Bastille Day

July 14 - Jour de Bastille. I get a frisson of sentiment on Bastille Day. In 1954 when I was back-packing around Europe I planned my travels to be in Paris for the festivities. Alas, France had just suffered a great military defeat: the fortress of Dienbienphu in what was then called French Indo-China had fallen to the Vietnamese freedom fighters and the war to cling to this relic of colonialism was lost. (Unfortunately for Vietnam and for what American presidents call the Free World, the political significance of this event was misunderstood: the USA tried to prop up what they perceived as a 'domino' in the war on communism, at great cost in blood and treasure to themselves, at tenfold or greater cost to the Vietnamese). On Bastille Day 1954 the fountains in Place de la Concorde were not playing under floodlights, celebrations weren't muted but cancelled altogether, even the night clubs in Place Pigale were deserted or closed. In 1977 I flew to New York on July 13 to meet my publisher's editor at Appleton Century Croft, to sign the contract for my first stint as editor in chief of the massive reference textbook of public health and preventive medicine that is now eponymously known as Maxcy-Rosenau-Last. Bastille Day 1977 was the day of a power outage that shut down New York for over 24 hours. Appleton's had booked me into a posh suite on the top floor of the Sheraton Mid-town hotel. I had to walk up 37 floors to go to bed that night, and worse, next morning I had to walk down 37 floors in total darkness because the emergency lighting in the stairwell wasn't working. I met Rich Lampert, my editor at Appleton's, who became a good friend, but instead of the planned luxurious lunch at a posh restaurant, Rich Lampert and I had a stand-up hot dog and root beer at a street barrow on 42nd street opposite the New York Public Library. Several other Bastille Days have been memorable but those two stand out as unforgettable.