The Glorious Nights When I Had Paris All to Myself

We’re seeing a lot on television these days of the Olympic games in Paris, the athletes, and the crowds of spectators in the City of Light.

My favorite Memory of that unique place is when it was empty. I’ll explain.

In a previous Memory (they’re all linked below), I wrote about my high school dream to become a newspaper foreign correspondent. Actually, it was more of a decision. It took me 11 years to become a national correspondent and four more to get the same job abroad.

As part of the preparation to make myself what I thought would be an irresistible candidate, I spent several summers in Europe. I studied French, lived with a Parisian family, hung around an American newspaper there, and worked one summer for a French-language daily newspaper in Bruxelles. More on that intimidating challenge in the future.

My parents said if I could round up the $600 round-trip airfare, they would cover most of my living expenses, which in the 1960s were considerably more affordable than now.

I lined up several freelance assignments, including the Waterloo one linked above. The newspaper I hung around was the New York Times International Edition. Through a friend of a friend, I got an introduction to the publisher and asked if I could visit the nighttime operation.

He arranged it. After the first night, I asked the news editors if I could return sometimes, emphasis on the plural “sometimes.” They didn’t mind. And so I did, every single night the rest of the summer, while attending classes by day.

Soon, I was helping out as a copyboy, running errands, fetching papers, finding photographs, asking probably too many questions, and trying to be generally the most helpful unpaid helper in the history of helpers. After three months, I returned to my U.S. university, telling the bosses I’d like to come back sometime.

They said, yeah, sure.

Four years later, I wrote the editors there and said I’d like to “return.” They replied that the only summer opening they had was copyboy, which paid only $41.25 a week, and they were sure I could find something better.

I wrote back, accepting their kind offer and giving them the date I would report. I may not have included my return address, so they couldn’t call me off.

I showed up a day early and started doing once again the job I already knew well. No one objected.

One problem was that the Paris Metro subway shut down at midnight. My work didn’t end until 3 a.m. I had an hour’s walk back to the pension. It was fascinating walking through bustling Les Halles at that time of night. A few times, anyway. That was the ancient food marketplace where hundreds of workers delivered and prepared the next day’s foods for millions of Parisians.

But an hour-long commute by foot got old. With my first two paychecks I bought a VeloSolex, the simplest of mopeds. I had no idea that afternoon of the nightly adventures and lifelong memories that decision would unlock.

The first night with my bike, I decided to go home via the Place de la Concorde. I was stunned when I set out from work. The streets were completely empty. Not a soul in sight. Stoplights blinked to no traffic whatsoever.

The famous square, where Marie Antoinette and hubby Louis XVI were guillotined before it was named Place de la Concorde, was empty, too. Brightly lit in all its gleaming glory. You may have noticed during Olympic ceremonies and the Eiffel Tower that the French are masters of light.

And there was the famous Place all lit up just for me. The obelisk from Egypt glistened bright white. The fountains were splashing for no one but me.

I took a slow tour around the place. It’s bigger than it looks, 19 acres. I took another tour around a little faster. And then another faster still.

Okay, my top speed was 22 miles an hour. But my heart was beating at 40 miles an hour. Weaving all over this empty historic place, it seemed faster.

A young man, working toward his career goal alone abroad in the middle of the night on a little motorbike with total ownership of one of the world’s most famous squares in the City of Light.

It was a very heady experience at age 20. And honestly, decades later, I still savor it in my mind. The feeling of joy and beauty and freedom. The scenes. The sense of liberation and possibility.

On one of my circuits, I stopped. I looked to the right.

Mon Dieu!

There it was, the broad Champs Elysee rising slightly for a little more than a mile up to the glorious, brightly-lit Arc de Triomphe. Tree-lined with its old-fashioned globe lights leading the way.

Where French and Allied troops marched triumphantly on Liberation Day in 1944 and now every July 14th, Bastille Day, la fete nationale.

And no one in sight. Not a single soul. I rode up there, too. And around the Arc. In fact, the entire summer, I rode all over Paris on my little buzzing bike.

The Eiffel Tower, right where Hitler stood in that famous smug photo when he thought he’d conquered the arrogant French capital. Up to Sacre Coeur. Notre Dame. Along the Seine. The Bastille. Around to see the parade and fireworks on July 14^th. Even went out to the airport.

No excuse was too small to buzz around. Day and night. Even in the rain. I had my foreign correspondent’s trench coat already.

Those were the days of regular café bombings by Algerian separatists. I’d be stopped at times by police stepping out of the sidewalk shadows on foot patrol. They’d demand my passport and international driver’s license. One time, the officer turned to his partner and grumped, “Look! The Americans put the French page as the last one.” I smiled.

We got paid on Wednesdays, the equivalent of $41.25 in francs. Every Thursday then, I rode to a neighborhood sidewalk cafe. I splurged on a hamburger with a fried egg on top, french fries, and one of those little bottles of Coca-Cola. It was always warm but delicious.

I made a vow then that for the rest of my life, if I ever wanted a Coke, no matter the cost, I would have it. I've kept my faith, too, even in a war zone where the roadside vendor poured it into a sandwich bag with a chunk of ice and paper straw.

On one rainy Paris day, I heard that The Times’ foreign news editor was in town. I phoned and asked for him as if I knew what I was doing. I told him I worked on the International Edition and wanted to talk about my Times career.

“Sure,” he said, “Come on over.” I got fairly well-soaked biking over to his office. But my clippings stayed safely dry inside my shirt.

A year later, thanks to that little Solex bike trip, I had a summer job with him in New York. And a year after that, I began my 26-year career there on the second-lowest rung, News Assistant. It took 15 years from the night that I discovered my calling. However, I did make it to foreign correspondent, starting in Vietnam.

But it all began on that little moped on the empty streets of Paris, where I learned about celebrating life and freedom. By the way, at the end of that summer job, I sold the bike for the same price I paid. Bien fait.

This is the 21st in an ongoing series of personal Memories. Please share yours in the Comments. Links to the others are below:

Inside Political Conventions - at Least the Ones I Attended

Political Assassination Attempts I Have Known

The Story a Black Rock Told Me on a Montana Mountain

That Time I Sent a Message in a Bottle Across the Ocean...and Got a Reply!

As the RMS Titanic Sank, a Father Told His Little Boy, 'See You Later.' But Then...

Things My Father Said: 'Here, It's Not Loaded'

The Terrifyingly Wonderful Day I Drove an Indy Car

When I Went on Henry Kissinger's Honeymoon

When Grandma Arrived for That Holiday Visit

Practicing Journalism the Old-Fashioned Way

When Hal Holbrook Took a Day to Tutor a Teen on Art