(Note: apparently, every edit and subsequent repost here means the date changes. This was more timely when it was originally published. I bugger it up because I was obsessing about a small error.)

Yesterday at the office, we were tasting wine with a delightful Frenchmen from Alsace. At the end of his presentation, Bernard turned to us all and asked

"Does anybody know what today is?"

We all answered that it was the anniversary of D-Day, because of course the anniversary was marked by the President and every other politician, and various ceremonies were being covered by national media so we had all been reminded en route to work in one way or another. 

He said to us "I wasn't there of course, but my grandfather made sure to tell me about it every year. The day when the Allies came... It changed everything," he said, a tear coming into his eye and then mine. "So thanks for that." 

And then he raised a glass of the amazing Cremant that his family has been making for generations and said "Vive' Liberacion!" (I'm sure I've butchered the spelling, as I was a student of Spanish in high school and not French, but you get the idea.)

It is good to be reminded on occasion that we were not always the world's destructive toddler.