This is the story of my life so far: 68 years and counting.
Prequel: A Brief History of my Family in France
The story starts here
Previous episode: Part 67
Back to Brest
In October 1982, we moved back to France from Halifax. We had furniture that we had bought in Halifax, so there was more stuff to move.
I was now a lieutenant-commander, as I had been promoted while I was in Halifax.
I had been posted on the fourth corvette of the Georges Leygues class: the Jean de Vienne, as the "Chef du Groupement Operations" (CGO, Operation Group Leader).
Corvette Jean de Vienne
source
The Jean de Vienne was also a new ship that was ready to start trials at sea. So, the "operations" I was going to lead were in fact the trials at sea.
Making peace with my parents
My parents, mostly my father, were not yet ready to acknowledge Geneviève as my wife. In the family news that my father distributed every two weeks, her name has not yet been mentioned.
In fact, when Geneviève and myself went to New York City, my father indicated in the family news that "Vincent and small group of friends have traveled to New York". As I received these family news, for some times I was jokingly calling Geneviève "my small group".
As it was inevitable that we would meet in some family event, for example the wedding of my brother Bruno less than two months after our return to France, we had to find a way to reconcile, without loss of face for my father.
As he insisted that I was at fault because we had slept together before the wedding, we negotiate the terms of a letter that I wrote to him, where I said that I was wrong to have done so. My father photocopied the letter and sent a copy to each of my brothers and sisters.
And this is how we were able to be reconciled with my parents.
I suspect that it was my mother that push my father to act so that we would no longer be estranged.
In the family news, the name of Geneviève started to appear. Some historian that will read these family news a long time from now, if they don't know the real story, will wonder how this Geneviève suddenly appears!
As I had saved a lot of money while in Halifax, we decided to buy an apartment in Brest.
Continue to Part 70
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Summary
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8
Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14 - Part 15 - Part 16
Part 17 - Part 18 - Part 19 - Part 20 - Part 21 - Part 22 - Part 23 - Part 24
Part 25 - Part 26 - Part 27 - Part 28 - Part 29 - Part 30 - Part 31 - Part 32
Part 33 - Part 34 - Part 35 - Part 36 - Part 37 - Part 38 - Part 39 - Part 40
Part 41 - Part 42 - Part 43 - Part 44 - Part 45 - Part 46 - Part 47 - Part 48
Part 49 - Part 50 - Part 51 - Part 52 - Part 53 - Part 54 - Part 55 - Part 56
Part 57 - Part 58 - Part 59 - Part 60 - Part 61 - Part 62 - Part 63 - Part 64
Part 65 - Part 66 - Part 67 - Part 68
