davethegrinch.net

Dave Says:

 

We promised ourselves that if we were going to spend time, and therefore considerable expense, touring the USA then we must work hard to treat it with the same bug-eyed wonderment we did with the rest of the world. Well, promises are made to be broken and although this one is relatively intact at the time of writing, it will soon enough succumb to the return of the familiar, erosion of the novelty and ridiculousness’ death march towards the norm. So, before I am sucked back into the vortex of the US here’s a quick stream of observation and, of course, gross generalization of 300 million people.

Firstly, and this is a theme I will keep returning to in many guises with no offense meant to anyone I know or don’t but… the food portions are just so damn big. This was apparent to me on our first afternoon in NYC and our first afternoon in the US for 22 months. After ordering a light lunch of a Santa Fe Wrap from a deli in Queens, I almost dropped the plate under the shear weight of so much food. It was super-sized. 1000 miles into the country and this has continued unabated. At first we banded around the concept of splitting entrees across the US (believe me, some are big enough to split across the US) but we don’t always agree on the same food - besides Sarah’s single child complex kicks in and she accuses me of eating more than my fair share. We now lightly self-cater breakfast and lunch so that dinner is always digested on an empty stomach. This is the only way to deal with it - I have not the will power nor the kahunas to order an appetizer as a main course. I wish others could though. Americans are big. Most are physically big in the same way the Dutch are physically tall, but many hang a lot more than they should off those big bones. This isn’t a uniquely American problem although eight year old children that are so big they can’t walk, is. The New Jersey shore was full of these poor kids, waddling down the boardwalk or resting, out of breath, on a bench. Now, I know that poor Johnny has a glandular problem and unfortunate Jenny has a genetic trait inherited from Grandma but, please parents, take the pizza, slushies, ice cream, candy, coke, elephant ears and pork rolls out of the chubby fingers of your clinically obese children before I come along and pop you one on the nose because I truly believe you are abusing your children. It makes my blood boil - they are just kids, they know no better and you should! Arghhhhhh… Oh dear, I’ve gone off on a rant already… sorry… back to light hearted observations.

In fact, back to the deli in Queens. All of a sudden I didn’t have to order what was on the menu board in pretty pictures. No longer did I have to point, use dumb English and wild gesticulations. I could use those damn useful things called ‘words’. I can form sentences such as “May I have the Santa Fe Wrap please.” I could also do that most American of things by adding, “Could you please hold the onions, add extra tomato and just a little mayo please.” In a manner of speaking that was probably too much speaking. New Yorkers dispense with this West Coast niceties of “may” and “please” and “could” and just say “Hey. Can I get the Santa Fe, no onions, extra tomato, easy on the mayo.” Just as well, because not everyone on the serving side of the counter knows much more English than that. So, in a way, ordering in New York was like being in an English speaking country that doesn’t need to speak much English. And that, my friends, is the tone of American English - it is efficient, instant and uniformly consistent. I am using myself as the yard stick here because I seem to have re-acquired my English accent. Folks don’t initially understand my turns of phrase and foreign cadences. They treat my assertion that I come from Seattle with suspicion but are too polite to outwardly question me. Sooner or later the penny drops and I have to tell them where in England I come from. A pointless act however because many only seem to know London, Liverpool and Edinburgh (which is technically and actually in Scotland). But, darn if those Americans aren’t just so pleasant to talk to. They seem to be genuinely interested and are not afraid to take as long as it takes to do nothing but talk to a stranger about nothing in particular. Three times today I had random conversations with random people and, I have to say, I was charmed off my feet.

Now, I do have to admit that I think I’ve found a flaw in the American psyche. They seem to be a little obsessed with war. Let us now put aside conversations about the meaning of freedom and how it relates to warfare - I have much to say about Americans and their sense of freedom, where it comes from, why it’s important and why it doesn’t really exist but I’ll leave that for the great plains of the American West where freedom takes on a different meaning. For now, let’s just take the pure act of war - killing a fellow human for the gain or protection of another. We have spent a couple of days in Gettysburg where many of our fellow tourists were shopping for Civil War memorabilia and demonstrating their micro-knowledge of battles and campaigns and then today, at the beach, we stumbled upon a full blown D-Day re-enactment complete with full and accurately uniformed Germans. It’s not the wars that strike me as odd, it is widely agreed that both were ‘just’ wars, but why do Americans feel it necessary to relive them? Re-enactments are meant to be very accurate - every last detail matters and they should be as realistic as possible. Why should anyone want to recreate a time when hundreds of thousands of its best and brightest died (or were dismembered) trying to kill (or dismember) people just like them as they tried really hard not to die (or be dismembered) themselves. Some would say it’s to honor those who made the ’supreme sacrifice’ but that’s the job of beautiful and peaceful military cemeteries. Re-enactments are there to celebrate the glory of war - the only thing glorious about war is NOT dieing (or dismembering). This country seems to be a little obsessed with sending its young off to die and then celebrate their honor. No other country I’ve ever visited puts signs on the highway to “pray for our service personnel” or offers “20% discount for active military” - not even the Chinese. So America, stop celebrating war and start giving 20% discounts to the kids who work hard in school and parents who can’t afford health insurance.

And so, speaking of kids working hard in school: we were in a bar the other night and the TV was tuned to ESPN and showing the Little League World Series final. For those non-Americans in my audience, the Little League is 13 or 14 year old kids who play baseball and the World Series final is a national competition between teams of Little Leaguers. Here I have some mixed feelings. Good for the kids for achieving something as great as playing baseball for a national prize but then shame on parents, teachers, schools and ESPN for putting so much pressure on such young shoulders. We all grow up too quickly without adding potential humiliation or hollow promises of greatness wrought by national television. Can you imagine some of the conversations that went on in suburban kitchens between over-zealous and projecting dads and their impressionable and emotionally delicate sons? Kids need time to be kids. It’s okay to dream about being A-Rod but nobody but A-Rod should suffer the pressure of actually being him. I haven’t seen any other country offer its young up to the mercy of its bar flies, amateur pundits and wager making adults.

I hate American TV.

I love American TV.

I love that Americans can turn anything into a mildly amusing tourist attraction. I have seen Elvis perform in a vacant building lot, the world’s largest crayon, an entire city that thought it was Las Vegas circa 1955, hot dogs, neon, lighthouses and mummified cats. I have also seen ordinary Americans make the products I enjoy in conditions I would not. When my office closes for a few days I still get paid - when the factory closes, these people do not. They do the same thing day in, day out to make the things we use in our free time. There are many more of them than me. They keep the country running, I don’t do much good for anyone in my professional life.

I have a feeling though that most of these people use their free time to ride Harley Davidsons. I wish they wouldn’t. They are loud, big and dirty - and so are the bikes. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be an act of rebellion but there are so many of them and they are all uniformly bland that a real act of rebellion would be to ride up to them on a Vespa scooter with a French flag flying.

Stars and Stripes. It’s a pretty flag, no doubt about it, but it stands for something. Too many people fly the flag as an ornament, hanging it from balconies, motorbikes and picnic tables. They have shorts and shirts made from it and some are tattooed with Old Glory. It’s not a decoration - it symbolizes all that is good and, equally, all that is bad about the USA. Patriotism can be honorable but it’s a very thin filling sandwiched between giant cuts of fanaticism and ignorance. Neither Russian or the Chinese people fly their flag so often and the Indians will quite literally set themselves on fire to show they love their country before they’ll attach their flag to their garden fence. Only the Canadian backpackers display their flag with more pride but that’s only because they want to tell the world that they’re not Americans.

The political conventions are running right now and all the rhetoric from the politicians illustrates everything this country aspires to be. The American experience is unique and unique to all those who experience it. It is rare to have such an opportunity to rediscover one’s home - the good, the bad and just the plain silly.  

 

This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 4:15 pm and is filed under Global Travels, USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.