-
Unit 6
A
French Fourth
Charles Trueheart
1
Along about this time every year, as
Independence Day approaches, I pull an
old
American
flag
out
of
a
bottom
drawer
where
it
is
folded
away
－
folded
in
a
square, I
admit, not the regulation triangle. I’ve
had
it a long time and have always
flown it outside on July 4. Here in
Paris it hangs from a fourth-floor balcony visible
from the street. I’ve never seen anyone
look up, but in my mind’s eye an American
tourist may notice it and smile, and a
French passerby may be reminded of the date
and the occasion that prompt its
appearance. I hope so.
2
For my expatriated family,
too, the flag is meaningful, in part because we
don’t
do
anything
else
to
celebrate
the
Fourth.
People
don’t
have
barbecues
in
Paris
apartments, and most
other Americans I know who have settled here
suppress such
outward signs of their
heritage
－
or
they go back home for the summer to refuel.
3
Our
children think the flag-hanging is a cool thing,
and I like it because it gives
us a few
moments of family Q&A about our citizenship. My
wife and I have been
away from the
United States for nine years, and our children are
eleven and nine, so
American history is
mostly something they have learned
－
or haven’t
learned
－
from
their
parents.
July
4
is
one
of
the
times
when
the
American
in
me
feels
a
twinge
of
unease
about
the
great
lacunae
in
our
children’s
understanding
of
who
they are and is prompted
to try to fill the gaps. It’s also a time, one
among many,
when my thoughts turn more
generally to the costs and benefits of raising
children
in a foreign culture.
4
Louise and Henry speak French fluently;
they are taught in French at school,
and most of their friends are French.
They move from language to language, seldom
mixing
them
up,
without
effort
or
even
awareness.
This
is
a
wonderful
thing,
of
course. And our physical
separation from our native land is not much of an
issue.
My
wife
and
I
are
grateful
every
day
for
all
that
our
children
are
not
exposed
to.
American school
shootings are a good object lesson for our
children in the follies of
the society
we hold at a distance.
5
Naturally,
we
also
want
to
remind
them
of
reasons
to
take
pride
in
being
American and to try to convey to them
what that means. It is a difficult thing to do
from
afar,
and
the
distance
seems
more
than
just
a
matter
of
miles.
I
sometimes
think that the
stories we tell them must seem like Aesop’s (or La
Fontaine’s) fables,
myths
with no fixed place in space or time. Still,
connections can be made, lessons
learned.
6
Last
summer
we
spent
a
week
with
my
brother
and
his
family,
who
live
in
Concord, Massachusetts,
and we took the children to the North Bridge to
give them
a glimpse of the American
Revolution. We happened to run across a
reenactment of
the
skirmish
that
launched
the
war,
with
everyone
dressed
up
in
three-
cornered
hats and cotton bonnets. This
probably only confirmed to our goggle-eyed kids
the
make-believe quality of American
history.
7
Six months later, when we were
recalling the experience at the family dinner
table here, I asked Louise what the
Revolution had been about. She thought that it
had something to do with the man who
rode his horse from town to town. “Ah”, I
said,
satisfaction
swelling
in
my
breast,
“and
what
was
that
man’s
name?”
“Gulliver?”
Lou
ise
replied.
Henry,
for
his
part,
knew
that
the
Revolution
was
between
the
British
and
the
Americans,
and
thought
that
it
was
probably
about
slavery.
8
As
we pursued this conversation, though, we learned
what the children knew
instead.
Louise
told
us
that
the
French
Revolution
came
at
the
end
of
the
Enlightenment,
when
people
learned
a
lot
of
ideas,
and
one
was
that
they
didn’t
need
kings
to
tell
them
what
to
think
or
do.
On
another
occasion,
when
Henry
asked what makes a
person a “junior” or a “II” or a
“III”, Louise helped me answer
by bringing up kings like Louis
Quatorze and Quinze and Seize; Henry riposted with
Henry VIII.
9
I
can’t
say
I
worry
much
about
our
children’s
European
frame
of
reference.
There will be
plenty of time for them to learn
Am
erica’s pitifully brief history and
to
find out who Thomas Jefferson and
Franklin Roosevelt were. Already they know a
great deal more than I would have
wished about Bill Clinton.
10
If
all of this resonates with me, it may be because
my family moved to Paris in
1954,
when
I
was
three,
and
I
was
enrolled
in
French
schools
for
most
of
my
grade-
school
years.
I
don’t
remember
much
instruction
in
American
studies
at
school
or
at
home.
I
do
remember
that
my
mother
took
me
out
of
school
one
afternoon to see the movie
Oklahoma
! I can recall what
a faraway place it seemed:
all
that
sunshine
and
square dancing
and
surreys with fringe
on
top.
The sinister
Jud Fry personified evil for quite some
time afterward. Cowboys and Indians were
an American cliché
that had
already reached Paris through the movies, and I
asked
a grandparent to send me a Davy
Crockett hat so that I could live out that fairy
tale
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