The French Connection

By Will Seagers

Salut, les gens - Will ici! So, here's an appropriate greeting to go along with my blog title! BTW, it's how I open each blog - but, with a French twist! I have been in love with the French language and culture from a very early age... seven to be exact!

My first two years were spent in a parochial school in the northern New Jersey town of Bloomfield. I was so scared of the nuns that I literally got sick every morning before leaving for school. It was standard operating procedure for the nuns to resort to corporal punishment at the slightest infraction of their strict rules. Add to this my first grade teacher, Sister Marie, who could have been a line backer or a professional wrestler, if you catch my drift. My strongest recollection of her brutality was watching one of my classmates come hurtling out of the far end of the cloak room - some twenty feet - after raising the ire of Sr. Marie! The kids were no angels. But, IMHO, the punishment far exceeded the crimes! Oh, ironically, Sr. Marie was part of the order of "Sisters of Charity." 'Nuf said.

At the end of first grade, my parents decided to buy a lovely home in the Brookdale section of Bloomfield on the other side of town. As fate would have it, the purchase of the house left my family a bit strapped for cash. So, that year in second grade I was enrolled in a public school. Whew! Adding to my delight was my teacher, Miss Garneau, who took the place of my Sumo wrestler. She was lovely and had a kind disposition. As I remember, she had only recently moved to the United States from France. Although she never spoke French in the classroom, her accent left an indelible mark on me. This stayed with me till I got to high school and started to really learn and love the language. With Miss Garneau, I felt "rescued" from the wrestling mat! Merci!

In high school, I never considered myself to be any kind of whiz kid. That was, until I landed up in French I class with an incredibly motivating teacher. Under his tutelage, I quickly blossomed into one of his best students. He had a very direct manner and always maintained complete control over the class. With his precise methods, I learned grammatical structure, vocabulary and lots of idiomatic phrases. I remember using these idiomatic phrases, which seemed to surprise French nationals - as most were not normally included in the language's curriculum. Another of his grammatical gifts was teaching us how to line up the many types of pronouns in a sentence for proper flow. Having a techy side, the mechanics and structures intrigued me. All in all, my teacher was as impressed with me as I was with him. I stayed on with him for the next three years, learning as much as I could about the language and culture.

Originally, I had planned for a career in engineering. My foray into engineering school was short lived. Although, as I have mentioned, I have a techy side, higher mathematics did me in! I left engineering school after only a year. Then, after bouncing around in the party-like atmosphere of a community college, I realized that I did not have the discipline to be a student. And, I couldn't rationalize the continued spending on schools. Oh... and did I mention that I had just come out?! Along with this whole new world of possibilities, I was morphing from an ugly duckling teenager into a desirable young lad. I was having too much fun to buckle down and be any kind of student!

Enter Eastern Airlines... Here I got to mix fun and work! Back in the early 70s after I decided to take a break from school, I remembered hearing advertisements for openings for stewards and stewardesses on New York metro radio stations. I thought... Voilà! I might like to work for Pan Am and use some of that acquired French! So, I got all dressed up and headed into NYC for an interview. Strangely, I never never got to the Pan Am interview. Eastern Airlines' NY headquarters was right en route to the Pan Am building. At the Eastern building, I was cordially greeted and interviewed by a former flight attendant who hailed from Montreal. Detecting her accent, I proceeded to hold the rest of the interview in French. She was amused and delighted. I was hired on the spot! (This was quite a feather in my cap, as most candidates had one or more follow-up interviews.) So, off I went to Miami Springs, Florida to Eastern's training facility.

Training was fun and not too difficult. I was in a large class with a lot of nice looking and pleasant people. At the end on my training, I was assigned to JFK as my base. This was my first of three times that I called NYC my home. Because of my French qualification, I flew between New York's JFK or La Guardia to Montreal. These shuttle flights were called "L'Aero Navette" (Air Shuttle). I was a little nervous using my high school French on board. But, aside from a few chuckles over my accent, everything went quite well. However, after a year of living on Manhattan's upper East Side on a flight attendant's salary, I opted to be reassigned to San Juan, PR for my base. After having several flights there, I wanted to trade the snow shovel for a beach.

I arrived in SJU on July 4th, 1972 with a mop of very stylish long 70s hair. With the 90 degree heat and 90%+ humidity, that didn't last long. I was one of the first people to get a "Clone Cut." Short hair was becoming chic in the early 70s and the upkeep was perfect for my appearance requirements. Although I loved living in San Juan, I had rather 'turbulent" times at my new base. Power outages were a frequent occurrence. And, although I was warned by my co-workers to get a mechanical alarm clock, I did not. I missed two flights in one month. Unfortunately, that was grounds for termination. I was let go. This was a humbling experience, as I returned back to stay with my family in NJ till I got back on my feet.

Although I have never had a job requiring me to speak French since then, it has always come in handy in my other public-related jobs and my travels to France. Yes! In 1988, my dreams of traveling to Paris finally came true! That was the first trip, but certainly not my last!

One thing I noticed is how French-speaking people appreciated a few words in their native tongue. Beware. You might get corrected mid-sentence! LOL! So, even though my fluency was never 100%, my efforts were usually greeted with enthusiasm. And, to this day, I still try to remember all that I learned so many decades ago. You never know when it might be useful! Au revoir!

Bio of Will Seagers:

Will Seagers (also credited as Matt Harper), within his multifaceted careers and participation in numerous gay communities across the country in the '70s and '80s and beyond, worked as a print model, film performer, and DJ, just to name a few. He made iconic appearances in releases from Falcon, Hand in Hand, Joe Gage, Target (Bullet), J. Brian, Steve Scott, and more, including in lead roles in major classics like Gage's L.A. Tool & Die (1979) and Scott's Wanted (1980). He brought strong screen presence and exceptional acting to his roles and was scene partners with many fellow legends of classic porn.

Will Seagers, recent photo