LETTER FROM AMERICA

[Stanley]

LETTER FROM AMERICA

21 June 2002

When I was a little lad and there was a thunderstorm my mother used to tell me not to worry, it was only God’s coalman. All I can say is that here in the Upper Mid-West of America there must be a lot of coal being delivered! I like thunderstorms and this is a good place to sit on the porch and watch them. Of course, it can get dangerous when the cloud starts to rotate and a tornado cell forms, this is the season for them and I don’t particularly want to see one! We had a few small ones about 30 miles North of here two days ago.
I once remember reading that lightning released nitrogen from the atmosphere and was good for growing crops. I don’t know whether this is true but lightning, rain and warm weather seem to suit the maize crops which grow all round here, you can almost see the plants growing at this time of the year. They plant around the end of May and the saying is that it should be ‘Knee-high by the Fourth of July’. By the time they are ready to harvest in late September the frosts have come and there is something very strange about watching harvesting going on in weather cold enough to make warm top coats essential, in England it’s always a warm weather job.
Today is national ‘Take your dog to work’ day. The US Supreme Court is debating whether mentally retarded criminals should be executed and yet another small Baptist Church in the deep South has been burned down by racists, strange contrasts for a Limey observing the scene! Do you know why they call us Limeys in America? It’s because English seamen were given lime-juice to prevent scurvy which was caused by vitamin-deficiency, the sea captains didn’t understand how this worked but they knew that it prevented it. The Americans thought this was funny and called us ‘lime-juicers’ which was shortened to Limey.
I got word this week that an American friend had died. Nothing unusual about that at my age, my contemporaries are dropping off the perch all over the place. What made this unusual was how he had died, he had discovered he had cancer and elected not to treat it or inform his family, in effect, he condemned himself to an early death. The reason he did this was that he had no insurance and knew that if he had treatment it would bankrupt his family. The next time you’re complaining about the NHS remember my friend and think on, things could be worse!
Amtrak, the American equivalent of the old British Railways, announced this morning that if they didn’t receive a cash injection of $200 million immediately all passenger services would cease in 14 days. The government have immediately started making noises about closing lines down and privatising. Does this sound at all familiar? Perhaps they should send someone over to England and look at the mess we got ourselves into through exactly the same thinking.
Northfield is a college town, there are two large degree-awarding institutions here, St Olaf’s and Carleton College. The course at Carleton is a four year one and costs approximately $25,000 a year to parents. Add to this food, accommodation, travel etc. and you can begin to see why an education on this level is the preserve of the rich. The funny thing is that if you talk to the parents they don’t see themselves as rich in American terms but by our standards they must certainly be seen as such. Speaking as an outsider, the most obvious difference between America and the UK is the level of consumption, everything is bigger, consumes more energy and makes you fatter.
On the subject of obesity, South West Airlines has got into trouble for saying that they if a passenger can’t fit into one airline seat they are going to charge them for two. This has produced a howl of protest from the obese who say that they aren’t buying space but transportation. Personally I think they ought to weigh the passenger and the baggage and charge above a certain weight. Like the UK, the States has identified a rising incidence of obesity-related diabetes in the young and is getting worried about it. I was offered a 32 ounce steak in a restaurant last week with a quart of ice cream to follow, can you wonder that people get fat!
When I was here last year Target had opened a superstore on the outskirts of Northfield selling clothes, shoes and household goods. This year they have announced that they have bought one of the two supermarkets in the town and are transferring it to the main store on the outskirts. In other words Northfield has exactly the same problem that we have in Barlick, out-of-town shopping damaging the town centre.
Looking back I might appear too critical so I’d better say something about the brighter side. The people are as polite, law-abiding and friendly as ever. Traffic in the town moves at about 15 mph and stops immediately if you step off the pavement. (Sidewalk here, the pavement is the road!) The biggest crime the police have faced in the last week is kids on skateboards and roller blades alarming pedestrians, shades of mountain bikes in Town Square. Ed Klinkhammer, wonderful name, the proprietor of the local bakery, walked into Jacobsen’s Store on the main street the other day, took one look at a new portrait of Bob Jacobsen on the wall and announced it was no good, the glass prevented you from throwing darts at it! Some things don’t change and as long as the people are OK there’s hope for the town yet. In this respect at least, Northfield is another Barlick.

21 June 2002