28
Jun
I have been getting a steady stream of reactions from the French people when they learn that I am American.
During Passover in April, I got invited to a seder. The three young people criticized Americans for refusing to import a particular famous French cheese (I don’t remember which one). They were hurt. I could see the refusal bruised their national pride. But personally, I wouldn’t touch a cheese that is moldy and green with possibly worms wiggling out of it.
In Chartres, France, a couple stopped and wondered why I was photographing their neighbor’s house.
“We don’t have windows like this in Chicago,” I explained; their medievial city fascinates me.
“Yes, but you have Strauss-Kahn,” the man replied.
The man was not mean or anything; he simply spoke the first image that came up to his mind when I mentioned the United States.
So when I decided to follow my friend Cyprian and his band, The Cyprian Josson Gospel Singers, to the heart of rural France for their concert, I was a bit apprehensive.
Even before the concert started, a man stopped me in front of the church.
“Are you the lady from Chicago?” he asked in English.
“Yes,” I replied hesitantly.
“I love America,” said the man passionately.
Meet Bernard aka “Bernie.” The 75-year-old American aficionado used to work as a barber in an American base in France in the 60s. He says, “Americans are cool.”
Bernie loves the American mentality. On the base, higher officers said hello to him on the streets, while French officers would not have acknowledged that he existed.
When the American troops left France in 1966, Bernie was devastated. He would have followed them, but he had a wife and two small children. To this day Bernie says, this was the best period of his life.
“America is his life,” chipped in his wife, Andrée, who joined us.
Thirty years after his American-base experience, Bernie and his wife flew to the United States and visited Washington, D.C. and New York City. They are eager to go back.
“I don’t speak English,” Bernie said. “I speak American.”
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