June 18, 2006

Earl and I are on our way home from suburban Philadelphia after spending some time down here with his dad for Father’s Day. The weather has been beautiful; I wish I could bottle up a little bit of it and bring it home and convince Mother Nature that it’s summertime where we live too.

Last night we watched the Phillies play Tampa Bay at Citizens Bank Park. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, though it could have been even better if the Phillies had won the game. We ended up leaving at the 7th inning stretch.

After the game we headed over the famous Geno’s Steaks in South Philly for a Philly Cheesesteak. Geno’s has been in the news lately because of their new policy, which is posted all over the establishment: You must speak English when you order. This has some folks up in arms because it runs contrary to the ultra-PC notion that has taken grip of our society, but personally I support the policy.

When Earl and I travel to Montréal, I always make a valiant attempt to speak French. My success at this has been moderate in that I’m relying on my four years of high school French with very little practice in the 20 years since, but at the very least, the person I’m trying to talk with usually gets frustrated enough to switch to English. I like to think they appreciated my efforts of trying to be do as the natives do.

There was one time that I thought I was going to slugged by an old woman, though. We were at some touristy place and Earl was in the bathroom. It was the middle of July and very, very hot, even in metric. This older woman was smiling at me, so I figured I’d say something. So I said, “boy it’s hot” in French. “Il est chaud.”

She then looked rather startled and then annoyed because I had told her “he’s in heat”.

I should have said “Il fait chaud.” Must be she wasn’t interested.

Back to Geno’s. My “provolone wit” (cheese steak with provolone and onions) was delicious and it proved that the U.S. is the home of diverse English, because I don’t think there’s many places that you can order a “provolone wit” and have someone understand what you’re saying.