Re: "Crusade against Paramount 'indefensible,'" letter to the editor, Wednesday, Jan. 30.

This "Crusade" reminds me of one of the most embarrassing events of my teen years.

I was 15 and a student in a small high school in downtown Bordeaux, France.

Every morning on our way to the school a few of us walked by a trio of ladies that looked very much like housewives, with their traditional shirt-dress in colourful prints.

They were chatting outside, sitting on a low wall and smoking cigarettes.

In those days average ladies in conservative French provincial towns just didn't smoke in public.

This could only mean that they were not average housewives but working ladies waiting for "clients."

For months we just walked by them.

Then one bright spring day one of us said "how is the business?" and we ran away.

Same thing the following day. The third day, emboldened by their lack of response, one guy said, "if you looked less frumpy you might do more business" and we ran away real fast.

One of them screamed, jumped from the wall and ran after us all the way to the school.

At the morning recess the principal stood on the balcony off his office and blew a whistle to get our attention.

He told the whole school that a few students had shamed the school by insulting some ladies in the street.

He said that we were all too young and ignorant of how hard life was for many people, why they had to make horrible choices to survive, to judge and insult them.

Then he asked the guilty students to wait for him in the school yard at the end of the recess. This meant that all the students and teachers would know who did it.

I was liked by teachers because I was eager to learn and asked many questions, yet at the same time drove them and the principal crazy by refusing to follow the dress code and arguing with them about everything ad nauseam.

So I really got it this time. The morning after we stopped by the ladies and apologized.

From then on, every morning it was "good morning ladies" ...

"good morning children."

J-L Brussac Coquitlam