Grandsons, Beer, and Being French

When I was a kid, my buddy Bill and I would ride out little dirt bikes all over the place.  The closest store was this relic of the past (if it was a relic in 1980 then it would be ancient by today’s standards I suppose) called  “Country Food Town”.  It was a mom & pop place that had a random assortment of stuff.  We would go to buy candy bars and a coke or something like that.  It was also the closest place to our house to buy beer so sometimes my dad would stop off there to grab a six pack on his way home and I would always go in with him.

 

When I was ten, my French grandfather came to stay with us for many months.  My grandmother had died the year before in a car accident and he was in need of a change of scenery.  American suburbia was not the place for this French guy who did not speak English though!  One time, when it was just the two of us in the house, he was like “Kenny, J’ai soif – tu sais ou ton pere achete son beire?”

 

Very proud I pipe up “Country Food Town.”  So he drives us both there in our trusty VW bug and, in the tiny parking lot, hands me a ten dollar bill and sends me in to get whatever my dad buys. Thinking nothing of it, I walk right into the back room, slide open the cooler, grab a six pack of Budweiser, walk to the front of the store, plonk the beer down, hold out the ten, and look at the old man who was probably the owner.  The man from whom I had been buying soda pop and moon pies from for years just looks at me with this shocked expression.  It takes me a second to understand what is going on.  After a long, weird pause during which he is too stunned to speak and I slowly come around, I say “Oh, Uh, Sorry.  It’s for my grandfather.  He’s in the car.  He’s French.  I’ll go get him.”  

 

I bolt from the store and go to the car and tell my grandfather they won’t let me buy him the beer because it’s America.  He says something along the lines of ‘Stupid country, what kind of country doesn’t let an old man send his grandson out to get him some beer?’.  He gets out of the car with a sigh and smiles and nods at the old man in the store.  The old man is most relieved, I’m pretty sure, that it was all explained by the fact that he was French.