JOSEPH N. BELL -- The Bell Curve

So here I am on Page 1. Regularly, I am told. Although I have no

reservations about belonging there, I regard such a formal elevation in

stature with mixed feelings. Knowing in advance that I will appear on the

front page takes away the suspense of wondering each week if my column

would be deemed worthy of Page 1 exposure -- and then wondering why it

wasn’t when it didn’t appear there. And also trying to figure out exactly

what components had to go into a column to get it on the front page.

It was rather like the old Reader’s Digest shtick when I was writing

for magazines. The ideal Reader’s Digest story was “How I Joined the FBI

After I Found God and the Republican Party,” and most of the Digest

pickups I received over the years contained some of these elements. So I

tried to figure out the elements I needed to make the front page of the

Pilot but was never quite able to shake them down. And now the contest is

over. I’m going to be there anyway.

So, feeling this responsibility deeply, I’d like to return to France

for one more column to point out how important and useful it is to step

back periodically from our own problems and environs and look at them

with an outside perspective possible only from an emotional and

geographical distance. Trying to adjust the tyranny of comfortable

personal habits to another culture builds a certain amount of character.

In my case, the demands to shape up were lessened considerably by a

tolerant and caring hostess who indulged me outrageously. She found a

toaster that hadn’t seen the light since our last visit and allowed me to

toast yesterday’s baguettes for breakfast. She even found some peanut

butter to put on the toast.

The French don’t understand breakfast, which isn’t surprising since

they are often still at the dinner table at 11 o’clock, after which --

stuffed to the gills -- they go directly to bed. Our French lunches could

have passed for dinner in the U.S., and the evening meal was always a

splendid production of meat sauces, gourmet vegetables and exotic

cheeses, washed down by an unending flow of red wine, acquired by our

host at his local wine-filling station, where I watched it pumped into

several large containers he carried.

Our hosts even made arrangements at the local bakery to set aside a

copy of the International Herald-Tribune for me each day so I could

follow the descent of the California Angels and George W. Bush into a

kind of bumbling chaos while I was away.

I had to confront both the scarcity of gin and the omnipresence of

dogs. Ordering a martini in a Normandy restaurant gets a brand of wine by

that name, and ordering gin gets either nothing at all or a label called

Mulligan’s, which I’ve never seen before or since. But I enjoyed

fantasizing an Irishman named Mulligan selling bathtub gin to the good

people of Normandy off the tailgate of his pickup.

As for the dogs, they could be found in quantity in some highly

unlikely places. This was especially impressive at Mont Saint-Michel,

where my wife and I competed for space with dozens of French visitors who

were dragging, carrying or goading dogs up the several miles of steps to

the magnificent cathedral. Dogs were also quite common in restaurants --

in Paris, as well as the countryside. There seemed an odd sort of bond --

more equality than master or mistress -- between the French and their

dogs.

But these observations are scarcely the stuff of Page 1, so let’s

bring it closer to home by looking at the wildly contrasting ways in

which France and the United States deal with moral issues and politics.

The quick take is that France separates them and we combine them. The

most obvious example is abortion. France is about 90% Roman Catholic,

which would lead one to suspect that any politician who ran on an

antiabortion platform would be a shoo-in. Not so, said the French people

with whom we discussed this. Such a candidate would simply puzzle French

voters who don’t regard abortion as a political issue but rather one to

be addressed and resolved by the individual involved.

The same type of reasoning, we were told, applies to such issues now

current in the U.S. as the RU-486 so-called abortion pill, stem-cell

research and the private life of politicians. The French think we’re a

little bit addled on all these matters. While our politicians agonize

over what position will produce the greatest political capital -- or

prevent the greatest political harm -- the French regard them as medical

or social issues to be dealt with outside the political process. No more

graphic example can be found than the very visible presence of former

French President Mitterrand’s mistress at his funeral.

But to leave France on a high note, I must tell you about my birthday

balloon. As I’ve written several times before, one of my neighbors is

Treb Heining, who creates the balloon displays for such major events as

Super Bowls and political conventions and Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

So Treb and a group of our neighbors came up with the idea of sending me

an enormous inflated balloon within a balloon to wish me a happy

birthday.

It arrived miraculously unscathed in a huge box on the morning of July

4 and became an instant wonder in the rural community of 15th century

condos where our friends live. It also reminded me of how good it was

going to be to get back home.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.