Notes from an American Airport Lounge

Reflections on Leaving America for Europe

By Terry Field, Englishman en route to France

Sitting in the enchanting atmosphere of Starbucks in Tampa airport, after six months in the pleasurable surroundings of Sarasota, it seems an opportune time to reflect upon the experience, both socially, culturally and also with reference to political life and the ‘world views’ that are the seas within which we all swim.

A water feature at the Sarasota home

Firstly, it must be observed that the people I have met are an eclectic bunch, from all over the States, as well as from around the world. Very few boring conversations, but some predictable. The inhabitants of the ‘interior’ states so often are content – more than less now – but content with the Trump experience.

I am by nature and education not drawn to demagogy, and I prefer my ‘leaders’ to be possessed of insight, intelligence and wisdom. From this my personal approach to this quite novel president cannot be misjudged.

The folk who like him, however, often describe reasons that seem really quite understandable, and at this stage it is important to acknowledge that the USA is in no way the society that Europe and England is. Its experience, its responsibilities, the blood it has spilt and continues to spill, all give its people a –properly – unique view of themselves, the world, and indeed the very definition of human reality and the human condition. Thus the politics are NOT transferable, as so many proselytizing Europeans and British consider they should be.

As I have described in the blog, there are people with minds that suggest their mothers contracted Zika, and whose adoration of guns, Trump, aggression, national arrogance, etc, etc are all of a piece. But for every one of them there are many decent folks who voted for The Donald for good reasons. To them, rational reasons. And not unkind reasons.

I am content to call some of these folk my friend, and we agree to disagree about politics. That is as it should be; grown up people do not lose friendships over the trivia of political life- unless their friendships were not worth a light in the first place.

Let’s talk about healthcare

I have been struck at the inheritance of personal freedom and the perception of invulnerability that has persuaded millions of Americans not to take up Obamacare, as they wish not to be controlled as to their requirement to cover themselves with insurance to protect against future illness. That thought process springs from deep wells of freedom, born of the New World. In Europe, corralled as we are by war, super-powerful government, and collapsed personal freedom during the 20^th C, we accept that being socially managed ‘for group benefit’ is the rational way to live.

Maybe. But so much of British and European life is controlled and directed that free life - ‘libertarianism’ as the left describes it – is squashed at every opportunity. I am in the American camp, but would expect that healthcare will become a little more ‘socialised’ over the years.

Guns

Saw only a few; the guns seemed tame. The hands holding them attached to minds less secure than the safety catches. Worrying.

Subjectively, the ‘redneck’ backwoodsman, a remote and minority figure a couple of decades or so ago, seems to be much more prevalent now. Their influence, to my mind, is malign. It comes, I suggest, not from an experience of hardship, but of the possibility to be personally irresponsible and isolated that comes directly from immense national wealth, massive consumer power, unending superfluity of all goods; everything is available in America.  All you need to do is reach out and grab what you want, via some education, a little work. Not much else.

Growing excess for a century has produced a sort of human super-rat; aggressively avaricious, potentially violent, not possessed of a great mind (since it is an optional extra) and willing to behave with dissociated selfishness, all the while whining on about ‘community’, ‘God’, ‘The Lord’. We have this in England, in our proletarian subculture, but it is corralled into poor city margins, and when it riots it is controlled by Special Magistrates.

Leaving aside this disagreeable experience, the rest is almost entirely positive. Americans seem universally polite, considerate, courteous, helpful and good-to-know.

Lost in this Florida vegetation are two polite lizards.  Can you spot them?

I have many experiences of kindnesses and assistance when my/our aging minds screw up tickets, appointments, all manner of things. My lady wife agrees with me that, were these misfortunes to have overtaken us in Britain, and even more so in France, kind help and the resolution of difficulties would not have been anything like as forthcoming.

I love the American tendency to group together for charitable events, and the togetherness they love whenever a disability or problem arises. Illness; there is always a group of fellow sufferers who want to share experiences and alleviate suffering. A bonus in a strange place at times.

I have been immensely entertained by the American comedy industry, and in this I include the channels that devote themselves to God. There is always a ‘preacher’ – often an elderly man, usually wearing the sort of purple cheesecloth jacket that Desi Arnaz would have favoured, declaiming to the serried ranks of the blue-rinsed (these days also henna-rinsed) once-ladies-now-hermaphrodites that they will, if their credit card is properly put to’ The Lords Work,’ be reborn as a Barbie-Doll-in Christ.

This obviously attractive prospect is something I would jump at, were I of the female persuasion, and indeed it seems to be a distinct improvement on the Jehovah Witness offering. I could not find a preacher offering me anything like such an offer; I would have accepted to be resurrected as a Tom Cruise, or even a young Bill Cosby (with plea-bargain included) but they simply offer God will ‘smile on me’.

This lack of imagination seems to me to be quite un-American. I am sure Trump will sort it out, and I will be offered the resurrected body of a ‘Transformer’ or Captain America before his administration, bathed in glory, comes to an end.

The Amish

Wonderful. They offer the best grocery store I have encountered in America; excellent variety of fruits, vegetables, fish, meats, etc – the quality and variety shames the idle French, and totally eclipses the benighted British food experience. How can a bunch of 17^th century, Dutch-German (Prussian, actually) run rings around Sainsbury, and even Waitrose? (For those of you unfamiliar with Britain, these are places the British go to avoid starvation; Had he been contemporaneous, Dante would have certainly included them in the First Circle of Hell reserved for those blessed with a total lack of culinary imagination).

In addition to offering great food, these bicycle-travelling Amish folk - not forgetting the more worldly-wise Menonites (who drive automobiles!!!) - also offer fine residential care facilities for the progressively infirm. In England such people live in little ‘flats’ where the rooms are so narrow the knees are gradually worn down by friction with the wall as one tries to walk past the ‘sofa’.

In the abundance that is America, a friend of mine, fearing death within the next fifteen years and thus ‘planning for the future’ has bought a luxurious condo in a massive ‘progressive retirement complex’ run by Menonites. This is the equivalent of Henry Ford’s vertically integrated factories. Just as he started with iron ore, and via foundries, machine shops, then assembly plants, Model Ts were shed one a minute to the greedy public, so in this home, the lucky inhabitant starts in ‘independent living’ (wife included as required), and progresses to ‘assisted living’, thence to ‘memory-enhancement facility living’, through to ‘togetherness living’ and finally to the ‘home hospital’ facility, thence to the pine box, and a choice of the Inferno so well described by Dante, or a concrete coffin ( outer only, inner in Oak with ‘cosseted silk lining’) thence to be interred in the ‘close-by Garden of Rest’.

ALL this, with no effort exerted by the ‘inhabitant’. Pre–paid by a lifetime care-plan!!!!!

WHAT A CIVILISATION! EAT YOUR HEART OUT PUTIN!!!

At this point in the narrative, I must hover, hawk-like, over a restaurant on the ‘Tamiami Trail’ (an ancient Indian trail, worn by canoes of those hunters of alligators and turtles; no ‘memory-enhancement living’ for them).

Terry and  his dear wife, sharing a breakfast with

the masses in America

The restaurant in Question – one ‘Dutch Valley’. A wonderful place. It sports a sign dishonestly offering ‘Belgium Waffles’. The ‘Dutch Valley’ has fabulous offering of ‘eggs Florentine’ – wonderful eggs, covering spinach, tomato, and drowning in ‘Mayo’. I am surrounded by those hardy nonagenarians who have escaped the ‘independent living’ facility to eat enough for twenty-four hours in the next forty minutes. The interesting thing about the geriatric stomach is that it delicately encases the food shovelled into it. It expands like a balloon; no functioning muscles discloses a stomach that, on entering the restaurant, was not noticeable, but on leaving it, wobbles between thigh and knee. All around me the tummies grew. A sort of comforting approbation of the gastronomy; like an African who belches loudly to advise the host the repast was excellent.

A jolly place of indulgence. The impression these attached stomachs give is that of a gathering of boa constrictors after each has eaten a sizeable antelope, or wart-hog, or aardvark, slim everywhere except for the centre.

From this, I have to advise that America has delighted in an unexpected quarter – eggs. American eggs are wonderful. The extreme refrigeration produces a tight meniscus, a proud yolk, a true delight to fry or boil. This is NOT the British or European experience- there things are more variable. The other side of the Atlantic continues to experiment with refrigeration, and the guilt-ridden middle classes there think they are all earth-mothers if they buy warm eggs from ‘farmers markets’ (yea right) and when they cook them, they are so old the white spreads wider than the average pizza bread.

NOT SO IN AMERICA – SO UP YOURS ASSAD!

Finally, since I must prepare myself shortly for the rigours of the ‘full body inspection’ at this blessed airport, I mention, with genuine wonder, the exquisite birdlife of Florida. Having removed the pesky Indians to ‘Nations’ (you know, the way we corral people into places like Slough in England) the Europeans have been in Florida for only a short time, too short to terrify the birds as we did in Europe around the time the sabre-toothed tiger was having fun) and thus these exquisite creatures, sand hill cranes, egrets, all manner of heron wonder around in close proximity to people.

Terry taking photographic aim at Florida bird life near his domicile complex this past winter.

Good thing they are Anglo Saxons, (people whose cerebellum has no neurological centre that specialises in food) and not French. Had they been French, there would have been a ten-year splurge of Pate d’Egret, Fricase de Crane de Sand Coline’, followed by only the odd disconsolate sparrow flitting around.

The bird’s done good. Thank the Anglo Saxons.

With our next essay from Terry, he will be reporting from his summer garden in Normandy, France, perhaps having checked in French wine cellar with a concerned enthusiasm....