver, his wife, and their child. Their names have been lost. I know they existed, but I have no idea who they were or what happened to them after they returned to Brussels in June of 1940.  I named them Marc and Violette D’Abruzzo, and their 9-year-old son Robert.

    But the rest of the people in the car were my family (photos from their Belgian naturalization files):

Great-Grandfather Herman Lubinski,
circa 1926.

    The 63-year-old Herman was a businessman who owned his own agricultural commodities trading company. He was resourceful, but he did a poor job of planning for the future, spending money freely when he was flush with cash, only to face periods of complete financial hardship when he ran out of money.   Eventually, (in 1941 or 1942), his business was seized, and he was imprisoned in Breendonk concentration camp, but he miraculously escaped (!?!) and survived the war by hiding in a retirement home.  

Great-Grandmother Micheline (Mascha) Lubinski,
circa 1926.

    The 58-year-old Mascha Lubinski was a highly intelligent woman who led salons in her home, inviting philosophers, artists, and scientists to discuss the great topics of the day.  My grandfather was very close to his mom and credited her with making him the generous, ethical, and hardworking man that he became.  She contracted tuberculosis at some point and survived the occupation by feigning mental illness and hiding in an asylum.

Félicie Turska, circa 1931

    Félicie Turska, aged 46, served as a housekeeper for Herman, who fell in love with her.  He married Félicie after Mascha's death. I think she was a lovely woman, but she looks high as a kite in the photo.  And my great-grandfather Herman must have had real chutzpah to travel with both his wife and his lover in the same taxi. Can we say tense and awkward?

    Interestingly, Herman's sons (by his first wife), Arthur and Paul, had different attitudes toward Félicie. Arthur resented her for her relationship with Herman, while Paul seemed to have accepted her as his stepmother, and my cousins in Belgium tell me she was very kind and that she was the only grandmother they ever knew.  

My grandparents, Arthur and Roma Lubinski
at the time of their 1935 marriage

   

    Ohmygod. My grandfather's hair!!! It's so ... tall!  Even before he lost his hair, he kept it short and much neater than in this photo (according to the family album, anyway).  

1938 Volvo PV802. Volvo Museum. Photography by Serhii.

1938 Volvo PV802. Volvo Museum. Photography by Serhii.
Note the rear luggage rack (most didn't have that) and the dinky trunk.

Recipe: Roma's Neighborhood Soup (AKA: Chicken noodle soup with egg drops) - Meaty and Meat-free Versions

     My grandma, Roma Lubinski, was a fabulous cook, and when my mother and aunts were growing up, Grandma Roma often found herself with a bunch of neighborhood children running through her house. Having gone through the deprivations of WW2, she simply couldn't allow a child to go hungry.

    So, she invented an inexpensive, fast, and easy soup that someone dubbed "Neighborhood Soup" (because she was feeding the neighborhood!), and the name stuck.  My mom, her sisters, and all of their friends loved it, often requesting the soup if they happened to be visiting. It is also great when you're feeling under the weather.  

I emailed my mom and aunt and got the recipe, and now I'm sharing it with you. 

Note: I'm still refining the recipe, so it might change a little over the next few weeks.

Egg Drops (both versions below):

My grandmother's recipe was based on the Austrian dish Eierflockensuppe, or "egg flake soup," in that she mixed flour into the eggs before dropping them into the boiling broth.

Beat 2 eggs thoroughly. Add 1 tbsp of water, and 2 tbsp of all-purpose flour into the egg mixture, and beat well.

Bring the soup to a gentle boil, and drizzle the egg mixture into the broth, stirring slowly and occasionally. For chunkier egg drops, spoon them in without stirring.  If it gets crowded, just push the already hardened egg drops aside to make room. Simmer for 3 minutes and serve.

Instant version (meaty):

Prepare egg drops (see above) and set aside.

Make Lipton Chicken Noodle Soup according to the manufacturer's instructions.  After the soup has simmered for 1-2 minutes, add the egg drops. Simmer until the noodles are cooked, and then serve.

Homemade version (meat-free or meaty):

I've been a vegetarian for 25 years, so when I got a hankering for Neighborhood Soup, I developed a meatless version, which is a little more involved since pre-made vegetarian chicken noodle soup mixes don't exist.  So, from scratch it is. However, for those who eat meat, use real chicken and chicken broth, where the substitutes are listed: 

• Chicken substitute of your choice, preferably one that doesn't have breading (I like Gardein chicken products, but small cubes of tofu will do in a pinch). 
• Carrot, 1 large, sliced
• Celery, 1-2 stalks, sliced thin
• Onion, 1small, roughly diced
• Frozen peas (optional) - 1 cup
• Garlic, sliced - to taste (lots!)
• Fat (butter or olive oil) - 2-3 tbsp
• Umami flavor to taste (about 1/4-1/2 tsp of MSG, or 1+ TBSP of miso, or 1 tsp mushroom umami seasoning blend)
• Seasoning to taste (1/4 tsp - 1 tsp of some or all of the following: turmeric, rosemary, thyme, red pepper flakes)
• Better than Bouillon No Chicken Base
• Fine egg noodles - 6 ounces
• Parsley, finely chopped - 1/3 cup fresh, or 1 tbsp dried
• Chives, chopped - 1/4 cup (optional)
• Fresh ground black pepper - to taste
• Lemon - squeeze a tsp or so over the top of each bowl before serving (optional)

1. Prepare the chicken substitute as per the manufacturer's instructions. Cut it into small chunks and set aside.
2. Prepare egg drops (see above) and set aside.
3. Place carrot, celery, onion, and fat into the bottom of the soup pot, and saute until slightly browned. 
4. Stir in umami flavoring and seasonings, and 4 tsp of Better than Bouillon (this is about 1/2 the amount called for on the jar, but it's very salty). Add the peas if using.
5. Add 8 cups of water and bring to a simmer. Taste the broth - if it's not flavorful or salty enough, add additional Better than Bouillon base, 1 tsp at a time, until it tastes right. Bring to a simmer, and cook until carrots are almost soft.
6. Add egg noodles and cook at a full boil for 1 minute.
7. Add egg drops (see above) and cook for 3-4 minutes (the noodles should be slightly al dente). 
8. Add the chicken substitute, black pepper to taste, parsley, and chives.
9. Ladle into bowls and squeeze a little lemon over the top of each bowl.

Note: You can use whatever size or style of noodles you like, but you will need to adjust the timing somewhat - add the egg drops about 3 minutes before the end of the noodle cooking time.

Nobody Goes There

 Prompt - Nobody Goes There (300 words): “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded. “– Lawrence “Yogi” Berra, The Yogi Book: I Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said (1998). Use this paradoxical line as the catalyst for your story.

***

    Jenny went to her support group, as she did every Thursday.  A support group for introverts with severe social anxiety was something of a paradox, but they made it work by placing dividers - spoke-like - between the chairs.  Jenny could see the people across the circle from her, but they were comfortably distant. She couldn’t see the people on either side of her, and that was helpful, though their voices were annoying, loud, and … close.

    The problem with being an anxious introvert, as far as Jenny could tell, is that humans need contact with others.  Without it, they shriveled up inside.  Hell, babies that didn’t get held enough could actually die.  And Jenny was so lonely.  Soul-suckingly lonely.  

    The therapist spoke up. “This week, I’d like each of you to go to a state park and walk the trails.”  

    The person to Jenny’s left cleared their voice and then spoke up. “With the pandemic restrictions being lifted, state park usage is up 800% in Minnesota.”  It was John’s voice.  “Nobody goes to the parks anymore. It’s just too crowded.” John was plain-looking, but his eyes were very kind. 

    Despite repeated encouragement from her therapist over the last year, she’d avoided asking him out, but now the loneliness was overwhelming her. 

    Jenny’s favorite state park was far to the northwest, hours from any metro area, and she knew it wouldn’t be crowded.  Her heart pounding, she pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote John, I know a park that won’t be crowded. Maybe we can go together? - Jenny, and passed it around the divider. 

    A minute later, he passed it back. Her legs felt rubbery, and her stomach clenched as she unfolded the note, wondering if a yes or a no would be worse.

Jenny, I would love that. Saturday? - John

--June 21, 2021

May 1940: L'Exode (The Exodus) or "The traffic jam from hell"

French refugees on the road of the Exodus, 19 June 1940, near
Gien, France. CC-BY-SA 3.0.
This photo was taken by a German soldier.

    Between May 10, 1940 when the Germans invaded western Europe, and the end of June, when France surrendered, a massive migration, one so biblically enormous, it was given the name l'Exode (the Exodus) in France.  

    The 8-12 million affected people were a mixture of refugees from Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, but also internally displaced persons (IDP) from within France itself, and they all had the same goal: to get farther from the front, to find safety.

    Regardless of nationality, people sort themselves into three groups in tense situations: 1) the exceptionally good people who rise above the situation and try to help those around them; 2) the genuinely bad people who heartlessly take advantage of the desperation of others; and 3) everyone else, the desperate masses who just do what they can to survive.  This last group is massive, usually comprising over 90% of the participants. 

    It's hard to capture what the Exodus in 1940 was like, and hell, it's hard to even imagine it. Millions of people were on the road, stuck in a traffic jam from hell that lasted not hours, but weeks.  People were on foot, on bicycles, in horse-drawn carts, or in automobiles.  But mostly, they were on foot.  The average speed was 1-3 miles (2-5 km) per hour.

    There was a heatwave, and there wasn't enough food, water, or fuel. There were no sleeping arrangements, showers, or even toilets.  People were packed closely together with their dogs and horses, and surrounded by clouds of automobile exhaust.  The smells must have been intense.

    There were constant threats of crime, violence, and chaos. People were beaten for their food. Women were raped. Children were occasionally separated from their parents (sometimes permanently), and war profiteers charged people exorbitant fees for sips of water, and a simple sandwich might cost a week's wages. 

    And the Luftwaffe and their dreaded Stuka dive bombers made a habit of not just strafing Allied soldiers, but columns of refugees as well. There are a couple of scenes in the 2017 movie Dunkirk that show what it was like:

    Note: that weird high-pitched whining sound that sounds like an anvil dropping on Wile E. Coyote's head (link to short clip that includes the sound) wasn't an air-raid siren, nor was it an artifact of the Stuka engine noise. Rather it was psychological warfare in the form of ram-air sirens mounted on the Stukas themselves.  They were called "Lärmgerät" (noise devices) but nicknamed "Jericho Trumpets."   

    My grandparents and great-grandparents joined the Exodus of 1940. And they did it with my newborn Aunt Lilly, my grandmother, who wasn't producing enough milk (probably due to terror and the deprivations of the trip itself), and my great-grandmother, who suffered from tuberculosis.  My grandfather told me about the taxi he hired (but not how they avoided running out of fuel), about the traffic jam, but not how long they were on the road, about who he took with him, but not about their misery.  He summed up the experience in a single word: pathetic. I think he was describing not just the stasis of the troops, but how he and his family felt.

    

     So after Lillian was born, and as soon as we could move – I didn’t have any car at the time, so I rented a taxi cab – and in the taxi cab, big taxi cab: Roma and myself and the baby Lillian, a few days old, and my father and my mother, and Felicie who was like family, and in addition the cab driver and his wife and a child, were all squeezed in one big taxi cab. We started escaping from Brussels. 

     Well, you couldn’t do more than ten miles a day at most, because the highway was crowded and millions of people who remembered the war – the first World War, 1914 to 18 ... So they wanted to escape and be on part of France where the front would never arrive.  So millions of them were moving; including fire trucks with people on it. And including ambulances with people on it; etcetera, etcetera. Completely packed by millions of people. And English and French and Belgian troops couldn’t move because of the civilians packing the highways.

     It was pathetic.

--Arthur Lubinski, Oral Testimony, 1988

Source: https://www.odomez.fr/
Note the mixture of cars, bikes, and pedestrians

    When I recorded him, Grandpa said they traveled ten miles (16 km) a day, and the route I think they took (which is admittedly a guess), from Brussels to the coast, and then along the coast to Montreuil-sur-Mer, France, taking them right past Dunkirk and Calais, was 180 miles (290 km). I think they also hoped to reach England, so a coastal route made sense. He also said:

 And we arrived at the North Sea. In the … you would say “state.” In French, it is département, department – but that means state if you want – of Pas-de-Calais on the English Channel. 

    The North Sea comment also suggests a coastal route. I'm not certain if they stopped in the city of Calais or just the region of Pas-de-Calais, but in 1988, I got the impression he meant both, although I'm not entirely sure.

The route my grandparents might have followed during the Exodus of 1940
Interactive Google Maps Link

    My research suggests that a key route during the Exodus was from Brussels to Lille in France, and from there to Paris and then to Bordeaux. But we know they went to Pas-de-Calais, and Paris and Bordeaux were in the wrong direction for that.  It's possible they went to Lille first, and then turned north, but that route and the stops they must have made (they stopped every night in a town with a maternity clinic for my grandmother's benefit), and that would have added a day or two to the trip.  So, I think they made a beeline for the coast.

    Another problem is that if they traveled only 10 miles a day, then the dates don't work - it would have taken them 18 days to arrive in Montreuil, where they stopped for several weeks (a dairy farmer took them in).  However, at 10 mpd, they would have encountered many of the areas after they had fallen to the Germans, whereas his story as a whole suggests that they encountered German soldiers only at the end of the trip.

    So, I started researching the Exodus to see how far people typically traveled in a day:

• On foot:  6-12 miles per day (10-20 km). This was the majority of the refugees.
• Bicycle or horse-drawn cart: 12-18 miles per day (20-30 km)
• Car: Up to 20 miles per day (32 km).  Autos were less common, there were serious fuel shortages to contend with, and many cars were abandoned after they ran out of gasoline. 

    I also have the sense that the trip took less than 2 weeks, probably about 10 days, based on their departure date (May 15), the length of time they spent in Montreuil (3 weeks), and the approximate date they returned to Brussels (after the cease-fire went into effect in France on June 25, 1940).    In those days, cars traveled nearly as quickly as they do today, and under normal conditions, they would have made that drive in about 3 hours.

    The return journey to Brussels would have been tremendously easier. The roads had mostly cleared by then, and the French government offered fuel vouchers with short expiration dates to encourage people to fill their gas tanks as soon as possible and go back to where they came from.   

Well, after three weeks France capitulated. There was no reason for going farther south. So we went back to Brussels, and found our beautiful apartment in town.  

    Grandpa's taxicab would have made the trip back to Brussels in only a few hours.  He didn't tell me this outright, but given his complete lack of detail regarding the round trip (there was probably nothing to tell), I think it's a safe bet.

    But, I do have to figure out how to capture my grandparents' Exodus, because it was miserable and integral to their story, but ... it was two weeks of boredom, punctuated with terror and misery. I want to convey that it was a boring experience, but without making it boring to read.

Bibliography:

• https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exode_de_1940_en_France (in French, but if you set your browser to translate, it's a good read).
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus_(1940)
• https://webdoc.france24.com/exodus-france-german-invasion-war-1940/
• https://www.france24.com/en/20200304-eighty-years-after-millions-fled-the-german-army-revisiting-the-paris-exodus
• https://www.landofmemory.eu/en/sujets-thematiques/the-exodus-of-1940/

Movie Review: Superman (2025)

 

    I really liked this movie.  It was a lot of fun, and it pulled me out of my overthinking head for a couple of hours, and that's always appreciated.

    I like comic book movies, and always have, though comic books themselves aren't really my thing. I think it's because comic books have a simpler focus, and that translates really well to the screen. It's no coincidence that the storyboards that movie makers create as part of movie development, look like ... comic books.

    I loved the fact that the fight scenes were slowed down and easier to follow (there was a 20-or-so-year trend toward chaotic fight scenes in both DC and Marvel movies, that I hated - if I can't tell what's going on, then the violence turns into a boring slog). The acting was also really good, and Nicolas Hoult might well be my favorite Lex Luthor.  

    It wasn't without flaws: the plot was too complex, and there were too many heroes and villains, and all of that diluted the story.   It was an ensemble movie in search of a single, central protagonist.  I wanted to know more about so many of the characters, and they all felt a little short-changed.

    I hated the fact that the recording by Jor-el and Lara was in Kryptonian. The focus was always on the impact of the message on the characters of the movie, and never on the message itself.  First, you see how their telling Kal-el to do good helps to shape him into a hero, then when the message is repaired, the focus is on how much it devastates Clark, and how it turns the world against him.  But when I saw the message, all I saw was a couple speaking a made-up language, and that made Clark's bioparents seem kind of like background noise. They translated the message, but that just made it look like a lie, a manipulation on Lex's part.  It turns out to be true, but we were told it was real, not shown.

    What did I like about the movie?  It was damn fun.  I missed seeing his childhood a little, but as my husband pointed out, they can't tell the 1978 movie over and over again, and we know the story. I enjoyed Crypto, the fact that Lois (at least in private) could provoke Clark into getting mad (and she did ask some very pointed, very reasonable questions that absolutely pointed out that Superman had acted thoughtlessly).  

    Was the broohaha over his being an immigrant warranted?  Nah.  

    There certainly was some political commentary there - the movie seems to depict either the Israel-Palestine or Russia-Ukraine war, and that one fictional world leader might have been poking fun at a couple of real-life people.   But the movie connects Superman, not so much to immigrants, but rather to "meta-humans," other powerful beings. When so much power is concentrated in a single individual, it's pretty reasonable to worry about what they are going to do with it, because power corrupts and all that.  It's basically the same theme of "distrust the mutants" that featured in many of the X-Men movies.

   For now, it's my third-favorite DC superhero movie, after Wonder Woman (2017) and Superman (1978).  

The Bridge Inspector

Silver Bridge Before Collapse; Point Pleasant, W. Va. A&M 3914, Duez Collection
Virginia and Regional History Collection, West Virginia University Libraries.

 Prompt - Unknown Town (500 words): Grab a map of the country you live in and look for the name of the town that you have never heard of before. Do some research on the town so that you build up a picture of the location and its history. Use this town within a story of 500 words or fewer.

*** 

     James was working late, and his cell phone rang.  He put his pencil down on the yellow pad where he was jotting some notes and poked the answer button. “James Mason, Point Pleasant Engineering.”

    “Mr. Mason, this is Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota.”

    James felt his stomach clench. There was only one reason the governor of Minnesota would be calling an engineering firm in West Virginia, but he hoped he was wrong.

    “We just had one of our big bridges collapse in the cities - the I-35 bridge over the Mississippi in Minneapolis.  The NTSA recommended I get you up here.”

    Damn it.  James felt his arthritic knuckles complain and forced himself to relax his grip on the phone.  “Ok, I’ll get on a plane this evening.”  

    Governor Pawlenty continued, his voice tense, “I’ll have my office buy you tickets, and we’ll put you up in a hotel for as long as you need. What’s your nearest airport?”

    “Huntington Tri-state, but buy two tickets out of Port Columbus. I’ll drive the 80 miles. Don’t book anything earlier than 4 hours from now. I’m bringing my intern.”

    “Done.”  Pawlenty hung up.

    Joan had heard James’ half of the conversation. “Hey Boss, what’s up?” she called from her desk.

    James sighed, folded up his laptop, and started grabbing equipment from the shelf. “I-35 bridge in Minneapolis collapsed. You see anything on the news?”

    “What??” Joan asked but was already looking at her brand-new cell phone.  What was it called? iPhone? Smartphone?  She could do web searches on it, though.  “Oh my God. It looks bad, James.”

    “Well, go home and pack. Get dinner. We’re getting on a plane in 4 hours and taking a red-eye to Minneapolis.  I’ll pick you up in an hour or so.”  

    “Ok, will do.” She shut down her computer, gathered her things, and left.

    James drove to his home on the other side of Point Pleasant, glancing at the Mothman statue on his way.  His wife looked up from the papers she was grading and knew from his face what had happened. “Another bridge collapse?”  

    He nodded. “Likely neglected infrastructure. I’m flying out tonight from Columbus. I’m taking Joan.”

    “Jamie, you’re getting too old for this.”

    “I’ll be okay. I’m more worried about Joan.  She’s been studying engineering disasters for a year, but I’d hoped that she’d complete her internship without having to see one live, but … I can help her through it this way.”

    An hour later, James collected Joan and then drove across the Silver Memorial Bridge into Ohio, bound for the airport.  

    Joan gazed out the window. “Cantilever bridge. Replaced an eyebar chain suspension bridge that collapsed in … 1968?”

    James kept his eyes on the road.  “1967. I was 20. My dad was on the bridge when it collapsed. I switched my major from physics to engineering because of it.”

    Joan’s eyes widened. “Jesus, James.  That’s awful.”

    James felt his eyes prickle and blinked the moisture away.  “I’d hoped to prevent it from ever happening again. But there have been 36 bridge collapses in the US since then, 375 killed; 365 injured.”  

    He clenched the steering wheel. “This makes 37,” he said, trying to breathe out his rage and pain, and they sat in silence until they reached the airport.

--April 18, 2021

***

Notes:

• The two bridges really did collapse, but other than that, this is entirely fictitious.
• I asked Siri to pick a number from 1-50. I got 35. West Virginia was the 35th state to enter the union. 
• I pulled up a list of towns in WV and found that there are 160. Siri gave me 31, and that was Point Pleasant.
• From there, I read about the Silver Bridge collapse in 1967, and that reminded me of when a much-closer-to-me bridge collapsed, the I-35 Bridge in Minneapolis, on August 1, 2007.  And from that, this bit of flash fiction was born.
• I missed my word count - this is 547 words.

1944-1947: The Élise Auvergne dossier

TLDR: If you don't want to read my commentary, just read the sections in courier text - those are the historical sources. You'll get the story, just with less context.

    There are two kinds of stories from my grandparents' life during WW2 - ones they didn't talk about because it was just too painful, and ones they talked about freely.

    The murder of Madame Auvergne - their landlady/babysitter/protector/friend - happens to fall between the categories - it was a very painful and terrifying episode in their life, but they talked about it freely.

    Perhaps it's because it wasn't done to them by a faceless evil enemy occupier; instead it was committed by an ally, against friends of theirs. Mrs. Auvergne liked to flirt with men in uniform (including Wehrmacht uniforms), and was a supporter of the collaborationist Vichy government, but she had also sheltered and protected my grandparents and aunt, and kept their secrets. But she was innocent of any crime.

    Her murder was an act of not-so-friendly fire, part of the reckoning France went through after the war, when rage and a national need for revenge temporarily overcame the rule of law. Even my grandpa was swept up in it, when in a case of mistaken identity, he was arrested without evidence, and held for 3 days before he was released.

    The murderer was a man named Jacques Faure, and he was a résistant who served in my grandfather's own maquis unit, and was also someone Grandpa Arthur considered a friend.  No wonder Grandpa was angry.

    I've written about the event before, but new information came to light when a historian friend in France sent me a bundle of letters from the Drôme Department archives, all written in the 1940s, when the crime was still recent, and they include a description from someone who was there.

    Yes, you read that right. I now have eyewitness testimony. I gasped aloud when I finished translating it, and I imagine that this is how a police detective must feel when she breaks a case.  

    So here is everything I know, in order. Red text indicates details you should remember.

Epitaphs:

Élise AUVERGNE, 46 years, died on 16 July 1944, cowardly murdered
Colette CHAVARENT, 9 years, died on 16 July 1944, cowardly murdered    

    Mrs. Auvergne and her niece are buried in a cemetery in Beaumont-lès-Valence.  I don't know the exact date they were buried, or when the gravestones were placed, but it seems likely that they were laid to rest before any of my other sources of information.

Letter 1 - 19 Mar 1945 (new info):

    I saw Mr. Méjean yesterday. He passed a word to Colonel Descours regarding the matter in which you gave testimony. He’s confident there will be no consequences.

--ROUX, Léon to Captain Jean PLANAS

    I suppose this may be referring to something unrelated, and not to the murders, but either way, it had never occurred to me that Faure's actions might have impacted Grandpa's commanding officer. I mean, of course the authorities would want to know if Faure had acted alone, or if he'd been carrying out his commander's orders.

Letter 2 - 21 Feb 1947 (new info):

    RE: Certification of Captain Jean PLANAS

Dr. Planas

    Recently, when I had an X-ray at your place, I wanted to ask you for a written statement, and since you had a lot of people there that day, I completely forgot about it; in a nutshell, I'll explain what it's about. It's about the Jacques Faure affair.

    I want to tell you that this individual is still in Beaumont. So we would need written testimony on stamped paper testifying on your role when a certain Jacques Faure acted as someone ordered to assassinate my wife and my little niece Chavarent. This would be useful to us to file a petition to the Minister of Justice for a review of the trial.

    Enclosed you will find a stamped sheet of paper for the testimony and a stamp for the return.

    I look forward to your response. Please accept, Mr. Planas, my sincere gratitude.

--AUVERGNE, Léon to Jean PLANAS

    I took notice when I saw the signature on this letter, because Léon Auvergne was Mrs. Auvergne's husband.   But what does the letter tell me?  I need to distinguish between facts and implications. 

    The facts:

•     Mr. Auvergne was Dr. Planas's patient.
•     The tone of the letter was polite, even kind of chatty.
•     Three years after his wife's death, he was trying to have the case reopened, hoping to bring her murderer to justice.
•     Jacques Faure was from Beaumont-lès-Valence and was still living there. 

    The implications:

• The chatty tone suggests that Mr. Auvergne didn't blame Dr. Planas for his wife's death.  
• Because the Auvergnes were patients of Dr. Planas, the events probably horrified him, that a soldier under his command gunned down people he cared for in his medical practice.

    According to my grandfather, most people (including the Auvergnes) had been supporters of the collaborative Vichy government early in the war. However, by the summer of 1944, Vichy had become tremendously unpopular, and people who still supported them would have been distrusted.

    I grew up in a small town like Beaumont-lès-Valence, where everyone knows everyone, and gossip can and does run rampant, and I must imagine that the townspeople, even if they disagreed with the Auvergne's political beliefs, would have been hostile towards a man who drunkenly gunned down a little girl.

Planas deposition handwritten on back of letter 2 (date unclear):

I, the undersigned, Dr. Jean Planas, physician residing at Étoile, former captain attached to the 2nd Battalion, Drôme Company, hereby attest that Private Jacques Faure, who belonged to the 3rd section of the Company, was on leave on July 16, 1944. That during the attack on Madame Auvergne and her niece Chavarent, he acted spontaneously contrary to all requisitions and references: upon his return to the Company, on the morning of the 17th, Jacques Faure was taken prisoner. He was taken under arms and transferred to the headquarters to be tried there.

    Dr. Planas's handwriting was difficult to read, so I can't be entirely sure that my transcription/translation is perfectly accurate, but I think that I've captured the gist. The only new info is that Faure had been in the third section (of the 4th Company, 2nd Battalion, Drôme FFI), and that he returned to HQ on July 17th.

Letter 3 - 3 Mar 1947 (new info):

Dear Doctor Planas,

    Please excuse the delay in responding to your letter of the 25th, caused by the bad weather; which left us completely cut off from mail service for three days. Let me first tell you that I am particularly pleased with the result of my medical analysis, because it worries me greatly. 

   Now I am writing again regarding my statement about the Jacques Faure case. I must tell you that he is still here, but it seems they are planning to leave because they have rented out their house and land.

    So, on the day of July 14, 1944, he came to Beaumont, to the property of Mr. Leillaret. He had a minor altercation with several boules players, especially with Mr. Jean Bellon, whose son was in the Resistance. And on July 16, 1944, he reappeared again in Beaumont and presented himself at the home of Mr. Jean Bellon, with the clear intention of killing him, since he had a revolver in his hands. Fortunately for them, they were having a family meal — a child found it very disturbing. He then went to the Les Faures neighborhood, to my home, on July 16, 1944, at 6:30 p.m., and opened fire on the whole family who were seated outside the house, having a small family snack.

--AUVERGNE, Léon to Jean PLANAS

    This letter really reveals a lot of new information:  

• The Faures were leaving Beaumont, which I believe is strong evidence that the town had become a hostile place for Jacques.
• Mr. Auvergne was having health issues.
• Jacques Faure was absent from 4th company HQ from July 14-17.
• On Bastille Day, Faure appeared in Beaumont-lès-Valence, and got into fights with the locals. He then disappears from view for two days.
• Jacques Faure shows up at the Bellon home on July 16 and threatens him with a handgun, but a crying child deters Jacques who fled the scene.
• He found the Auvergnes eating outside, and opened fire on them at 6:30pm.  

    Léon Auvergne's birthday was July 17, 1891, so his wife was murdered the day before his 53 birthday (a not very happy birthday for the poor man), and he was not quite 56 years old at the time the letter was written.

    The cottage where my grandparents lived was very nearby, which meant that if my grandmother and aunt were home, they would have heard the gunshots and screams.

    I wish I knew what happened next. Did Jacques Faure flee after he opened fire? Did someone disarm him? Did gendarmes catch him and bring him to 4th Company headquarters?  Did Jacques know what he'd done?

History of the 4th Company - 1955:

Three tragic episodes disrupted the shaping of our Company: June 12, a member of the 3rd Section stole from Warrant Officer LABROSSE a Colt 45, a US Navy weapon, and went to shoot a milice volunteer in Beaumont.  Unfortunately, his lack of composure made him shoot down the wife and daughter of this sinister individual who came between our comrade and his target....

--Dr. Michel PLANAS 

    Michel Planas was a medical student in the summer of 1944.  He was Dr. Jean Planas's younger son, and he served under his father as the head of the 4th Company medical division. In 1955, after his father's death, he wrote a 45-page history of the 4th Company that covers the summer of 1944.

    His description of the murders is very brief, and a little vague, almost as if the Dr. Planas (the younger) wanted to report as few details as possible, yet still remain true to the history. He wrote it 11 years after the events in question, and like my grandfather's account 20 years later, he got the date wrong.

    

    There are other details that aren't quite right - there's no suggestion in the historical sources that I have, that the Auvergnes were ever members of the Milice française - my grandfather would have defended them against such an accusation in an instant.  Grandpa also thought Mrs. Auvergne was the target, not her husband.  The child wasn't their daughter (they had no biological children), rather she was named Colette Chavarent, and was their niece.  These small mistakes makes me think that Michel Planas wasn't really involved in the incident, and didn't know the people, the way his father and my grandfather did.

Yellow Legal Pad Stories - 1974:

Sometime in June, while the 4th Company was still on Ourches, Jacques Faure, one of us, went home without any authorization, got drunk and shot to death Mme. Auvergne. The Auvergnes were the owners of the old house in which my wife and child lived. She had a reputation being a friend of Germans. In fact she belonged to a family of collaborators, but the rumors of her having denounced the FFI’s (the home of one FFI has been burned by Germans who gave 5 minutes to this family to leave the house) were probably only gossip. She knew about me being in the Maquis and my wife has not been investigated. Jacques Faure’s self-handed stupid act resulted in a real danger to many families of FFI, mostly to mine. In addition, inadvertently he shot also her niece, the father of which was a POW in Germany since 1940.

Captain Sanglier was very angry at Jacques. He was dispatched, under armed guard to the headquarters of Major Antoine. From now on Jacques served in a command of desperados, most of whom were killed in extremely dangerous missions, but he survived. 

-- Arthur Lubinski 

Grandpa was about 64 when he wrote this, and except for the date, it matches the other accounts pretty well. Here is what I learned:

• The Auvergnes sheltered the Lubinskis, and despite their support of a fascist government, never betrayed them. I wonder about the nuances in their political beliefs.
• Mrs. Auvergne had a reputation of "being a friend of the Germans." Not sure exactly what that means, but I've always interpreted it as she liked men in uniform.
• Mrs. Auvergne, not her husband, was the target.
• Jacques Faure was sent to battalion (?) headquarters, and then to a group that served dangerous missions. In other words, he was intended to be cannon-fodder.

Arthur Lubinski's Oral Testimony of WW2 Experiences - 1988:

     Yes, in our unit, our company was a man whose brain was not fully developed ... we say retarded.

    And the Germans suspected that someone was in the maquis. And they were right. And they came to Beaumont-lès-Valence and burned the farm. And the whole village, the whole town was trying to guess who denounced them. How the Germans knew it? 

    Well, we lived in a home, you know, this seventeenth-century peasant home with no floor, with one tiny window. We lived over there. It belonged to the Auvergnes; Mr. and Mrs. Auvergne ... They were people from the right and they were … France was divided and they were for Vichy, for the government. Not for de Gaulle in London, but Vichy government which collaborated with Germans. And she was flirting with German officers, etc. And then came the suspicion that she denounced. 

     And my retarded friend, he came through the mountains, came from the mountains and shot down Mrs. Auvergne with a pistol. Killed her. And she was keeping in her hand, her niece, whose father was a prisoner of war in Germany.  And it’s a miracle that this was not Lillian because Lillian was supposed to stay with Madame Auvergne, but at the last moment, Mother left her with someone else. I don’t know what she did. 

     But in any event, almost Lillian was killed and the man returned to the Maquis. He came without permission, he killed someone without permission, and therefore as punishment, he was sent to a company whose duties were dangerous to such an extent that his probability of survival was very remote. And nevertheless he survived. 

     Madame Auvergne did not denounce these people. If she had, she would have denounced me. Roma would have suffered; the child ... It was not she. And after the war – he survived the war – after the war he had to go to a court and was accused of killing someone. And the gendarme – police – came to me, to ask what I knew about it. I said, “Madame Auvergne had wrong political ideas but she did not denounce. I wouldn’t be alive.”   

    But true justice couldn’t exist. He was not ... He was freed … He was not condemned. He didn’t spend time in jail. Very bad. 

    This is an excerpt from the tapes I made of my grandfather when I was 19.  He was 78 at the time, and his memories of the event were still very vivid, nearly 44 years later.  It is also the most complete version of the story.

    His testimony tells us:

• Jacques Faure suffered from some sort of intellectual disability (and this is possibly confirmed by Michel Planas's phrase "lack of composure"). Grandpa said he had mental retardation, but I don't know the extent of his condition.
• The Auvergnes may have been right-leaning supporters of the Vichy Government and Marshal Pétain, but they kept my family's secrets.
• My grandfather was certain that the Auvergnes hadn't been Gestapo informants (and he had good reason to think so).
• Jacques Faure went AWOL, and used a pistol (and not say a Sten submachine gun, which was very common in the FFI).
• My aunt could well have been killed, because Mrs. Auvergne was supposed to babysit her, but for some reason, my Grandma Roma kept her home, or left her with someone else. That suggests that Roma might not have been home at the time of the murders.
• My grandfather's description closely matched that of both Léon Auvergne, and that of Dr. Jean Planas, plus he knew the people involved very well, so I trust his version of the events.

    It's interesting to see what people knew and when they knew it, as well as how the testimonies differ based on whether the individuals were present or not. I'd love to see the official police reports and court transcripts, but I have no idea if they still exist.

Small Step

L-R Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin,
but from our (non-alternate) reality.

Prompt - Alternate Reality (500 words): Alternative realities might be drastically different, like George Orwell’s 1984 (1949), or subtle, like Franz Kafka’s Amerika (1927), where New York becomes unsettling because of its small differences; for example, the Statue of Liberty holds a sword rather than a torch. Write a flash piece set in an alternative reality, conveying as much about this new world in as few words as possible.

Note: This is a work of complete and utter fiction. I changed a single, though important, detail about an inspiring American, asking "what if?" and this story answers that question.

***

    “All those moon-landing conspiracists? They have no idea.” Nellie held her youngest grandson on her lap, and her granddaughters sat on either side of her.  They knew every word of the story, delighting in being included in the secret.  Her kids quietly worked on Thanksgiving dinner while listening to Nellie, as caught up as the youngsters.  

    “We really went to the moon.  But there WAS a big conspiracy.  The biggest one of all.”  

    Nellie’s younger granddaughter couldn’t contain herself, “Grandma Armstrong, your name isn’t really Neil. It’s Nellie!”  

    Nellie laughed. ”That’s right. My real name is Nell, and I used the name Neil when I applied to study aeronautical engineering at Purdue. I claimed they’d misspelled my name on my high school records. I figured if they thought I was a woman, they wouldn’t let me —”

    “And Uncle Dean was really the one who served in the Navy under your name?” Her oldest granddaughter interrupted. 

    “Yep. My brother Dean knew I wanted to be an astronaut.  He figured I had the brains to do it, and didn't think it mattered that I was a woman, and he made it his mission to get me there.”

    Nellie pushed her long white hair out of her face, and that reminded her of the next part of the story. “First, I cut off my hair; I had to argue with the barber - he refused at first. Then, I had to learn to walk, talk, and look like a man.  Showering in college wasn’t easy, let me tell you!  But I pulled it off.” Nellie didn’t tell her grandbabies that she’d occasionally used sex to bribe the men who found her out into keeping their mouths shut.

    “But then I got into the NASA program.  Lots of doctors were going to examine me.  I’d need some modifications to the space suits.”  Nellie also didn’t mention that she had been glad birth control pills could prevent menstruation while she was in space.  “Slowly, I told a few of them. Just enough to get what I needed.  It became an open secret, though. No one talked about it, probably because they were embarrassed I’d fooled them.”

    Her grandson piped in, “But Uncle Buzz and Uncle Michael knew!”

    She hugged him tight. “Yes, honey. They sure did. They thought it was the greatest prank in the world that the first man to walk on the moon was a woman. They even helped me pull it off.”

    “And they laughed, right? When you said ‘one small step,’” her oldest daughter, sporting a few white hairs of her own, called from across the room where she was stuffing the turkey.  

    Nellie smiled. One of her happiest moments had been when her daughter was able to apply to the NASA training program and be accepted without having to hide her sex.  “Oh, yes.  And when I stepped out of the LM and said, ‘That's one small step for man,’ they laughed and laughed— they loved the irony.  And I did, too.”

--May 25, 2020

AI's storytelling has improved, but it's still pretty weird.

Image source: UCLA Newsroom

     About 2.5 years ago, I tested to see how well ChatGPT would handle a writing assignment. I fed it a chapter from my book (the one that describes my mom's birth) and asked it to switch the point of view (POV) from one character to another. The results were ... weird.  AI included such rookie mistakes as head-hopping and including info that the other character couldn't have known, because they weren't in the same room.  If you are curious, scroll about halfway down this story to see the results.

    I decided to repeat the exercise, and it's definitely gotten better, even wildly better, but it still makes mistakes, in POV, in verb tense, and in logic. It also does a poor job of inventing details to fill in narrative gaps.

My rough draft of Arthur's POV:

    At the hospital, the doctor took Roma into an exam room. Arthur started to take off his coat, then realized the waiting room was so cold he could see his breath.  

    The doctor brought Roma back out.  “She’s not quite ready; perhaps another few hours.  The delivery room isn’t in use now, so you may wait with her there until it’s time.”  The doctor led them into the delivery room. “We are only heating the ORs and the delivery rooms due to the fuel shortages.”  That explained the freezing lobby.  

    Arthur pulled a book out of his pocket. It was a new copy of Madam Curie by Éve Curie. They had left their first copy behind in Brussels. “Shall I read to you? It might help pass the time.”  

    Roma smiled — she was between contractions — and said, “Yes, that would be wonderful.”

    He read to her for hours, pausing when the contractions came or when someone came to check on her. After one such pause, he asked her, “So, what are the names we picked out again?”  

    “Sylvie Jacqueline, or Jean after your commanding officer, Jean Georges,” she reminded him instantly. When Liliane was born, they had chosen a name with an English cognate and had done the same thing this time.  

    Finally, something seemed to change in Roma, and she said, “Arthur, I think it’s time.”  

    He went to find the doctor, but the man was already on his way in to check on Roma, so Arthur stepped into the hallway again, keeping his hands in his pockets and pacing to keep warm.   

    The doctor came out. “The baby is coming soon; please go to the waiting area.”

    “May I retrieve my coat?” Arthur asked, rubbing his cold hands together.

    “Yes, of course.” 

    Arthur collected his coat, hat, and gloves, then pulled them on as he headed for the lobby.

    Arthur was freezing. The waiting room was glacial, and if he sat down, he got chilled and soon began shivering.  So he would get back up, blow into his hands to warm them, and bounce and pace and run in place to warm up again, though his nose remained cold and his toes stubbornly numb. When he grew tired, he sat back down, only to start the freeze-thaw cycle again.  He refused to fetch warmer clothes because what if Roma had the baby while he was out? And he could not ask the hospital for a blanket. The patients needed the blankets far more than he did. 

    After two hours, the smiling doctor came to find him. “Mr. Lubinski, you have a lovely, healthy daughter, and your wife is just fine.”  

    Relief rushed through Arthur — his wife and baby were all right, and he smiled despite his discomfort.  “May I see her?” Arthur was shivering, and his teeth chattered as he spoke. Stepping into the heated delivery room sounded wonderful.

    “Yes. Come warm up, and see your new daughter.”  

For the AI re-write, I added some color-coding. Green text indicates a pretty good change in POV, gold text indicates a partial or incomplete conversion in POV, red text indicates a mistake, and [italics] indicate my commentary.

AI's rewrite from Roma's POV:

    At the hospital, the doctor led Roma into an exam room. She glanced back at Arthur, who started to take off his coat, then paused, noticing the air in the waiting room was so cold he could see his breath.

    The doctor examined her gently, then said, “You’re not quite ready; perhaps another few hours. The delivery room isn’t in use now, so you may wait there with your husband until it’s time.” She nodded, grateful for the warmth and privacy.

    As they [where is Arthur?] stepped into the delivery room, the doctor explained, “We are only heating the ORs and the delivery rooms due to the fuel shortages.” That explained the icy lobby she and Arthur had walked through earlier.

    Arthur [he just appeared?] pulled a book from his pocket — Madame Curie by Éve Curie, a fresh copy to replace the one they had left behind in Brussels [she doesn't really question or notice he had acquired a new copy of a book that was important to them].

    “Shall I read to you? It might help pass the time,” he offered.

    Roma, between contractions, smiled. “Yes, that would be wonderful.”

    The sound of his voice comforted her. He read for hours, pausing during contractions or when someone came to check on her. Between one such pause and the next, he looked up and asked, “So, what are the names we picked out again?”

    She didn’t need to think. “Sylvie Jacqueline, or Jean, after your commanding officer, Jean Georges.” When Liliane was born, they had picked a name with an English equivalent — they’d kept the same approach this time.

    Later, something shifted inside her. A deep tightening, sharper than before. She caught Arthur’s hand. “Arthur, I think it’s time.”

    He rose to find the doctor, but before he could leave, the doctor entered to check on her. Arthur stepped out to give them room [they were in the delivery room - plenty of room. Better word choice would have been privacy], rubbing his hands together against the cold [head hopping - if he's in the hall, she wouldn't have seen that].

    Roma focused on her breathing, the world narrowing to the rhythm of pain and rest. The doctor stayed close, calm and kind, assuring her everything was progressing well.

    Soon he stepped out. Roma didn’t hear the conversation, but she saw the nods and gestures through the slightly open door.

    Time stretched and contracted like her own body. She was vaguely aware of Arthur’s absence and hoped he was keeping warm somehow. The lobby had been bitterly cold.

    Finally, after hours of labor, the baby arrived. Roma heard the tiny cry and tears sprang to her eyes — their child was here. A daughter [POV is good, but the storytelling isn't - it pretty much skipped the birth].

    Some time later, the doctor returned [when did he leave?] with Arthur, his nose red and his coat bundled tightly around him.

    “Mr. Lubinski, you have a lovely, healthy daughter, and your wife is just fine,” the doctor had [When they were out of the room?] told him.

    Arthur’s face lit up the moment he saw her. He was shivering, his teeth chattering, but his eyes were warm with relief.

    “May I see her?” he’d [switched to past perfect tense?] asked, voice shaking.

    “Yes. Come warm up, and see your new daughter,” the doctor had [past perfect tense?] said, stepping aside [barricading the way?].

    Arthur came to Roma’s side, eyes full of wonder. She held their daughter in her arms and smiled. For a moment, she forgot all about the contractions, the cold [the delivery room was heated], the long hours — there was only this: warmth, family, and the fragile beginning of a new life.

    The AI-generated version has an odd lack of detail, which gives it a dreamy quality.  It did a decent, if imperfect, job converting the POV (way better than it did 2.5 years ago!), and it knew to leave out things that happened to Arthur when he was in the waiting room, but it still left major gaps in the narrative. It (mostly) doesn't seem to know that it needed to invent details.  In Arthur's POV, the lack of detail regarding the birth is natural - he wasn't in the room with her, so he wouldn't have been aware of what was happening during the childbirth process.

    It does make me wonder about authors who try to pass off AI-generated fiction as their own, which seems like a bad idea.  AI's writing, even with the improvements, isn't actually good, and certainly not poetic or emotional. 

    And when an author skips immersing themselves in the story themselves, and merely serves as an editor to a robot, their writing isn't going feel like it captures humanity. Rather, the characters are going to be robots wearing makeup, their human faces merely painted on.