Nicole Cholvy

I met Nicole in 1973, when I began my job as manager of the software group at Hewlett Packard's newest division in Grenoble.  After my term of service was over in 1974, we traveled together in my Peugeot van to Norway, Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, and Luxembourg, then by ferry from Marseille to Tunisia.  

In 1976 I flew to Nairobi with Nicole and two HP Cupertino friends, Scott Wallace and Ken Klingman and their wives.  Scott soon found a job working with HP computers for the United Nations, and settled into an apertment in Nairobi.  Ken and Vicki, after a scary incident with three lions, flew back to the U.S.  And so Nicole and I, abandoned by our travel companions, took off on an extended trip through Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East: 23 countries, from Kenya to Indonesia, 1976 - 1979.  Some highlights of this trip:  having our camp attacked by a lion in Zambia, spotting gorillas in Rwanda, canoeing in Okavango swamp, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, trekking in Nepal, joining an ashram in India.  More details of this trip can be found under the Sam Edwards mennu pulldown, "1976 - 1979: Africa, Middle East, Far East".

Back in France in 1979, I worked for Yann Cordelle for awhile as a programmer in his software company, Cogelog, renting an apartment for Nicole and me from him in Gif-Sur-Yvette, a little south of Paris, until my visa ran out.  Then back to the U.S., where I applied for a "Visa pour mariage" (and met my future wife Caren while waiting for the visa), and back to France, Yann, and Nicole.  

Nicole and I agreed marriage was just a formality - an excuse for me to remain in France.  But as the visa's expiration date approached, we became less and less excited about getting married, and decided to all it quits.  I returned to the States, rented a room from Caren, and joined a company started by Caren's former boss at H.P.  Nicole married a French man and moved to Paris.  A few years later, during a vacation in Paris, I had lunch with Nicole.  This was the last time I saw her.