Of old ladies and old houses...

There are a lot of little old ladies living by themselves here in France. I suspect that it has to do with the vaunted longevity of the French which in large part is due to the excellent health care system, genes, and diet.

For what ever reason, but here, it seems that women survive men by quite a few years. I suspect that this might be due to the fact that some French women have the ability to nag their husbands to death. But that's another story.

In our street, two lovely old ladies lived side by side for many years, directly in front of our house. They had identical duplexes that were the result of a large, old house that was cut in two. Thus, each had a small garden in front, and a window with shutters and a front door.

The lady on the left has cats and a small dog. Her garden is full of flowers in the spring, and in spite of her advanced age, she dresses up and drives to the market in her aged, little blue car. She is very friendly and never fails to greet us with a smile and a twinkle in her beautiful blue eyes.

We hardly ever saw the lady that lived in the house on the right. She kept to herself, rarely tended her garden, which became choked with weeds and dead grass. While the lady on the left kept her house prim and proper, always having it painted after an especially harsh winter, and replacing roof tiles blown away by the furious storms we get from the north Atlantic.

The house of the lady on the right fell into disrepair and we soon found out why. She had gotten so old and frail that she could not take care of herself, much less so of her house. One day an ambulance took her away to a nursing home. A few month after, a "for sale" sign was placed on her door by a real estate agent; we knew then she had died.

A few weeks ago, the real estate agent showed up with a man and a woman. We assumed, and my wife, with her incredible ability to sniff out the most guarded piece of information in our neighborhood, confirmed that indeed they were the dead lady's closest relatives. They were now the owners of the house.

French laws are very clear and concise in terms of inheritance. Wills are all important and nothing is left unclaimed lest it go to the State.

The new owners (it was rumored that the man was a nephew and not a son of the lady who had died) took one look at our street, went into the house and came out shaking their heads, and left, never to come back. A few days later the "for sale" sign was taken down. The house had been sold.

The door was left unlocked so we went in one night. My wife had the fantasy of convincing her daughter to buy the thing and use it as a summer home. But, upon inspection of the premises, even that fantasy was untenable: there was no indoor toilet or bath. The kitchen was an old stove used more for heating than for cooking. No closets, or central heating. The poor lady had lived in dire conditions.

Soon the new owners showed up. They are having the house refurbished. Contractors came and go. Huge trucks with materials and workmen have showed up. Soon the house will be looking spic and span.

That's what happens to houses here. Like many things a person owns at the time of his or her death, a house is recycled. Thus, one sees a lot of refurbishing going on but very little new construction. In fact, since I arrived, six of the houses on our street have changed owners, mostly to the children of the former owner. That's a lot of little old ladies gone.

I said to my wife, "You know, this inheritance business would drive people in the Americas crazy. One of the measures of the economy in the US is housing starts. We are forever building new stuff over there."

"What happens to old houses?" she asked perplexed.

"We tear them down and build new ones, of course," I said facetiously.

"That is so sad," she said. "What happened to your mother's house, the house you grew up in?"

"It was sold then torn down. They didn't care for the house, they just wanted the land," I said, suddenly realizing that that was a sad thought.

"Here in France we are reluctant to let things go," said my wife. "Perhaps is has to do with the way we look at history or the fact that we cherish old things. Look around the house; there are so many things that once belonged to my mother or my grandmother. And, things like that chest that is 400 years old."

"I know," I agreed. "Some of our friends' houses look like antique shops. I am afraid that we in the Americas live in the "out with the old, in with the new" consumer economies. We have grown rich by rebuilding our countries every twenty years or so. We're not surrounded by history, as people are here. We are surrounded by perishables."

A few days after our conversation, another house a few meters away was also emptied in preparation for renovation. It too had been lived in by an old lady who had been moved to a nursing home. Her three sons had decided to completely redesign the interior as a preparation for making a summer home for their families.

"At least they are going to keep the outside intact. They won't change it," said my well informed wife.

"It will be just the shell, a sort of imitation of what it once was."

"Yes, but it will keep its look, its old style. It won't change the charm of our street." She sighed, "After all, that's what's important."