O America

A view from across the pond

Terry in Santa Monica, 1980

My love affair with America began when I was 15, although I was primed at a far, far younger age. At two or three years old, I used to sit in a box and make believe I was in a boat on my way to see my Auntie Pole.

Auntie Pole was, in fact, Aunty Pearl, my dad’s sister. She married an American GI stationed in England, and went back to America with him soon after I’d been born.

In my mid-teens my parents joined an organisation called The Anglo-American Friendship Association, which organised chartered flights to the New World. It was decided that, as my parents couldn’t afford for us all to go there, my dad and I would go.

When we landed in Los Angeles, Aunty Pole and Uncle Joe were there to greet us. My aunt was all smiles, of course. My uncle and I hadn’t seen each other since I was a baby in a pram. He didn’t say a word.

Indeed, he spent the whole time just looking at me as if trying to figure out whether or not I was an OK person.

Dad and Aunty Pole

When we arrived at their house, my aunt asked if I was hungry.

“Yes”, I replied.

“Would you like egg and chips [French fries]?”

“Yes please!”

All this time my uncle stared at me without saying a word.

When I'd finished, my aunt asked me if I was still hungy.

“Yes”, I said.

“What would you like now?”.

“May I have the same again please?”

And at this point my uncle spoke for the first time. In a very pronounced Bronx accent he declared:

“Hey! I like dis guy”

🤣

Uncle Joe, me, Aunty Pole, dad

How I loved America! The wide roads, big cars, huge restaurant signs, the fact that a cheese sandwich in America wasn’t the usual British fare, a couple of slabs of bread containing the thinnest slice of cheese imaginable and, if you were really lucky, a sprig of lettuce. An American cheese sandwich came with so much cheese, salad and crisps, and bottomless coffee, that it was a meal in itself.

And the sunshine. And the fact that if you wanted, you could walk down the road to an all night bookshop. (Simple pleasures!)

And the girls. OMG. I’d discovered girls about a year previously. I can see why the Beach Boys wished they all could be California Girls.

In 1980 I went again, and discovered what an amazing culture America has. Such a gung ho, you-can-do-it outlook. Although I did manage to upset a girl I really fancied because of a linguistic misunderstanding.

I’ve been to America five times in all, to LA (twice), Boston, Atlanta and San Diego, and, as part of the same visit, Phoenix, Arizona. One of these years I shall go to New York, which sounds like my kind of place — the city that never sleeps.

While I was watching the recent Presidential election, I was in awe over the fact

that the United States of America has existed for nearly 250 years. What an achievement. A consitution that has human rights at its core, though admittedly observed more in the breach than the observance for a long time as far as different races were concerned , and brought in line with changing circumstance through several amendments.

I’m not saying whether or not I support President Trump, because I always try to keep my political preferences to myself. But seeing those anti-Trumpers screaming at the ocean, I couldn’t help thinking:

Is this the nation that put a man on the moon?

Is this the nation that gave us Martin Luther King, Jnr?

Is this the nation that gave us Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Joni Mitchell, Rebecca Solnit, to name just a handful. It was really unedifying, and unfathomable, for me as a Brit to witness adults having the kind of tantrum associated with two-year olds.

Surely a more productive approach would be to analyse what went wrong from their point of view, and then spend the next four years addressing the issues.

This isn’t a criticism. I simply don’t understand it.

But it would take a lot more than such apparent unhingedness to dampen my love and admiration for America. I can’t wait to go there again.