Never lie to cops: speeding on the freeway

It is my firm belief that you should never lie to cops (or to immigration officers), whatever the situation. If you do it, they will usually see through your lies and it will not be to your advantage.

Furthermore, if you tell the truth, the police officer will usually take this into consideration and you may end up with only a warning. Here is a first example.

In September 1974, I was driving from Paris to Toulon on the freeway. I had a fast car at the time, a Renault 12 Gordini, that could reach a speed of 180 km/h (around 110 miles per hour).

At some point, I was passed by a Porsche at 170 km/h. I was bored by a long drive, so I decided to have some fun and to follow this car for some time.

I new that the "gendarmes" were patrolling the freeway in fast anonymous cars, so I watched all the cars we were passing to try to detect a gendarmes'car.

After following the Porsche for some 10 km, I noticed in my rear view mirror a car that was gaining on us and that was flashing its head lights, presumably to pass other cars faster. So, I slowed down to the speed limit and two minutes later I was passed by a black Peugeot 504 break at 200 km/h. This was a gendarmes'car, with an Maserati engine. They did not make me stop then, they were pursuing the Porsche.

Fifteen kilometers later, they had stopped the Porsche and they signaled me to stop. I deliberately stopped more that 100 meters from the Porsche. A gendarme came to me and asked me what was my speed. I admitted to the truth that I was going at around 170 km/h.

He asked me for my papers. So, I first showed him my military ID card. He told me that this was not what he asked for, and I showed him my license, registration and insurance.

Then, he told me to not do it again, otherwise "next time, no gift" ("la prochaine fois, pas de cadeau") and he let me go without a ticket.

I believe there are two reasons why I was not penalized: first I admitted to the truth and second I was a military officer. The gendarmes are also part of the military, so showing my military ID card was a gamble, because the gendarme might have been upset that I was trying to take advantage of my occupation, but in this case it paid off.

Not smoking

I have stopped smoking on around April 1st 1978. I am not sure exactly when I smoked my last cigarette, but deciding it was on April Fool day made it easier for me to remember.

When we were teenagers, our parents allowed us to smoke only when we had reached the age of 15. Neither of them had ever smoked. I think that the reasons they did not forbid us completely to smoke were that they were not really aware of the health risks at the time and also that they probably guessed it would have been counter-productive.

So, I started to smoke at the age of 16. Up to 19 years old, my consumption of cigarettes was mostly limited by the lack of money.

When I enter the Naval Academy at the age of 19, I enrolled in the program to buy sixteen packs of cigarettes every month for the equivalent of one US dollar! This program has been cancelled since, of course. I also got more money so I was able to buy more cigarettes.

Five years later, I was smoking an average of 25 cigarettes a day. I realized that smoking was bad for my health, but I was addicted and unable to stop. It took me five more years and several failed attempts until I finally did it in 1978. For more than a year, I thought every day about smoking. After two years I only thought about it when I was in the presence of other people that were smoking.

I am now completely free from this addiction and I have never regretted stopping.

Testing my self-control at the casino

I don't like the idea of addiction. I have been subject to some minor addictions in my life (tobacco, TV) and I had a hard time getting rid of them. For a long time, I did not want to enter a casino to gamble, because I was not sure I would not become addicted to gambling.

In 2002, I was feeling good about my self-control, and I decided to test it at the local casino in Richmond, BC, where I was living. So, I wrote a plan:

• Whenever I win $100, I will stop gambling for a week.
• If I lose $1000, I will stop gambling forever.

I was gambling at the roulette on a dozen, starting each series of bets with $10, the minimum, and adding 50% of the total bets in the series each time I lost. Whenever I won, I would start another series.

As the maximum bet was $500 on a dozen, losing 13 times in a row will make me reach the $1000 limit, and then I would stop gambling.

I was able to stick to my plan. For 13 weeks, I won around $100 dollars a week. Then, on the 14th week, I lost $1200. So, I stop going to the casino, and since then I have never gambled in a casino, even when we spent 3 days in Las Vegas with my brother Philippe in 2005.

This exercise did not cost me any money (I was even $200 ahead at the end), provided me some free entertainment (watching people gambling is fascinating) and I was happy to realize that indeed I had enough self-control to stick to my plan and that it was very unlikely that I would become a compulsive gambler. At least, not in casinos.

The price of an espresso

The third year of instruction for French Navy Officer, after two years at the Naval Academy in Brittany, was practical experience on two ships, the "Jeanne d'Arc" and the "Victor Schœlcher". We were more than a hundred "officer students" on the Jeanne d'Arc and we had our own wardroom and our own bar.

There were two sailors that were spending their year of military service as bartenders. They would serve us our coffee and alcoholic drinks (there is no alcoholic restrictions for French Navy officers on ships). The cost of an espresso was 50 centimes, equivalent to 10 US cents at the time.

At some point, the two sailors indicated to the bar management that collecting the 50 centimes for each espresso after lunch was taking them too much time. As the bar was making an healthy profit on alcohol, and the income from the espressos was not very much, it was decided by the bar management to no longer collect the 50 centimes.

However, the consequence of this decision was very surprising: the consumption of espressos after lunch doubled! And the two sailors had to work even more making espressos than before when they were collecting the 50 centimes. So, the price of the espresso was quickly back to what it was before, and the consumption of espressos too.

I have always wondered why some of us, who were making more that the equivalent of US $1000 a month, would not spend 10 cents for a coffee, when we could not spend our money at sea.

Why did they asked for you by name?

I have never been good at writing letters. The truth is I have always hated it, as far as I can remember. Even, when I was a kid, my mother had a hard time to make me write thank you letters after I spent several days of my vacations at one of my cousins'house, what is called in French a "lettre de château".

During the 10 months I spent in the south Pacific in French Polynesia, I did not write more than 2 letters to my parents.

My mother had a brother who was a Captain in the French Navy. At the time he was head of Communications at the French Navy Headquarters in Paris. The Navy had just establish a new world wide radio channel to be used for some kind of emergencies, I don't remember the details.

One day, we received a message from the Navy Hearquarters indicating that, to try out this new radio channel from the south Pacific, I was personally to call Paris and to ask to speak to Captain Yves D..., my uncle.

Needless to say the Commanding Officer of the Trieux was very surprised: "Why did they asked for you by name?"

So, I explained that it was probably to ask how I was doing and to tell me to write letters to my parents, that were becoming anxious to learn from me.

So, I called and spoke to my uncle, and it turned out that my guess was correct.

Sir, there is a ship in sight

The year was 1971. I was 22. I was a Sub-Lieutenant (Enseigne de Vaisseau de 1ere Classe) on my first post on a landing ship, the "BDC Trieux", roughly equivalent to the American LSTs of World War II.

The Trieux was stationed in Papeete, Tahiti, and we were transporting various goods between Papeete, Mururoa and Hao.

The Commanding Officer had recently changed after I arrived to take my post in July 1971.

On every French Navy ship, there is a document called "Ordres Permanents du Commandant" (Permanent Orders of the Commanding Officer). This document is modified from time to time by each successive CO, to adapt to the regulations, the circumstances, or to the preferences of the current CO. In this document on the Trieux, it was prescribed that whenever there was a ship in sight, the watch officer was to tell the CO. The reason is that the South Pacific is an empty part of the oceans and it was very rare to cross another ship, Nay or merchant. Obviously, for the previous CO, it was a rare entertainment to see a ship in these empty waters.

I was the watch officer and at around 2AM, we detected a ship on the radar, then we saw its lights. So, as prescribed, I took the telephone and I called the CO. He came to the bridge, took his binoculars and saw that indeed there was a ship in sight.

Then he asked me why I had called him. I indicated that I was following the permanent orders.

The next day, in the morning, he changed the permanent orders so that he would not be waken up for every ship that we would cross. I am sure that he also read carefully the permanent orders document, that obviously he had not done previously.

Pour la pirogue, c'est Augustin!

The year was 1970. I was an ensign in the French Navy on the helicopter carrier "Jeanne d'Arc" that served as school for French Navy officers.

We were in Dakar, Senegal. We had rented a car and were going to visit a fishing village that was supposed to be very "pittoresque".

We turned the last bend in the road and suddenly, we were surrounded by a dozen young boys 8 to 12 years old. They were all speaking simultaneously (or rather shouting), and the first sentence we heard was: "Pour la pirogue, c'est Augustin." (for the pirogue, it's Augustin)

These young boys were working for their older brothers who were renting pirogues. I am sure that Augustin was one of the "piroguiers" we used.

After more than forty years, I still see the scene in my mind: a dozen black boys that looked like they were attacking our car with the battle cry "Pour la pirogue, c'est Augustin."