I arrived at the exam room as pale as chalk on a blackboard, my legs a little shaky, before making my way to the desk assigned to me. Fortunately, the fresh air had revived me a bit. Still, I was far from confident.
When the dictation began, carefully following our teacher’s advice, I kept my head up and my eyes fixed on the instructor, patiently waiting for each sentence to be completed. My intensely focused stare was apparently mistaken for a hearing problem, earning me a repetition of the sentence along with a stern look. My concentration had just officially been reclassified as deafness.
Before catching the bus home, conversations were buzzing. Most of the children seemed very confident about their results. I, much less so.
Our simple clothes and awkward manners stood in contrast to the self-assurance of some students who clearly came from more privileged backgrounds.
Of course, no one was going to travel all the way to Remiremont to check the results list. So the news came through the newspaper: I had passed, and even earned a scholarship.
Above all, I was about to be launched into a completely unfamiliar world. The junior secondary school was five kilometers away. For the first time in my life, I would be eating lunch in a school cafeteria. In winter, I would pull my schoolbag on a sled until I reached the cleared roads. My first school vehicle!
And that bag was not light. The list of school supplies seemed endless. I still remember my surprise when my mother gave me a bill that seemed enormously valuable to buy all that equipment. In the store, I was the only child without a parent or accompanying adult.
I was discovering a world where my parents could no longer really guide me.
Learning a new language—German—made me feel as if I had landed on another planet: Gothic script (Fraktur), the mysterious ß, declensions… it all had the feel of a puzzle.
Music theory, with its musical notation, ended up scaring me less.
Mathematics, on the other hand, confronted me with something curious: the method of false assumption, which involved solving a problem by deliberately starting with an incorrect hypothesis and then adjusting the result. Needless to say, that logic left me quite puzzled.
As for the Punic Wars, they bore little resemblance to the reassuring stories of our ancestors, the Gauls.
I was the first in my family to step into this unknown territory of formal education.
In the end, this transition to junior secondary school would remain the only real difference in schooling between my brothers and me, even if it was short-lived.
After school, five or six of us would take the same route home. It was like a children’s Tour de France: boys and girls pedaling as fast as they could.
With my tongue hanging out, I was always the last in the pack. The intermediate finish line was at a place called Café des Carrières. We would stop there, feet on the ground, chatting away loudly.
Then the group would gradually thin out depending on where each of us lived. Once again, I was the last—the one who went the farthest, at least during the first year. The following year, Bernadette B. took that spot from me.
This intense training had its benefits: I easily earned my school sports certificate.
That’s something, at least!
The years at Hamanxard school were happy ones.
Our teachers were remarkably courageous. Each of them was responsible for two groups gathered in the same classroom, with an average of 25 students per group.
The troublemakers, the jokers, the shy ones, the already fashion-conscious girls, the struggling students and the high achievers—all lined up neatly for the class photo.
With our hair carefully braided into crowns, two of us claimed the front spots: Christianne, standing on the right, and me on the left.
By the end of the year, I would reach the age of reason: seven years old.
In the photo, “Hamanxard” is spelled with a final “T”—a typo!
My brothers and I would have very different childhood memories. Mine are still tucked warmly in my heart.
A blade of grass between our lips, and suddenly we were promoted to professional hunters… of crickets. Lying flat on our stomachs, focused like spies, we would tease the entrance to their burrows. The cricket, cautious, rarely came out. We, on the other hand, came back with green-stained knees and slightly bruised dignity.
A plump seed pod, looking harmless… and POP! A guaranteed botanical explosion at the slightest touch. Impatiens? Poorly named: they’re not the impatient ones—we are, unable to resist the urge to make them all burst, one after another, like kids with bubble wrap… which didn’t even exist back then.
Impatiens glandulifera Epilobe Crédit photo Gallica.
A little tuft of fluff suspended in the air performs its farewell act, carried by the evening breeze. It floats, hesitates, stretches out the suspense… clearly, it has a flair for drama. The fireweed, for its part, already promises to return next year—taller, more beautiful—like a star announcing its next tour.
A grain of salt in hand, and off we go chasing a young goat. The plan seemed perfectly logical: place the salt on its tail to stop it instantly. The result? The goat runs, we run too… but not with the same grace or speed. My mother may have left out a small detail in her theory.
A pink saucer, some baking chocolate (which never had time to “sit around” at all), and a few neatly arranged sugar cubes… only to disappear one by one. Sitting in my parents’ bed, I watched my mother leave for work, my heart a little heavy… but my hand already reaching into the saucer. Instant comfort.
Eggs dipped in a brew of onion skins—in other words, a very serious scientific experiment that perfumed the whole house. Once ready, the Easter egg hunt could begin. With one simple rule: the more you find, the more you eat. Flawless logic. Except that hard-boiled eggs are far more filling than chocolate!
A small flower-decked altar, made from wildflowers, imitated those used in Ascension processions. The children’s version: a bit crooked, full of good intentions… and a few backstage distractions. It was the time of street prayers—and of discreet glances checking who was fidgeting.
And then, the foam of memories rises again, soft and light… It refreshes the mind and reminds us of a simple truth: we didn’t have much, but we knew very well how to make the most of it. Lost at the end of the world? Not at all. We were exactly where we needed to be… even if, sometimes, we were chasing goats with salt—searching for happy days.
Enjoy your week !
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