In the past I have sometimes got into political discussions here, but mostly about their country, not mine. Sunday night's questioning unsettled me, of course it did, how could it not?
Went to a dinner party here in Nice Sunday night, 14 people, me the only foreigner. They were on me at once. What about Trump, what about the current American elections? It surprised me that Frenchmen living on the Cote d'Azur knew so much about him and them. They seemed to know more than most Americans. They were looking to me for explanations. Mine didn't satisfy them, however. Finally they decided on what to them was the only possible answer: Americans were crazy. Look at all the guns, look at capital punishment, look at the medical situation, look at the treatment of blacks. Etc. And now Trump and the other republican candidates. How could any sane country accept stuff like that?
In the past I have sometimes got into political discussions here, but mostly about their country, not mine. Sunday night's questioning unsettled me, of course it did, how could it not?
2 Comments
Today is an anniversary--I always think of it as an improbable one. Sixty two years ago today I got off the boat here for the first time. One crossed the ocean by boat in those days. I was 23, innocent, ignorant, did not speak French and carried in my pocket my life savings, $500. I planned to start writing a great novel the next day. The French Riviera would make it great. It would earn me fame and millions. Maybe I'd never go back. But in Nice that first afternoon I met a girl. Her name was Josette Peggy Ernest. She was 22. The great novel would have to wait. Three months later with my money gone we got married and took another ship back to America. And here we are, 62 years, three children and two lifetimes later. To meet and marry the girl next door is improbable also, but not as improbable as this seems, looking back. We talked about it this morning, sitting up in bed sipping our breakfast coffee, laughing sometimes at our youthful selves. At one point she commented: "Of course you were a bit swifter in those days."
|
Archives
December 2019
Categories |