My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.
Abraham Lincoln
Back in the UK and
finding myself gently settling into the early spring now. The
contrast on my return from Phnom Penh where temperatures were
regularly 30 degrees centigrade plus to the cold of the first few
weeks in Thetford where we experienced the dubious pleasures of -10
was stark indeed. Added to the basic challenge were the joys of jet
lag, some sort of cold probably contracted whilst enjoying the
recirculated breathing of 600 and odd people on an Airbus 380 and,
finally, the inconvenience of a little bit of food poisoning likely due
to the consumption of what seemed to be a reheated veggie breakfast
at a local hostelry. This latter made any thoughts of further travel
somewhat uninviting. Once or twice in the past when I have returned to
olde Albion a bit too soon I have succumbed to the temptations of
escaping to more tropical climes when faced with the realities of a
British winter. This time though, it seems that I will have to stay
for at least the next month or so.
Added to the list of
reasons to stay is also a promise I made to an American neighbour to
look after his garden whilst he himself has to do some enforced
travelling. He is a pleasant young man who shares with many of his
compatriots the rather endearing habit of calling his seniors ‘sir’.
As I am very much in this category (senior), I find myself treated in
this slightly over-respectful manner on a regular basis. By no means
is every American youngster quite so respectful, but during my visits
to the States I was somewhat pleasantly surprised at just how often
this was the case.
Much like the UK,
and maybe like many other cultures, my experience of the US was that
folks seemed very much more friendly, as well as more polite, the
further you got from the main metropolises. New York was perhaps the
least friendly place I have ever been on this planet. Nobody seemed
to have even the time for the most rudimentary manners. Orders were
the norm, rather than requests, and scarcely if ever were they
followed by a ‘please’ or a ‘thank you’. When I tried to
order a coffee in a cafe in central Manhattan I made the mistake of
hesitating for perhaps a millisecond. This pause was all too much for the barista serving me who took it as his cue to move on to the next customer
without so much as a by your leave. On another occasion I had accompanied
my elderly father to the city back in the 80s. I remember him asking
a policeman if he knew the way to the Empire State Building. This
particular representative of New York’s Finest simply answered
‘yes’ and turned away.
On the other hand, a
visit to the Lancaster county in Pensylvania a few years later with
my girlfriend of the time, Natalia, led to us discovering the joys of
the Amish culture flourishing there. Driving through the rolling
countryside and leaving the turnpike with its anonymous shopping
malls behind, it felt as if we had suddenly entered a time warp.
Horse draw carriages of a type scarcely seen for over a century in
the UK plied the narrow lanes. Men with hugely impressive beards and
very courteous manners greeted you openly, if a little cautiously at
times, their wives and daughters adorned in a manner that would not
have looked out of place in pre-Victorian England. We rented a small
room for a few days just outside the oddly name town of Intercourse.
Our hosts could not have been friendlier or more helpful. The local
area was quite lovely too, though the early signs of creeping
commercialisation were already apparent even back then. I would guess
that a return to Lancaster now might leave one a tad disappointed …
After experiencing
Intercourse a few times (apologies, but some lines are just too
difficult to resist…) we drove on South to the inaptly named
Paradise and then turned West in the direction of Gettysburg. Given
the hugely influential events that occurred there, the town itself
was remarkably unprepossessing. We had a coffee in the quiet and
pleasant Carlisle Street before heading out to the site of the battle
itself. During the American Civil War the Confederate troops, led by
General Robert E. Lee, had experienced a series of victories that
took them to within 50 miles of Washington. For a few weeks it was
looking quite probable that the South would emerge victorious.
History hung in the balance. Their advance was halted in a large and
open field just South of the town of Gettysburg. I sat with Natalia on a
large rock that formed part of Little Round Top. On the early spring
day we visited the area struck one as utterly pleasant, a gentle
breeze blew across the high ground where we sat gazing down across a
gently rising field below us that led into a wood about a mile away.
It was hard to believe looking down on that peaceful scene the sheer
carnage that had taken place there 130 years before. 15,000
Confederate troops had directly charged across the uphill, open ground
trying in vain to take the dominating position that was occupied by
Union army on the hilltop. 6,000 of those men died and many more were
injured. The assault became known as Pickett’s charge and, in many
ways, it marked the turning point of the war.
The cherry trees
were in blossom by the time we reached Washington, the capital of
this great yet perplexing nation. There had been yet another drive-by
shooting the day before we arrived and Natalia was understandably
nervous. A quarter of a century later and this all-American problem
only seems to have grown worse. At the time, it was as much as I
could do to persuade Natalia to leave the safety of our hotel room
and head into the centre of town. Compared to New York at least, the
capital was somewhat more civilised. We visited the normal
attractions; the Smithsonian, Congress, the Lincoln Memorial yet it
felt somehow soulless. Mightily impressive yes, but in a way that was
so obviously designed to be impressive. It left the two of us less
than impressed…
All in all, I
visited the US a grand total of six times but I am not sure if I will
ever go back now. It is very much a subjective opinion, but for me
there was something oddly unsettling in the culture. Everything but
everything seemed to be in hock to commercial interests. The
realisation dawned early that visiting a mall in Miami was much the
same as visiting a mall in Washington or Boston or Philadelphia or
any one of a hundred other cities. This was back in the early 1990s
and of course now much the same phenomenon has been visited upon the
UK and, indeed, on the rest of the planet. At the time though, I
remember thinking how terribly similar everything was; the J.C.
Penneys and the Walmarts, the McDonalds and the Wendys, the Starbucks
and the Dunkin’ Donuts.
It is hard to
express exactly the reasons for my lack of desire to return, but
perhaps it comes down to the feeling that I was never really able to
feel like a traveller there but always merely a tourist. On almost
every occasion it had felt as if I had been processed, as if I had
entered via the airport at one end, had the requisite experiences in
the requisite way, seen the right sights, got the right photographs,
bought the right mementos, and then exited via the same airport on
the way out. Somehow, the experience had never felt quite genuine,
never quite ‘real’.
Back home in the UK
amidst the sounds of a gurgling central heating system struggling
manfully to cope with the demands of yet another cold evening whilst
the freezing rain spatters noisily against the window panes, I find
myself wondering where my nomadic tendencies will lead me next.
Madrid in April is looking quite likely (I promised to help a friend
sell a flat there) although the temptation of Greece in early May is
also quite alluring. There is a big World out there waiting to be
explored, although it would seem that I am forever drawn Eastwards to the
depths of Europe and Asia rather than the more structured temptations of the U.S.
