It rained this morning for the first time in about 60 days.  I remember when I was complaining about the constant rain.  (See Post #59).  This morning it felt refreshing, as we exercised the dogs.  They were shut inside most of the day yesterday, while we attended Polo Noir.  It was a fashion extravaganza, reminiscent of the Kentucky Derby.  Lots of hats, funky outfits, music, and horses.  I especially liked the guy in the tulip suit.  I’ll start working on my outfit for next year.

We’ll go see the movie “Dunkirk” today.  The battle of Dunkirk took place between May 26-June 4, 1940, a little over four years before D-Day.  We were able to tour Omaha Beach on our recent trip to France, but did not get to the city of Dunkirk that’s a little over 6 miles from the Belgium border.  About 200 miles separate these two historic World War II areas.  It’s about 150 miles from London to Dunkirk, directly across the English Channel.  The proximity to London, and the narrowness of the Channel at that point, explains why Calais and Dunkirk were key entry points for the British Army into France.

Dunkirk was the site of a U.S. Navy air station in World War I, and was heavily attacked by the largest gun in the world, the German Lange Max that hurled heavy shells from nearby Koekelare, Belgium.  In WW II, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), while aiding the French, were cut off from the rest of the French Army by the German advance.  338,226 men were miraculously evacuated from Dunkirk during a mysterious German lull in the action.  This is the focus of the movie.

When we travel to London in the distant future, I would like to visit this site, as our recent side-trip to Normandy proved to be so interesting.  We’ll journey to the White Cliffs of Dover, cross the English Channel into Calais, and visit Dunkirk and Belgium.  The principal ferry crossing point to the clifftop town of Dover is located in Calais, that has been a major port since the Middle Ages.   As a side note, I once owned an Oldsmobile Calais back in the 80’s when they renamed the Cutlass.  The car was named after Calais, France, but I didn’t know that at the time.   In 1985, the car was chosen to be the Indianapolis 500 pace car and was driven by James Garner.  I remember going to the race and seeing Danny Sullivan “Spin and Win,” as he recovered from near disaster to take the checkered flag ahead of Mario Andretti.  Pancho Carter had won the pole position, during this eventful year when I first moved to Indianapolis and started to get involved in racing.  I soon became a Calais owner, but still did not know its connection to the French city.

August Robin was commissioned by the city of Calais in 1884 to do a sculpture called the Burghers of Calais.  It’s one of his most famous and commemorates the Hundred Years’ War when the city was under siege by the British.  A burgher is a middle-class citizen of a burgh, and the sculpture depicts six of them, including one of the wealthiest town leaders, with nooses around their necks and carrying the keys to the city.  We did see the 100th Anniversary Rodin exhibit at the Grand Palais in Paris earlier this year.  We were disappointed that The Thinker was not part of this exhibit, but models of the Burghers Monument were included.  Rodin himself spent six years in Belgium where he began work on The Age of Bronze, a life-size male figure that was so anatomically accurate that he was accused of sculptural cheating.  After the beginning of the 20th century, he was a regular visitor to Great Britain, perhaps routinely passing his sculpture in Calais on the way to and from the ferry.  Oldsmobile was founded in 1887, as he was in the finishing stages of this sculpture, and 98 years later the Calais model was born.  Things might be very different if the “Miracle at Dunkirk” and “D-Day” hadn’t proved successful.