Merci Colonel Flynn

This is it folks, the genuine confluence of time and place. Merci Colonel Flynn, a curious article of post-WWII ephemera dating from 1948 when the American military persona assumed a level of reverence that, if not embosomed in real life French citizens, certainly seems exalted in the winsome, sapphire eyes of the dutiful nurse gracing this dust jacket. But a mild examination past the veneer of our heroine’s pliant gratitude points toward possible crisis partly suggested by the jutting chin, a porcelain-cum-bruised look to her cheek and maybe not a winsome, but wincing look behind her mascara smudges. Gratitude never looked so sneering. We can’t see Flynn’s hands; it's doubtful Berlin was the only post-war locus of homespun, mercantilism between G.I.’s and young local women manacled to desperation whose bombed out cities left them with literally nothing but the shirts – or starched white uniforms in some special cases – on (or off) their backs to ply a living. But to remain optimistic we can assume our gal, maybe among many, does thank Col. Flynn. Is he to blame if he looks used to it? Maybe things were different in what the facing page informs as le titre americain est: Air Surgeon.

Furthering time and place details, I found this volume in a Gautier (Casablanca) used bookstore. The alternating color lettering of the spine caught my eye since my own correspondence to a stateside gal had been decorated with this stylized PAR AVION  motif. I can only wonder how long this book sat on that shelf and when and how it made it's way to Morocco from France, life-story details that may even have surpassed the excitement between the covers!