Age Doesn't Always Matter
by Calla Jones Corner
Unless you’re a cheese. Just ask my 11-year-old French-born, American grandson. He won’t eat his favorite cheese. Comté, unless it’s at least 18 months old. “C’est plus savoureux,” he once told me.
When my late husband, Richard, turned 70, his daughters gave him an apron that said, “Age Doesn’t Matter Unless You’re A Cheese.” We had recently retired to our summer house on Cape Cod and, after living in Switzerland and Belgium for 21 years, our children begged their father to learn how to make baguettes; they couldn’t stand American white bread, which was all our local A & P offered. Richard did try to make a proper French baguette but found it too difficult. He did, however, learn to make my Swedish grandmother’s coffee bread (fläta) and rye bread (limpa).
Since moving to Burgundy last year, following Richard’s death, I’ve become a granny taxi service, picking up my two grandchildren from school, and during vacations driving them to pony lessons and golf. Usually, I play country music or Elvis on Spotify because we all like it.
We are, after all, Americans!
This past Monday, two days after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, I used a captive audience of one – my grandson – to explain to him why I would not let him watch golf on my phone instead of listening to music (which I have occasionally let him do, even though I know his parents wouldn’t approve of giving him access to social media). Social media is as a much a problem here in France as it is elsewhere in the world.
Before he had a chance to beg me, I told him that social media might have played a part in influencing the 20-year-old who shot Trump’s upper ear off. He was dumbfounded; his parents hadn’t told him and his 8-year-old sister about the attempt on Trump’s life.
Was it my duty at this moment to educate my grandson? I’ve been very careful not to interfere in my daughter’s and son-in-law’s education of their children, even though they are committed socialists. When we eat at their favorite bistro, La Dilletante, in Beaune, we often sit at the table overlooked by a photograph of Che Guevara.
Once, when my grandson asked who the portrait was of, my daughter answered, “A Cuban who fought for the poor”. I didn’t want to correct my daughter and tell her that he was an Argentinian, who hoped to be a doctor but, instead joined the Marxist revolution in Cuba to overthrow a dictator and that Cuba, eight decades later, is run by a communist dictator and is still one of the poorest countries in the world.
I could have gone on for the next 10 minutes, before we’d arrive at the golf club, to explain that the reasons leftists – including his parents – told him they are relieved that extremist, Marine Le Pen didn’t get elected and that, had the far right succeeded, our family would not have to leave France.
Instead, I told him that most French, and Americans, have a lot of common sense and are in the political middle; they just want to be able to buy a house, gas for their cars and tractors, feed and educate their children.
I also asked him what he knew about French politics. His class had recently taken a three-day trip to Paris, where they visited many prominent sites and attractions, including having a guided tour of the National Assembly. French President Emmanuel Macron hadn’t yet dissolved the National Assembly. My grandson son told me their guide was young and left of center and that he would vote for him if he ran for office because, “He was nice.”
That gave me the opening to tell him that President Joe Biden was old (one year older than I) and didn’t know what he was doing. That even though Trump was 78, he was one smart, tough guy and although those on the left of center like to make fun of his tan skin, because they can’t logically criticize his four years of accomplishments, he will probably be our next president again. Unless, another misguided kid or misinformed adult, tries again to kill Trump. I added, it's not guns, but people who pull triggers that kill.
I’ll leave it to my children to, hopefully, teach their children that, once upon a time, one could disagree with others' opinions and that history espoused by discredited entities such as “Black Lives Matter” or others, should be taught as discredited history.
To leave my grandson with a healthy view of civilization, I mentioned that the apron his grandfather wore until the day he died and that some people – like some cheeses, such as those made from goats’ milk – unlike Comté, don’t get better with age.
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Yes indeed, Che Guevara is the poster child for the left. The twisted left somehow makes this socialist thug into a hero! The left uses Marxist ideology which originally divided people on economics or class, to now dividing us based on race or gender identity.
The Author mentioned Belgium and France. Both countries are disasters, whereby racial tensions are at an all time high. Many citizens are disgusted by the loss in national identity. Why? Because of the onslaught of migration, especially from Northern Africa. Yes, in fact in both Belgium and France there are “no go zones “ for the police and white citizens.
Shocking but true, the incidents of sexual assault on women of these areas are causing a backlash in these once beautiful countries.
Macron has been a disaster for France, their economy, unemployment, especially of young immigrant men. This, while the French struggle to come to grips with their past colonial crimes in Algeria, Congo etc.
Many countries in the EU are now turning to conservatives as a means of saving their national identity, customs, language, culture and religion.
Does all this sound familiar?
Thanks, Calla. A reminder that the French don't let politics get in the way of enjoying fine dining. At least from Calla's description they still don't. When I was growing up here in Santa Barbara, my father liked to have people over for meals and debates over everything from movies, to books, to sports, art, politics. We had all sorts of people - not just Democrats and Republicans, but also, yes, a Gueverist (a cute poet boy I met at Mom's Italian Restaurant). Everyone was tolerated. My father even tolerated the revolutionary poet although he rolled his eyes when the poet quoted one of his own immortal lines. The food was not French quality, but everyone ate heartily. No one stormed away from the table. We even had some political up and comers like this young guy who'd recently translated Krushchev's memoirs and was said to be part of an important group of college politicos including this person who was going places, Bill Clinton. I took it all for granted as a teen. And through my life I saw dinner table debates as just part of living in a Democracy. When I moved to NYC I hung out with opinionated people - the only people I met who were intolerant of differing opinions were film critics. God forbid you disagreed about the greatness of Kurosawa or Tarantino. But otherwise it was all fair dinner table game.
Trump Derangement Syndrome ended all that. I stopped hosting parties because it ruined my appetite (not good for the cook) to have people insist that Trump is Hitler and Putin's Puppet, and anyone who disagreed - like I did with a guest about Russian Collusion - was also a Nazi. I even had a guest loudly call me Eva Braun. So here's my plea: could everyone stop worrying about the end of Democracy and start worrying instead about the end of the civilized dinner party?