I just got back from lunch with a member of our Vespa riders club, and it was an interesting lesson in human steriotyping.
Pascal is a local Vespa rider, and he's French by birth, from an American father who was a State Dept. forgien service officer, and a French mother. Pascal still has alot of family living in Paris, and some of them just arrived for a visit. Pascal himself lived in Paris untill he was 16 years old.
He called me over to a local eatery for a sandwich and meeting with his family. His mom and an uncle and two cousins are in town. We met at an informal place that is sort of a deli/sandwich shop with really great sandwiches. Pastrami that melts in your mouth, and real toungue sandwiches that is as tender.
His uncle and I are not far apart in age, and we hit it off pretty good. Jean's English is decent, and some of my high school French came back grudgingly, so we had good communication. We both have a taste for off beat European machines and I told him how I kept my 66 VW running for almost 30 years till I sold it to a collector, and he told me he still has his Citroen 2CV, and uses it around Paris.
Durring our talking, Jean decided he wanted more mustard on his sandwich, and while there was a jar of Grey Poupon on the table there was no knife, and he had neglected to get one of the plastic ones when he picked up his toungue sandwich from the "ready" window to the kitchen. He started to reach in his pocket, but I had already seen him looking around on the table and I handed him my number 7 Opinel that keeps finding its way into my pocket.
Uncle Jean, cousins Raymond and Jacques all looked surprised and chattered exitedly among themselves in rapid fire French my almost 50 year old school stuff was lost on. Finally they slowed down and told me that they never expected to see me pull out an Opinel, and then Jean pulled out a very well worn number 6 while cousin Raymond took out a somewhat worn number 8. We had a good time passing around the knives, and they were surprised that I had taken the time to sand down and stain the handle. Jean was a little mystified why I would do that to what he called a cheap but good knife that was made to be used up and then another one bought. He explained to me that they think of the Opinel as sort of a cutlery equivelent of a Bic lighter or pen. You don't expect to have the same knife in your pocket 10 years from now. But if you want a nice knife to keep, then you get something from one of the better makers from Nogent or Langres. Like one of the better Laguiole's. But he liked the reworked Opinel. "Ah, you Americans like to, how you say? 'hot rod' things. No?"
From then on our conversation turned from cars and motorscooters to knives, and I found Uncle Jean to be knowledgable. I told him of this web site and he was happy to know that the love of traditional old style knives was as popular here as in France.
It was an interesting lunch.
Pascal is a local Vespa rider, and he's French by birth, from an American father who was a State Dept. forgien service officer, and a French mother. Pascal still has alot of family living in Paris, and some of them just arrived for a visit. Pascal himself lived in Paris untill he was 16 years old.
He called me over to a local eatery for a sandwich and meeting with his family. His mom and an uncle and two cousins are in town. We met at an informal place that is sort of a deli/sandwich shop with really great sandwiches. Pastrami that melts in your mouth, and real toungue sandwiches that is as tender.
His uncle and I are not far apart in age, and we hit it off pretty good. Jean's English is decent, and some of my high school French came back grudgingly, so we had good communication. We both have a taste for off beat European machines and I told him how I kept my 66 VW running for almost 30 years till I sold it to a collector, and he told me he still has his Citroen 2CV, and uses it around Paris.
Durring our talking, Jean decided he wanted more mustard on his sandwich, and while there was a jar of Grey Poupon on the table there was no knife, and he had neglected to get one of the plastic ones when he picked up his toungue sandwich from the "ready" window to the kitchen. He started to reach in his pocket, but I had already seen him looking around on the table and I handed him my number 7 Opinel that keeps finding its way into my pocket.
Uncle Jean, cousins Raymond and Jacques all looked surprised and chattered exitedly among themselves in rapid fire French my almost 50 year old school stuff was lost on. Finally they slowed down and told me that they never expected to see me pull out an Opinel, and then Jean pulled out a very well worn number 6 while cousin Raymond took out a somewhat worn number 8. We had a good time passing around the knives, and they were surprised that I had taken the time to sand down and stain the handle. Jean was a little mystified why I would do that to what he called a cheap but good knife that was made to be used up and then another one bought. He explained to me that they think of the Opinel as sort of a cutlery equivelent of a Bic lighter or pen. You don't expect to have the same knife in your pocket 10 years from now. But if you want a nice knife to keep, then you get something from one of the better makers from Nogent or Langres. Like one of the better Laguiole's. But he liked the reworked Opinel. "Ah, you Americans like to, how you say? 'hot rod' things. No?"
From then on our conversation turned from cars and motorscooters to knives, and I found Uncle Jean to be knowledgable. I told him of this web site and he was happy to know that the love of traditional old style knives was as popular here as in France.
It was an interesting lunch.
