I was there. If you ordered Coke, the waiters suavely popped the bottles between their legs. No harm. And les filles who saw American boys ordering Coke were enchante.

I wouldn’t write this but for another fairly sleight reminiscence by National Review’s Jay Nordlinger.

Just now, I was reading, “Police have ordered all shops closed in a famed Jewish neighborhood in central Paris . . .” (Article here.) The neighborhood, of course, is the Marais, and in particular its Rue des Rosiers.

In the summer of 1982, I was between high school and college, and in Paris for a bit. Arab terrorists — same people as today, nothing ever changes — attacked a delicatessen in the Marais. On the Rue des Rosiers. It was called Goldenberg’s. Not sure whether it’s still there.

Anyway, there were six people killed, including two American tourists. More than 20 other people were injured. You know the drill. Same old scene.

In Jerusalem, the prime minister, Begin, said something like, “If the French state can’t protect these Jews, I will.” He meant in Paris itself. He was just blustering, of course, engaging in some bravado. But I was kind of impressed with it.

We had all been taught to hate Begin, needless to say. He was the Hitler of the Middle East. Never mind Saddam, Assad (père), or Khomeini. Menachem Begin was the bad guy, eating Palestinian children for breakfast.

August 1982 was just one step on my road to growing up. My lessons were hard, but there were those who had it harder — like the dead and their families.

Over the years, I’ve wondered, “Why the hell is there a single Jew in France? Why the hell is there a single Jew trying to do business on the Rue des Rosiers?” I wonder it again now.

No, I’m no expert either. But I was there in 1963, when Charles de Gaulle was the target of multiple Algerian assassination attempts. We had to stay home a couple of times because Paris was locked down after another incident of Gaullian gunfire. He would not let them go as a French colony. I saw him (almost) in a Bastille Day parade. My dad got me one of those cardboard towers with mirrors, and I was unable to make it work. But I heard the oceanic cheers when he rode by.

I’m the one in the upper right corner of the part just to the left of the buildings.

You can think, if you like, that at 11 and 10, my sister and I had no idea what was going on in the world while we were experiencing the pageantry of life in the vicinity of the Champs Elysee.

I was a car buff, sure. But I knew there was something different about the French.

A woman spit on my father when he didn’t let her hijack a cab taking his wife and kids home. I’d never seen that before.

On the other hand, my mother got her hair done and never looked more beautiful. And my sister and I always felt rich in Paris because we had 35 centimes each for the Metro, so that if we ever got lost we could buy our way home.

Simplest subway map I’ve ever seen.

My sister and I were not unaware of the world. We both remember the headline of the International Herald Tribune that announced the death of Jackie Kennedy’s baby Patrick. We went home to a November that resulted in the assassination of our president. Which changed everything forever.

In between we experienced near death in a hurricane at sea.

We went to Europe on the QE1. Perfect service.

Came home on the Leonardo da Vinci. We nearly died. A hurricane named Beulah. We saw panic and vomit.

Just in case you didn’t believe me. HURRICANE. Click on the image. Real hurricane, real fear.

Funny thing. Our mother took us all over Paris. Place de la Concorde, the Louvre, Musee d’Orsee, and everywhere else too. The Catacombs. The Sewers. Place Vincennes. When my dad got time he took us down through the south of France. Many chateaus. My memory isn’t what it what it was but I remember Chenonceau.

Most beautiful place I’ve ever been, except for Isola Bella. White peacocks beat everything. Click!

So I think back to de Gaulle in France in that summer of 1963. I’m minded that you can move on or become the captive of your past. America tried heroically to move on. We tried to overcome the legacy of slavery. Maybe it can’t be done.

France didn’t try nearly as hard. And they are paying the price. Their guilt over imperialism has destroyed them. Their country is going to be terrorized to ruin. But America was the least imperialist of the great western powers. In European countries, there is no cultural contribution from their immigrants. They live in isolated ghettoes, “no go” zones, dead ends of society.

Different in America. Yeah, we haven’t had an Italian president yet, but we’ve had Irish and black presidents. It can be done.

The key is not to build the future on guilt over the past. The past will hunt you down, eat you alive, and ultimately kill you if you let it.

France does not have the equivalent of jazz, rhythm and blues, or even Oprah Winfrey. They take credit for crude burlesque acts like this:

And things, unlike that, I wish I’d done.

But I’m just a Jersey boy who was once in France.