In the previous post, I wrote about going to a Franco-American gathering last Saturday, and I felt as though a brief history was necessary. Readers from away could be forgiven for wondering, what the heck are Franco-Americans, and why are they gathering? I think I have answered the first question. Now on to the second, why did we gather?

We humans seem to have an innate need to examine and to explore life in a variety of ways, and art is one of them, cutting across culture and time. The astonishingly beautiful prehistoric cave paintings indicate that the urge to look and create goes way, way back. Different aspects of life can fuel that urge, and ethnicity, especially if there has been discrimination, is one such motivator. A big one, in fact, as members of that group struggle to come to terms with who they are and how the repression influenced them, their families, and their communities.

For many years, Franco-Americans kept their heads down, so to speak. They did not want to cause a fuss or draw attention to themselves. They wanted to work hard, raise their families, and keep clean houses. This they did, with a zeal that is often amazing, and while Francos have too often been called stupid, even their harshest critics could not accuse them of being lazy or dirty.

But times change. As Michael Parent has put it, our parents could only go so far, and they brought us to a certain point. Now we are going further, and today there are Franco-American writers, scholars, performers, and historians. Some of us recently met at the Darling Marine Center in Walpole, Maine, just outside of Damariscotta, which surely qualifies as one of the loveliest places in a state that has many lovely places. The tidal Damariscotta River twists through the area, and its gleaming presence brings a rich variety of life as well as some incredible views. The Darling Marine Center, a branch of the University of Maine, overlooks the river, and lucky are the students who come to study at this center.

Susan Pinette, Director of Franco-American Studies at the University of Maine at Orono, and Jacob Albert, who works at the Franco-American Centre at UMO, were the prime organizers of this event, which started on Friday and ended on Sunday. I went on Saturday, and I can’t remember the last time I have been so inspired and energized by such a smart, creative group of people. It made me proud to be Franco-American, that’s for sure.

I did not take notes—although I started out doing so. I just wanted to listen and learn. Each presenter had 20 minutes to read or perform or to give a talk, and there was usually time for questions afterward. Among so many talented people, it seems unfair to single any of them out, but this is a blog, and although in theory I can make this post as long as I want, in reality there is a limit to how long it should be. So I must make choices. Again, I want to note that all the presentations were worth seeing, and I especially was fascinated by James Myall’s slide show about an orphanage run by nuns in Lewiston. (James, with his charming British accent, is the coordinator of the Franco-American Collection at the University of Southern Maine.)

But my three favorites were Susan Poulin and Michael Parent, extremely gifted and talented Maine storytellers and performers, as well as the Massachusetts poet David Surette, whose precise yet soulful poems beautifully capture his working-class Franco-American experience. In one of his poems, David describes going with his father to a site in Nova Scotia where his daughter is doing archaeological work. David’s ancestors came from Nova Scotia, and when he and his father visited a graveyard and “counted the Surettes in the graveyard at St. Joseph’s, we realized we had come not just for my daughter but a family’s legacy, whispers from our past that will forever be a part of our future.”

Susan Poulin is a performer whose work encompasses a broad range, from women and weight to marriage to the grief of losing her mother to cancer. But her most enduring creation, perhaps, is Ida LeClair, a Franco-American woman of “a certain age,” who has a tremendous zest for life, and, despite the humor, wisdom as well. Susan has created several shows that feature Ida, and if any of them come to a venue near you, then get thee to the show. (In fact, if you see anything featuring Susan Poulin, then get thee to the show.) At the gathering, Susan, as Ida, explored how couples must take time for themselves, even it’s only to go to the local lookout and spend a couple of hours together.

Michael Parent uses his Franco-American heritage to tell stories that, like Susan’s, have humor and wisdom. At the gathering, he performed a piece about a young boy’s fascination with a flamboyant garbage collector. The boy is so taken with this man that he decides he wants to be a garbage collector when he grows up. When the boy expresses this goal to the garbage collector, the man gently but firmly disabuses the boy of that notion. In his performance, Michael switched effortlessly between the boy’s character and the garbage collector’s character. Again, as with Susan, if one of Michael’s shows comes to a venue near you, then do not hesitate to see it.

As if this all weren’t enough, the food served at the conference was very good, too, and the salad at lunch featured fresh fiddle heads. Now, how many conferences can you go to where the performances and presentations are first rate and the salads include fresh fiddle heads? Not many that I know of, and I felt very fortunate to be included.