FAB Senior Travel is not an Op Ed website. Our mission is to present great travel places. However, the killings in Paris demand a response. As many of you know, I lived in Paris. Paris was the birth place of my first travel guidebook. In so many ways, Paris changed the direction of my life. When my friend, Pam Olson, sent me Jeanette Leonard’s statement of solidarity, I wanted to share her sentiments with you. Please feel free to offer your comments.
Here is Jeanette’s statement:
I have gotten up early today to watch the parade, memorial, the march in Paris for Charlie Hebdo. As I sit at my desk in the dark I look out over our ragged valley to some tall hills about 5 miles away and see Charles Shultz big radio tower with the blinking red light. Charlie is gone now, we named our airport after him. The people in Paris named their magazine after him too. If Charlie were still with us, I wonder what he would be thinking this morning. Spell check changed it to mourning, it is smarter than I. Let’s hope the people in Paris will get through the day with no gun shots. I wish I were there with them. I would buy all the flowers I could carry and leave them beside the burning candles as tribute to the dead. I would write on my shirt “I am not afraid” and walk in the streets with the people…but I would also be lying, I am afraid. My thoughts are with you Paris people all day long, be safe.
Thank you, Jeanette, for finding the words I could not.
WELL DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!