The French Canadian English lesson.

When I was a young fellow in a central Florida High school I took a part time job working in a locally owned 'mom & pop' gas station.
None of your self serve here, (this was about 1968-69), we PUMPED that gas for the customers and overruns were OUR responsibility.

This was about two winters after the Canadians 'discovered' the Daytona Beach area as 'snowbirds'. We were glad to have them, they were glad to get out of astoundingly BAD weather, and all was well for a year or two.  As was to prove a 'gift' I had in later life, THIS year the French Canadian ROM or actual Gypsies found us. We didn't know that at the time of course, being sixteen and confronted with a French Speaking Canadian, it was impossible for me to tell that Montreal had ended up, in the years after World War Two with a large surviving segment of the 'travelling' people from Europe. 

Later I had this explained to me by the father of a nice Canadian girl I dated, but then it was my impression that all French Canadians were grifters and crooks.

I'd spent a portion of my young boyhood around Carnies however, so to me it was as much fun as it was to the grifters.

I had long ago made enough change that I knew the carny method of taking a ten dollar bill, folding it lengthways to it would remain stiff and visible, putting it between the fourth and fifth fingers of the hand the was NOT the one to reach for the wad of change bills in my pocket.

I am not exaggerating when I tell you that there were several occasions when there would be a audible SIGH of disappointment from the gas buyer on handing me a ten and seeing it remain in view at all times.

That was some of them... some would play the "but that I gave you a twenty" con out to the bitter end. They would do what is now called 'entering your personal space' but we called then "breathing the garlic" by getting up in your face and shouting in French that they had given you a twenty and you were short changing them, while all the while the ten that they had given you was plainly visible in your hand..  A skill I taught all who worked with me for years I might add.

Now as a disclaimer, before somebody gets all offended here, let me state that there WERE many very nice Canadians that came thru, bought gas, paid civilly and left, for the rest I developed what I came to call the "French Canadian English Lesson"

I started with the phrase, "I'M GOING TO CALL THE POLICE".

It was amazing how much English they could pickup from that simple phrase.