Little Adventures

*

The Great Dishtowel

I met my wife in the mid 1970's when I was working at the University of Delaware (home of the Fighting Blue Hens - honest!) Back then computers were an all-consuming pastime with me. I worked all day and I worked all night. Pam changed all that, and I found myself letting my work go to hell on weekends. Together we went to museums and exotic restaurants, auctions, flea markets, old book stores and ethnic fairs. We hunted fossils on shaley hillsides and flew kites by the sea.

Pam was and is very interested in needle work. She can make a quilt, knit a sweater, and do many kinds of needlepoint and embroidery. Pam also collects old needlework and books on needlework, so I sometimes find myself at auctions for no good reason other than to please her. This is as things should be ---- many a time something I have done just to please Pam has ended up pleasing me just as well. Auctions, for instance, are like museums run by used car salesmen. The romance of used stuff and the frenzy of the bidders make for an interesting time.

In 1992 Pam, our son Pete and I wandered around Europe for three weeks. When we plan a trip, we first settle on a broad area we wish to visit, then each of us does some reading, and makes a list of specific places we want to visit. Pete picked EuroDisney outside Paris and LegoLand up in Denmark as the two things he most wanted to see. Pam wanted to see Mont Saint-Michel, Omaha Beach and the Bayeux Tapestry in France, and I wanted to see the Pied Piper town of Hamelin, Baron Munchhausen's museum and the Externsteine, all located in Germany. We plotted all of these places on a map and then came up with a rough route that looked good on paper. In June we flew to Munich, picked up our rental car and set off on our adventure.

Two and a half weeks into the three-week vacation, we had done Germany and LegoLand, and were east of Paris and tiring of travel. A deal is a deal, and I was driving toward the town of Bayeux which was on Pam's list, but I had little enthusiasm for the visit. Mostly this was because I had never heard of the Bayeux Tapestry and was having trouble getting excited about it. All I knew was that it was old and it was long. Pam read to us about it as we drove along, but traffic was hectic, and I paid little attention to the dry travel guide prose. Then I heard the awful truth. The Bayeux Tapestry is not a tapestry at all. It is just an embroidered piece of linen like the dish towels in my grandfather's house. We were laboring through the French countryside to visit a giant dishtowel. But, a deal is a deal, and so I drove on.

In the late afternoon we arrived at Bayeux, where we found lodging, and then walked about the town in search of a place to have dinner. Bayeux is a pleasant place if you are on foot. The streets go every which way, and there is an interesting building around nearly every corner. After dinner we returned to our hotel and went to bed. The next morning we set off in search of the dishtowel. The town is a bit like a maze and signs pointed us hither and thither but always toward the "Tapestry." Finally coming down a lonely alley and turning into a medieval courtyard we were there. We paid our francs and went in to the viewing room. I was stunned. The thing was nearly as long as a football field and almost 1000 years old, being covered with the story of the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Old and long indeed! The embroidery is divided into 75 different scenes composed of 623 persons, 202 horses and mules, 55 dogs, 505 other animals, 37 buildings, 41 ships and boats and 49 trees. The thing is wondrous and well deserves to be called a tapestry rather than a tea towel. Go to Bayeux if you can or get a book about the Bayeux Tapestry out of your library. You will find it interesting.