Sometimes an Angels editor is the last to know…
Every day, still, I discover things about our new work neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. We’re a short walk from the imposing Freedom Tower, and only blocks away from South Street Seaport.
“And have you walked the Canyon of Heroes on Broadway?” my coworker Celeste wanted to know this morning. Of course I’d noticed the commemorative granite strips on the sidewalk running along the route of New York’s famous ticker-tape parades–204 of them since the tradition was born in October 1806, in an impromptu celebration of the Statue of Liberty’s unveiling.
The 204th strip, dated February 2012, commemorates the New York Giants’ championship in Super Bowl XLVI. (Too bad there’s no chance New York will see its next ticker-tape parade after this Sunday’s Super Bowl.)
“Did you see the Angel of Dien Bien Phu?” Celeste pressed. The name rang a bell. I was sure I’d walked over it, but I’d never investigated. A YouTube video introduced me to Geneviève de Galard, a French nurse who cared for soldiers during the French war in Indochina. On a casualty-evacuation mission to Dien Bien Phu, her plane was stranded, the runway destroyed by Viet Minh.
Genevieve’s courage, while she treated and comforted the mounting casualties under extremely unsanitary conditions, was admired around the world. After her ticker-tape parade in New York, she flew to Washington, D.C., where President Eisenhower awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
I thanked Celeste for setting me off on a history lesson and grabbed my ladies’ room key.
“You saw that angel too, right?” She said, pointing to the key.
Wow, right there in my hand… “You and your angels, Celeste,” I said. I guess it takes one to know one.
