
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, October 10, 1995                   TAG: 9510100058
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THEY SPEAK FRENCH JUST NORTH OF HERE

Off on vacation in Quebec a couple of weeks back, I sat in our rented Dodge Caravan listening to the radio as a talk-show host and his sidekick prepared to play a game called "Ask an American." The idea is to call a resident of the United States every week to pose a question about Canada, just to see if the southerly neighbors know anything about the country to the north.

This week's question had to be easy, the radio pair joked - even for an American. They called a Texan and asked, "Who is the prime minister of Canada?" And, of course, the friendly fellow hadn't a clue. (If you want the answer, you'll have to read to the end.)

Maybe it's just that I was terribly busy before we took our trip, but I didn't even realize that Quebec is headed for a sovereignty vote at the end of this month. Just think, a brand-new country could form north of our border, and we barely know a thing about it.

But what did we expect from ourselves, as we sheepishly started many a conversation with, "Bonjour. Parlez-vous Anglais?" We patched together our communiques, and, as we traveled farther, I began to wonder why I never thought it imperative to study a third language.

Catching every 20th word of the French newspapers we read, and piecing together arguments from English-speaking Quebecers we ran into every few days, we learned more about the vote. It's about the preservation of their French culture, and it's surrounded by lots of tactical and practical questions, like, how will trade work if they're not part of Canada?

Discovering a new place always makes you realize how much you've been missing all this time, but I couldn't help but feel embarrassed at how little I knew about this place that's really so near. Even when I lived in New England, I tended to think the populated world stopped north at Burlington, Vt. - unless you continued to Montreal.

On our trip, we went up the St. Lawrence River well past that cosmopolitan city, and discovered charming country villages. After a few days, we realized how few Americans we ran into once we got past the tourist district in Quebec City. The locals told is it was in large part because we arrived in September, after the high season, but we still couldn't help but wonder: Here we had gorgeous weather, fall leaves, an attractive exchange rate, and it took less than 90 minutes to get there from Washington's National Airport. And we didn't have the hassles of changing planes and sitting around airports, losing luggage, and all of the other pitfalls of distant travel.

Wouldn't this be a good place for more Americans to mix culturally?

We found the Quebec cities full of people who switched languages with great ease, and I left them inspired not to suffer from the "Don't use it and you'll lose it" phenomenon of language.

I returned to Southwest Virginia and promptly purchased some French instruction tapes. Now I drive around in my car talking to the teacher in my tape deck.

And I'm fighting the passage of time, the daily crush of back-home life, and the thought in the back of my head that wonders when I'll next need to ask someone, "Parlez-vous Anglais?"

Oh, and who's Canada's prime minister? Why it's Jean Chretien.

by CNB