With my partner in crime, Auntie Ellen, I've been taking ridiculous statue photos for over a decade. Two things that are fun about them are (1) that people who are passing by and notice what you are doing usually think it's funny and (2) trying not to laugh and ruin the picture.This one was taken in Quebec a few years ago. This was another family trip, the last one Nana, Papa and Mom would get to take. My mom would usually roll her eyes at me with the statue pictures. I'm not sure if she got my sense of humor sometimes. Or maybe she just didn't think I was funny.
Anyway, we had a tour guide in Quebec. In his French accent, he said something about the segregation movement, and I burst out laughing. Then, I realized he didn't think it was a joke. It was serious business to him. He told us that because the French lost a battle, in just 15 minutes, that we all speak English. Otherwise, we would speak French. Unless we were from New England. "Yep! We're from New England!" we told him.
Uncle David mumbled, "No, you'd all be speaking German if it weren't for us." He also had another good line with, "What a surprise that the French lost a war in 15 minutes." Know why they lost? They forgot their ammunition. At least that's what the guide said. I suppose that's understandable. I often leave things at home on the way to work. Why wouldn't you forget to bring ammunition to a military battle?
The tour guide referred to Canada and parts of the U.S. as "French North America." I'd never heard that before. I asked him what exactly it was that made them want to be separate from Canada.
"We do not want them to impose their laws on us."Ok, you know how this goes. I never got a real answer. We decided to take a photo in front of this statue, near their "Parliamentary" building. That's right, they refer to the legislative building in their capital city as something indicating they're their own little independent nation.
"What laws?"
"It's just that we do not want them to impose their laws on us. They don't have the right to."
"But what laws specifically are you upset about?"
The tour guide had left long before this picture and the one below. To take the photo above, John gave me one of his layers so I'd have a shirt with buttons to look like the statue's jacket. We scrambled to find a piece of paper for me to hold. We wrote the words, "Another Defeat" on it.
John was laughing while watching me standing there, and I had to tell him to walk away because I couldn't keep a straight face. You can't see the words we wrote in the photo, unfortunately. It's still a funny picture.
We took the photo below in front of the Parliamentary building. I got my 3 cousins in the act. We weren't supposed to use those monuments as pedestals, so we had to hurry and our poses aren't very good duplicates. It's still a funny picture.
ps Make this picture bigger since it's funnier that way.
