C&DEA - Whirled Cup - July '98 David Braun Copyright 1998 - All rights reserved (wrongs, too) The excitement started really building when France entered the semi-finals of the 1998 Soccer Championship called the World Cup. Of course, French soccer fans were pumped from the beginning. But the general populace didn't seem to get into it until the semi-finals. From our apartment in downtown Grenoble, we heard a great cheer arise from the city in general when France won their semi-final. And then we heard the shouts and car horns. That France had made the final was a celebration that went on and on. Occasional car horns and shouts echoed into the night, for six or more post-victory hours. This behavior made us *truly* realize that we were living in the country hosting the World Cup. It made it more than a page eighteen, below the fold news item like it had been when we were living in the USA, where televised soccer is lucky to have a share of a single digit, and virtually no one knows nor cares who wins or loses, nor even can name a single player on the national team. This was just not quite the same thing at all. Living in a country hosting the world cup, whose team had made the finals was indeed an event worth noting. (Even if televised stick and ball games all put me to sleep.) Saturday, the day before the big game, I tried to find a small French flag, la tricolore, for Sam to wave. Every place I tried had none. Several told me "bon chance." Every week I have a brief conversation with the lady at our bank from whom I make our weekly cash withdrawal. (ONE branch of our bank is open Saturdays!) She has been tracking my excremental progress at learning the language over the past six months via the depth of our conversation. She asked me for which team I was rooting. I feigned insult, "France, of course." Mary found some old shirts we no longer needed, in bleu, blanc et rouge as well as a piece of broomstick (actually the paint-roller extension-handle) and got to work with Sam on her sewing machine. In the end, they made a darned good representation of the French tricolore. Sunday, the entire city seemed to bristle with anticipation. It must have been the entire country bristling. The game was scheduled to start at nine in the evening, early afternoon Brazil time. Mary and Sam went for a walk after dinner. They found a shop open (on a Sunday in France, truly amazing) which was selling large flags. Mary bought Sam a Real flag about a meter long for a highly inflated, though not outrageous for French prices, one hundred franc. By eight p.m. the city was becoming silent, except for the noise. That statement makes no sense until you break it down. Virtually all of the CITY noises had stopped. The number of cars on the boulevards had dwindled to dawn-hours proportions. Likewise, the number of people in the streets. Nearly a ghost town. Except for the noise, a stadium clamor, not the everyday discord of the city. People driving their cars, hurrying to their designated spectatorial locations, no doubt, were honking their horns with a drawn out blare rather than the usual beep beep, and shouting, and waving flags and arms out the windows. The people in the streets were wearing the colors, hurrying likewise, and shouting and waving to the people on their balconies, us included. We saw our neighbors in the building next door for the first time. We all smiled and waved to each other. When a man in the street saw Sam waving his flag, he looked up and shouted, <>. To which we, as well as our neighbors echoed, <>. We kept hearing an air horn added to the pre-game din. After some searching, I spotted a woman occupying the corner apartment on the top floor of the building catty-corner from us. She would come out with a pitcher and water some plants in the window boxes of one window, and then go back inside. Next she would come out with her air horn and give a good blast. Then, proceed to the next window box, pitcher in hand. Repeat. She just didn't look to us like the sort of person you would expect to have purchased an air horn for a sporting event. But this is the World Cup FINALS, played in France, and the French team is playing, and might even win... At nine o'clock, there was a stillness about the city, punctuated by an occasional shout or hornblast. Sam and Mary were feverishly flipping to find the right channel. At last, there it was, a team dressed in yellow, singing some unfamiliar anthem. We wondered if the French anthem had passed or was to come. After the Brazilian anthem, the French started. I left the room and went, again, to the window, with Carol. Never in our lives had we heard a COUNTRY sing the national anthem. I knew in my heart that not just in Grenoble, but all over France, people were singing out of national pride for their team. And then the game started. Carol, joined Sam and Mary to spectate. Stick and ball games, as I said, put me to sleep. I lay down on the sofa with a book. Within minutes, I knew France had scored, as a great roar arose from the city. And again. And then a bad sound. Did Brazil score? No, a Frenchman had been tossed from the game. It was nearly eleven at night when Carol woke me up to tell me there were just three minutes left on the clock, with France ahead 2-0. The city was positively CRACKLING with excitement. Three minutes; still enough for a Brazilian miracle. Suddenly, France scored again. The remaining two minutes eventually sauntered off the clock. As the cacophony of victory commenced, it was time for us to go to the streets. Sam and Mary and Carol and I walked to the artery end of our block. I was disappointed at the relative emptiness of the streets. There was gaiety at Le Trocadero, the outdoor bar, but they were still glued to the set. I guess people were waiting for the actual cup to be awarded. We decided to go two blocks down, to Boulevard Jean Jaures, as there seemed to be more going on down there. Yes indeed. A sports bar on the corner had emptied out into the major intersection, shouting, waving flags, jumping, women on the shoulders of dancing men. There were people with their faces painted, people wearing tricolor wigs. Sam waved his tricolore and shot Silly Sting into the frey. Cars and scooters were honking their horns. Those trying to cross the intersection would pass under a huge flag, draped over the windshield, obstructing vision. A couple on a motor scooter was racing up and down rue Felix Viallet (normally one way). The woman on the back was waving a red road flare. Rockets and firecrackers were going off. Within minutes, the crowd doubled, redoubled, and redoubled again. People were smiling, waving, touching each other. People shook hands, hugged, hopped ring-around-the-rosie together. People in cars, moving at a glacial pace through the burgeoning throng, slapped high fives with pedestrians. The crowd was thicker at Alsace Lorraine, two blocks down, where the tram (normally) runs across Jean Jaures. Traffic was sparse on Jean Jaures due to the crowd. A kid on a mini-scooter which could fit into a suitcase was wheelie-ing up and down the bicycle lane. A man attempting to drive a Porsche convertible up the boulevard suddenly had eleven additional, and unwanted, passengers. A teen age girl placed a rocket and lit the fuse, which fizzled. She re-lit it and it arched up over the crowd. A group surrounded a tiny French car stuffed with four occupants making its way slowly up the boulevard and started rocking it, more and more violently, until finally... they stopped. Following Sam's urge, we walked up the tram tracks toward Place Grenette, a Grenobloise gathering place since well before they placed (and later removed) the guillotine there. At the artsy fountain that looks like dandelions at Gambetta, the crowd was so thick that driving on the thoroughfare was almost impossible. There were revelers in the fountain. We crossed against the light with the horde. Someone threw a bottle which landed at Sam's and my feet and exploded. No harm, it was a plastic two liter Orangina bottle. We were only splashed. But caution entered the emotional palette. The tram tracks edge past Place Victor Hugo and the crowd thickened even more. The sidewalks were packed and the tracks were filling with the milling throng. Where the tracks cross Aguite Sembat, the pedestrian masses easily outweighed the automotive traffic. Bon chance attempting to drive anywhere anytime soon. In front of Galleries Lafayette, someone had set up a kiosk selling canned beer and pop, and bottled water. The fountain in Place Grenette was filled, all three levels, with celebrants waving and cheering. There were the fans you'd expect; young men of hooligan age. There were three generational families, like us. There were moms and dads with babies in strollers. There were old and young, and well, it seemed, all of France in the street, sharing the victory. I thought of other "momentous" historical events. JFK was shot. We went into our homes and tuned in the teevee. The Challenger blew up. We did the same. But those were defeats. Human beings tend to withdraw to lick the wounds of defeat. This was a victory, something to share, driving people to the streets. The Berlin wall came down. That was a "street victory" in Germany; but not anywhere else (I don't think). I racked my mind, but couldn't come up with anything even remotely similar. And then, in the midst of all the French flags waving, I saw a kiss. A tall thin man took a woman in his arms and kissed her. He wasn't a sailor, but I had seen that image before, in Life Magazine, THE classic VE Day photo, shot in Times Square. I'm too young to remember the event, but the flavor of the photo captured it for all all time. I could not help but think that what we were witnessing was FRANCE. Repeated all over an entire country, in every city, town, village, and home... Viva la FRANCE! La Coupe du MONDE! In the early morning pre-dawn gloaming, as the blackened sky sidled toward grey, from time to time the lingering punctuation of an occasional horn or shout remained. <> ... A few days later, I spoke on the phone with my folks who had recently arrived home from a trip. My mother commented on the excitement of France winning and then told me that they had watched the last few minutes of the game as well. She said they were in an airport and no one was leaving the teevees to board their flights until the game was over. The airport they were in was. Sao Paulo, Brazil. That particular day, I guess, it was a better place to be *leaving* on an airplane.