Being Strange in America

Yesterday, I had one of my more normal days since we returned from Brno a year ago. 'Normal' for me here means, pretty much, waking early, and racing through the day trying to see just how much I can accomplish by bedtime. I made the beds,took Bram to his day camp, stopped by a store where I chatted with the cashier, a complete stranger, about cleansers. I listened to Spanish language tapes while I scrubbed the bathrooms, repaired the slow drain, replaced two shower heads, did 6 or 7 loads of laundry, cleaned the rugs, the porch, and the kitchen. In the afternoon,we went downtown to pay the car taxes on our 10 year old little Toyota and ate in a sidewalk cafe. Later, I cleaned the carport and driveway, pruned some shrubs, supervised the hanging of a new clothesline, and put away some of the dry clothes.

And so begins the being strange in America. The temperatures have been in the mid 30s here with about 80% humidity, and I am determined to make it through the summer without the air conditioning. And I am not using the clothes dryer, either, for most of the laundry. There is nothing wrong with our a.c unit, and our dryer is not broken. And this makes us strange. The general attitude here is that only poor (or strange) people do without these things. What makes it even more perplexing to our neighbors, who walk past our house and peer with pity on their faces into our wide open windows, is that we are choosing to live this way. Again today, we filled the clothesline with laundry and used the fans, and sweated a bit. I had coffee for breakfast, a kid meal from Burger King for lunch and rice for dinner. A little later I will have an American beer (go ahead, feel sorry for me with no pivo. I do.) and maybe, like yesterday, I will drink it without saying how much I miss Brno or complaining about how awful my beer is (though I am sure that I will think it and pity myself for the lack of my Czech friends).

I like the summer. I like the heat and the humidity and being outside, letting the outside in. Maybe I even like to sweat, though here I must be careful not to smell of sweat, since that, too, is a hallmark of the poor and of the strange. And when I was in the Czech Republic, in one of the coldest wettest winters on record, I loved the cold and the snow. This too makes me strange, at least here. Today, like yesterday, I feel as I often felt in Brno, both at home and homesick. And this, these days, is what passes for normal for me-- being strange, in America.

Why is Ray Charles here?

Why have I posted a video of Ray Charles singing "Georgia" here? "Georgia" is the official state song of, you guessed it, my beloved home state, Georgia, perhaps the only place I love more than Moravia. It was written by Stuart Gorrell and Hoagy Carmichael, but Ray Charles, a native Georgian, made it famous. It's a lovely song. Just play it, and listen while you read.
Are you surprised to learn that Georgia has a state song? Then perhaps you will also be surprised to learn that every single state in the US has its own set of state symbols which includes not only its very own song, but also distnctive flag, official seal, bird, flower, tree, and animal. Most states also have an official state fossil. Learning all of the symbols and history of one's native state is a part of every elementary school child's education. No kidding! It's part of the Official Curriculum.
We Southerners can be quite sentimental about where we come from. Here in South Carolina, natives often display an image of the state tree for SC, the Palmetto, just about every where--clothes, shoes, cars, jewelry, towels. At my childhood home in FORT VALLEY we had Cherokee roses in the yard. I have planted Carolina Jessamine because Bram is growing up here. My great-grandmother had a whole garden of Camellias, the official flower of her home state, Alabama. And I have those, too. Maybe this fall I should plant a Cherokee Rose.

Birthday / Father's Day Weekend

Saturday was Thomas's birthday, and because Bram liked being awakened by singing on his birthday, Bram and I woke Thomas by singing 'Happy Birthday' to him. The truth is that Thomas woke up when Bram and I did and had to be cajoled back into bed for a later awakening with our singing. After a breakfast of French toast with a candle on it, and a trip to the library, we had what we like to call "Video Fest". We watched "The Thief Lord" and Jurassic Park","Take the Lead," "Hitcher," "Deja Vu" at home, then "Shrek 3" at the theater. (only Shrek and Deja Vu were tolerable) Thomas opened his presents . And somewhere in here we had meals, but we can't any of us remember where or what-LOL.

On Father's Day, we wasted no time with singing, but served Thomas his coffee, and later in the afternoon, whisked him off to restaurant/family fun place, Mr Gatti's, where, in the presense of more than 70 signs--click here to test your English instructing us what to do and not to do, we ate pizza, pasta and salad between our trips to the gameroom, where Thomas got just what he asked for for his Father's Day: watching me and Bram 'hunt, shoot and kill' all manner of sea creatures and dinosaurs. Total haul for the weekend for the Birthday Boy: 1 t-shirt, custom painted by Bram, 2 design markups (1 each by Bram and me) for the cover of his next book, a 2G flash drive, pens, papers, and clipboard decorated by Bram, 8 cards (5 pop-up cards made by me and Bram), 8 books, money, and a very nice drawing of a battleship by Bram. He got books and money from his mother and brother, and money from his in-laws. I say he had quite a nice weekend, wouldn't you?

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

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I had been thinking about writing about immigration this week, but I'm posting this instead. Hope you like it!

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day is actually May 30, but it is observed as a national holiday on the last the last Monday in May.
Like the 38 million or so Americans who will travel more than 50 miles (80km) this holiday weekend, we took to the highways. We travelled to our destination, Saint Simons Island, which is a 325 mile(about 500km) five and half hour drive-one way-from where we live.

Our holiday celebrations began with a welcome the summer lunch at Corona's, our favorite Mexican restaurant, and we had the entire place to ourselves. Actually,this photo shows only half of the restaurant, but the other half was empty, too.
On Memorial Day (observed), we went to what we call The Farm, about a 2 hour drive northeast of the island. While we were there, Bram learned to drive the tractor, and we rode with him and my father around one part of the farm.


With my mother, we visited the "Boneyard," a dumping ground for animal carcasses, both wild and domestic, for at least 50 years, heard stories about the odd couple who built a modest, though splendidly furnished house in the middle of the woods, their beautiful daughter who was kept inside, privately tutored, and who at 18 was spirited away by a handsome, wealthy stranger. Around the house, its porches now rotting and dilapidated, the flowers still bloom; a camellia, hydrangeas (blue blossoms in this alkaline soil!), a gigantic crepe myrtle draped in Spanish moss and surrounded by bulbs, all planted by the mother of this mysterious girl more than 60 years ago. We looked for the site of one of my mother's childhood home and heard about the babies born there, one who lived, and two more who didn't, and whose little ghosts haunted my grandmother for want of proper burials for the rest of her life. We followed the 60 year old school bus route down dirt roads and listened to my mother's stories of classmates and neighbors as we passed houses or old home sites, open fields or stands of trees. I love to spend this kind of time with her, to hear her stories, to marvel at what an amazing store of observations, feelings, stories, information that one human can be, and see her happy both in and between two worlds at once. Being between two worlds, isn't that a kind of culture shock?

Bram's Birthday

Tuesday was Bram's birthday, and since he didn't have much of a celebration last year (poor kid didn't have cake or a single candle), we tried to plan a happy day for him. We woke him up by standing by his bed and singing, "Happy Birthday" to him. His smiling blushing face and outstretched arms was a welcomed response from him. Ten years ago, our singing was met with angry red face and screams of "Bop it!" For breakfast he had a waffle and cider from his special cup. After a tough penultimate day of school on Monday (pool party followed by all afternoon sports party) he really welcomed the last day of school. We spent all of Tuesday morning at school for Field Day, where Bram's class took first place in the competitions. We had lunch at his favorite Chinese restaurant, and then drove (groan) home to order presents from his Granny and to rest up for the afternoon. Bram wanted to see Spider-Man 3, and we made it to the theater just in time to enjoy the movie in a theater all to ourselves. That's right: One theater, one movie, three people. Is Bram lucky or what? We were so busy feeling lucky and enjoying the movie that we missed our reservations for dinner at the Japanese steak house.

As our punishment,we had to wait 10 minutes for a table, and Bram was forced to cook our food. The cook impressed us all with the flaming, smoking onion ring volcano trick.

After dinner, we waddled over to the bookstore where Bram chose two books about military aircraft for himself. Must have been something about our choice of restaurant for dinner... . Then home to watch Pirates of the Caribbean 1 in preparation for his "real party" with his friends on Friday. It's tough to be a kid, I guess, NOT!

Chimney Rock Park

This past weekend, we went to the Southern Highlands to Chimney Rock Sate Park, which is a little more than an hour's drive from our house. Of course we drove because--everyone say it with me now-- in America, that is about the only way to get anywhere. I suppose one could walk or bike, but with so many cars on the road... . The weather was lovely, breezy and about 25 C, and once we got to the park, we hiked the Hickory Nut Falls Trail to the base of the second largest falls east of the Mississippi River, the 404 foot (123 meters) Hickory Nut Falls, where several scenes in The Last of the Mohicans were filmed. I could say, that because we had watched the film in the car on the way up we were all appropriately melodious when we arrived at the falls, but we weren't. We haven't even seen Last of the Mohicans, and we really aren't the kind of people to go gah gah over either acting out parts from movies or treading the ground that stars have walked on. We ate the lunch we had packed. Bram climbed around and up the side of the rockface a couple of times, and I joined him for the third one. See the tiny orange dot in the photo to the left? That's Bram. You can click on the photo to get a better view.

We hiked back down from the falls to the base of the 315 ft (96 meter) high rock (with an elevation of more than 2000 feet, the Chimney Rock that the park is named for. We cheated and took the elevator to near the top (hey, I am not supposed to be hiking at all!) and climbed the stairs for the views, which were worth every bit of the 30 second elevator ride.

Just kidding, they were amazing. We went back down to the base and did a quick hike of the Outcroppings Trail through that acro/claustrophobic's nightmare, the Needle's Eye, (think Kutna Hora silver mine, except going up, not down, and at an steep near 90 degree incline) the Subway, across the bridge from the Rock Pile to Pulpit Rock, out onto the spiral staircase and back down again, a different way this time. Then back to the car and home to plan Bram's birthday celebrations.

Eating Dogs or Hot Dog vs Parek Rohliku

Memphis said, "you eat a lot of dogs." And we do, but not the four legged kind, and not as often as that week we had hotdogs three times. I swear we aren't those kind of Americans. What we had was actually hot dogs, chili dogs, and slaw dogs (my personal favorite). How is the hot dog experience different for us here than abroad? Here we go to the grocery store, to the section which advertises in bright pink neon lights, "best meat in town" (it isn't), grab a pack of hotdogs, sometimes marked "franks" or "frankfurters" or "wieners", but absolutely no one uses these last two words to refer to hot dogs. Frankfurters are people from Frankfurt, and the popular use of wiener is penis, so take my advice, and never go up to an American meat department and ask if you can have some of their wieners. Unlike a parek, which was made recently of fresh ingredients, American hot dogs are loaded with chemical preservatives, assorted animals parts (don't ask), and have a shelf life of several months.

Hot dogs come in packs of 8, as do the buns. Bread in America is unlike bread anywhere else in the world. It is soft, and by the rest of the world's standards, old. If you want bread baked fresh, you can find it in a grocery store bakery section, but nine times out of ten--no, ten times out of ten, it is made from frozen dough that has been shipped halfway across the country from God only knows where. Like I said, it's a big country, and bread is one reason why big is not better. To complete the standard hot dog meal, we grab a can of chili and a can of pork n' beans (we get the vegetarian kind, made without meat, and with lots of brown sugar. No kidding!).

Why don't Americans travel more?

Today is Saturday. We spent part of it driving across town to shop for a new microwave. The old one had a disastrous 3 and half minute run in with knedlik, but that's another story. There is no public transport here on the weekends; the bus service available during the week is extremely limited, runs no nearer than 1 mile from our house, and doesn't go to the other side of town. So, we had to put about 40 miles (that's 64 km) on the car today. Knedliky, kilometers, public transport---all of this reminded me of a question I was asked more than once in Europe: Why don't Americans travel more? My intense annoyance at being asked this question every time I go abroad, almost always by Europeans who have traveled to the US once or maybe twice if they have at all, has started me asking that question myself.

This is my answer: America is a big country, so big, in fact, that all of western and central Europe, and a part of eastern Europe would fit inside of the continental US. Draw a line from the Shetland Islands north of Scotland, to Petersburg, to Ankara to Lisbon and back up to Scotland. All of this would fit, with room to spare, inside. France is smaller than Texas; England would fit inside Georgia; Italy is no bigger than Florida; South Carolina could hold all of the Czech Republic. So, Americans drive a lot. On average, 15,000 miles (24,000 km) per year. And how far is that for say, someone living in Prague? It would be like adding together round trips to all of the following places: Rome, Barcelona, Paris, Athens, Edinburgh. London, Munich, Budapest, and Istanbul. These are driving miles, not airmiles. By the way, while I lived abroad in Europe last year, my family and I traveled to 10 countries and 3 continents in 9 months. Consider this, as well: Italians have an average of 42 vacation days per year, Germans 35. (Even the industrious Japanese take on average 25 days per year.) Americans have about half that much, 13 days per year. From all of this, it is evident that perhaps the question should be, "why don't Europeans travel more?" They've got more vacation, an amazing mass transit system, and more countries to visit in a space that wouldn't even get a southerner out of the deep south.

Indeed it is a shame that more Americans haven't traveled abroad, but maybe the reason for that isn't xenophobia or just pure cussedness. Maybe we're tired. And busy. A more important question should be asked about America: why can't we make better beer and wine?