From a village of less than a hundred, to one of 500, then back to my birthplace of 2000, going to Saint-Etienne (approx. 200,000) was a big jump! Believe it or not, my most fascinating early experience of the big city was going to the mall. Time and again, returning to the mall was a special, exciting experience for me. I was pretty much mesmerized by everything I saw--the crowd, the stores, particularly a music store that became a hangout of mine during the school year, and where I got my education of what was the hip music of the 80s ("New Wave)", and the 70s.

Lost in LA

I have had for many years a fascination for to big cities. Being born in a town of 2000 in "South Central" ;) France, and raised during my early years in a nearby village of less than a hundred, for the better part of my childhood, I had no real concept of what a city is. By age 8 I moved to a nearby village of 500. It was 1975. By age 11, after completing primary school in my larger village of Saint Georges, I went back to the "big town" where I was born to go through middle school. As I grew older and my vision of the world started to expand, I started to develop a fascination for people and languages, travel and big cities teeming with people. By the time I was 15, a school counselor "diagnosed" that I had a "literary mind" with special abilities for languages. He recommended I pursue the study of languages and came up with the idea that I should go for something"exotic", like Rusian! I was all for it and my parents liked the idea. So here I was on my way to the big city--Saint-Etienne here I come! This was 1982...