Gilles, the roses field
July 2nd 2019, by Gabriel
Today, a somewhat special article, to tell you about our friend and colleague, Gilles Rosenfelder. I wanted to talk about him today, because he was a friend first and foremost, with whom we shared a lot of things, like our love for hop to begin with. In this, he was a good Alsatian and he liked to remind people of this in every Free Tour, by showing he had some (small) margin left to pass the Büschmesser test… But he also liked to share his views: he had some about anything and everything and also on important things such as the future of our society. He was even talking about it a bit too much, I don’t count the number of people who blocked his Facebook postings because there was too many of them. There was too many of them, but he was right, everything is going to the dogs! At the same time, a metalhead without hair making his naked head turn while playing air guitar is not so credible! 😉
Gilles and Happy Strasbourg
Gilles was also the first one who helped me when I started giving Free Tours, the first one to join the team in a way, but he did not want to do solely that. He wanted a job on the side, even though it meant he could only make visits during the weekends, when he could… He wanted it to remain a hobby, someting that cheered him up, but that he would do with moderation.
And as a matter of fact, the idea of the Free Tours comes a little bit from Gilles. To tell you the truth, before all this Happy adventure started, I knew nothing of Strasbourg and its history, like nothing at all! It’s Gilles who told me so many things and started in me that love for history and the Alsatian culture. In all logic, he is also the one who joined first the Happy adventure… In short, wihtout Gilose, no Happy Strasbourg.
Gilose? Yes, it’s the nickname he gave to himself (derived from the French expression « C’est la lose » that mixes French and English : « la lose » comes straight from the verb « to lose » and that means something along the line of « It really sucks »). So he gave himself that nickname because he got in trouble all the time, things highly improbable happened to him, that were not really his fault, that were never supposed to happen, but it happened to him and the result was always comical. It may not have been too much fun at the moment, but we would have a good laugh afterwards.
An example? One day, it’s snowing like hell outside and it’s Gilles’ turn to do the Free Tour. I sympathize with him and send a text message: « Stay strong dude… », to which he answers: « ??? ». Gilose had forgotten it was his turn and was on his way to go skiing, so of course the snow looked like a good omen!
Gilose is the only one ever to have forgotten a Free Tour, one of us ran and made it almost in time to the meeting point. Thanks Gilose, this was a good opportunity for you to buy us drinks 😉
So, all this to say we miss you Gilles, you left too quickly, without warning, and much too early. We still had plenty of beers we said we’d drink together, that’s really not nice of you!
Today, the 2nd of July, it has been a month already,
and today we raise our glasses to your memory.
Thank you for all you shared
with us in that (too short) life.
WE LOVE YOU GILOSE!
Gabriel and the whole team of Happy Strasbourg.
