Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Store in Fouras where we bought toys

Norman and I used to walk up into center village and check out this store that sold toys. One of our favorites was the lead cast soldiers and Arabians on horseback.

There were other neat things to buy like firecrackers and stink bombs. These were used frequently and sometimes found their way into the school in Rochefort. When this happened the school administrators went ballistic.

It struck me as interesting that after the passage of over fifty years the store was still displaying toys in the same window. The owner at the time had a young son who spoke excellent English. The store was closed the day we walked about the square and I wonder if the son took over the store and left many things the way they were.

Around the square were many shops and we did some great shopping. At a sidewalk display we bought some carved wood knick-knacks and I found an old bathing beauty key holder at a shop run by this elegant lady. When I started speaking French she replied in perfect English. Happened she had worked twenty years in London for the French State Department.

During the late 1940s and early 1950s the French were engaged in Indo-China, in what was later to become Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. We had a friend named Robert Bernard. His father was fighting there. They were struggling and my mother did what she could to help the family out.