March 11, 2014

"Red pants, that's France!"


Suburban Chicago, November 1960. This clip reminds me of "Red pants, that's France!" I learned that piece of uniform history during my senior year in high school, when I took "Western Civilizations." Western Civ was the course that turned me on to studying history. I liked the class because we used a college-level textbook,* and the teacher, Sr. Francia Shannon, was amazing. She taught us to use primary sources.  

I think my classmate will remember how we repeated, "Le pantalon rouge c'est la France!"

*Our edition was a hardcover with white binding. I saved it for about 30 years; I think I got rid of it when we last moved. I have a newer, paperback, edition on the shelf—one that I used when I taught the course in the late 1980s. I'm annoyed I can't find my high-school volume. It had my underlines and notes. I'm a purger, but this is a time when I regret getting rid of something.

1 comment:

edutcher said...

"C'mon, grandma, let's run".

PS If you'd seen "Major Dundee" when you were about 6, you'd have seen le pantalon rouge.