Here in the US there is a great deal of solidarity manifest with France and the French after the horrific attacks in Paris last week; flags fly a half staff and one sees signs such as “Pray for Paris” here and there around the town-all very right and proper.

Nevertheless I cannot help casting my mind back to 2003 or was it 2004 when George W. was seeking to build a “Coalition of the Willing” to join him in invading the naughty Iraq, only to find that not everyone was willing enough. France was a case in point and Jacques Chirac, then President of France declined to join the Bush venture. Other nations too, spurned the opportunity, which led Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defense of the day, to draw up two categories of Europe, old and new. France typified the snooty old Europe and countries such as Lithuania, went into the “new” camp.

Why you find me recalling this unremarkable chapter of US-Europe relations is that in order to trumpet the contemptuousness that America felt for France and the other wimps of that time, it became fashionable to rename the unassuming victim of the day, viz., the French fry as the Freedom fry. In this way the whole country was able to express its patriotic fervor by marching into McDonalds, Burger King, or Wendy’s according to one’s individual wont and demanding Freedom fries with their burgers.

I do not recall when the Freedom fry became soggy and limp and disappeared from this nation’s cuisine, but for sure the French fry is today firmly back on the menu and standing proud as strains of “La Marsellaise” waft by.

One is inclined to wonder whether the beloved Ballpark Frank suffered a similar fate during WWII?

Just kidding, folks.