My fifty-second(52) writing to my grandchildre = moj pedeset (52) opis mojim unucima

My dear grandchildren, this question was asked to me, your grandfather “Babu” Mile Boban. I will try to answer this question precisely, but this precision will come from my youthful memories, and my youthful memories include my boyhood developments. We all went through that age, both young men and women, and as our life developed from childhood to youth, so did our thoughts develop into our imaginations. It is a natural process that I, your grandfather “Babu” Milan Boban, did not invent, nor was I an exception to those youthful “fantasies”.

Through my previous writings, I let you know where I was born, where I lived, where I grew up, and that is a Croatian village called Bobanova Draga, where people lived on their personal products for a living. At that time, while I was developing from childhood to the life of a teenager, I did not have today’s techniques that would entertain me, but I invented various pastimes from my imagination and through those imaginations I saw a picture or pictures of my future life. So I invented a song for myself that I sang often and too often with my colleagues in my village Bobanova Draga. That song is: “My little one, if you were in Paris, you would seem close to me”. While I was singing that song in my village, I had no idea that my youthful journey would lead me to Paris.

My dear grandchildren, let this written above be a kind of introduction to the answer to the question posed to me; “How did you and mom meet?”

Now I’m in Paris and that’s where I started to develop, not according to the customs and habits of my Croatian village of Bobanova Draga, but from French customs, French thinking and French imaginations. In order for me to be able to get involved as quickly and adequately as possible in the customs of French life, I had to know French. That’s why I enrolled in the French language school “Alliance Francaise” at 101 Boulevard Raspail in Paris. At that time I worked in a company called “La Librairie Hachette”. I went to that school five days a week from 6 pm to 10 am. When I get to my apartment, I have to prepare my own dinner, do my homework, I almost always go to sleep after midnight, and I have to get up at 5 in the morning to take the first Metro at 5:30 to go to work. That’s how I spent my days, weeks and months. I did not have time to develop my youthful imagination, because I devoted myself to learning the French language.

At that time, I lived at 60 Rue de Paris, Charenton Ecole, in the eastern part of the city of Paris. Not far from where I lived was the Marne River which fed into the Seine River which flowed through Paris. On Saturdays in the summer, I would often go swimming in that Marne river. I would take my bag with me, my Croatian and French dictionary, and I would write my homework there. One Saturday, while I was swimming there, I saw three young girls. Somehow, out of some youthful curiosity, I stared at one of those three girls and started talking to them. The one I stared at told me that the other two girls were her sisters, and that’s how our conversation began, and through the conversation, we got to know each other. These three sisters are now leaving for home and I went with them, so we got to know each other better and talked more on the way. During the conversation, they noticed that I am a foreigner and that I have an accent. I told them I was Croatian and that I was going to school to learn French. Soon these three sisters headed right towards their apartment. There we said goodbye and I hurriedly said: I hope we will see each other again soon, when the older sister said: well, we hope so too.

Some time after that I went to the Metro Charenton Ecole and in front of me two girls were walking and laughing loudly and chatting. At that time, girls wore mini jupes. I stared at their feet and hurried to them to see their faces. As soon as I saw the face of the girl I met on the river Marne, I told her I knew her, to which she replied: well, I remember you very well too. When will we see each other again, I ask her, when she answers Monday morning here at Metrov at 7 o’clock, because I have to be at school at 8 o’clock. I said: AGREED.

Monday morning, March 2, 1964, I didn’t go to work because I wanted to see that girl again at 7 o’clock. When I came to Metro Charenton Ecole, that girl Annie was already there. Some of her schoolmates were there with her. We talked together for a while and then Annie and I separated. We agreed to meet on Wednesday morning at the same place and time. We agreed on Saturday at 10 a.m. at the same place. Then we went to a museum and then to the cinema. We were together almost every Saturday and that was how it went until our engagement on Sunday, May 16, 1965 I am putting two pictures of our engagement.