February 2002

The Editor Writes
Howes Things
Rolling in the Dough
A Mensan in France, part II
My First RG

The Editor Writes
Editor Carl Howes

I'm very happy to present contributions from local authors Joel Huddleston, Lynn Pina, and Devin Starlanyl. Enjoy!

Howes Things
LocSec Carl Howes

Greetings! I have a few things to say this month, some will look familiar but that's life in the LocSec lane. To avoid redundancy, I'll say one thing here; if you are willing to spend a little time making this group work please contact me.

You still have a wide scope of opportunity to help out with the 2003 RG. Yes, it really is time to be thinking about next year's gathering. There is a burst of activity in the spring leading to a hotel contract. Summer tends to be dormant, then planning and preparation start ramping up again leading to one of the best RGs in the region or, indeed, the country.

A Gifted Children officer maintains and provides information and other resources as needed to the parents of gifted children. A Young Mensa officer sets up events for our under 18 set, members and children of members. You have, no doubt, heard and read that Mensa has no opinions. That is not quite true. Implicit in the Constitution of Mensa is the opinion that intelligence should be identified and encouraged. We need responsible people with time and energy to make that happen locally.

CultureQuest® XIII is coming up on April 28, 2002. I received one response to my note on this last month. Teams can have up to five members and two alternates. The entry deadline is April 1, 2002. Are you up for this challenge?

I have registration forms for Mind Games 2002. This is a contest in which Mensans play new games from entering companies and choose the top five. The winners are allowed to use the Mensa Select designation on their games. This year's edition will be April 19 - 21, 2002 in Minneapolis, Minn. Since Minnesota is hosting the 2003 AG this will be a chance to get the lay of the land.

Last but not least, the end of the membership year is fast approaching. In the years that I've been checking our lapse rate has run around 15 - 20 percent. I hope to see all of you on the member roll after the lapses have been processed.

Rolling in the Dough
Joel Huddleston

I want to warn all my fellow New Englanders of a hostile corporate takeover that is occurring in our region. Not only has this vile company driven away all the competition, but it has also permeated into our everyday lives, culture and language. This self-seeking, self-promoting, self-aggrandizing corporation is none other than Dunkin' Donuts ™.

I grew up in a city in northeastern Massachusetts at about the time this monopoly was being built. My town boasted no less than 8 "DD's", all within a half-mile of each other. It got to the point where I could give people directions to my place using Dunkin' Donuts ™ as navigational landmarks:

"Turn left at the Dunkin' Donuts ™ on the corner of Main and Parker, pass two more Dunkin' Donuts ™, then bang a right onto Cambridge Road. My house is between the Dunkin' Donuts ™ and the police station."

Needless to say I felt safe in my home ...

The DD name has also seeped into the sports world. The New England Patriots' press conferences are sponsored by Dunkin' Donuts ™. Coach Bill Belichick starts his spiel the same way every time:

"We ran the ball pretty well today. Our defense held up good also. By the way, if you buy a dozen doughnuts at Dunkin' Donuts ™, you get the thirteenth free. There's no better breakfast for our team than Dunkin' Donuts ™."

The Providence Civic Center, home of minor league hockey's Providence Bruins, has recently changed its name to Dunkin' Donuts ™ Center. Season ticket holders win a free glazed doughnut every time there's an icing call.

My sources also tell me that the Fred the Baker's mustache will be retired at Fenway Park on Opening Day.

World governments can't stop it either. After all, DD has expended their coffee line to "international" flavors (French Vanilla, German Chocolate, Irish Cream, Scotch Tape, etc.) so the UN would find DD's takeover (and pastries) easier to swallow.

Even convenience stores aren't safe. Shops like 7-11 ™ share a duplex with Dunkin' Donuts ™. Little does 7-11 ™ know that the Slurpee dispenser is shooting out Coolattas. Soon DD will start putting crullers on 7-11's ™ hot dog grills. It's only a matter of time before 7-11 ™ sells the business outright to DD. What's scary is when DD then shares a place with John Deere ™ or The Home Depot ™. Then the heavy artillery will come out.

So, people of the Northeast, steel yourself against the charge of this not-so-light brigade. Don't fall for the propaganda disseminated on TV and radio by an innocent looking baker. Fight for your homes, your neighborhoods, and your cholesterol levels.

Did I mention that the bagel I'm eating while writing this is awfully tasty?

A Mensan in France, part II
Devin Starlanyl

We chose Grenoble for a break between seminars. It was also a chance to do some research for my next science fiction book. Although I spent some time getting ready for the next seminar there, we had time to enjoy this marvelous city. Since it had been home to the winter Olympics a while ago, I know that it had what I most crave for stress relief: mountains. Grenoble was the ancient capital of the Dauphinè Region, and the place of residence for the Dauphin, the eldest son and heir to the king. Grenoble is also the center of nuclear research in France. Rick is a chemist at Vermont Yankee Nuclear, but he had enough work with the overheads and slides, and being my life support. France gets much of its energy through nuclear power, and all the plants are the same, so it is easy to switch components and personnel from one to the another. That is not the case in the United States. Each plant is an individual, so each part requires expensive design and tooling, and each new person must be trained, no matter how long he worked at another nuclear plant. Individuality can be a great thing in its place, but sometimes it is shortsighted, and the taxpayer pays for it.

Our hotel was only a brief and flat walk across the square from the train station. We were tired, and it was no small disappointment to find that the advertised pool and Jacuzzi, which I had counted on for needed physical therapy, did not exist. (The "computer facilities" turned out to be only a modem connection, so that some planned work was out too. The longhand writing that resulted would not help my hands. A laptop is on next year's list.) I knew that I would have to "settle up" with my chronic pain conditions later, and it seemed that the accounting would be much greater than anticipated. Still, the hotel was in a great location, and the people were very helpful, pleasant and friendly, so we made the best of it.

One cannot go hungry in Grenoble if one has adequate money, and many of our food choices were relatively inexpensive. This was a more recognizable hotel room, unlike the loft in Provence. It had another deep bathtub, but this one wasn't in the living room! There were still no wash cloths, which seemed to be unknown in France. This time we had only four small steps after the elevator _ a blessing. Once we unpacked a few things, we figured out the toilette du jour. We got our bearings (perhaps that was why the bags were so heavy _ those bearings?), and we went out on the streets of Grenoble to explore.

One thing still puzzles me. In France, even the hotel lobby chairs were comfortable. They were smaller than in the United States, and fit my body. This never happens in the United States. During the research for my last book, I read a book called "The Chair", by Galen Cranz. It explained that most chairs in the United States were proportioned following a pattern that had been set backwards _ the height was actually the suggested size of the depth, and visa versa. For some unknown reason, we have never altered this pattern. One of my goals for next year is to find some of these very comfortable chairs for our living room. (Of course, if they are THAT comfortable, the cats will be in them all the time anyway, so we'd better get three, one for each cat, so I can have the rocker back.)

Logic tells me, the higher you go in the mountains the colder you get, so we had expected at least cool weather for the Alps at the tail end of October. Wrong. The air conditioner didn't work in our room, so we needed to avoid the hotel during late afternoon when the full sun hit it. Our room was too hot for our comfort.

The weather, as it had been since we left Paris, was clear and bright. The humidity was very low. There were roses in bloom all over the cities, and hardy varieties of palm trees. Grenoble is framed by magnificent mountains, and sprinkled with lovely parks. It seemed that every city block had a boulangerie (bread shop) and a patisserie (pastry shop), and many also had chocolatiers (self-explanatory). We were there for market day! At a place close to Parc Victor Hugo, we purchased a lovely small charentais melon (at last I would find out how they were supposed to taste!), fresh figs, and several varieties of grapes. We found a local market where we purchased very good but inexpensive wine, the lovely ham cru^* of Bayonne, and some incredible cheeses. There were many products offered that were made with walnuts or hazelnut. These were a specialty through the parts of France we visited. They even made a wine of green walnuts, but we didn't try that. We were limited by our ability to carry, our time, and our finances. Noone took United States travelers checks, but nearly everyone was happy to see credit cards.

The breakfast offered by the hotel was one of the best we had in France, at reasonable cost. It included many types of cereals and breads, a wonderful butter from Brittany, and an assortment of mellow cheeses and fruits (including kiwi), as well as yoghurt. One had to be careful. I took something without reading it, expecting yoghurt by the picture and package, and found it was a pear sauce, like apple sauce. It was tasty. There was ham and Canadian bacon. That wonderful Págo fruit juice was not served, only orange from concentrate. I missed the Págo already. It wasn't as heavily sweetened as many of the US varieties and the raspberry was delightful. The French coffee was nonacidic, and offered with heated cream. And there was chocolate. Little squares of bittersweet chocolate, as well as chocolate croissants. Even though I went heavy on the fruits and light on the carbohydrates, I supplemented with a bit of a high protein food bar. I do regret not having tasted the cocoa. My daughter-in-law tells me that French cocoa is heavenly. The madeleine cookie-type biscuits, I learned from watching other diners, were meant to be dunked into the coffee.

Food is at least part of the heart of France. We never lacked for luncheon varieties. There were so many shops selling sandwiches on baguette rolls, and they included ham and cheese, tuna, tomato and egg usually with that wonderful Brittany butter, and often Croque Monsieur. The latter is made slightly differently in each region, but is often an open faced sandwich with a very mild Gruyere and ham, toasted on top. We found a boulangerie that offered tasty quiches suitable for our late meal. Sandwiches were also offered in department stores. The only such store we visited was a brief stop, just to look at the street side deli.

One IQ test was the puzzle of the laundry. Fortunately, when doing a reconnaissance run, Rick met a student with some English. He hurried back to our nearby hotel, and we gathered our laundry to make use of the local talent. Some of the machines were marked out of use, as they had already been set up to take Eurocurrency, and Eurocoins would not be out until January 1^st. We purchased the soap and softener. That was the easy part. For washing clothes, you don't put the money into the washing machines. There is a central area that accepts the money, with numbered slots for the machines. Then there is another area with a central control panel that gets things going. Planning on a mid-trip laundry time helped make up for the need to carry the air mattress. We brought half the clothes. After doing laundry, we explored. We walked the city, enjoying the sights and the people. That night we enjoyed the champagne our hosts in Toulon had provided, and feasted on local fare. The train station was close, but it was quiet. Their were soft but clear chimes, rather than bells or loud whistles, that issued from the trains. Even the rails were civilized in France. We could enjoy the mountain view from our balcony.

The next day we visited the Museum of Grenoble. No photography allowed, which had not been the case in the Louvre. It has a rich collection of sculpting and painting, including modern selections. I am a tactile person, and relate more to sculpture than to paintings. What I enjoyed most was a young girl's face by Rodin. It was tough to leave that sculpture. She still exists in my mind, pale white, with delicate shell ears and soft lines. There were no post cards of it in the tiny museum store, although I thought it the most beautiful piece there. I know that there is a museum of Rodin somewhere in Paris, because I have been to the Rodin Museum (with the replicas) in Philadelphia. It was not on any maps, and nobody in Paris could tell me where it was, so we never saw it. Some things are not meant to be.

The weather in Grenoble was in the 70s and 80s (Fahrenheit, of course), with bougainvilleas and mimosas and assorted flowering plants. They even have a maple-like tree, with much thinner leaves. I suspect that it was a Japanese Maple. There were chestnuts underfoot everywhere, and pigeons as well, but not a sign of what a New Englander thinks of as autumn.

The next day we walked to Quai Stèphane-Jay and the gondola that we would ride to the top of the 16^th century Fort de la Bastille. From the ancient ramparts we would be able to see Mount Blanc massif, 15,760 feet in elevation. Grenoble is on the 45^th parallel, the same as Ottawa and Bucharest. But we were warm. Near the top of the Bastille was the Geological Institute, part of the University of Grenoble. I wondered what living up there would be like. The transparent globular gondola cable car that carried us to the heights had been constructed in 1938. Four globes rode together, attached, and provided a quiet, steady and enjoyable ride.

From the summit, we could immediately see the strategic importance of the Bastille. The two rivers that edge Grenoble, Isère (the snake) and Drac (the dragon) stretched out below us, and the view of the city, framed by the Alps, was breathtaking. With this outpost on alert, nobody would catch these people by surprise. It was pleasant on the heights, but windy, and we walked through the area where soldiers lived, wondering how they kept the supplies coming during winter months. Informational signs were in French, but we could translate most of them. There were terraced areas with things to do and to see. On the upper level, we had a good view of Mont Blanc, pure white and mysterious in the distance. We both wished that we could get closer to it, but the trip was three hours one way, and was not in the agenda. We absorbed what we could of the surrounding vistas and enjoyed some refreshment at the summit café (by then I was hooked on walnut ice cream). The ride down was also delightful, with no rocking, although we wished we could have spent more time visiting the other layers of the slopes. I also wished that we had such a conveyance in the United States in our own mountainous areas. We floated majestically above the river, and then landed gently.

It was time to return to our hotel, enjoy some more of that good French food, and get ready for the next leg of our journey. This involved the high speed train again, the TGV, with a rather daunting switch between train stations in Paris in Montparnasse heading to Brittany.

On TV that evening, the BBC reported that the French airports were closed due to a bomb threat. I had taken out my own brand of insurance with frequent stops at the glorious churches. Rick took videos and photos of the stained glass and carvings, and I prayed, with occasional candles lit for friends in trouble or in need, or for the state of the world. I have a lot of people on my prayer list, and lit a lot of candles. Rick took care of depositing the francs. Rick worried a lot during the trip, about my health mostly, and about making connections. I felt very calm during the whole of the trip, but all the steps and luggage hauling were taking their toll. I had developed sleep apnea, but added a medication and some salt water nose drops, and that disappeared. My mold allergy was telling me it was time to go a little lighter with the wine and cheese.

We had no difficulty getting on the TGV to Gare de Lyon in Paris. The travel was fast and productive. I had taken some of the train time to continue work on the four hour presentation I would be giving in St. Brieuc. It seemed to take longer to wait in line for a taxi to take us to the Montparnasse station. We were grateful for the comfortable and prompt TGV. The ads say that it "typifies the French government's commitment to high technology and improved communications." In the case of the TGV, it works!

There are orange machines in the station called composteurs (nothing at all like our composter). You must insert your ticket to have it stamped with the date and time. If you don't do this, when the inspector on the train checks your ticket, you are in trouble. The TGVs travel up to 185 mph, and ride smooth and quiet. Each compartment has airlocks at each end that are easy to access. We had eaten at the station in Montparnasse, but they do have food on the train, although you need to book it in advance and it is nothing to write about, so I won't.

French people commonly travel on the train with their dogs. It was not unusual to see someone stop on the edge of the train station with their dog, and the dog would squat and leave a little pile. The person traveling with the dog kicked the pile off to the side. A short time later, a uniformed attendant would come along with a little broom and whisk the little pile into a container. This seemed an accepted and planned for travel accommodation in the TGV stations. The French people live by their trains, and French commerce flows on them. The armed and uniformed guards on patrol in the station were a presence that advertised their readiness to any attempted terrorist, and provided reassurance to the people traveling.

The people in other areas of France had spoken of Brittany with a mix of condescension, suspicion, dismissal or ambiguity. It was not "really" France at all, they implied. I had no idea how many people would be at the seminar I would give, nor what reception awaited. This seminar, unlike the other, would be primarily for patients and support group leaders. The President of the FMS Association of Brittany had communicated with me at length by fax in French, with one phone call, also in French, after September 11th. I knew that they also had their own language, Breton, and different culture from the rest of France, and were fiercely independent. They sounded like my kind of people.

My First RG
Lynn Pina

I attended my first Mensa Regional Gathering recently - Boston Mensa's Pilgrimage 2001, "An RG to Die For" in Danvers, Mass. — not knowing what to expect. In a nutshell, it was like what I'd imagine a Star Trek convention to be, only smaller and without all the costumes. The atmosphere was friendly, silly, and I had a great time.

Upon arrival, I was presented with the issue of hugging protocol. I discovered that, unless you have a red dot ("Don't hug me") or yellow dot ("Ask before you hug me") attached to your name tag, someone will approach to hug you. There was a lot of affection going on in general — hugging, back rubs, and reunions among friends. If I had needed a hug, I wouldn't have had to ask twice.

I wandered around after registering to check out the hospitality room, children's room, the two rooms for events or movies, and the two game rooms (smoking and nonsmoking). The nonsmoking game room was always packed during the weekend — I ended up spending more time in the smoking room just due to lack of table space. The board games afford a great bonding experience and I encourage first timers to participate. Members go out of their way to make newcomers feel welcome, and, since every local group has their own customs and favorite games, it's expected that most people are unfamiliar with the rules. The game experience then centers on the exchange of puns, jokes, and socializing instead of winning, and game playing is a great icebreaker for those who don't know anyone there. Over the course of two nights, I learned how to successfully build transcontinental railroads, run amok in a gun-toting department store shopping spree, and build a retail business dealing in the exchange of human body parts.

Food was everywhere, and I should have skipped the hotel-sponsored buffet dinner Saturday night. I'm told the Boston RG is an event known for the abundance of food, and I shouldn't necessarily base my expectations of other events on what I experienced here. The hospitality room was continually stocked with large coolers of soda, water and beer. There was the chocolate orgy on Friday night - a display of all things chocolate from candies to cakes and ice cream - and the cocktail shrimp fest on Saturday night. An open bar, Irish coffee time, and snacks (cheese and crackers, potato chips, veggies and dip, pretzels, etc. available throughout the dinner hours) were offered both nights. Saturday's lunch was Italian fare - hot plates of lasagna and ziti (with or without meatballs), and breakfast both days was continental fare of bagels, donuts and other assorted items. Hospitality Chairs Rick Kovalcik and Susan Mozzicato were everywhere, making certain nothing ran short.

I spent more time socializing and game playing than attending workshops, but "Underwater Archeology", "Beginning Tarot", and "Sexy Fishbowl Forum" were originally on my list. I wandered into the massage workshop, lost nerve, and wandered right back out into the "Murder, Death and Other Light Comedy" gathering. After a few laughs, I left early to attend the wine tasting event, where I most appreciatively received a condensed education in cabernet sauvignon. Photos from the RG can be found online at http://birchmire.com/Pilgrimage2001.htm.

Two great refuges from chaos were available most of the weekend - the dark, quiet theater room and the lobby area on the second floor. Movies including "Diamonds", "Chocolat", and "Field of Dreams" played when children's fare wasn't being offered. The lobby area was my favorite — full of inviting cushioned seats where people lounged with their drinks and listened to the music of "Sherry Wescott and Friends". The organized event was the Bluegrass Open Session, but they played a variety of pieces, and I kept drifting back to listen.

The New Hampshire Mensa Granite Gathering ("The RG That Rocks") will be held February 15 through 17, 2002 at the Radisson in Merrimack, N.H. Details can be found on the registration form on the N.H. Mensa website. I encourage closet Mensans and new members to take this opportunity to get to know fellow Mensans and have a lot of fun at their first RG, just as I did.