In the hills of West Virginia, there’s a school we love so well\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’ve been told, and life has proven it to be true, that it is a very unusual thing to remember 24 years after graduation, whether or not you took French in high school, let alone remember who taught the class, to still know her, to consider her a friend, and to wake up from a dream about her sad knowing that she is gone. Maybe it is a Mountain thing, maybe an Appalachian thing, maybe a West Virginia thing, maybe it is unique to Wayne County, or Wayne High School, or the class of ’99. However rare it may be, I’m grateful to be a part of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I was asked if I remember any funny stories about Mme Oyler I didn’t know where to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Charlotte Marie Rachelle Tessier Maille Oyler of New Liskeard, Ontario was a\u2026feisty one, apparently from a very early age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know the story of how she took a dare in primary school to lick a cow salt lick, acquired foot and mouth disease from it, which lead to her being jaundice (the French word for yellow is jaune) and how her treatment made it so that she couldn’t take the simple TB test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know the story of how, in Catholic Girls School, she used to get in trouble with “Sister RADAR” who always seemed to know when she tried to slip over to the Catholic Boys School next door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know that once, either from a dare, defiance, or just curiosity, she ran through the cloistered part of the convent to see the nuns without their habits on, and how she scrubbed the hall with a toothbrush in penance for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is from her that I learned to take confession en fran\u00e7ais; \u201cPardonnez-moi mon p\u00e8re, j’ai p\u00e9ch\u00e9.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember the story of how, waitressing in the family business, she met her bear-hunting future husband, Michel, and fell in love with his shortened diphthong and pronunciation of \u201cice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know that she loved being an American citizen\u2026all except that it meant that she could no longer go to Cuba.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is just where my personal funny stories with her begin.
I took six semesters of French Class in the four years of high school, French 1, 2, 3, Advanced French (which was mostly reading back issues of C\u00f4te Sud Magazine), and Marshall French 101 with her as the teacher. I have LOTS of fun and funny stories from those years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of my first impressions of her was what a good typist she was. Remember, this was when typing was still taught on typewriters and tests were hand-typed. She would set us to work on something and watch us over the typewriter and her glasses, perched on the edge of her nose, as she typed up the tests, her mouth moving silently as the words rolled across her mind and her fingers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She definitely had a way of making class fun, funny, and something to look forward to, whether she was throwing a Koosh ball at us, pulling out her jeopardy buzzers, making us play time bingo (well, maybe that wasn\u2019t so much fun) or writing plays using the words that we had learned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Solange (that\u2019s Crystal \u201cwith the crystal blue eyes\u201d to most people) and I always did our best to take our little plays to the limit and beyond. Inspired by our field trip to Charleston to see a play by Moli\u00e8re, our \u201cBuying Plane tickets\u201d play went so far beyond that it involved someone \u201cdans la section feumers\u201d catching the plane on fire, a crash, a passenger with a pain in every part of their body we knew the word for, and another passenger who \u201cest tomb\u00e9 et a cass\u00e9 sa pipe.\u201d She must have thought that we had araign\u00e9es au plafond (spiders on the ceiling).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once, she met me and Sarah at the Marshall Artist Series Film Festival showing of The Horseman on the Roof, Le hussard sur le toit, starring Juliette Binoche, who in one scene bares it all. Slowly and quietly her hand came up to cover my eyes. Later, at the Renaissance Bookstore, while we were discussing the film, we had a entertaining conversation about how \u201ctomber et casser sa pipe (to fall and break one\u2019s pipe)\u201d was an idiomatic expression for \u201cto die,\u201d how \u201csa pipe (one\u2019s pipe)\u201d was a euphemism for one\u2019s\u2026well, you know, and how \u201cla petite mort (the little death)\u201d meant an orgasm, and how the three were weirdly related, somehow\u2026maybe?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Charlotte was indeed an educator. From her I learned to read, to write, and to speak French. That\u2019s a gift that I have used so many many times in my life, way more often than I have used the formula to determine the area of a rug (Mr. Mills), been asked to recite The Raven from memory (Mrs. Hagar), or been called upon to name the genus and species of a wildflower (Mr. Smith), though they come up occasionally as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My trip to France came not too long after 9\/11, at a time when Americans were not well-loved in France (is there a time we are really?), a time of \u201cFreedom Fries\u201d and other Nationalist rhetoric. \u201cJe m’appelle Fran\u00e7ois Tessier. J’habite \u00e0 New Liskeard, en Ontario. Je suis canadien.\u201d Charlotte had taught me enough about her language, and her life, that, when accused of being an American, I was able to lie and get away with it. She thought that was hilarious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who would have ever thought the need for the French language would have been so great moving to Southern Florida? Did you know that Hollywood, Florida is the number 1 Quebecois tourist destination in the US? Every Canadian woman I saw with short cropped slightly burgundy colored hair made me think of her, and I saw a LOT of Canadian women with short cropped slightly burgundy hair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Did you know that the third most spoken language in Florida is Haitian French Creole? During the 8 years that I lived in Florida not a single week went past that I didn\u2019t use the skills I learned from Charlotte, how to speak french, but also how to navigate the murky waters of \u201chorse french.\u201d I would hear, \u201cOh! tu parles fran\u00e7ais!?\u201d And I would give the answer I learned from her, \u201cAbsolument! Tout le monde parle fran\u00e7ais! C’est la langue de l\u2019amour! (Of course! All the world speaks French! It\u2019s the language of love)\u201d and la glace a \u00e9t\u00e9 bris\u00e9e (the ice would be broken).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I went to see her when she was in the hospital after having her brain tumor removed. I knocked lightly on the door and said softly \u201cBonjour Charlotte. Ca va?\u201d She smiled, barely able to open her eyes and said, \u201cIs that Danny? I was just thinking about you.\u201d The woman had just had a softball removed from her skull! Her head was bandaged up like a turban, and she was thinking about me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said that she was trying to remember what signs there might have been that something was wrong. She had noticed that her hair wasn\u2019t parting quite like it used to and that she didn\u2019t care so much about makeup, but thought that could have just been because she was getting older. Though the lack of makeup should have been as obvious of a sign as could be, she thought that it was too subtle. She said the first behavior that really struck her as being off the charts \u201cnot normal\u201d was how she didn\u2019t have time to talk to me when I came to visit her at the high school earlier in the year. I had just shown up at the school unannounced during the middle of a class. I didn\u2019t think anything about her being too busy to chat with a former student, but it should have been as obvious as her lack of eye shadow and she knew it. She said that she normally would have put me to work teaching the class for her or at the least had the students translate our conversation in real time. Charlotte always had time for me. Charlotte always had time for anyone and everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One lesson I learned from her that transcends just the words and the language is that in French, the word \u201ctoujours\u201d means both \u201cstill\u201d and \u201calways.
Charlotte Marie Rachelle Tessier Maille Oyler, vous est ma professeure, et mon amie, pour toujours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Everyone is influenced by their teachers. It sort of is the definition of “teacher.” I have had the good fortune to have a lifetime of spectacular educators. That said, when security questions asked “What was the name of your favorite teacher in school?” one name always came to mind first. Hearing of her recent death … <\/p>\n