Now that I've calmed down from waiting 48 hours at home before receiving my luggage from U S Airways, I want to use this blog opportunity to reflect a bit on my trip home this time.
Although it's only been a year since my last visit, this visit was the first one since 1997 where I've returned to an America under the leadership of a Democratic President. That felt good, I can tell you. And it was the first time since I was a small girl, that I was actually in a Virginia that was a firm hue of blue, instead of the garish red colouring it's worn since Lyndon Johnson was elected. (Virginia had the distinct notoriety of being the only Southern state not to have gone for Jimmy Carter in 1976.)
Returning to a Virginia which had not only backed Obama, but who boasted its Governor as being Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, as well as two high-profile, erudite and respected Democratic U S Senators, made me feel even better.
I've always been a Democrat. My father was one who was so far left of centre, his left-field position in a baseball game would have been outside the park. He was a union leader, the son of immigrants, with strong ties to and beliefs in socialism. Most of the men my mother and her sisters married were like that. And the girls had come from a fine old FFV (First Families of Virginia) who firmly believed in everyone in society knowing his or her rightful place and staying in it. Still, opposites do attract.
Whilst my family professed a religious belief, they weren't religious, nor were they intolerant. I went to school during the era of de-segregation, but my parents and their siblings always instilled in my cousins and me the necessity of judging another person by the sort of person he or she was, rather than the colour of their skin or by their religious affiliation; they preached judging the person on his character and achievements. So, another person's race, religion, colour or creed never cut any ice with me.
I was in high school during Viet Nam and the Summer of Love; I came of age during Watergate. I married during the early years of Ronald Reagan.
Living abroad gave me the opportunity to view my native state and country from afar, mainly with a jaundiced eye. The first difference in Americans, in general, and Europeans, is that Americans seem, on the surface, a lot more overtly religious than the Europeans. That doesn't mean religion isn't important in Europe. In many countries, it is. The Catholic Church still holds sway in Italy, Spain and in the southern part of Germany. The United Kingdom has an Established Church (we know it as the Episcopal Church), which means that that Church and all its employees are supported, financially and otherwise, by the State. And this is a country where Catholics, now that the Poles are daily immigrating in droves to the UK, outnumber the nominal Episcopalians.
It's just that in the US, belonging to a church or a denomination seemed so much more important, socially; but the Christianity took a pejorative bent. It was condemnatory and negative. It was intolerant. It was exclusive. In short, it was everything Jesus Christ was not.
During the Bush years as well, I witnessed a peculiar phenomenon in my Democratic family.
People began voting Republican. In 2000, the 'Stolen Election', quite a few of my relatives confessed to having voted for Bush. I remember being appalled at Bush's candidacy at the time. He reminded me so much of the rich, privileged, legacied fraternity boys, with whom I'd attended university, whose sole purpose in being there was to party at the 'Country Club of the South', take a minimal degree and go work for Daddy's business. But many of my relatives who decamped to the Dark Side, cited Bill Clinton's 'immorality' - never mind, the economy was sound. Even more of them marched in Bush's political army in the election of 2004, on the heels of 9/11 and out of the fear instilled into their souls by the neocon kings Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Cheney.
And visiting those post-9/11 years, I also noticed another thing: Everybody seemed to have money. Not just a bit of money, a lot of money. I was out shopping with a cousin one day, when she drove by the bank and blithely withdrew $1000 ... for the day. People used credit cards without thinking, bought big SUVs as mere status symbols and flaunted designer clothes and the latest electronic gadgets. People doing the most menial of jobs seemed to be proverbially loaded all the time.
Probably the one relative who bought into this lifestyle most of all was my most religious relative, a woman who'd married a Mormon and converted to that faith back in the Seventies. The Mormons tithe, and those who don't get the money taken from them forcibly by the Church. This cousin's husband was the treasurer of his local Church, so she knew to the dime the exact amount of everyone's salary in the Church. And she was a fervent Republican.
But, in reality, since 2003, I'd begun to notice some things about my family, as a whole, that I'd never once imagined, especially with the older generation. My best friend since high school is a lesbian. When I was visiting in 2003, I mentioned to my aunt that Robin would be up to spend the day.
'Just to let you know beforehand,' I warned. 'She bats for the other side.'
My elderly aunt was perplexed by that turn of phrase until her granddaughter clarified it for her. 'It means she's gay, Grandma,' she explained.
My aunt and uncle were charmed to the hilt by Robin. They adored her, and to this day, when she's in the area, she stops by. Toward the end of my visit there, my aunt was catching me up on some of the rest of the extended family, speaking of another cousin's children.
'And you know,' she informed me, sagely, 'Gene's daughter, Kelly, she bats for the other side.'
Old lessons hold true. These old people, born and bred in the Old South, didn't give a fig about a person's lifestyle. They looked at the person, himself.
Returning last year in the middle of Primary season, I remarked to my aunt that my Mormon cousin would most likely be behind Mitt Romney or some other Republican.
'Not at all!' exclaimed my aunt. 'They've gone back to the Democrats. They want nothing more to do with Bush or his Party.' (My idea is that they've lost money. I don't see as many cars parked outside their house as before).
And this year, the straw that broke the camel's back in Bubbaland. Religion.
During my stay there, a report was broadcast on the NBC Nightly News about an increasing number of Americans refusing to profess any kind of religious leaning, and an increase in the number of Americans actually turning away from religion as a whole and leaning toward secularism (after all we are a secular country.) When the report was aired, my uncle pontificated on how organised religion was the single biggest trouble-maker in the world's history, that people should leave that stuff to their own private concerns and not inflict it on anyone else, let alone the government. And this is a man who never went past the sixth grade!
Not only that, but a surprising number of people I've known all my life from my local community feel the same way as well, and many of them and people of their ilk, now confess to professing a religious denomination or actually attending a particular church because it was 'the done thing', only now - instead of 'doing the done thing' for form's sake - they're admitting their pragmatism and revelling in their secularism. And it wasn't just my family, most of whom haven't left the area or had more than a high school education; it concerned a plethora of friends and acquaintances who suddenly feel freed from the yoke of neo-conservative rule and the advent of a socially progressive and enlightened President, to confess that religion doesn't enter into their daily life at all, rather they live by common sense and ethics.
Hey, this is the New South. I can whistle that Dixie.
Speaking Truth to the Power of the Lying Liars of the US Media, Right AND Left.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Air Bubba
I've just arrived back in the UK (grrrr) from a two-week visit back home to Virginia. God knows, I needed a rest. To say I was totally ragged out would have been an understatement in the least. So I should be rested and revitalised, right?
Dead wrong.
I'm stressed beyond belief.
The holiday (or vacation as it's called in the States) started badly evened out into relaxation and fun, and ... just when I was totally relaxed and feeling homesick at the prospect of leaving the new, blue Commonwealth of Virginia, the proverbial shit hit the fan, and believe you me, it was a mighty rude awakening.
You know how you can always tell when something isn't going to be 'quite right'? How niggly littel things occur that are a foretaste of something whiffy to come?
The first hint occurred on the Saturday before I left, the last day in February, when I was looking out the digital camera to pack. It wasn't in its case. As I recalled the husband had last been seen with it a few weeks back, taking pictures of the dogs, I asked him where he'd put it.
He insisted that I'd had it last and told me off for never putting things back where they belonged. An argument ensued, of course, after I'd reminded him of where I'd last seen the article. The argument was tabled, with a promise from him that he'd find it the next day. When the next day arrived, he 'suddenly remembered' how he'd taken the camera, the previous week, with him on his daily walk with the dogs down the local canal. He'd hoped to take pictures of ducks. Well, you know the story: He's aiming for a shot, the dog pulls the leash and - Bob's your uncle! - the camera's at the bottom of the canal.
He'd neglected to tell me because I would have lost my temper.
Did I lose my temper? Well, yes, I did. But had he told me when it happened, the hissy fit would have been over and done with, and a new camera would have been purchased.
But that's not all he did.
When my trip was booked, early in February, the husband dissuaded me vehemently from flying directly from London Heathrow into Washington Dulles. Heathrow's a pain in the ass to access and we live closer to Gatwick. The only direct flights from Gatwick were far more expensive than British Airways, so the husband convinced me to fly via US Airways to Charlotte, North Carolina and connect there for Washington Dulles. I wouldn't arrive any later in Washington and I'd only be about 12 hours in transit, with enough time (about 3 hours) in between flights. And all for a cheaper price than BA, the most econimical.
A doddle, right? Couldn't be easier. Well, it looked good on paper.
Of course, that Monday, 2 March, the Southeastern coast of the US was blanketed in snow and the flight from London was delayed. No problem. It would arrive an hour later. The Brit man at the US Airways check-in in London assured me that, although I'd have to clear customs in Charlotte and grab my bags from baggage claim, the connection service was 'just around the corner', 'very swift' and I would easily make my connection.
First piece of misinformation.
We arrived in Charlotte, after 9 hours' flying, at the stated time of 4:30 PM EST. Boarding time for my 6PM flight to Dulles was 5:30 PM.
Normally, when I've flown home, although the line at Passport Control is long, especially with US citizens re-entering, it's faster, because all the Border Control agents have to do is a cursory check of your passport and - bingo! - you're in. It's always been my husband who's left fuming in the 'Non-US Citizens' queue for ages on end.
Not this time.
Sure, there were fewer Brits on the plane, but for some reason (and this must be a legacy of the Bushwacker years), aliens holding Green Cards NOW are entitled to enter along with US Passport holders. Fair enough, except that the Green Carders are fingerprinted on both hands, and photographed assiduously; and this takes an untold amount of time. At 5:10PM, I was still waiting processing and had yet to claim my bag. I started to fidget, muttering that I'd never make my connection. The girl in back of me in the line remarked that she never had this problem when she flew home via Philly, only through Charlotte.
I finally got processed, by which time ALL the unclaimed baggage had been removed from the carrel and was about to be carted away, when I grabbed my bag from the pile and legged it around the corner to the connections' desk. The failed Southern society lady manning the desk, smiled, informed me that my connecting flight had, in fact, been delayed, took my bag and told me that the flight wouldn't be leaving before 7:30 PM. Both the bag and I had ample time to board the aircraft. So I walked the circuitous route to the proper concourse.
Then the second niggly warning occurred. As I ambled toward the proper departure gate, I noticed, all about me, instead of proper seating outside franchise eating places, were white rocking chairs. At first, I thought this a quaint acknowledgement of the relaxed and easy living emblematic of the Deep South. Then I began to worry. A Southerner, myself, I knew full well that that lackadaisical symbol of the old rocking chair was the first sign of creeping Bubbadom and a hop, skip and a jump from Deliveranceland.
I quickened my pace.
I reached the gate, and to my surprise, they were boarding the aircraft, but without any sort of urgency or hurry. I entered the plane, which was almost empty, took my seat and waited as, from time to time, more people boarded. I heard one of the two stewardesses remark to a passenger that she'd been trying to leave Charlotte since 2PM the previous day, but hadn't been able to, due to the snow. Looking out the window, there didn't seem to be very much snow about at all, but I knew that anytime it snowed south of Danville, it was a major catastrophe. We sat there for about an hour until the flight eventually left at 7:30, arriving at Dulles within an hour.
Well, I arrived, my two bags didn't. They never made the plane. In fact, hardly anyone's bags did. So there I was at Dulles, with nothing but the clothes I was wearing, searching for my friend from high school who was going to meet me. She, in turn, was in an airport bar, enjoying a cocktail, because the flight information re US Airways still said my flight was delayed. After about an hour of floundering about and initialising a claim for my lost bits of luggage, Robin and I managed to connect. As my luggage contained a bottle of French wine, we'd planned on imbibing that evening, we hurried to the nearest Giant Foods to purchase some local Virginia vino (surprisingly good Merlot) and an extra toothbrush for me; and after a night of catching up on a year's worth of gossip, I fell into bed, wearing some of Robin's pajamas, at about 5AM on Tuesday morning, with 10 inches of proper snow on the ground outside.
As it happens, my luggage arrived early the next afternoon at my aunt's rural Fauquier County home before I did.
Things settled down after that, although, looking at my return itinerary, I was more than a bit perturbed that there were only 50 minutes between my return flight from Dulles to Charlotte and the flight back to London. So on my last Sunday Stateside, this past one, I rang US Airways to voice my concern about whether or not I'd make that connection, but they assured me that 50 minutes was ample time, that everything was on time and if there were any delay, they'd ring me in the morning and make alternative arrangements. I was mollified.
The next day, when I arrived at the airport, the niggle started again.
I go to check one bag in (prescience told me to hang onto the carry-on bag), and was told by a surly woman on ground crew, who looked like a domestic, to 'use the automatic check-in'. I did, whereupon she reluctantly took the bag and checked it through to London Gatwick. I asked again about the short time between connections and her abrupt reply was, 'It's legal.'
What? Like it's against the law to have a connection interval of less than a certain number of minutes? Or does it mean that it exonerates the airlines from any potential blame?
Well, anyway, boarding time was 5:34PM. But by 5:05, no plane had shown up. Then, instead of a tannoy announcement, US Airways surreptitiously slides the information on his overhead board that 'the flight is delayed until 6:22 PM.' Then '6:38 PM'. No one was on hand at the desk to ask any information or advice, so I phoned the 800 number on my e-ticket and voiced my concern that now the flight wouldn't arrive in Charlotte until around 8PM and my London flight left at 8:25PM. The detached voice told me to seek guidance and information from one of the ground crew at the departure gate.
'But there's no one there, ' I wailed. She directed me to the next gate, where I found the surly woman who hadn't checked my bag originally. She told me to go back to my departure gate and she'd be along in a few minutes. By 6:00 PM a man from Ground Crew showed up. An Indian girl and I were travelling to London and she was worried about missing the connection.
'Not our problem here,' twanged the man, who was missing several front teeth. 'Cain't do nothin' at Dulles. But, don't worry, plane'll be here in a few minutes, we'll turn it right around and head fer Charlotte. You'll make the connection. Concourse D's only about a five-minute walk from where we land.'
That didn't satisfy or comfort me. In fact, it did nothing to instill any sort of confidence in me. It alarmed me.
'Wait a minute,' I interjected. 'What if we DON'T make our connection? What if the plane leaves without us? You see, I've done everything right here, it's not my fault your plane's late. What happens?'
'Not our problem,' he smiled beatifically. Really. 'Charlotte'll sort you out.' (As if 'Charlotte' were a living, breathing person with a heart). 'Mebbe send yer down ter Atlanta and fly yer out on Delta.' He shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't even looking at the other girl and me.
By that time, I was incensed.
'Do I LOOK like General Sherman?' I shouted. 'I don't want a tour of the South, I need to be in London tomorrow morning and at my desk by 10AM!'
'You'll get there,' he purred. 'You'll make it.'
By the time the plane arrived, fifteen minutes later, he'd been replaced by a Chinese man who spoke, at best, unintelligible pidgen English.
'We turn prane round. People off. People on. You go.' I kid you NOT, that's what he said.
In point of fact, 'prane' didn't 'turn round.' It sat there until the designated departure time of 6:38PM, and as we taxied down the runway, I looked sadly at the two British Airways planes, loading for a direct flight to London, and at the Virgin Atlantic plane, doing the same. I could have been on any of those; but I was flying to Charlotte.
We landed at 7:55 PM, but they didn't open the plane doors until 8:05 PM. I legged it. Five minutes' walk? Walking, it would have taken twenty. I ran and made it in fifteen, as they were sounding the final call for boarding. I got on the plane. The Indian girl followed and before she sat down, we were in motion, down the runway, bound for Gatwick airport. At that point, I knew, without a doubt, my luggage was someplace in the bowels of Charlotte Airport.
I was right.
Once again, but calmly this time, I went through the claim procedure. The miserable British woman who served me (customer service people are ALWAYS miserable and curt in Britain), told me my luggage would arrive on the next flight from Charlotte on Wednesday morning, and be delivered to my house, an hour away, by late afternoon or early evening.
By 10:15 AM yesterday, I was at my desk, sorting out a business crisis that had arisen in my absence. It's now 11:45PM on Wednesday evening, and I'm sat here in the same clothes I've worn (I've actually bathed three times, thank God) since Monday. And guess what?
No luggage arrived.
As the reclaim centre at Gatwick closes at 5PM, I had to ring US Airways in Charlotte. It was like talking to Mayberry RFD. The girl was chewing gum and cracking it as we spoke.
'Wale, ma'am,' she drawled, 'I could call the erport fer ya, but sometimes them British doan answer.'
When she said that, I put the phone down.
Bubba Air, Redneck Airlines, has arrived.
The French used to say, about Spain, that Africa began at the Pyrenees. I'm beginning to think that the Kingdom of Bubbadom begins at the Smokies, somewhere south of Danville.
Speaking as a Southerner, the right side won the War.
Dead wrong.
I'm stressed beyond belief.
The holiday (or vacation as it's called in the States) started badly evened out into relaxation and fun, and ... just when I was totally relaxed and feeling homesick at the prospect of leaving the new, blue Commonwealth of Virginia, the proverbial shit hit the fan, and believe you me, it was a mighty rude awakening.
You know how you can always tell when something isn't going to be 'quite right'? How niggly littel things occur that are a foretaste of something whiffy to come?
The first hint occurred on the Saturday before I left, the last day in February, when I was looking out the digital camera to pack. It wasn't in its case. As I recalled the husband had last been seen with it a few weeks back, taking pictures of the dogs, I asked him where he'd put it.
He insisted that I'd had it last and told me off for never putting things back where they belonged. An argument ensued, of course, after I'd reminded him of where I'd last seen the article. The argument was tabled, with a promise from him that he'd find it the next day. When the next day arrived, he 'suddenly remembered' how he'd taken the camera, the previous week, with him on his daily walk with the dogs down the local canal. He'd hoped to take pictures of ducks. Well, you know the story: He's aiming for a shot, the dog pulls the leash and - Bob's your uncle! - the camera's at the bottom of the canal.
He'd neglected to tell me because I would have lost my temper.
Did I lose my temper? Well, yes, I did. But had he told me when it happened, the hissy fit would have been over and done with, and a new camera would have been purchased.
But that's not all he did.
When my trip was booked, early in February, the husband dissuaded me vehemently from flying directly from London Heathrow into Washington Dulles. Heathrow's a pain in the ass to access and we live closer to Gatwick. The only direct flights from Gatwick were far more expensive than British Airways, so the husband convinced me to fly via US Airways to Charlotte, North Carolina and connect there for Washington Dulles. I wouldn't arrive any later in Washington and I'd only be about 12 hours in transit, with enough time (about 3 hours) in between flights. And all for a cheaper price than BA, the most econimical.
A doddle, right? Couldn't be easier. Well, it looked good on paper.
Of course, that Monday, 2 March, the Southeastern coast of the US was blanketed in snow and the flight from London was delayed. No problem. It would arrive an hour later. The Brit man at the US Airways check-in in London assured me that, although I'd have to clear customs in Charlotte and grab my bags from baggage claim, the connection service was 'just around the corner', 'very swift' and I would easily make my connection.
First piece of misinformation.
We arrived in Charlotte, after 9 hours' flying, at the stated time of 4:30 PM EST. Boarding time for my 6PM flight to Dulles was 5:30 PM.
Normally, when I've flown home, although the line at Passport Control is long, especially with US citizens re-entering, it's faster, because all the Border Control agents have to do is a cursory check of your passport and - bingo! - you're in. It's always been my husband who's left fuming in the 'Non-US Citizens' queue for ages on end.
Not this time.
Sure, there were fewer Brits on the plane, but for some reason (and this must be a legacy of the Bushwacker years), aliens holding Green Cards NOW are entitled to enter along with US Passport holders. Fair enough, except that the Green Carders are fingerprinted on both hands, and photographed assiduously; and this takes an untold amount of time. At 5:10PM, I was still waiting processing and had yet to claim my bag. I started to fidget, muttering that I'd never make my connection. The girl in back of me in the line remarked that she never had this problem when she flew home via Philly, only through Charlotte.
I finally got processed, by which time ALL the unclaimed baggage had been removed from the carrel and was about to be carted away, when I grabbed my bag from the pile and legged it around the corner to the connections' desk. The failed Southern society lady manning the desk, smiled, informed me that my connecting flight had, in fact, been delayed, took my bag and told me that the flight wouldn't be leaving before 7:30 PM. Both the bag and I had ample time to board the aircraft. So I walked the circuitous route to the proper concourse.
Then the second niggly warning occurred. As I ambled toward the proper departure gate, I noticed, all about me, instead of proper seating outside franchise eating places, were white rocking chairs. At first, I thought this a quaint acknowledgement of the relaxed and easy living emblematic of the Deep South. Then I began to worry. A Southerner, myself, I knew full well that that lackadaisical symbol of the old rocking chair was the first sign of creeping Bubbadom and a hop, skip and a jump from Deliveranceland.
I quickened my pace.
I reached the gate, and to my surprise, they were boarding the aircraft, but without any sort of urgency or hurry. I entered the plane, which was almost empty, took my seat and waited as, from time to time, more people boarded. I heard one of the two stewardesses remark to a passenger that she'd been trying to leave Charlotte since 2PM the previous day, but hadn't been able to, due to the snow. Looking out the window, there didn't seem to be very much snow about at all, but I knew that anytime it snowed south of Danville, it was a major catastrophe. We sat there for about an hour until the flight eventually left at 7:30, arriving at Dulles within an hour.
Well, I arrived, my two bags didn't. They never made the plane. In fact, hardly anyone's bags did. So there I was at Dulles, with nothing but the clothes I was wearing, searching for my friend from high school who was going to meet me. She, in turn, was in an airport bar, enjoying a cocktail, because the flight information re US Airways still said my flight was delayed. After about an hour of floundering about and initialising a claim for my lost bits of luggage, Robin and I managed to connect. As my luggage contained a bottle of French wine, we'd planned on imbibing that evening, we hurried to the nearest Giant Foods to purchase some local Virginia vino (surprisingly good Merlot) and an extra toothbrush for me; and after a night of catching up on a year's worth of gossip, I fell into bed, wearing some of Robin's pajamas, at about 5AM on Tuesday morning, with 10 inches of proper snow on the ground outside.
As it happens, my luggage arrived early the next afternoon at my aunt's rural Fauquier County home before I did.
Things settled down after that, although, looking at my return itinerary, I was more than a bit perturbed that there were only 50 minutes between my return flight from Dulles to Charlotte and the flight back to London. So on my last Sunday Stateside, this past one, I rang US Airways to voice my concern about whether or not I'd make that connection, but they assured me that 50 minutes was ample time, that everything was on time and if there were any delay, they'd ring me in the morning and make alternative arrangements. I was mollified.
The next day, when I arrived at the airport, the niggle started again.
I go to check one bag in (prescience told me to hang onto the carry-on bag), and was told by a surly woman on ground crew, who looked like a domestic, to 'use the automatic check-in'. I did, whereupon she reluctantly took the bag and checked it through to London Gatwick. I asked again about the short time between connections and her abrupt reply was, 'It's legal.'
What? Like it's against the law to have a connection interval of less than a certain number of minutes? Or does it mean that it exonerates the airlines from any potential blame?
Well, anyway, boarding time was 5:34PM. But by 5:05, no plane had shown up. Then, instead of a tannoy announcement, US Airways surreptitiously slides the information on his overhead board that 'the flight is delayed until 6:22 PM.' Then '6:38 PM'. No one was on hand at the desk to ask any information or advice, so I phoned the 800 number on my e-ticket and voiced my concern that now the flight wouldn't arrive in Charlotte until around 8PM and my London flight left at 8:25PM. The detached voice told me to seek guidance and information from one of the ground crew at the departure gate.
'But there's no one there, ' I wailed. She directed me to the next gate, where I found the surly woman who hadn't checked my bag originally. She told me to go back to my departure gate and she'd be along in a few minutes. By 6:00 PM a man from Ground Crew showed up. An Indian girl and I were travelling to London and she was worried about missing the connection.
'Not our problem here,' twanged the man, who was missing several front teeth. 'Cain't do nothin' at Dulles. But, don't worry, plane'll be here in a few minutes, we'll turn it right around and head fer Charlotte. You'll make the connection. Concourse D's only about a five-minute walk from where we land.'
That didn't satisfy or comfort me. In fact, it did nothing to instill any sort of confidence in me. It alarmed me.
'Wait a minute,' I interjected. 'What if we DON'T make our connection? What if the plane leaves without us? You see, I've done everything right here, it's not my fault your plane's late. What happens?'
'Not our problem,' he smiled beatifically. Really. 'Charlotte'll sort you out.' (As if 'Charlotte' were a living, breathing person with a heart). 'Mebbe send yer down ter Atlanta and fly yer out on Delta.' He shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't even looking at the other girl and me.
By that time, I was incensed.
'Do I LOOK like General Sherman?' I shouted. 'I don't want a tour of the South, I need to be in London tomorrow morning and at my desk by 10AM!'
'You'll get there,' he purred. 'You'll make it.'
By the time the plane arrived, fifteen minutes later, he'd been replaced by a Chinese man who spoke, at best, unintelligible pidgen English.
'We turn prane round. People off. People on. You go.' I kid you NOT, that's what he said.
In point of fact, 'prane' didn't 'turn round.' It sat there until the designated departure time of 6:38PM, and as we taxied down the runway, I looked sadly at the two British Airways planes, loading for a direct flight to London, and at the Virgin Atlantic plane, doing the same. I could have been on any of those; but I was flying to Charlotte.
We landed at 7:55 PM, but they didn't open the plane doors until 8:05 PM. I legged it. Five minutes' walk? Walking, it would have taken twenty. I ran and made it in fifteen, as they were sounding the final call for boarding. I got on the plane. The Indian girl followed and before she sat down, we were in motion, down the runway, bound for Gatwick airport. At that point, I knew, without a doubt, my luggage was someplace in the bowels of Charlotte Airport.
I was right.
Once again, but calmly this time, I went through the claim procedure. The miserable British woman who served me (customer service people are ALWAYS miserable and curt in Britain), told me my luggage would arrive on the next flight from Charlotte on Wednesday morning, and be delivered to my house, an hour away, by late afternoon or early evening.
By 10:15 AM yesterday, I was at my desk, sorting out a business crisis that had arisen in my absence. It's now 11:45PM on Wednesday evening, and I'm sat here in the same clothes I've worn (I've actually bathed three times, thank God) since Monday. And guess what?
No luggage arrived.
As the reclaim centre at Gatwick closes at 5PM, I had to ring US Airways in Charlotte. It was like talking to Mayberry RFD. The girl was chewing gum and cracking it as we spoke.
'Wale, ma'am,' she drawled, 'I could call the erport fer ya, but sometimes them British doan answer.'
When she said that, I put the phone down.
Bubba Air, Redneck Airlines, has arrived.
The French used to say, about Spain, that Africa began at the Pyrenees. I'm beginning to think that the Kingdom of Bubbadom begins at the Smokies, somewhere south of Danville.
Speaking as a Southerner, the right side won the War.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Real Time Real Truth
I've been more than a bit deprived, living here in the UK for the past two decades, so I didn't get to experience the phenomenon that was Politically Incorrect, Bill Maher's show which ran from 1993 until 2002 on Comedy Central and on ABC. So, I'd really never heard of Bill Maher, until last year when I discovered, via the magic of the internet, Real Time with Bill Maher.
I'm an absolute fan of the man. As we're of a similar age and educational background, I feel he's pretty much a spokesman for people of my generation who espouse a progressive point of view socially and politically. I know his background is in comedy, but I actually think he's one of the most astute political commentators about these days, especially in the US. I can't see an equivalent in the UK - the closest, I would surmise, here would be a chappie called Ian Hislop, but he's not nearly as clever, quick or erudite.
Nope, Bill Maher is our national treasure.
I've watched the requisite Daily Show and the Colbert Report on Comedy Central, and while I know that they get the kudos, the positive criticism and the big names to interview, I prefer Real Time. Real Time is always the bridesmaid at the Emmy Awards and it doesn't (for various reasons) attract the big players in the political world for the big interviews - but it does give a platform for the serious players of the future. For example, one of the panel guests this week was Gavin Newsom, the Democratic mayor of San Francisco, and next week the Newark mayor Cory Booker will be on the show. I can see both men as future Presidential material and I'm impressed with both. Of course, as they both rise through the ranks (Newsom has gubernatorial aspirations and Booker will probably go the Senate route), they'll appear less and less on Bill's show - Rahm Emanuel used to be a fixture, but as Bill said recently in a Larry King interview, he probably wouldn't touch Real Time now; but if nothing else, this is a program which makes the public who watches sit up and take notice of some people.
I don't know why the big guns forego this program. I like to think it's more because of Bill Maher's interviewing techniques rather than anything about the man, himself. He's easily the most apt political interviewer in the game today. He has a tenacious knack of getting the person being interviewed to answer the questions, without badgering, haggling or being aggressive. He's subtle. He asks a question once and if the interviewee waffles, he demurs politely with 'Let me put it a different way ...' and rephrases the question. If more waffling continues, he changes tack: 'So, in a manner of speaking ...' and reiterates again, in a different mode. Nine times out of ten, he scores. The person being interviewed actually commits to the question, and by the time he's realised the commitment, Maher's moved onto a different topic. It's gotcha journalism with finesse. And if he doesn't score the point, he leaves the person being interviewed with a surmisal that's tart and to the point, but never rude.
He's got a reputation for being snarky, but his snark has a particular point. And people have accused him of being anti-American, but if you can't criticise your country, you really can't be said to love it. You always want to improve upon something or someone you love. At the moment, we're going through a pretty perilous time all around in the US and worldwide. Yet, as Maher points out, the 'Loyal Opposition', seems to be intent on maintaining the status quo which got us into this deep shit in which we're barely swimming at the moment. And they're doing so for no other reason but jealousy and bitter resentment that the Democrats now have the bully pulpits of the White House and Congress and they've got a President with the courage, tenacity and abject balls to steer us, as a country, in a different direction. They're opposing for opposition's sake, for sheer unadulterated orneriness. Is that 'loving your country'?
One of the best definitions of patriotism I've ever heard in my life comes from Mark Twain, who said that patriotism is loving your country all the time and your government when they deserve it. I've heard Maher allude to that quotation as well. I'd like to add another, this time from Thomas Jefferson, who said, when a government rules for the people, that's good, but a government who rules the people is bad and must be opposed. On that basis alone, I think opposition to Bush and the neocon criminals who took us down the road to financial ruin and an illegal war, was entirely justified.
In the run up to the election last fall, Stewart and Colbert were getting the big names to do silly turns on their programs. They wouldn't touch Real Time with the proverbial barge pole; but Maher turned it up a gear. He took it upon himself to highlight everything, absolutely everything questionable about the GOP candidates, and in particular, the woefully inadequate Sarah Palin, that the mainstream media was afraid to mention: Troopergate, Palin's teenage daughter's pregnancy after Palin's espousal of abstinence, the witch doctor connection, Troopergate, the Bridge to Nowhere, and - most of all - Palin's association with an illegal secessionist organisation. He, rightfully, banged a gong about her ignorance, her inarticulace, her unwillingness to reprimand hecklers at her rallies calling for the death of the Democratic candidate, her profligacy with taxpayers' money and her lies about ACORN and Obama 'palling around with terrorists'. But most of all, he highlighted again and again, her desire and that of the GOP in general, to rewrite the Constitution along blatantly fundamentalist Christian terms, when specifically the document was written by an areligious group of men who were products of the European Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century, in hopes of establishing a purely secular type of government, the first of its kind in the world. Maher emphasised this again and again, week after week, to the point that he positively schooled the WSJ's John Lund into silence and shamed him with Lund's own hypocrisy.
It was a moment of sheer interviewing brilliance.
Lund was bigging up Palin as the candidate to watch, banking on her popularity with the base of the Republican Party, which had controlled the GOP agenda since Baby Bush came to power. Maher challenged Lund, an obviously intelligent man. He asked seriously if Lund actually believed Palin was qualified, on day one, to become POTUS. Without blinking, Lund asserted that she was. Maher rephrased the question, only to have Lund reaffirm the answer. Maher then suggested that after the show, after a couple of drinks, perhaps Lund might say what he really thought; whereupon John Lund pulled the po-face of offence and reiterated his support for Mrs Palin and labelled Maher that dreaded word 'elitist'.
Yes, Bill Maher agreed, he probably was elitist, and a snob as well. But he pointed out, quite rightly to Lund, that were Palin not, in fact, the Vice-Presidential candidate for the GOP, she was the sort of woman Lund wouldn't even think to have lunch with. He then admitted, himself, to being an arch cynic, but - he continued - people like Lund were worse than cynical. They were cynical manipulators; because people like Lund knew that Palin was a fraud, and yet they went blithely selling her as the real deal to the American people ... and that, he finished, was wrong.
You certainly wouldn't have seen that around the panel table on Meet the Press, even with the sainted Tim Russert moderating.
I used to watch MTP regularly with Russert and was sad at his passing; and I thought this would be a perfect showcase for Maher to exercise his talents - not that I ever thought NBC would think out of the box and show a bit of ingenuity with an appointment like that. But it certainly would have moved the show up a notch from the non-entity it's become since being hosted by Karl Rove's dancing puppet David Gregory.
Now that the Democrats are in power, I wondered what Real Time had in store when it began again last week. Well, there's the economy, for starters. Bill's of the opinion that Obama's pretty much transparent, but only up to a point: that we're sinking in deep shit and that if he told us the real truth, we'd panic - as we've become a nation of panickers, nurtured thus by the Reign of Terror of Bushco. I must admit, I thought this all along. Bill still reckons that the American public is stupid. He's saying something that I and many more of our generation have thought for a long time but were too polite to say it. I know it, because I come from a rural Southern background, but was raised in a very leftwing household. You kept your mouth shut and assimilated and you didn't talk politics with the rubes, the rednecks and the bubbas. But Bill saying what we've all thought has loosened our tongues.
I know, and so do a lot of other people, that the country's tanking and tanking badly; I know that it started in earnest, with Reagan and Reaganomics. I lived through Thatcherism and that's Reaganomics in British. I remember Gordon Gekko and his real life counterpart Nick Leeson. I know too, that this time around, people were lulled into a false sense of wellbeing and keeping up with the Joneses through credit card debt and being given easy mortgage money for houses they couldn't hope to afford. And I know too, as Gavin Newsom, said on the program this week, that Obama's just going to keep throwing ideas and plans at the problem until something works, because, as Bill said, that's all he can do -and he is, probably, the only President I can remember in my lifetime, who's actually hit the ground running after being elected.
Another point he hit upon last week and this week is also something I've been banging on about since I was at the University of Virginia back in the mid-Seventies, and that's bringing the military back home. ALL the military. They're leaving Iraq. Let's forget about Afghanistan too - because as Maher stated last week, maybe they aren't ready for 'our sort of freedom.' This is something I've felt for years. Studying Spanish affords one the opportunity to study a bit about Islam as well, because Muslims inhabited the Iberian peninsula until 1492, which is fairly recent in terms of European history. The history of the Middle East and its inhabitants doesn't lend itself easily to the Western European notion of democracy, which is one of the reasons the State of Israel makes them uncomfortable. But I've always alleged that loads of money could be freed up if we'd stop having military outposts abroad. In fact, the first year of my marriage, my late mother and I scared the living shit out of my very British civil servant husband by launching into a rant over Sunday dinner about the US should come out of NATO, full stop. So, Bill, you're preaching to the choir here.
But, I do, take a bit of exception to something he said in last week's show. Bill maintained that the only people now wanting to immigrate to the US were those from basically Third World countries, that no one in, say, Denmark was queueing up to come to the States. Well, maybe not Denmark, Bill, but most Brits would tear their right arms off to get that almighty Green Card. I can tell you that truly. Sixty per cent of people in Britain aged between 24 and 60 are desperate to leave, and the countries targetted are the US, Australia and Canada. So whilst the Scandinavians might be satisfied with six months of darkness, saunas, high prices, and rolls in the snow, the British are trying to invade our shores again, by hook or by crook.
There have been various and sundry rumors flying about since the beginning of the year, that MSNBC are targetting Bill Maher, possibly to fill their 10pm slot after Rachel Maddow and Keith Olberman. That would be innovative, and if it happened, I'd hope they'd give Bill the free reign of expression HBO affords him. I know he's appeared on that network many times, being interviewed by Maddow and Chris Matthews, who's appeared on Real Time, himself. And while I welcome Real Time as my favorite show of the moment, I'd welcome seeing Bill Maher on MSNBC too ... as long as NBC realise and appreciate what a national treasure he is. National treasures should be cherished and appreciated ... and eventually become edgy and esteemed moderators of Meet the Press. Sooner, rather than later.
I'm an absolute fan of the man. As we're of a similar age and educational background, I feel he's pretty much a spokesman for people of my generation who espouse a progressive point of view socially and politically. I know his background is in comedy, but I actually think he's one of the most astute political commentators about these days, especially in the US. I can't see an equivalent in the UK - the closest, I would surmise, here would be a chappie called Ian Hislop, but he's not nearly as clever, quick or erudite.
Nope, Bill Maher is our national treasure.
I've watched the requisite Daily Show and the Colbert Report on Comedy Central, and while I know that they get the kudos, the positive criticism and the big names to interview, I prefer Real Time. Real Time is always the bridesmaid at the Emmy Awards and it doesn't (for various reasons) attract the big players in the political world for the big interviews - but it does give a platform for the serious players of the future. For example, one of the panel guests this week was Gavin Newsom, the Democratic mayor of San Francisco, and next week the Newark mayor Cory Booker will be on the show. I can see both men as future Presidential material and I'm impressed with both. Of course, as they both rise through the ranks (Newsom has gubernatorial aspirations and Booker will probably go the Senate route), they'll appear less and less on Bill's show - Rahm Emanuel used to be a fixture, but as Bill said recently in a Larry King interview, he probably wouldn't touch Real Time now; but if nothing else, this is a program which makes the public who watches sit up and take notice of some people.
I don't know why the big guns forego this program. I like to think it's more because of Bill Maher's interviewing techniques rather than anything about the man, himself. He's easily the most apt political interviewer in the game today. He has a tenacious knack of getting the person being interviewed to answer the questions, without badgering, haggling or being aggressive. He's subtle. He asks a question once and if the interviewee waffles, he demurs politely with 'Let me put it a different way ...' and rephrases the question. If more waffling continues, he changes tack: 'So, in a manner of speaking ...' and reiterates again, in a different mode. Nine times out of ten, he scores. The person being interviewed actually commits to the question, and by the time he's realised the commitment, Maher's moved onto a different topic. It's gotcha journalism with finesse. And if he doesn't score the point, he leaves the person being interviewed with a surmisal that's tart and to the point, but never rude.
He's got a reputation for being snarky, but his snark has a particular point. And people have accused him of being anti-American, but if you can't criticise your country, you really can't be said to love it. You always want to improve upon something or someone you love. At the moment, we're going through a pretty perilous time all around in the US and worldwide. Yet, as Maher points out, the 'Loyal Opposition', seems to be intent on maintaining the status quo which got us into this deep shit in which we're barely swimming at the moment. And they're doing so for no other reason but jealousy and bitter resentment that the Democrats now have the bully pulpits of the White House and Congress and they've got a President with the courage, tenacity and abject balls to steer us, as a country, in a different direction. They're opposing for opposition's sake, for sheer unadulterated orneriness. Is that 'loving your country'?
One of the best definitions of patriotism I've ever heard in my life comes from Mark Twain, who said that patriotism is loving your country all the time and your government when they deserve it. I've heard Maher allude to that quotation as well. I'd like to add another, this time from Thomas Jefferson, who said, when a government rules for the people, that's good, but a government who rules the people is bad and must be opposed. On that basis alone, I think opposition to Bush and the neocon criminals who took us down the road to financial ruin and an illegal war, was entirely justified.
In the run up to the election last fall, Stewart and Colbert were getting the big names to do silly turns on their programs. They wouldn't touch Real Time with the proverbial barge pole; but Maher turned it up a gear. He took it upon himself to highlight everything, absolutely everything questionable about the GOP candidates, and in particular, the woefully inadequate Sarah Palin, that the mainstream media was afraid to mention: Troopergate, Palin's teenage daughter's pregnancy after Palin's espousal of abstinence, the witch doctor connection, Troopergate, the Bridge to Nowhere, and - most of all - Palin's association with an illegal secessionist organisation. He, rightfully, banged a gong about her ignorance, her inarticulace, her unwillingness to reprimand hecklers at her rallies calling for the death of the Democratic candidate, her profligacy with taxpayers' money and her lies about ACORN and Obama 'palling around with terrorists'. But most of all, he highlighted again and again, her desire and that of the GOP in general, to rewrite the Constitution along blatantly fundamentalist Christian terms, when specifically the document was written by an areligious group of men who were products of the European Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century, in hopes of establishing a purely secular type of government, the first of its kind in the world. Maher emphasised this again and again, week after week, to the point that he positively schooled the WSJ's John Lund into silence and shamed him with Lund's own hypocrisy.
It was a moment of sheer interviewing brilliance.
Lund was bigging up Palin as the candidate to watch, banking on her popularity with the base of the Republican Party, which had controlled the GOP agenda since Baby Bush came to power. Maher challenged Lund, an obviously intelligent man. He asked seriously if Lund actually believed Palin was qualified, on day one, to become POTUS. Without blinking, Lund asserted that she was. Maher rephrased the question, only to have Lund reaffirm the answer. Maher then suggested that after the show, after a couple of drinks, perhaps Lund might say what he really thought; whereupon John Lund pulled the po-face of offence and reiterated his support for Mrs Palin and labelled Maher that dreaded word 'elitist'.
Yes, Bill Maher agreed, he probably was elitist, and a snob as well. But he pointed out, quite rightly to Lund, that were Palin not, in fact, the Vice-Presidential candidate for the GOP, she was the sort of woman Lund wouldn't even think to have lunch with. He then admitted, himself, to being an arch cynic, but - he continued - people like Lund were worse than cynical. They were cynical manipulators; because people like Lund knew that Palin was a fraud, and yet they went blithely selling her as the real deal to the American people ... and that, he finished, was wrong.
You certainly wouldn't have seen that around the panel table on Meet the Press, even with the sainted Tim Russert moderating.
I used to watch MTP regularly with Russert and was sad at his passing; and I thought this would be a perfect showcase for Maher to exercise his talents - not that I ever thought NBC would think out of the box and show a bit of ingenuity with an appointment like that. But it certainly would have moved the show up a notch from the non-entity it's become since being hosted by Karl Rove's dancing puppet David Gregory.
Now that the Democrats are in power, I wondered what Real Time had in store when it began again last week. Well, there's the economy, for starters. Bill's of the opinion that Obama's pretty much transparent, but only up to a point: that we're sinking in deep shit and that if he told us the real truth, we'd panic - as we've become a nation of panickers, nurtured thus by the Reign of Terror of Bushco. I must admit, I thought this all along. Bill still reckons that the American public is stupid. He's saying something that I and many more of our generation have thought for a long time but were too polite to say it. I know it, because I come from a rural Southern background, but was raised in a very leftwing household. You kept your mouth shut and assimilated and you didn't talk politics with the rubes, the rednecks and the bubbas. But Bill saying what we've all thought has loosened our tongues.
I know, and so do a lot of other people, that the country's tanking and tanking badly; I know that it started in earnest, with Reagan and Reaganomics. I lived through Thatcherism and that's Reaganomics in British. I remember Gordon Gekko and his real life counterpart Nick Leeson. I know too, that this time around, people were lulled into a false sense of wellbeing and keeping up with the Joneses through credit card debt and being given easy mortgage money for houses they couldn't hope to afford. And I know too, as Gavin Newsom, said on the program this week, that Obama's just going to keep throwing ideas and plans at the problem until something works, because, as Bill said, that's all he can do -and he is, probably, the only President I can remember in my lifetime, who's actually hit the ground running after being elected.
Another point he hit upon last week and this week is also something I've been banging on about since I was at the University of Virginia back in the mid-Seventies, and that's bringing the military back home. ALL the military. They're leaving Iraq. Let's forget about Afghanistan too - because as Maher stated last week, maybe they aren't ready for 'our sort of freedom.' This is something I've felt for years. Studying Spanish affords one the opportunity to study a bit about Islam as well, because Muslims inhabited the Iberian peninsula until 1492, which is fairly recent in terms of European history. The history of the Middle East and its inhabitants doesn't lend itself easily to the Western European notion of democracy, which is one of the reasons the State of Israel makes them uncomfortable. But I've always alleged that loads of money could be freed up if we'd stop having military outposts abroad. In fact, the first year of my marriage, my late mother and I scared the living shit out of my very British civil servant husband by launching into a rant over Sunday dinner about the US should come out of NATO, full stop. So, Bill, you're preaching to the choir here.
But, I do, take a bit of exception to something he said in last week's show. Bill maintained that the only people now wanting to immigrate to the US were those from basically Third World countries, that no one in, say, Denmark was queueing up to come to the States. Well, maybe not Denmark, Bill, but most Brits would tear their right arms off to get that almighty Green Card. I can tell you that truly. Sixty per cent of people in Britain aged between 24 and 60 are desperate to leave, and the countries targetted are the US, Australia and Canada. So whilst the Scandinavians might be satisfied with six months of darkness, saunas, high prices, and rolls in the snow, the British are trying to invade our shores again, by hook or by crook.
There have been various and sundry rumors flying about since the beginning of the year, that MSNBC are targetting Bill Maher, possibly to fill their 10pm slot after Rachel Maddow and Keith Olberman. That would be innovative, and if it happened, I'd hope they'd give Bill the free reign of expression HBO affords him. I know he's appeared on that network many times, being interviewed by Maddow and Chris Matthews, who's appeared on Real Time, himself. And while I welcome Real Time as my favorite show of the moment, I'd welcome seeing Bill Maher on MSNBC too ... as long as NBC realise and appreciate what a national treasure he is. National treasures should be cherished and appreciated ... and eventually become edgy and esteemed moderators of Meet the Press. Sooner, rather than later.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Mortality Bite - A Requiem
Even now, after years of living a fairly cosmopolitan lifestyle on the European side of the Atlantic, I'm still a bit superstitious in a countrified sort of way, especially when it comes to things occurring in triplicate.
Back in November, the week before Thanksgiving, one of my cousins from North Carolina telephoned me to tell me that a man whom I'd known when we were both teenagers, someone my own age, had suddenly died that morning. I hadn't seen him since our paths crossed partying when Virginia played Wake Forest in some sort of sporting event back in the mid-Seventies. He lived in a town where one of my cousins was the local GP and I used to spend some weeks every summer there as a young girl. The next week, my oldest friend e-mailed me to tell me, again, of the death of another man, with whom we attended elementary and high school, someone I'd not seen in almost thirty years.
I remember remarking at the time to my husband that there must be a third death. 'Things like that always happen in threes,' I said.
At the moment, I'm mentally (and physically) preparing to go back to the US for two weeks from next Monday. Sunday evening, I received and e-mail from an old friend back in Virginia, telling me of the death of yet another friend; but this time, this death hit home. He told me that our mutual friend, who is a couple of years my senior, had been feeling ill since last week. He lived on his own, near his elderly aunt, whose husband had died a couple of months previously. His aunt and cousins apparently had urged him to see a doctor, but he reckoned the illness was minor and would pass. Saturday morning, he was found dead in his home.
I haven't been able to stop thinking about him since. This was someone I grew up with from a small child. He was the older boy that young girls fancied. I certainly fancied him as an awkward 8th grader, when he was a more knowledgeable sophomore, who always seemed to have time to talk with someone so plebeian. I took Spanish because he studied Spanish. I read books he read. I had the ultimate crush to end all crushes. He graduated two years ahead of me and went off to study at the University of Richmond, the prototype of John-Boy Walton's fictitious Boatwright University.
My second year at Virginia, I was getting ready for a date, when Jackie suddenly appeared at the door of my dorm room. In his last year at Richmond, he stopped by en route home from college for the weekend, deciding on the off-chance, to visit, taking the trouble to stop by the Student Union and ask my address. I promptly went to the hall payphone, called my date and pleaded period cramps. Jackie made it as far as Charlottesville that weekend, and Jackie and I made it.
That was the beginning of a poignant yet unusual friendship-love affair. It was a bit of both, but more of the first than the second. Rather than being lovers who devolve into friends, we were friends who slept together on occasion, usually when we would find ourselves between relationships or just when we found ourselves within a five-mile radius of each other. But there was never a time that it happened when it didn't need to happen, even if it meant cancelling other arrangements previously organised. It had its own pattern during college. Jackie would just 'show up' on a Friday evening or a Saturday afternoon. If another boy were hanging about the premises, he would have to go - even if it meant I never saw him again. If I found myself at a loose end on a Saturday afternoon, I'd ring. 'I fancy a drive to Richmond,' I'd say. 'There's a girl down from Mary Wash,' he'd say. 'But don't worry. I'll get rid of her. Tell her it's a family emergency. Get driving.'
When he finished uni, he worked for a couple of years in DC and lived at home. By my third year, I was seeing a boy who was a rigid Republican and destined for law school. But everytime I came home, there was Jackie. It drove my mother crazy that I had what she termed one boyfriend in Charlottesville and another hanging home. But I could never explain to her that what I had with Jackie wasn't a 'boyfriend thing'. It was almost inexplicable.
It wasn't the sex, although that was part of it, certainly. It was the talking, the laughing, the connecting on a certain level. It was making contact with someone who'd known me from the word dot and who I was letting know me in a way I couldn't open up with my proper college boyfriend. Maybe it was friendship on another level.
He was the last person I saw before I left for Spain. He was the first person I saw on the morning of my 21st birthday. The year after I graduated, he accepted a position out West and left for a couple of years. I taught school locally for three years, living at home, then relocated back to Charlottesville to teach middle school there. At the end of my initial year there, I came home, planning to stay only for the weekend. As soon as I entered the door, my mother informed me that Jackie was back. His grandmother had died the previous month and he was back sorting out the legal details of the house. He'd already called and would be calling back that evening. Within five minutes he was on the phone.
We went out to dinner, and I came back to my parents' house on Sunday morning. He'd broken off a relationship and I'd just broken an engagement with my lawyer fella. I suppose we were what each other needed, before the end of the summer when he left for Boulder again.
After that summer, somehow, we lost touch. I got married and went to live in England. It was years before anyone in my home community heard from him again. Then suddenly, out of the blue, he turned up five years ago, alone, unemployed and living in his grandmother's old house. I was visiting at the time, and everything seemed normal with him at first. I visited and we spent a whole afternoon just reminiscing. We went to the grocery store, bought some steak and salad and I made a meal. Then I went back to my aunt's, where I was staying. It was two nights before I left for the UK and he gave me a hug that went on forever.
That was the last I saw of him. When I was home in March, I mentioned dropping by, calling, but my aunt dissuaded me. 'Not now,' she cautioned. 'You wouldn't want to see him the way he is and he wouldn't want you to.' That scared me, and, trusting her judgement, I did as she bode. I asked no questions about 'the way he was'; I didn't want to know.
And now he's dead. My friend, who e-mailed me with the news, reckoned he had pneumonia. To me, untrained, it sounded like heart failure or something coronary-related. The funeral, a cremation, is Thursday; and I'll miss that to; but I wouldn't have wanted to go, for the same reason I never went to either of my parents' funerals. They're supposed to be closure, but the finality of seeing a coffin lowered into the ground or sped along a conveyor belt into a crematorium is just too final a finality for me. It's the end.
I don't know what happens after death. None of us, for all the surmisings and musings and religious hocus-pocus fairy tales, know what happens when a body's heart stops and his brain ceases to function. But seeing dirt fall on top of a coffin or watching one whisked away to be burned marks an end as dark and dire as the concept of Hades. At least, in my mind and memories, my parents still live. I remember them as they were, alive, healthy and vibrant.
When I learned of the earlier deaths of Evander, the boy from North Carolina and Mike, the boy I'd gone to school with, they appeared in my minds the way I last saw them - healthy and on the cusp of young manhood. Virile. Strong. Ready to meet and greet the world at large.
I'd like to remember Jackie like the time he first 'dropped by' my dorm room, when I was all of nineteen and he twenty-one, with his long blonde curls and his bedroom brown eyes and his slow and gentle smile. That way, he'll live for me. Forever young.
Back in November, the week before Thanksgiving, one of my cousins from North Carolina telephoned me to tell me that a man whom I'd known when we were both teenagers, someone my own age, had suddenly died that morning. I hadn't seen him since our paths crossed partying when Virginia played Wake Forest in some sort of sporting event back in the mid-Seventies. He lived in a town where one of my cousins was the local GP and I used to spend some weeks every summer there as a young girl. The next week, my oldest friend e-mailed me to tell me, again, of the death of another man, with whom we attended elementary and high school, someone I'd not seen in almost thirty years.
I remember remarking at the time to my husband that there must be a third death. 'Things like that always happen in threes,' I said.
At the moment, I'm mentally (and physically) preparing to go back to the US for two weeks from next Monday. Sunday evening, I received and e-mail from an old friend back in Virginia, telling me of the death of yet another friend; but this time, this death hit home. He told me that our mutual friend, who is a couple of years my senior, had been feeling ill since last week. He lived on his own, near his elderly aunt, whose husband had died a couple of months previously. His aunt and cousins apparently had urged him to see a doctor, but he reckoned the illness was minor and would pass. Saturday morning, he was found dead in his home.
I haven't been able to stop thinking about him since. This was someone I grew up with from a small child. He was the older boy that young girls fancied. I certainly fancied him as an awkward 8th grader, when he was a more knowledgeable sophomore, who always seemed to have time to talk with someone so plebeian. I took Spanish because he studied Spanish. I read books he read. I had the ultimate crush to end all crushes. He graduated two years ahead of me and went off to study at the University of Richmond, the prototype of John-Boy Walton's fictitious Boatwright University.
My second year at Virginia, I was getting ready for a date, when Jackie suddenly appeared at the door of my dorm room. In his last year at Richmond, he stopped by en route home from college for the weekend, deciding on the off-chance, to visit, taking the trouble to stop by the Student Union and ask my address. I promptly went to the hall payphone, called my date and pleaded period cramps. Jackie made it as far as Charlottesville that weekend, and Jackie and I made it.
That was the beginning of a poignant yet unusual friendship-love affair. It was a bit of both, but more of the first than the second. Rather than being lovers who devolve into friends, we were friends who slept together on occasion, usually when we would find ourselves between relationships or just when we found ourselves within a five-mile radius of each other. But there was never a time that it happened when it didn't need to happen, even if it meant cancelling other arrangements previously organised. It had its own pattern during college. Jackie would just 'show up' on a Friday evening or a Saturday afternoon. If another boy were hanging about the premises, he would have to go - even if it meant I never saw him again. If I found myself at a loose end on a Saturday afternoon, I'd ring. 'I fancy a drive to Richmond,' I'd say. 'There's a girl down from Mary Wash,' he'd say. 'But don't worry. I'll get rid of her. Tell her it's a family emergency. Get driving.'
When he finished uni, he worked for a couple of years in DC and lived at home. By my third year, I was seeing a boy who was a rigid Republican and destined for law school. But everytime I came home, there was Jackie. It drove my mother crazy that I had what she termed one boyfriend in Charlottesville and another hanging home. But I could never explain to her that what I had with Jackie wasn't a 'boyfriend thing'. It was almost inexplicable.
It wasn't the sex, although that was part of it, certainly. It was the talking, the laughing, the connecting on a certain level. It was making contact with someone who'd known me from the word dot and who I was letting know me in a way I couldn't open up with my proper college boyfriend. Maybe it was friendship on another level.
He was the last person I saw before I left for Spain. He was the first person I saw on the morning of my 21st birthday. The year after I graduated, he accepted a position out West and left for a couple of years. I taught school locally for three years, living at home, then relocated back to Charlottesville to teach middle school there. At the end of my initial year there, I came home, planning to stay only for the weekend. As soon as I entered the door, my mother informed me that Jackie was back. His grandmother had died the previous month and he was back sorting out the legal details of the house. He'd already called and would be calling back that evening. Within five minutes he was on the phone.
We went out to dinner, and I came back to my parents' house on Sunday morning. He'd broken off a relationship and I'd just broken an engagement with my lawyer fella. I suppose we were what each other needed, before the end of the summer when he left for Boulder again.
After that summer, somehow, we lost touch. I got married and went to live in England. It was years before anyone in my home community heard from him again. Then suddenly, out of the blue, he turned up five years ago, alone, unemployed and living in his grandmother's old house. I was visiting at the time, and everything seemed normal with him at first. I visited and we spent a whole afternoon just reminiscing. We went to the grocery store, bought some steak and salad and I made a meal. Then I went back to my aunt's, where I was staying. It was two nights before I left for the UK and he gave me a hug that went on forever.
That was the last I saw of him. When I was home in March, I mentioned dropping by, calling, but my aunt dissuaded me. 'Not now,' she cautioned. 'You wouldn't want to see him the way he is and he wouldn't want you to.' That scared me, and, trusting her judgement, I did as she bode. I asked no questions about 'the way he was'; I didn't want to know.
And now he's dead. My friend, who e-mailed me with the news, reckoned he had pneumonia. To me, untrained, it sounded like heart failure or something coronary-related. The funeral, a cremation, is Thursday; and I'll miss that to; but I wouldn't have wanted to go, for the same reason I never went to either of my parents' funerals. They're supposed to be closure, but the finality of seeing a coffin lowered into the ground or sped along a conveyor belt into a crematorium is just too final a finality for me. It's the end.
I don't know what happens after death. None of us, for all the surmisings and musings and religious hocus-pocus fairy tales, know what happens when a body's heart stops and his brain ceases to function. But seeing dirt fall on top of a coffin or watching one whisked away to be burned marks an end as dark and dire as the concept of Hades. At least, in my mind and memories, my parents still live. I remember them as they were, alive, healthy and vibrant.
When I learned of the earlier deaths of Evander, the boy from North Carolina and Mike, the boy I'd gone to school with, they appeared in my minds the way I last saw them - healthy and on the cusp of young manhood. Virile. Strong. Ready to meet and greet the world at large.
I'd like to remember Jackie like the time he first 'dropped by' my dorm room, when I was all of nineteen and he twenty-one, with his long blonde curls and his bedroom brown eyes and his slow and gentle smile. That way, he'll live for me. Forever young.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Selectively Deaf?
OK, hissy fit of self-pity over. Back to business.
I watched the NBC Evening News on the web last night and saw the performance put in on the floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange by Rick Santelli, the CNBC reporter.
Pardon me, I know that the MSM has a particular slant these days, depending on the network news you watch. Fox purports to be fair and balanced, when it's actually a fair and balanced look at things from the right wingnut direction. The BBC certainly has a particular slant, backed by the 'tax' imposed upon anyone owning a television in the UK, even though its charter requires it to be absolutely impartial.
I actually thought that reporters, be they working for a newspaper or in the television/radio media, are there merely to 'report' the factual news and not offer opinionated comment. Leave the latter to the domain of op-edders and social commentators.
But last night I witnessed this CNBC bod giving the performance of a lifetime, on the eve of the Oscars, in radging Chicago's finest, when it comes to making money, into a frenzy of consternation at the President's proposal that taxpayers should - shock, horror - use their taxes to help bail their 'neighbours' out of titchy mortgage predicaments. Santelli's outburst rivalled the sublime hissy fit Lindsey Graham threw on the Senate floor last week, stamping his foot against the Recovery Package. Santelli made Obama's mortgage rescue sound like the ultimate last bastion of forced philanthropic socialism.
It's not.
There followed various and sundry man-in-the-street interviews with concerned citizens who railed against their tax dollars being used to bail out some poor Joe who was remiss with his mortgage payments, some deadbeat.
But ... the plan's not like that.
The night BEFORE this diatribe, I actually listened to the President unveil this plan in Arizona, John McCain's home state, no less (and they say the Americans don't understand irony). I listened to his words. Maybe, in the confusion of diverse and various vocabulary milling about in my brain, I didn't hear or comprehend him correctly. Maybe in a rush of surplus estrogen, I played the adolescent and heard what I wanted to hear, but I honestly don't think so.
I heard the President say that this plan wouldn't help everyone. That it was designed to help those people who'd brought their homes in good faith, who'd paid religiously every month their mortgage payments, who'd lost a job or had a downsize in employment, who'd used their savings et al to help with the payments, who'd opened the 401K ... in short, people who'd paid regularly, despite their personal circumstances, until their funds etc had been depleted and they were now staring foreclosure in the face. I also heard him say it would not benefit the property speculator who sought to buy a house and sell within a few months at a profit, only to buy another. And I heard him say that it wouldn't benefit those people who'd bought houses they couldn't afford, with no intent to pay. And on the selfsame Nightly News last night, I heard another reporter say that 92% of Americans with mortgages, pay these on time.
So Santelli whips the public into a frenzy about 8% of the mortgage-holding public. First, you have to ask yourself how many Americans HAVE mortgages; then, you have to take 8% of that figure. Finally, you have to spread that figure over the United States as a whole.
Hardly a neighbourhood, is it?
I suppose we can congratulate ourselves on finally reaching the theta-clear of Thatcherism: the 'I'm All Right, Jack' philosophy of, as long as I'm doing ok, fuck the rest of you people. The ordinary Joes interviewed had better stop and think of the repercussions of having even one foreclosed house located down the street from their own. (Pssst! There goes the neighbourhood. It doesn't look good. It devalues your home, in the event that you want to sell or that you - dare I say it - die). So it's actually moot that a bit of good old fashioned socialism is using your involuntary tax contribution to help your fellow citizen stay in his home and pay his mortgage on time.
You have to look at it this way. In these most uncertain of times, it could actually happen to you; then you'd be singing from a different hymnal.
After all, what is socialism but 'to each according to his ability, for each according to his means'? It's sort of compassionate government, and we're totally unfamiliar with that concept.
I watched the NBC Evening News on the web last night and saw the performance put in on the floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange by Rick Santelli, the CNBC reporter.
Pardon me, I know that the MSM has a particular slant these days, depending on the network news you watch. Fox purports to be fair and balanced, when it's actually a fair and balanced look at things from the right wingnut direction. The BBC certainly has a particular slant, backed by the 'tax' imposed upon anyone owning a television in the UK, even though its charter requires it to be absolutely impartial.
I actually thought that reporters, be they working for a newspaper or in the television/radio media, are there merely to 'report' the factual news and not offer opinionated comment. Leave the latter to the domain of op-edders and social commentators.
But last night I witnessed this CNBC bod giving the performance of a lifetime, on the eve of the Oscars, in radging Chicago's finest, when it comes to making money, into a frenzy of consternation at the President's proposal that taxpayers should - shock, horror - use their taxes to help bail their 'neighbours' out of titchy mortgage predicaments. Santelli's outburst rivalled the sublime hissy fit Lindsey Graham threw on the Senate floor last week, stamping his foot against the Recovery Package. Santelli made Obama's mortgage rescue sound like the ultimate last bastion of forced philanthropic socialism.
It's not.
There followed various and sundry man-in-the-street interviews with concerned citizens who railed against their tax dollars being used to bail out some poor Joe who was remiss with his mortgage payments, some deadbeat.
But ... the plan's not like that.
The night BEFORE this diatribe, I actually listened to the President unveil this plan in Arizona, John McCain's home state, no less (and they say the Americans don't understand irony). I listened to his words. Maybe, in the confusion of diverse and various vocabulary milling about in my brain, I didn't hear or comprehend him correctly. Maybe in a rush of surplus estrogen, I played the adolescent and heard what I wanted to hear, but I honestly don't think so.
I heard the President say that this plan wouldn't help everyone. That it was designed to help those people who'd brought their homes in good faith, who'd paid religiously every month their mortgage payments, who'd lost a job or had a downsize in employment, who'd used their savings et al to help with the payments, who'd opened the 401K ... in short, people who'd paid regularly, despite their personal circumstances, until their funds etc had been depleted and they were now staring foreclosure in the face. I also heard him say it would not benefit the property speculator who sought to buy a house and sell within a few months at a profit, only to buy another. And I heard him say that it wouldn't benefit those people who'd bought houses they couldn't afford, with no intent to pay. And on the selfsame Nightly News last night, I heard another reporter say that 92% of Americans with mortgages, pay these on time.
So Santelli whips the public into a frenzy about 8% of the mortgage-holding public. First, you have to ask yourself how many Americans HAVE mortgages; then, you have to take 8% of that figure. Finally, you have to spread that figure over the United States as a whole.
Hardly a neighbourhood, is it?
I suppose we can congratulate ourselves on finally reaching the theta-clear of Thatcherism: the 'I'm All Right, Jack' philosophy of, as long as I'm doing ok, fuck the rest of you people. The ordinary Joes interviewed had better stop and think of the repercussions of having even one foreclosed house located down the street from their own. (Pssst! There goes the neighbourhood. It doesn't look good. It devalues your home, in the event that you want to sell or that you - dare I say it - die). So it's actually moot that a bit of good old fashioned socialism is using your involuntary tax contribution to help your fellow citizen stay in his home and pay his mortgage on time.
You have to look at it this way. In these most uncertain of times, it could actually happen to you; then you'd be singing from a different hymnal.
After all, what is socialism but 'to each according to his ability, for each according to his means'? It's sort of compassionate government, and we're totally unfamiliar with that concept.
Fishing Out of Water
I'm going to regret doing this, I know, but as no one ever reads this blog, nor ever will, maybe I'll use this post as a catharsis to make myself feel a bit better. I'm suffering today from what Winston Churchill called 'the black dog.'
It's a massive dose of depression. No reason. The sun's shining, which is rare in Britain, I'm healthy, I've still got a job (even though the industry is suffering) and I'll be on holiday in less than two weeks. I have a husband who loves me, and when I go home, I'll be seeing relatives who feel the same and friends who care. So, why am I sitting here in my office, with my door shut to the world and tears running down my face?
Because I'm stupid, that's why, I suppose.
I'm stupid because for some reason, I was 'blessed' with a talent for language learning. I was able to study a foreign language and grasp more of it than the odd word or the ubiquitous ability to conjugate verbs. I wanted to use another language to communicate, to travel to other countries and engage with people who lived there in their own language. I was able to do this and, in doing this, I learned that learning a language, was more than just the ability to speak another language, it was the willingness and openness to immerse oneself in another culture, because language is just a mere manifestation of another culture. The trouble is, unlike a lot of English-speaking people, I didn't regard the 'other cultures' I visited as quaint or as a diversion. I thought I felt at home there, in Mediterranean Europe.
When I came back to the States, after my first trip (which had lasted three months), I know now that I went about beginning to subtly reject the country of my birth. I was in my third year at university. I only sought out the company of girlfriends who'd been abroad with me and our conversations consisted only of reminiscing about our time spent in Spain and Italy; but there was a difference: they'd viewed the trip abroad only as what it was - a vacation. For me, it was a goal. Somehow, I'd live in Spain or Italy. Someway, I'd work there. I'd go native, marry a citizen and raise bilingual children. Such was the stuff of dreams in the 'do-anything' Seventies.
Naive, eh?
As for male acquaintances, I carried on dating, flicking between two conservative Southern boys and pretending to be amused by what they had on offer, yet all the time comparing their somewhat awkward pawings and pokings with the filet mignon I'd had on demand in both Spain and Italy. These boys (and I considered them that) wanted pleasing; both my Spanish boyfriend and my Italian fella knew how to give pleasure as well as receive it.
(Now there's an argument raging in my main office, between the Italian owner's son and the Polish man hired to speak with the Polish drivers for our firm, people quite willing to work in the UK for better wages, but who really can't be assed to learn the language to communicate.) This is why I was hired for this job - to speak to Italians, French and Spanish, all of whom this company deals with on a daily basis, because the English enterprise can't be assed to learn how to communicate. So here I sit, a foreigner in this land, speaking languages not my own, on behalf of other foreigners.
And the irony of my situation is, although I'm communicating, there's really no one communicating with me. No one's speaking my 'language'. I can't tell anyone what interests me or how I feel because no one wants to know. I can't tell my family at home because I've made my bed and now I'm condemned to lie in it. They're all right, so I should be too. I can't tell my husband because - well, because I've tried before and he hasn't understood a gist of what I'm saying and I only end up apologising for feeling the way I do. And I can't begin to tell my friends because they all think of me now as something on the order of an exotic flower, an anomaly both familiar and foreign. They can't imagine me being unhappy, having successfully escaped from what they see as a mundane existence.
I'd take 'mundane', happily. I'd take the umpteen phone calls daily from elderly aunts trying to interfere and offer useless criticism of my lifestyle, I'd take cousins and local friends arriving unannounced and entering my house without knocking for a snouch through my fridge, I'd take living alone for the rest of my life with a small dog, if I could have that house in Virginia. I'd admit failure and work at anything if I had the courage to walk out on this life I have here and start over, but I wonder if it's too late. The husband's just rung with a rant about a parking fine I got which he'll pay. That's trivial. I got the fine trying to do an errand for him in an hour's lunch break and I parked on a double line to save time. That's life in Britain.
I have the internet and e-mail and the occasional phone call, and that's the 'contact' I get with my home. I want the physical and everything bad that that entails. Absolutely everything, if I could just go back in time, know what I know now and just stay Stateside. I hear various people complaining about America and Americans, how stupid they are, how they prefer Biblical myth to scientific reality, how they want God and Christianity incorporated into the secular Constitution, how they cling to guns and inbred prejudices. Yes, all that's true. But Europe has their village idiots too and their foibles go back further than ours.
I made a mistake, fishing out of water. I want to come home. There might be nothing there, I might be just as much on my own there as I desperately feel I am here, but at least the surroundings would be familiar.
It's a massive dose of depression. No reason. The sun's shining, which is rare in Britain, I'm healthy, I've still got a job (even though the industry is suffering) and I'll be on holiday in less than two weeks. I have a husband who loves me, and when I go home, I'll be seeing relatives who feel the same and friends who care. So, why am I sitting here in my office, with my door shut to the world and tears running down my face?
Because I'm stupid, that's why, I suppose.
I'm stupid because for some reason, I was 'blessed' with a talent for language learning. I was able to study a foreign language and grasp more of it than the odd word or the ubiquitous ability to conjugate verbs. I wanted to use another language to communicate, to travel to other countries and engage with people who lived there in their own language. I was able to do this and, in doing this, I learned that learning a language, was more than just the ability to speak another language, it was the willingness and openness to immerse oneself in another culture, because language is just a mere manifestation of another culture. The trouble is, unlike a lot of English-speaking people, I didn't regard the 'other cultures' I visited as quaint or as a diversion. I thought I felt at home there, in Mediterranean Europe.
When I came back to the States, after my first trip (which had lasted three months), I know now that I went about beginning to subtly reject the country of my birth. I was in my third year at university. I only sought out the company of girlfriends who'd been abroad with me and our conversations consisted only of reminiscing about our time spent in Spain and Italy; but there was a difference: they'd viewed the trip abroad only as what it was - a vacation. For me, it was a goal. Somehow, I'd live in Spain or Italy. Someway, I'd work there. I'd go native, marry a citizen and raise bilingual children. Such was the stuff of dreams in the 'do-anything' Seventies.
Naive, eh?
As for male acquaintances, I carried on dating, flicking between two conservative Southern boys and pretending to be amused by what they had on offer, yet all the time comparing their somewhat awkward pawings and pokings with the filet mignon I'd had on demand in both Spain and Italy. These boys (and I considered them that) wanted pleasing; both my Spanish boyfriend and my Italian fella knew how to give pleasure as well as receive it.
(Now there's an argument raging in my main office, between the Italian owner's son and the Polish man hired to speak with the Polish drivers for our firm, people quite willing to work in the UK for better wages, but who really can't be assed to learn the language to communicate.) This is why I was hired for this job - to speak to Italians, French and Spanish, all of whom this company deals with on a daily basis, because the English enterprise can't be assed to learn how to communicate. So here I sit, a foreigner in this land, speaking languages not my own, on behalf of other foreigners.
And the irony of my situation is, although I'm communicating, there's really no one communicating with me. No one's speaking my 'language'. I can't tell anyone what interests me or how I feel because no one wants to know. I can't tell my family at home because I've made my bed and now I'm condemned to lie in it. They're all right, so I should be too. I can't tell my husband because - well, because I've tried before and he hasn't understood a gist of what I'm saying and I only end up apologising for feeling the way I do. And I can't begin to tell my friends because they all think of me now as something on the order of an exotic flower, an anomaly both familiar and foreign. They can't imagine me being unhappy, having successfully escaped from what they see as a mundane existence.
I'd take 'mundane', happily. I'd take the umpteen phone calls daily from elderly aunts trying to interfere and offer useless criticism of my lifestyle, I'd take cousins and local friends arriving unannounced and entering my house without knocking for a snouch through my fridge, I'd take living alone for the rest of my life with a small dog, if I could have that house in Virginia. I'd admit failure and work at anything if I had the courage to walk out on this life I have here and start over, but I wonder if it's too late. The husband's just rung with a rant about a parking fine I got which he'll pay. That's trivial. I got the fine trying to do an errand for him in an hour's lunch break and I parked on a double line to save time. That's life in Britain.
I have the internet and e-mail and the occasional phone call, and that's the 'contact' I get with my home. I want the physical and everything bad that that entails. Absolutely everything, if I could just go back in time, know what I know now and just stay Stateside. I hear various people complaining about America and Americans, how stupid they are, how they prefer Biblical myth to scientific reality, how they want God and Christianity incorporated into the secular Constitution, how they cling to guns and inbred prejudices. Yes, all that's true. But Europe has their village idiots too and their foibles go back further than ours.
I made a mistake, fishing out of water. I want to come home. There might be nothing there, I might be just as much on my own there as I desperately feel I am here, but at least the surroundings would be familiar.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)