This week let me introduce – if you have not met them – some strange people. You see, I am living a few weeks in a tiny village in France. All around me are peculiar folks.

First, they are tidy. Incredibly tidy. Their yards, their gardens, their stacks of firewood. Tidy.

And I cannot imagine what they do with their rubbish. I mean, they don’t toss it out the window of their cars. In the U.S.. walk along any country road or highway. You can fill a garbage bag with beer and Coke cans and Quarter-Pounder wrappings every quarter-mile. Here, you would need to vacuum five miles of roadside to fill a shopping bag.

I waded through an outside market of 300 vendors and 10,000 shoppers. No trash on the streets! Are these people crazy? I stopped for lunch. When I came onto the street again, the vendors were gone. The crowds had disappeared. And there was barely a sign either had been there an hour before. No rubbish left behind. Do you suppose they ate it? Or took it with them? When they had a perfectly good street to fling it onto? Crazy people. Crazy.

Here is another way these French are odd: They come to restaurants to eat. To eat! What is the matter with them? No jabbering on cell phones. Or very, very little of it. No texting between mouthfuls. No peek at the emails at each break in the conversation. No surfing favorite websites when the partner slips away to the restroom.

They actually walk along sidewalks without phones pressed to their ears. I have seen them drive cars without using cellphones. Maybe I should report them to the gendarmes.?

While I am there I should also report horrific child abuse. I have seen several playgrounds where the children play on gravel. Yes! When they plop off the end of the slide their little bums land on – gasp – gravel! One playground had blacktop. No rubber matting. Can you imagine the bruising? These playgrounds are like medieval torture chambers. They probably have manacles, thumb screws and the rack tucked behind the hedge.