The photo a passing wagonful of grapes took

Yesterday we went into the nearby La Londe. This is an old, modest village the likes of which the term quaint was coined. Given that this time of year is just after the high season, the four of us seemed to be the only tourists in town. I had wondered how we would be regarded. I need not have worried. We were invisible to them.

One of the reasons for going into town was to get groceries, at the Casino Supermarche. There we would buy practical, as well as the fanciful, provisions (the French version of quick oats, the cheapest beer we could find, two varieties of marinated olives and three of aged cheeses).

But pleasure before business!

First, we would walk the length of the main street, and along the way stop at a combination bar and ice cream parlor, with plenty of requisite outdoor seating. It seemed an odd combination – ice cream for the kiddies and booze for the parents. But we learned from Joe and Michele, our travel companions, that providing family fare was important in the bars and cafes of most of Europe.

As we sat sipping our beverages, we saw as many families around us as tables of exclusively adults (also, plenty of dogs sprinkled throughout). Clearly, cigarettes and alcohol aren’t considered substances that children should be overtly protected from, although it was reassuring to see on the labels of French beer a small and subtle, but nonetheless clear, warning. It was the silhouette of a pregnant woman bringing a beverage to her lips, with a circle and diagonal line arrayed to make the universal symbol of “Don’t.”

This reminds me of the naturalness I have read about, and now witnessed, with human sexuality in this part of Europe. It seems odd that although the U.S. culture seems to profess to be beyond Victorian thinking, I still cannot imagine a beer company placing such a silhouette on their product sold in my home country.

Every culture is defined by what scares them. Victorians were known to drape elaborate cloth coverings over the side tables and piano benches in “respectable homes,” lest the exposed wooden table legs inflame the lust of Victorian men. I believe some of that residue persists in "typical" Americans today, more in what they forbid than in what they cover up.

Here's what I mean: While many U.S. women continue their years of struggle to get public places to allow mothers to freely breastfeed, one of the first images greeting me in my brief layover in Paris was of a woman nonchalantly nursing her baby as she waited for a train. If I had found this sight erotic, I can tell you that it was deeply subconscious. Perhaps I'm just in denial. Come to think of it, I'm surrounded as I write this by the bare legs of many side- and coffee tables of the villa's lounge. It's almost too much for a mortal to bear. ;-)

Grapes in a wagon? Get our camera!

While we were chatting and people-watching at the bar of the Pelican Hotel, traffic slowly passed in front of us, on the main thoroughfare of town. Suddenly, an old, beat-up truck pulling a wagon brimming with grapes came to a stop in front of us! I asked Julie for the camera, but alas, we had left it behind.

“I have mine!” announced Michele. But by the time she had pulled it out of its case, turned it on and pointed it, the truck had driven off.

“That’s okay,” said Joe. “I can use the timer to take a picture of the four of us.” And so he did. We may not be as picturesque as the wagonful of grapes, but I think our expressions show the look of people who have encountered that, and other, pleasant surprises.