Hoardings

Memorial Day weekend

It’s Memorial Day weekend – supposedly the official start of summer. But it’s grey and wet – not only here, but all over the US, the weather is weird. The traditional barbecues may be curtailed, and it certainly looks as though road-trips are not likely to be much fun.

So instead of the usual report, here are some observations on the American view of life.

Only 25% of Americans own a passport. This isn’t particularly surprising, when you think that an American can travel throughout the USA (including Hawaii), Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean (with the exception of Cuba – how come nobody is yet willing to admit that this policy isn’t achieving the desired results?) with just a driver’s license. The problem now is that the government (as part of the Department of Homeland Security) policy is now that passports are required. Since a passport costs $97, this has the foreign tourism industry worried, to the extent that they propose, in a number of cases, to pick up the cost of the passport.

Did you know that 1 in 50 Americans are considered “extremely obese” – more than 100 pounds overweight? I noticed a couple of weekends ago, as I stopped at Texas Burger for lunch, that a woman waddled in and walked straight up to the Blue Bell ice cream counter and ordered the biggest ice-cream cone I’ve ever seen. If you work behind a bar, you’re allowed to refuse service to someone who appears drunk; I think there ought to be a similar law about obese people: “I’m sorry, madam, you seem to have had enough already.”

40% of Americans claim to be regular church-goers. I imagine that this figure is slightly optimistic, but, judging from the number of churches, it may not be far out. I don’t know what the corresponding statistics are for the UK, but my guess would be that they’re far lower. Of course, there are some wacko churches here, so it may just be that a larger proportion of the population is unbalanced. Either way, it doesn’t look good for organized religion in the UK.

Of the total American population, around 75% are white; 12% are black; 12% are Hispanic; 4% are Asian; and 1% are native American (no, the numbers don’t add up to 100, due to rounding and overlap). In the future, it is predicted that Hispanics and Asians will increase most rapidly, to the extent that the white (and non-Hispanic) population will be only 50% by 2050.

While searching the internet on a totally unrelated subject the other week, I came across a web site (http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/3746/Scarf.html) that included the statement “Tom Baker's original multicolored scarf was 13 1/2 ft. long in Season 12. However, between the filming of Sontaran Experiment and The Ark in Space … a section of blue-gray was removed on the beige/purple end of the scarf.” A colleague pointed out the obvious parallel between ourselves and the Roman Empire, when they also had too much time on their hands.

Maybe it’s time to start learning Chinese.

Blighty

One thing I’ve learnt about Americans, and about Texans in particular, is that they’re very patriotic. This is much more evident in the south than in the north (Texas regards itself more as “West” than “South”, but the geographic distinction still holds, I think). For Texans, Texas comes first, then the USA – and if I had cast disparaging remarks about anything to do with Texas to a Texan, I would need to take cover. Not so with the Brits. We are so self-effacing that we almost apologise for other people’s mistakes, and only stand up for our country when sports are involved.

If I had said about Texan wildflowers what I said about British wildflowers a couple of weeks ago, I would have been severely taken to task. But none of the Brits to whom I sent email stood up in defence of our wildflowers. It’s true that Texas wildflowers are more abundant than ours, but they spend huge amounts of money in making sure that they are; we are happy to let our wildflowers be truly wild.

And so it was that I noticed, in walking the dog (Scooby) from our house to the nearby River Taw, and to the field where Bob (the horse) lives, I saw bluebells, white and pink campions, daisies, primroses, buttercups, marsh marigolds, cuckoo-pint, dandelions, wild garlic – among others. So for all of you that sat back without comment: shame on you!

I should add that neither the name of the dog nor the horse was my idea. Sometimes life just thrusts these things upon you, and you have to grin and bear it.