My wife and one of my daughters prevailed upon me, this morning,  to make a trip to our favorite French restaurant to pick up some wonderful French pastries for them.  The woman who waited on me at the pastry counter was probably in her fifties, with a decided European — probably German — accent.  After boxing up my selections, she informed me that the charge was “$13.90.”  I replied that “1390 was probably an interesting year.”  She responded “that was after the Dark Ages,” to which I added “yes, but the Dark Ages were not as bad or as ‘dark’ as we have been conditioned to believe.”  She agreed, reminding me that 1390 was “about the start of the Renaissance.”  As I drove home, I wondered with how many other persons I would have to engage in such a conversation to get similar responses.

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