1st January – First Impressions and Getting Started
The snow in Sauk Centre always takes me by surprise when I come home from London; if we get two inches in Britain there is a national emergency and the government starts airlifting in food parcels and warm clothing - you are so much better organized; the one redeeming feature here is it fills in the pot holes.
I tried to contact the social security office this week upon my return and spent the first 25 minutes talking to an automated voice. I became ever more frustrated as the computer failed to recognize any of the letters I tried to spell out - my British accent and vernacular was beyond its comprehension. Towards the end I tried to put on an American accent to be understood - but it sounded like I was having a stroke (I can’t do accents). How difficult can it be to spell L-e-e and still be misunderstood - I was lucky my name was not Emmanuel Arceneaux: I would still be there.
Automated voices give me a chill, especially after seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey as a child - I was half expecting towards the end for it to say it wasn’t going to open the airlock. I discovered what Alcea was though, as this is what the machine kept repeating back to me in response to me saying Lee repeatedly. It is a genus of erect herbs of the Middle East having showy flowers like a hollyhock; in some classification systems synonymous with Althea - so not a completely wasted afternoon then. At least my call was kept within the country, if I try and ring my local British bank I get put through to a call center in India.
I try and remind myself of America as much as I can when I’m Britain. I try and eat sausages with pancakes and syrup for breakfast, despite the fact one is a reconstituted mechanically retrieved pork based savory product and the other is a molasses based dessert (but it seems to work) - I will always eat my pancakes with a spoon though, and after my bacon and eggs if that is ok. I also miss NASCAR, so I try and bring some of the thrill and excitement into my London home by emptying the contents of a packet of M&Ms down the toilet and then flushing, I sit and watch all the colors go around in a mesmerizing circle, it’s a poor second best but better than nothing.
Driving is always a battle when I get back from London; not only am I on the wrong side of the road, but I’m sitting on the wrong side of the car. I spent 15 minutes on Tuesday looking to undo my seat belt down to my left before I realized the release button was on the other side. I have a tendency to drift over to the hard shoulder too - as my brain thinks I should be hugging the right hand side of the road from my driving position. It is a constant battle with my unconscious and I would give yourself plenty of room if you intend to change a tire on I-94 or the surrounding roads over the next few weeks (just saying).
8th January - The Coming of the Storm
As I wandered around town this week, I had a large number of people asking me if I was enjoying the weather - I am led to believe it is unseasonably warm for January and the lack of snow is relatively unusual. My reply was that (at present) it is not too dissimilar to the climate in Britain during this time of the year - so I am currently feeling more than at home. Then almost uniformly I am told (with an overly enthusiastic glee) that we are on the verge of bad weather - coming in Biblical proportions in terms of ice, snow and subzero temperatures; the weight of expectation to this coming event of doom and gloom is almost unbearable - there appears to be a painful inevitability of knowing it will happen, but with the depressive frustration of not knowing when it will happen.
This reminds me of watching the opening scenes of an old black and white Second World War film, where one of the youthful protagonists casually explains (that back in civilian life) he is a watchmaker or a promising young baseball player that has a trial lined up with the Yankees after the war has finished. There is a convention in place, that at some point during the later stages of the film, there will be an unfortunate incident (or enemy engagement) that will result in that particular soldier never again receiving gloves for Christmas. It is like having to sit through the first 90 minutes of the Titanic film knowing with a grim sense of inevitability that at some point (and we are not quite sure when) they are going to be getting their feet wet.
As I continued to traverse through the town I found myself bizarrely edging towards the road every thirty yards or so. I thought I was going mad and could not work out what was happening. As it transpires, due to my right knee only working at 95% of his usual function during days of cold weather, it renders me to walk in an almost unnoticeable shallow arc – that over a distance would slowly see me creeping disconcertingly towards oncoming traffic. It then took me over an hour to get home along the same route, because I found myself involuntarily going into every third shop down Main Street – I eventually made it home with a Tiffany reading lamp, a poinsettia, life insurance, a Chinese set meal for two, and a prescription for reading glasses.
Some nights when I am on the sofa, and I have not moved for a couple of hours, I have to start any journey around the house (from that position) by using the furniture as a support - like some sort of contemporary gymnastics discipline; this is an event that could be introduced to try and give Britain a chance of gold medal in the summer Olympics - here comes Adrian on the pommel horse, rings, sofa, mantle piece and A-symmetric nest of tables, making steady progress towards the bathroom, he may even break his personal best.
The theme of snow and films coincidently came together again for a second time on Monday, when I was required to enter a password onto a website - in order to participate with long distance internet banking; I was prompted to input a password that was eight characters long, so I picked “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.”
10th January - My first Twinkie
Last Saturday marked the momentous moment I consumed my first ever deep fried Twinkie – in fact I have never eaten a Twinkie of any description before, deep fried or otherwise (I am led to understand that due to the possibility of a forthcoming bankruptcy case involving its makers, my window of opportunity to sample further may be closing rapidly). I was then informed (by a medical practitioner) that the Twinkie has a half-life of 25 years - due to the number of preservatives that prevail throughout its innocent looking spongy form (clearly this now marks the product out as the food of choice for any aftermath involving a thermonuclear war, suggesting that the end of Twinkie production should be viewed as an issue of national importance - if we want to leave any kind of comestibles for those unlucky enough to survive the fallout).
The deep fried Twinkie was actually very good, but I suspect the American general populous would probably state that most food substances taste better deep fried. This train of thought reminded me of the national food of Tunisia, which is basically a deep fried egg in batter, called a brik - an ironic name considering the affect it had on my lower intestinal track. Each restaurant has its own variation of this delicacy - so in each eating establishment I found myself asking for the house brik. An old Tunisian tradition dictates that a bride-to-be's mother would prepare a brik for any potential bridegroom suitor; if the bridegroom manages to eat the brik (without spilling any of the egg yolk) he is then allowed to marry their daughter. Ultimately, this sounds much more reasonable (and less costly and time consuming) than endless dinner dates, trips to the cinema, and the potential pitfalls posed by a Sunday dinner with any future possible in-laws – this may suggest that the skill of “not spilling one’s yolk” in North African Arabic culture, is ultimately more beneficial to a long term marital relationship, than say the qualities of being good with children or household tasks.
I then feared that the deep fried Twinkie may have taken ten minutes off my life expectancy; this caused me much consternation - on my death bed I would probably welcome those extra 600 seconds, so I undertook a brisk walk and a carrot smoothie on Sunday morning to keep me in credit. I have generally tried to embrace a more healthy breakfast as part of my New Year’s resolutions (so I cut down on my briks) my breakfast now embraces cereals that claim to provide roughage, but I found this statement to be misleading – as it should be called smoothage. I do recall that the whole deep fried Twinkie ensemble had a cherry presented on it (displayed resplendently on a bed of whipped cream and chocolate sauce); the humble cherry has only 4 calories, with traces of vitamin C, ascorbic acid, thiamin, riboflavin and niacin – so it was not all bad.
17th January - A Shock at the Grocery Store
I still cannot get used to the unique set of barometric conditions and ambient micro climates that prevail in Stearns County - that conspire together to deliver the biggest electrical shocks whenever I touch anything. The latest electrical transgression duly arrived on Monday evening as I participated (and I use this word in its most liberal sense) in the weekly shop at the local grocery store. During this endeavor I tentatively reached out to touch (in a tender loving way) the naked exposed ear that belonged to my wife; just half an inch short of its fleshy destination a spark jumped from my outstretched digit to the aural cartilage with the biggest blue electric flash. I then felt the jolt nauseatingly travel down my arm, leaving my humorous throbbing in its sleeve.
Alas my wife felt the majority of the discharge, and in a disgruntled state expressed her dissatisfaction in the public gaze of the pasta aisle (if you saw a well dressed man rubbing his arm next to the linguini, accompanied by a swearing lady clutching her head, that was me). She exclaimed that her entire brain now hurt and that she felt the shock travel around the inside of her head. Oddly though, from that moment on she could not remember a single item we came into the grocery store to buy.
I thought this event to be a very interesting occurrence and suspected that she may have obtained the kind of side effects normally associated with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). I cunningly thought this could be used to my advantage at a later date (if one was required to induce a short term memory loss for example). If in the future I have the oversight of forgetting an anniversary or birthday (as men are prone to doing), I could remedy the situation and resolve her unhappiness by simply shuffling around the house on my nylon carpets (wearing my rubber soled slippers) before making an earth like connection with any exposed parts of her head that presented themselves. I could then quickly slip out of the house (only to come back 20 minutes later) clutching a bunch of flowers, the prerequisite chocolates, and a fancy item of jewelry; I would then be greeted for a second time with a smile, a kiss, and on this occasion just the complaint of a headache.
The atmospheric conditions I am experiencing have also rendered my skin exceptionally dry, I only realized how dry when I took a shower this morning and discovered that not a single drop of water made it from the shower head into the shower tray (just a mere distance of around seven feet) - I have become a human sponge! I also found that it was probably a better idea to weigh myself before my shower in future; I nearly died when I saw the scales - did you know that a gallon of water weighs 8.35lbs.
24th January - The Mystery of the Orange Slice
I cannot reason why I continue to find a piece of fruit on my plate, whenever I eat out in town - this is not specific to any one establishment, but if somebody could explain why I keep discovering a single slice of orange keeping my meal company, I would be grateful. I believe it is not designated to be squeezed on the food (I don’t think eggs and orange, or steak and orange are generally considered to be good culinary combinations – even in a country that thinks bacon flavored ice-cream is a good idea); I can’t see that it could be described as being aesthetically decorative either – that would be like placing a solitary bauble on a Christmas tree.
It could even be suggested that this convention is potentially dangerous; I have extensively researched the phenomenon of having an allergic reaction to an orange – this is caused by the salicylates found in all citrus fruits. It can manifest itself in the affected by inducing headaches, limb pain, swelling and breathing problems; this would apparently also suggest that I am allergic to exercise - as they share all of the same symptoms. Do you know how many people died from orange related incidents in America last year? No, neither do I - but I suspect it could be quite a few. I did notice though that a significant number of people have died from choking on an orange – but this is not orange specific and you cannot blame the fruit for this; that would be like blaming a Chihuahua for killing a German Shepard dog because it got stuck in its throat and choked it.
To the best of my knowledge, I am under the impression that this Sunday is the Super Bowl final - an event I have yet to experience; we have a similar occasion back in Britain for the soccer Cup Final (see how I swapped the word football for soccer in that sentence – I am slowly being assimilated, I am aiming to be fluent by next year). We call it football back in Britain because we predominantly use our feet (like handball, basketball, and racquetball, that are descriptive compound nouns used to label those particular sports due to the nature of how they are played or the equipment they utilize).
I don’t know if it is a reflection of the expected standard of the entertainment on display this Sunday, but everyone I have spoken to has told me that the commercials at halftime are the thing to see; I cannot comment further other than to say that if I went to the opera and found the interval ice-cream and soda to be the event of the evening, I would have to question the standard of the production.
I will look out for the Patriots solely on the grounds that they have the word England in their name (having no affiliation or knowledge of either team); I hope it is a good game with lots of home runs.
30th January - The Perils of a Poor Accent
My average day in this country is normally littered with all kinds of difficulties, distractions and inconveniences that make my path through the minutia of every working week difficult – obstacles that the native Sauk Centre citizen would never have to experience or endure.
This convention raised its ugly head again on Saturday morning when I tried to contact an eating establishment in Freeport - to politely ask if I could be accommodated for a party of twenty that night. The lady I spoke to on the phone responded by asking me for my cell number (I have a terrible time remembering number sequences – I can only remember my PIN number through the muscle memory of the pattern my finger makes on the keypad); I could not recall my number (I know it has an eight in it towards the end) and as my phone was currently being operated next to my ear I could not access it.
I have to believe that her response to this came from a historical position of receiving endless hoax phone calls with silly accents, as she informed me that she thought the call to be a prank and that she would not be reserving an area for me – she added that my accent sounded ridiculous. At this juncture my options were severely limited as I only have one accent - it is not like I can change it out for something else; I genuinely did not know what to do next.
I was also slightly bemused that she thought my British accent to be a poor imitation; I have frequently heard many Sauk Centre citizens trying to mimic me in jest, and to my ear it always sounds less than authentic. In the same way any American accent I try to undertake lurches quickly into the colloquial vernacular of an Alabama banjo playing farm laborer with learning difficulties and an acute case of Bell’s Palsy (a debilitating dysfunction of the cranial nerve that leaves the afflicted with a facial paralysis on one side, meaning they cannot pronounce the letters B or P – thus making the labeling of the affliction particularly cruel.)
I wondered if some sort of citizenship test might be required over the phone, where I sing the first verse of God Save the Queen, explain the rules of cricket and outline how to make the perfect cup of tea (milk always first!) It was only after a second phone call that I managed to convince the lady I was in fact genuine and that the whole scenario had not been an elaborate prank phone call – even then I sensed her skepticism. I think no one was more surprised than her to see an Englishman walk through the front door of the building at 6 P.M. with twenty guests in tow.
To the credit of the establishment they gave us complimentary entrées for the misunderstanding and the service and food were faultless; needless to say my friends have now compounded my problems by asking me to book up all the restaurants we now eat at - in the hope of receiving free food.
4th February - The Subtle Signs of Getting Old
At the weekend I managed to get pulled over by the police; three times within a two hour window - all due to a faulty offside tail light. On the third occasion, I gave the officer the paperwork the previous two officers had given me, and he responded that I was about to get a third - three warnings in one night seems a bit oppressive, but I admire their assiduity. I suspect I now qualify for one of those frequently pulled over customer loyalty cards, where I can get a reduced jail term - if or when required.
I have never been stopped for the same offence in Britain; we have a document called an M.O.T. (Ministry Of Transport) test. We take our car to a garage every year and have a series of tests performed, to see if it is road worthy – faulty lights would then be found and fixed. This then leaves the police to concentrate on the pressing issues of crime prevention and the apprehension of recidivists.
Unfortunately a faulty light was not my only concern this week; it was only a matter of time, but the cold exacting Minnesota weather finally took a toll on my car battery. I was determined to replace it myself though, after throwing in the towel during the impossible to reach spark plug removal episode several months previously (suffice to say I could not get the marmoset monkey to climb behind the engine housing with tools - despite the promise of a year’s supply of nuts). The battery was duly replaced, but the following day I discovered it to be flat again - this led to the notion that I had a short somewhere in the electrical system. As is always the case, the mechanic pointed out many other issues on the car that required attention; he asked me (for example) when I last changed the air filter - to which I replied, “there’s an air filter?”
This grocery list of car faults reminded me of the circumstances surrounding how men (of a certain age) go to see the doctor - my dad only goes to see a medical practitioner when he has at least five complaints that need attention (otherwise he feels it is not worth his while). This is one of the key signs to look for in terms of a man’s aging process; others to be aware of are: the purchase of a wall mounted barometer that is referred to on a twice daily basis (this can be easily interchanged with the weather channel), the discovery that your toenails may as well be in a different state when it comes to bending down to trim them, the sudden awareness that you look through the car steering wheel - rather than over it, the realization that you hear your favorite song now played in elevators, and asking yourself what happened to your sexual relations – with the response that you didn’t even get a Christmas card from them this year. I guess the crucial sign is when you find yourself repeating the same things over again because you have forgotten that you have already said them, and repeating the same things over again because you have forgotten that you have already said them.
Whoever said there is no such thing as the wrong weather: just the wrong clothing, has clearly never driven in Minnesota.
12th February – Feeling a Little Horse
I suspect the tale that was presented to me this week could only have happened in this county - every single word of the following is true, but the names of the protagonists have withheld to protect their dignity.
A female friend (who owns a farm and stables) recounted a tale to me in a state of consternation on Monday. She was in her bedroom putting away the laundry; when she happened to glance down to see a long reddish brown hair lying on the bed. She picked up what she thought to be incriminating evidence (her own hair is black) and marched down to the kitchen to confront her partner with the offending item - held betwixt thumb and forefinger. He stringently and fervently denied any wrong doing, and as he examined the hair himself, was proud to announce that it was actually from a horse - and that she had nothing to worry about. At this point I interjected with a question, and asked if she thought the horse was male or female; her response came back by way of a look - that can’t be translated easily into words for the polite confines of this particular text.
I then (via a childhood exposed to Monty Python sketches) had in my mind the image of a horse trying to get ready in a state of rushed panic, because the sound of the wife’s car could be heard unexpectedly pulling into the driveway. “Quick, how does my mane look,” and “Oh no, I can only find three of my shoes!” Would be a good reflection of where my thought processes leisurely meandered.
I have very little experience of horses and hunting – they are not activities that are accessible to the average citizen of east London; I have many friends back in Britain that are against hunting though - in fact, as hunt saboteurs they go out the night before and shoot the fox.
20th February - Not a Good Start to the Day
This Monday I woke up (I have to say straight away that I am not a morning person – anything you say to me before 11 A.M. disappears into the ether and is never heard or seen of again and I’ll deny you ever said it). I sleepily sat up in bed and felt an acute piercing pain emanating from my right buttock; at this point I have to inform you that British people think pajamas are something you put under your pillow in case of a fire. I jumped up and did a kind of Native American series of dance moves around the bedroom (interestingly it threatened to rain later that afternoon). I asked my wife if she could see what thorn like discomfort was causing my distress, as the mirror proved inconclusive (and I nearly fell off the sink twice). As I was bending over I asked my wife what it could be - my wife said she could not see anything yet, but thought I was going to be going on a long journey, meet a tall dark stranger and be lucky with money – I have noticed that everyone’s a comedian over here.
Tweezers were then employed and the alien object removed, as I gazed at intently betwixt the prongs I became aware that it was actually a cat’s tooth. My cat is only just starting to reach adult hood and like most mammals, was losing her milk teeth, this particular tooth she left for me on the bed; isn’t it ironic that even when the cat is out of the room she still manages to bite me in the most unfortunate of places. This did lead me to think that I could put a new product onto the market: Butt-Tweezers, ideal for the removal of cat’s teeth, in those most awkward to reach of places (not available in Canada) – ideal as a stocking filler for the animal lover. I then put the offending tooth under my pillow and woke up the next day to find a dollar - so I had the last laugh (little is known of the cat tooth fairy).
I then stumbled, bleary eyed, in my somnambulistic state, to the bathroom - still rubbing my sore associated discomfort and reached out for the toothpaste, only to later discover, that the cortisone cream in this country comes in a very similar looking tube – I can say now, to the best of my knowledge, that my teeth have not been itchy all week.
In all truth Valentine’s Day could have gone a lot better in the Lee household; even now, after the flowers have faded, a frost still permeates the air. During the preceding week of Valentine’s Day my wife informed me of a dream she had, where I surprised her with the gift of expensive jewelry - she asked me what I thought it meant; I told her that she would find out on Valentine’s Day. For some reason I sensed an atmosphere over our romantic dinner, especially when she unwrapped the book I had bought her on “The Meaning of Dreams.” I thought she liked my sensitive metaphysical nature?
12th March - A Sign of the Times
Last week I discussed the inconsistencies that abound when writing in American English, that I am currently trying to become knowledgeable of – this inconsistency (I have discovered) can also be applied to driving and the way the roads are positioned in Sauk Centre.
We do not have stop signs in Britain, we employ the humble roundabout and the give way sign – our roads evolved over thousands of years, first with horse tracks, and then when the Romans invaded (with their enthusiasm for urban planning and their concern for the quickest and shortest way an army can march into another country). Most American towns were designed with a ruler in one hand - thus every hundred yards is a crossroads that requires you to stop. The inconsistency I refer to is the strange way I find myself driving along a road in Sauk Centre only to find a four way stop sign junction impeding my progress; I then continue along the same road to the next crossroads, where I find only a two way stop sign in operation. At the next junction there are no stop signs at all, and it is a case of survival of the fittest and every person for themselves. You can always recognize these junctions by the broken glass that litters the gutter and the pieces of semi-abstracted exhaust systems and fenders that randomly present themselves in the surrounding front yards.
When I first ventured onto the tarmac of Sauk Centre I spent many a journey wondering what on earth a “xing” was; I had seen it written on the road and displayed at various times on roadside signage. To the best of my geographical Asian knowledge, Xing is a state in the Hebei province of China that was overthrown in 662BC; descendants from this locale are entitled to use Xing as their last name - I believe Xing is also the name of a South Korean boy band, but I can’t whistle any of their tunes.
Then this week I found myself driving from Wal-Mart along Ash Street going north, as I started approaching the bisection of the Wobegon trail, I was suddenly made aware that I had never driven along a road anywhere in the world where there were more sign posts. The entire stretch of this area is polluted with more visual stimuli for the driver than I can possibly compute, it is remarkable that vehicles have not mounted the sidewalk and drifted into front yards as innocent drivers struggle to read the bombardment of information that is presented to them – you are welcome to go and check for yourself (just make sure there are no pedestrians around).
Sauk Centre boasts uniqueness in its road names though, compared to other American towns; the most common street name in America is 2nd Street, as 1st Street often gets renamed – here they changed the name of 3rd Street.
19th March - A Lack of Basketball Knowledge
My Prime Minister, David Cameron, arrived in Washington last week to meet with President Obama. You would think that their most pressing issue would be to discuss Afghanistan, Syria or Iran – but wisdom saw fit that the first business conducted together was to watch a basketball game in Ohio.
I am led to believe that the President is passionate about the sport, and British diplomats say the Prime Minister sees the invitation as a compliment, stressing the value the President places on their friendship. Unfortunately I suspect that Mr. Cameron shares the same knowledge of basketball that a cup of tea knows about the history of the East India Company. Basketball is not a sport many Brits are familiar with, and to my untrained and uneducated eye, it would appear to be a game where one side gains possession of the ball and goes up to the other end to score a basket; then the other team gets the ball and goes up to the other end to score a basket, and the last team to score before the buzzer goes off wins. Mr. Cameron will have the chance reciprocate this invitation though, when Mr. Obama comes to visit Britain, because he can be taken to all the thrills and spills that a cricket match has to offer – and they last for five days and normally end in a tie!
The Washington Post claims that the USA and Britain have an "essential" relationship; I am not sure what the term “essential” actually means in this context though, as I believe you could suggest that a wiener has an essential relationship with a bun, and your car has an essential relationship with its braking system - I also suspect that the Irish celebrating St. Patrick’s Day last weekend were having an essential relationship with their Guinness. I was asked if I would be joining the jovialities on Saturday night, but in Britain only the Irish would be celebrating this day, as the Welsh, Scottish and English have their own patron saint’s day. If I walked into an Irish pub back in Britain with my English accent I would probably struggle to get out again safely with everything intact – history dictates that the relationship between the Irish and English could easily be lukewarm in those circumstances, especially if there are libations involved.
I managed to meet a fellow Englishman in town on Saturday as I perused the local stores; he lives in Alexandria and has been a resident here for ten years. I was happy to hear a familiar accent (be it a strong northern Manchester accent compared to my east London vernacular) but could not feel a little disappointed that I went from being unique to common in a single swoop.
I can safely say that before this week I have never before witnessed the sight of people walking around a lake in shorts, T-shirts and sunglasses - when the lake in question is frozen solid.
22nd March – A Distinct Lack of Fingers
I did not realize that snow could be so different in different parts of the world. In Britain, on the one day of the year we get an inch of snow, it is all wet and claggy (I think I made this word up but it seems to work, which is tremendulous). You can scrape it into a snowball and it sticks together like a baseball - it is not that cold and you can play in it for a good hour without gloves. The cold weather in Sauk Centre has delivered two shocks to me in recent weeks; when I first arrived back in Sauk Centre from London, I jumped straight into the nearest drift and started messing around like a child – it’s amazing how a mound of untouched white snow can make you regress to your childhood. It then came as a complete shock to me that after five minutes I could not feel my fingers - it was a scary moment, I thought I would never be able to operate a digital watch again!
My mother worked in a London hospital, one day a man came into E.R. having severed off the majority of his fingers with an electric hedge trimmer. He was informed that his fingers could have been sewn back on, if only he would have brought them with him - he replied that he could not pick them up!
I have never grown a full beard, but the Sauk Centre weather has facilitated this; my second shock came when I subsequently discovered so many grey hairs. I then found that my grey hairs appear to grow faster than the darker ones - I have no idea why this should be, but it leaves them looking like those single blades of grass (that no matter how many times you run the lawnmower over them) continue to stand tall, upright, and higher than the rest of the lawn. It seems inevitable that my older dotage here is going to be punctuated by prolonged periods of looking like Ernest Hemingway.
What I have found progressively irritating is the process of taking my boots on and off every time I wish to embrace the frozen tundra outside. During the summer months I could easily just kick my sneakers off or remove my sandals quickly without thought. During this week I calculated the time I was losing to this process, including the subsequent fiddling that takes place with the laces - if I leave the house twice on an average day and spend a minute putting my boots on and then off again, it leads to the sum of 4 minutes; this increases to 28 minutes a week made up of solely loosening, pulling and tying. Over a winter period of roughly 16 weeks I would be dedicating 448 minutes to this task - which equates to 7 hours and 46 minutes a year of time lost to winter related boot lacing incidents. During the course of a lifetime this could easily stretch to over a month - when I am on my death bed I will want those 4 weeks back and I suspect there will not be any credit considered; this is valuable time that could be spent rolling around in the snow like a 7 year old.
25th March - A Late Christmas Surprise
I had the unique experience of opening my Christmas presents this week; my parents and sister had posted a parcel for me three weeks before Christmas and it arrived on Monday. I had actually given up all hope of receiving it and had resigned myself to the image of several overweight customs and excise officials sat belligerently on Christmas Day, bemoaning the fact they have to work on the day of our savior’s birth, eating my European chocolate and drinking my tea.
I suspect the third world has a quicker postal service, and the geographically redundant arthritic pack donkey that brought my parcel from New York harbor to Minnesota, probably had to row single handed across the Atlantic as well (or single hoofed in this case). The parcel had been opened of course and every present inside had been unwrapped and defiled – I should have realized that a middle-aged, middle class, well educated, white historian from England would be a threat to American national security – obviously I am trying to undermine the American economy with the illegal import of foreign foodstuffs. By my reckoning it would now require my parents to post their Christmas presents to me on August 11 - for them to arrive on the big day this year.
If you walked at an average speed of 3 M.P.H. for 15 hours a day (not unreasonable) – it amounts to 45 miles per day; if this was repeated over the 3 month period it took for my parcel to arrive (90 days) – it amounts to 4050 miles: London is 4000 miles away. My mother, with her knee replacement, could have actually walked it to me and then perambulated onto Brainerd for afternoon tea - within the same time frame!
When I left home, my mum said: "Don't forget to write." I thought: "That's unlikely – it's a basic skill, isn't it?"
My gifts included a T-shirt, which brought a smile to my face when I saw the label, as it was an X-large; I am still happy that I am a medium in this country, rather than the X-large I find myself in Britain. This is how you can drop down two sizes in just eight and a half hours of flying - by coming to America; it could put a serious dent in your self-esteem going back the other way though.
This time last year I discovered that my grass allergy, which I have suffered remorsefully with since 1976, was no longer applicable - it appeared that I was not allergic to American grass; this made for a very happy sneeze and sore eye free summer. This week I was suddenly hit by the heavy bat of an allergic reaction, and my year of rest bite seems over, as I stumble around sneezing and heavy headed in my itchy distress - with my eyes looking like a plate photograph from a dusty medical dictionary outlining the symptoms of hyperthyroidism.
Grassallergies.com: that's a site for sore eyes.
30th March – Money Issues
It is noticeable to me how American bank notes are all similar in size and color - this makes me wonder how the visually impaired manage to organize their finances. The ability to see one’s money does not improve things though; for example, denominations are not written on all of the coins, so if you have no prior knowledge to what a ‘dime’ actually represents in terms of monetary value you are lost - nowhere does it have the number ten on it (trust me, you don’t have to start looking through all the loose change in your pockets right now). Coins have to be designed like every other manmade object, so at what point in the process did the Art Director say, ‘yes, I love the design with the torch and the foliage, but let’s be radical and lose the number ten and replace it with the word, ‘one’, then every foreigner will think it is worth only one!’
We have the Queen’s face on all of our banknotes and coins, which will make Prince William’s bachelor party difficult – especially when he attempts to stuff pictures of his grandmother into the undergarments of scantily dressed women. The Queen is also present on our stamps - did you know that Britain is the only country that does not have to write its name on its stamps because we invented them; although we had to wait until another country invented some too before we could receive any mail.
I am still in the habit of waiting to hear the mailman (or postman) deliver letters through my door -via the letterbox; I love the idea that mail can be left outside of the house without anyone interfering with it. If mail boxes existed in London my credit cards would be cloned within a week and a debt run up comparable to the national deficit of a small West African country via illicit websites and online gambling. We have milk delivered to our front door too - our love of tea first thing in the morning has facilitated this; early morning walks are littered with the sight of robed individuals with bed hair fighting off flocks of marauding sparrows in a bid to retrieve their milk bottles from the doorstep.
I went to the grocery store on Friday and perused the cheese section while internally debated the merits of cheese in a can (in Britain only paint and deodorant come in cans, so this is an alien concept). I have been fervently informed by a man from Montpelier that Vermont cheddar is the best cheddar - my knowledge of American cheese is very thin at present so it would be unfair to comment further on this statement, other than to say that surely the best cheddar comes from Cheddar (a small village in the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England). In the same way that the best brie comes from Brie and the best champagne comes from Champagne; I took my purchase to the cashier. I am hoping to embrace the day when I can quickly empty my pocket of coins and find $1.87 without pause or hesitation; at the moment I am in the habit of presenting all the coins I have in my possession and asking, ‘can you find that for me?
4th April - Firearms and Alcohol
This weekend saw the combination of the gun show in town and the holding of a wine tasting event (what could possibly go wrong with that combination) – interestingly, from my perspective, there are two experiences of which I have little knowledge. I have never had an alcoholic drink, and by default, have thus never been drunk; this is not through some religious practice or medical condition though – I just don’t like the taste of it (other members of my family more than make up for it). Even if the smallest trace of alcohol is present in a dessert - I can’t eat it; this makes me incredibly popular with my friends as I am unanimously chosen to perform chauffeuring duties during times of libatious joviality.
Until this weekend I had never seen a gun, held a gun, or knew anyone who owned a gun (even the police in Britain don’t carry them); if I were stopped and caught in possession of a gun in Britain I would receive a go straight to jail card and miss a go – I would then be the proud recipient of a ten year prison sentence.
A Sauk Centre citizen told me this week that America will never be invaded, because any potential invader would know that every American would be armed; I pointed out that no one in Britain is armed and we have not been invaded since 1066. He kindly replied that this was because we had nothing worth having – which depressed me greatly; as I thought we had some of the world’s best shortbread (the Napoleonic Shortbread Wars of the early 19th century are little known).
So on Sunday a close friend (who is also a pastor) took me on a surprise visit to a gun range; we walked in and bought some ammunition and a target (see I am learning all the technical terms) and preceded to the range - I was also provided with some ear protectors. I then asked where the gun was – at that point he removed it from a holster he had concealed under his jacket and handed it to me; this felt incredibly odd (imagine participating in something that would be highly illegal, and then finding yourself doing it in full public gaze with happy abandon). The handgun in question was more violent, heavy, smelly, and noisy than I ever imagined, and I sprayed the target liberally as best I could – I didn’t manage to hit any of the vital organs but the paper assailant would have certainly died of lead poisoning at some point in the distant future (you may be stealing my wallet now but in five years time you will be experiencing a deterioration of appetite, hair loss, and issues surrounding your muscle density).
I am glad I had the chance to experience this once in my life, but it is not an activity I will be embracing again – unless something goes seriously wrong with my life plan, or we find ourselves under attack by the French or an invasion of zombies (whichever comes first).
12th April - The Discovery of Rabbits’ Eggs
So the Easter bunny has come and gone, and children throughout the town are ingesting vast amounts of sugar and colorings as I write – leaving their teachers to pick up the pieces on Monday morning. This tradition does not exist in Britain - we do not send our minors into the undergrowth scavenging for eggs (I didn’t even realize that rabbits laid eggs until this week – we must have different laprine breeds back home). I then saw an article this week, reporting that stem cell research is undertaken on rabbit’s eggs - so it must be true! This country produces many great foods, alas chocolate is not one of them – it is of a poor standard; I don’t understand why the general public does not complain by taking to the streets to instigating change. If you look at the ingredients of a random Hershey’s bar, it will say artificial flavor - why would you need to add artificial flavor to a chocolate bar, surely the cocoa is the flavor?
I had the pleasure of patronizing the Space Alien restaurant in St. Cloud on Saturday; it was quite an assault on the senses, and I had no idea what I was walking into. It was the kind of bombardment of visual stimuli, noises, and smells that would have renderer any downed American pilot (with prolonged exposure during the cold war) to speak openly from a secret location in Moscow about the merits of communism. I ordered a pizza and was surprised to see for the first time my pizza cut into miniature squares - rather than triangular wedges I am used to. I pondered the merits of this presentation and supposed that they may be more bite sized, but dividing a circle into squares leaves some pieces very small and without sufficient topping; the triangular approach (if undertaken with due diligence) does leave everyone with the same sized piece - I also found that the topping has a habit of just slipping off with this approach to division.
As I made my way to the restroom, to remove aspects of my non uniform asymmetric lunch from my lap, I recognized that children were receiving strips of green tickets - as a reward for successfully operating arcade games; those tickets were then redeemed on the way out - for toys in ascending value. I saw one lad with his arms bulging full of tickets, and I was expecting to see him struggle to pull a power boat into the parking lot for his dad to tow away. I soon realized though that the exchange rate was similar to that of the dollar against the pound, as he trudged away with a small collection of what China has to offer in terms of plastic moldings – I suspect his prizes were broken before he got a chance to make it to the car.
I always believed in my younger school years that Jesus must have been a very special man indeed, to be born in December, only to crucified and resurrected at Easter – and to have done so many wondrous things in the four short intervening months.
3rd May – A lifetime of Royal celebrations
Now the wedding cake has gone stale and the confetti has blown away it is time to reflect on the royal wedding and the events of the day. My invite did not arrive in the mail so I had to watch the images unfold in the early hours of the morning from the comfort of my sofa in Sauk Centre. My lack of opportunity does allow me to give my perspective on the attitudes and the details of a royal celebration, as I recalled incidents from my youth that I compared to the television images - so William and Kate’s loss is apparently your gain.
My first recollection is from the 7th June 1977; it was the Queen’s Silver Jubilee - the marking of twenty five years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. In a small East London elementary school I was gratefully receiving a souvenir bookmark and mug - my sister was just a few years younger than me so our household gained two commemorative mugs (one of which was used as a toothbrush holder that I believe to this day is still in operation). A swift look at a well known online auction site as I write this article informs me that the mug in question is now worth the hefty sum of $4.23 - so I will not be retiring anytime soon on the proceeds of selling royal family memorabilia.
There could not have been a piece of red, white or blue crepe paper left in the country in the weeks leading up to the festivities, as people decorated their houses and windows with the Union Jack flag. For those with a more creative nature a cardboard box, a pair of scissors, glue and a roll of aluminum foil could be transformed into a crown or the words, ‘Silver Jubilee 1977’ - actually written in silver! There were competitions and prizes for the best decorated street, so you would be letting everyone else down by not complying to be patriotic. A costume party competition was also organized for the children that I appear to have little memory of (a psychologist would thus suggest that my parents dressed me in something suitably horrific and degrading - as if clothes from the 1970s were not bad enough).
Every street was closed for a party and each household brought tables and chairs out into the road - they were all put together and ran the entire length like a giant snake of party food. We had a long hot summer in 1977 and I recall sitting in the brilliant sunshine with a party sausage rolling around on my paper plate keeping a curled up cucumber sandwich company. I was put to bed early during a time when I could easily fall asleep through playing hard all day; my imminent slumber was accompanied by the distant sounds of ABBA and David Soul coming through my open bedroom window via an 8-track car stereo that allowed the older children to continue partying.
On the 29th July 1981 we again dusted down our flags and retrieved the crepe paper from the attic for the marriage of Prince Charles to Lady Diana. I received a commemorative bookmark and mug from my school and once more a street party was organized - I was now old enough to stay up, but the sounds of ABBA were replaced with Duran Duran and Adam and the Ants.
I fear the children of Britain will have no such memories from William and Kate’s wedding; health and safety regulation have made the bureaucracy of closing streets a near impossibility - as emergency vehicle access takes precedence over miles of card tables and party food. The appetite for eulogizing the royal family has also been diluted by three decades of failed marriages, infidelities, alleged clandestine business dealings and kiss and tell stories; a wider than normal dislocation from the common man has been made - whose hard earned taxed wages pay for their elitist lifestyle. The royal family has always embraced these activities (as almost a privilege in the past) but the glare of the media spotlight in the 21st century has left them exposed when they should have been evolving. We are a less subservient and more questioning, reflective society; the royal family now has to justify its existence - especially during a period of recession. The Association of British Travel Agents released figures this week suggesting that 45% of Brits did not even watch the wedding – and three million of us actually left the country all together. So what did they miss?
It is generally acknowledged without argument that we do pomp and ceremony better than anyone else; countless centuries of Imperialism and stifling repressive hierarchy have honed these skills. So they missed the soothing sounds of Elgar drifting on a light breeze over perfect lines of polished cavalry soldiers moving in unison, with their shiny brass emblazoned dress uniforms reflecting in the early spring sunshine, accompanied by the metronomic mesmerizing sound of horse’s hooves. They would have missed the warming cheers of beery crowds glowing in the red hue of collective sunburn; all waving their small plastic flags and licking over priced ice-creams. They lined the wedding route ten deep and were the extras for the BBC’s Royal wedding coverage – that was softly spoken with a whispered reverence by commentators obliged to wear dinner jackets and bow ties to deliver their rhetoric.
More modern conventions were also added to the canon of national celebrations and weddings; the Red Arrows (the Royal Air Force aerobatic display team) undertook dangerous flying maneuvers in fighter jets over the skies of the most densely populated area in Europe (yet you can’t get your street closed for a few hours). The pilots left a streaming trail of red, white and blue colored smoke so the well wishers could gaze up in awe and wonder (as bridesmaids covered their ears) at the patterns of where they had once been - this is also a good way of quickly tracing and pinpointing where the wreckage comes down if anything untoward should happen. Lucky the other modern common phenomenon of a cell phone going off during the ceremony was avoided.
The royal family is very omnipresent in our society and what this represents is a constant, which is reassuring during a period of our history when change happens at such a pace (only 67 years separated the first powered flight from the moon landings). The Queen can trace her direct ancestry back to William the Conqueror in 1066 and her reign has witnessed the comings and goings of twelve U.S. Presidents and thirteen Prime Ministers. This constant has unfortunately been to the detriment of Prince Charles, whom last week became the longest-serving heir apparent in British history. The previous record of 59 years, two months and 13 days was set by his great-great-grandfather - King Edward VII. At the age of 62 Prince Charles has yet to start his job, when most other people of the same age are thinking of, or have retired.
Unfortunately this constant will change when the Queen is no longer with us; so I sense this wedding is the last chance for the royal family to get it right and I believe there is a genuine will amongst British people for this, despite their surface apathy. There is then a lot of pressure and hopes resting upon William’s young shoulders, because if he gets it wrong the face of the monarchy in Britain and the Commonwealth countries could change irrevocably. The nation at this time does not have the stomach or the patience for another circus like debacle that was the separation and divorce of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, not to mention the Queen’s other children. A dilution and downgrading of the royal family would then see a whole generation of British school children growing up without anywhere to put their toothbrushes.
21st May – The Patron Saint of Zits
I drove past St. Cloud on my way up from the cities on Saturday - this made me wonder who St. Cloud actually was? Saint Clodoald (better known as Cloud) was born in 522 in what is now France; he was the son of King Chlodomer of Orleans and became exiled to Provence - where he was visited by many for his counsel and healing; he is the patron Saint of boils, abscesses and carbuncles! Perhaps some sort of statue needs to be erected on I-94 at junction 164 that captures the very moment a poor unfortunate, seeking relief, reveals their bottom to St. Cloud in the hope he will put his healing hands to work. It is a strange phenomenon that many patron Saints have never visited the country they are patron of; St. George, the patron saint of England, never set foot in Europe let alone England - he was a Syrian soldier employed by the Roman army (St. George’s day was celebrated last week in England on the 23rd of April).
My journey proceeded without incident, apart from noticing an unusual Chevy Silverado passing through Sauk Centre. It had been specifically converted for the task of fishing and had two removable swivel fishing seats mounted on the floor at the rear. Cities like Los Angeles and New York regularly experience incidents of drive-by shootings; it is therefore reassuring to know that Sauk Centre has nothing more to worry about than drive-by fishing. To be fair I have yet to see gangs of delinquent walleye roaming the streets of Sauk Centre late at night, so the vigilante fishing must be proving a good deterrent. Perhaps if Charles Bronson were still alive today he could breathe new life into his movie franchise of films, under the re-titled name of ‘Death Fish’.
Sadly I had never been fishing before I moved to Sauk Centre; East London only has the River Thames and a few canals running through it - anything you catch in those would see you hospitalized for a month. The River Thames has become cleaner in recent years though, and you can only walk across it in certain places now without the aid of a bridge. Sea fishing is more prominent because we are an island and do not have many fresh water lakes of any scale. The number and size of the lakes in Minnesota is very impressive to me, when you consider that England’s biggest lake is Lake Windermere at eleven miles long (Sauk Lake is also eleven miles long); the size of the fish took me by surprise too, they all look very mean and dangerous. Most of Britain’s wildlife is small, brown, and innocuous; we have no poisonous spiders and just one poisonous snake that has not caused a fatality since 1975 (mainly because it is shy and prefers to stay in and watch daytime TV). I am hoping to catch more than just weed and the occasional crappie this year; perhaps I should ask St. Peter, the patron Saint of fishing, for some divine help this spring.
20th April - Where the streets have no name
A local reader of the Herald contacted me last week and asked if I would like to meet with her - she was planning to go to London in the next few days and wanted my advice on the places to visit and eat. As I sat with her, and a London street map and visitors guide spread out in front of me, I felt truly homesick for the first time.
Looking at the map reinforced to me that all of the streets in London have specific names allocated to them; there was no 2nd Street or 3rd Street for example – and this is true for the whole of Britain. This is obviously a common practice in America, as the U2 song quotes: Where the streets have no name. I then read this week that the US state of Virginia is poised to become the first to sell naming rights to its bridges, highways and roads. This is an effort to raise money for its cash-strapped road network; the state has passed a law authorizing it to sell to private companies the rights to name its streets, highways and bridges. US roads and highways need about $166 billion a year to keep them in shape, but states and the federal government are spending only about $78 billion (according to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials) - they say the scheme is a creative funding alternative to raising taxes. The naming of sports facilities after corporate brands is already common practice, so why should roads be any different - the New York Giants and Jets football teams play at MetLife Stadium and the Chicago White Sox baseball team plays at US Cellular Field.
We already have a Sinclair Lewis Avenue in Sauk Centre, but the opportunity to change numbers into name specific roads could mean that your uncle Dave would receive the perfect birthday surprise – Uncle Dave Avenue; this could provide the town with a much needed economic boost. The only downside that I can foresee is when drivers spend time stuck in traffic and the subsequent risk of associating that negativity with your firm's name. I am sure large corporations would not want to be treated to traffic reports warning of lengthy delays on the Pepsi highway, the Coca-Cola Bridge, or the Doritos overpass. Aunty Joan would not thank you either for giving her a small stretch of crumbling pot holed road that needs resurfacing and is going downhill fast.
It was my Birthday last week, an event that further highlighted my homesick nature - due to the lack of family I have around me; I wish to thank all those who wished me many happy returns and for the gifts I received. My cake made me laugh for a full ten minutes, as my name was mistakenly spelt wrong on the icing - it read Happy Birthday Adrain - which I believe is a device that rainwater gets guided towards. On my cards I was everything from Aidrian to Andrian (they were among some of the more creative derivatives) - I only have six letters in my name and two of them are the same! I suspect though I would not have found it so amusing if I was taken outside and presented with the lasting surprise of Aidrian Street or Andrian Avenue.
21st April – Peanut Butter Jelly Time
I had my first peanut butter and jelly sandwich this week, I think that is one of the tasks required to become an American citizen - next is learning to sing the theme tune to Sesame Street and being able to light a barbeque grill; I should be fully assimilated by May.
Part of this program involves the obligatory visit to Cabela’s - this store always provides me with awe and wonder moments; let me briefly discuss guns. Guns are outlawed in Britain and I have never seen one or ever held one - being caught in possession of one would facilitate the passing of a low level qualification in woodworking and the habit of defecating in a bucket in front of 3 large men; this would be achieved over a period of around 5-10 years. Gun possession in Britain is made so difficult that an Olympic committee is currently wondering how to organize the shooting events in London for the summer of 2012 (a prerequisite of competing would be the ability to be in possession of a gun). So imagine doing something illegal in America that would get you 5-10 years of prison time - that is how guilty I feel when walking through the gun section of Cabela’s. This would be like going into Wal-Mart and seeing an entire aisle dedicated to hard drugs, where shelves would be lined with heroin and hallucinogenic substances (in fact this pretty much happens in Amsterdam with soft drugs, especially if you go shopping in Van Wal-Mart).
The Cabela’s tableaus of stuffed animals in their natural settings were a jarring reminder of the scene in Planet of the Apes, where Charlton Heston recognizes his fellow astronaut as one of the exhibits. This made me recall the singularly most ridiculous sentence I have ever heard uttered - that I now wish to share with you. It was in my youth during a Saturday morning cinema showing of Planet of the Apes, when at the very moment Mr. Heston breaks down emotively under the shadow of a ruined Statue of Liberty somebody behind me said, ‘how the bloody hell did that get there?’ This statement was challenged to the number one spot during last year’s State fair - when a hotdog seller told me that I had a lovely accent and that I should keep it. I thanked them and said I was experimenting with three or four but if they liked that one I would keep it.
The state fair also provided me with another awe and wonder moment; I wanted to sample every type of food available - but I should have paced myself. I later found out what the exact time was between consumption and apocalypse - nearly everything edible was on a stick and I love the idea that food can come with its own tools; this year I will stick to just a donut. I thought the peanut butter and jelly sandwich tasted very good.
29th April - Rain in April
Is it not ironic and typical of life in general, that last week when I started to write this article, the theme was based on the driest April experienced in Minnesota since 1947; subsequently large amounts of wetness (through precipitation) has since seen fit to ruin my text – rest assured it was very funny and informative. Thus I shall now address the events of leaving the house this Sunday morning; the very first moment my sole touched the wet concrete step leading to the car, I slipped and found myself rolling around the floor looking for some sort of purchase to get back on my feet, like a new born deer - it was as slick as a bucket of soapy frogs.
I’m sure the neighbors are used to my antics by now and behind the twitching of a drape I am convinced a comment was made similar to, “That strange English guy is now rolling around his front yard,” to which I would respond, “Yes, in Britain on the third Sunday of every month, we practice the ancient Celtic tradition of yard rolling to bring good luck.” Though anyone watching would have been impressed by the way I kept my cup of tea perfectly upright - without spilling a single drop (priorities).
This reminded me of an incident from my career as a teacher in Britain, where it is wet more often than not, and slippery stairs and steps are a constant hazard looking to catch out the unwary pedestrian. One rainy afternoon a student sprinted into the Food Technology corridor where I was patrolling on reassess duty, to tell me that a girl had slipped and fallen down the stairs and split her head open – apparently blood was everywhere and bits of her brain were spread in all directions. I quickly shouted out for someone to call an ambulance and I grabbed some towels before sprinting to the stairwell. As I looked down I saw the girl lying at the bottom of the stairs with blood smeared all over the walls to highlight the route of her decent - on every stair I could see the sight of lumps and bits of brain, in amongst the carnage.
As I ran to the girl I expected to see the worst and I braced myself for the grizzly sight; several grade six girls had seen the incident and were fainting – they were carried to the school nurse (kids were going down like cards.) The girl appeared to be fine though and did not have a single scratch on her, as I helped her to her feet; in a dazed voice she said, “I've dropped my cherry pie.” The entire area was covered in cherry pie filling - “Somebody cancel the ambulance,” I shouted!
18th May - Negotiating Parking
I suspect that many other people outside of foreigners are unaccustomed to the crazy conventions of the parking lot in this country; I have yet to work out what is required of me when leaving or entering Wal-Mart for example. My latest exposure to this maniacal practice came on Monday; correct me if I am wrong, but do the rules of the road get torn up and thrown away when it comes to going shopping.
When I leave Wal-Mart I find myself having cars coming directly at me, people drive on both sides of the road (I have only just got used to driving on your side of the road), people drive blindly diagonally through many columns of parked cars (looking to fox the visually redundant by coming from a sideways angle) and people park lengthways across three spaces. Cars weave in and out in what appears to be a wasp like random pattern and leave the premises in the same manner as a chocolate malt ball when a big open box of Whoppers has been dropped on a shiny floor. I have only known worse in my life when I lived in India, at least here I don’t have to contend with sacred cows wandering across my path, a complete lack of street lighting, or the added danger of the cars having no workable headlights – doors, roofs, or hoods come to that. This kind of madness is replicated on many of the interstate roads I have to negotiate, how an educated first world country can believe it is reasonable to enter and exit the road by using the same right hand lane together is open for conjecture.
I again ventured into the dangerous world of the parking lot by visiting the goodwill shop in St. Cloud this week; this type of establishment in Britain is called a charity shop and they are numerous in our high streets, as they obtain a rent reduction – and the current economic climate dictates that there are a lot of empty shop spaces. I worked in one of these shops as a volunteer back in the early 1990s when I was a university student, and saw many wondrous things. I was placed in charge of sorting books and records – the elderly ladies who ran the organization thought I was better placed to sort and price them than the octogenarians. I shared a room with them as they sorted through the clothes and gossiped; the faint base notes of moth balls and old clothing penetrated the air and mingled with the scent of rose water and toffees. Thus I was surprised at the seemingly professional way in which the store went about its business – like the façade of a commercial department store. I am now the proud owner of a set of teaspoons, a vase, and a picture frame – I also managed to negotiate my way out of the car lot without incident.
21st May - New London and Old London
For some time now I have been promising myself a trip to New London, solely on the basis that I was born and raised in London, so it seemed like an appropriate visit to make – and for the comparative material I hoped it would provide me in writing this article. I was wishing in my disillusioned thinking (that like London) it would perhaps embrace the culture, the architecture, the fine dining, and the 24 hour nightlife that the biggest capital city in Europe has to offer.
Unfortunately I initially passed through New London in the belief that I had not actually reached my destination yet, it was upon seeing the signpost reversed in the car mirror (on the other side of the road) that I realized I had gone through the town and out of the other side - within the blinking of an eye. The signpost read: population 1,251 - that would be just 10,998749 less than London; I now understand that your definition of a small town is one that only has a single bar.
I spent an enjoyable hour perusing the local shops and stores, but I was more intrigued to discover that New London is known as the starting point for the New London to New Brighton Antique Car Run - a 120-mile endurance tour for vehicles from 1908 and earlier; this event has been held in early- to mid-August each year since 1987. This I found very entertaining, as by a remarkable (or intentional coincidence) there is in fact a London to Brighton veteran car run every year back in England, with Brighton being a town on the south coast - a distance of 53 miles from the capital; it is the longest-running motoring event in the world and was first initiated in 1896.
I know I am becoming more like a Minnesotan due to the amount of time I have spent behind the steering wheel; like a native citizen, I now measure distance in hours, I now carry jumper cables in the car (and I know how to use them) and uniquely, I can now recognize if someone is from Iowa just by their driving. I have also gained a considerable knowledge of what the four Minnesotan seasons are from time spent in the car: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction.
The next town on from New London is called Spicer, this town appears to have more in common with London, because it has Green Lake and parts of the River Thames happen to be green - it also has sand, as (rather worryingly) does the current construction site for the Olympic stadium; fingers will be crossed right up until the first starting pistol is fired.
Did you know that a number of U.S. states, including California, Texas, Arizona and Ohio, outlaw the firing of a gun into the air - in Minnesota it is specifically forbidden in cemeteries (what kind of tension filled funerals were you having in this state)? Stringent health and safety regulations continue to take away our fun!
25th May - The Quest for Fish and Chips
My time spent in Sauk Centre has been undertaken with little recourse to think of home; yet this weekend, I hankered after fish and chips - the comfort food of Englishman all over the world. You must understand that fish and chips cannot be compared to anything I have yet to see over here; I have previously been whipped into a frenzy of excitement by well meaning locals who have informed me of establishments throughout the state that provide fish and chips, only to later frequent them to find out that in actuality, it is a plate of French fries with a frozen breaded walleye fillet and a side of ketchup.
Fish and chips is the perfect culinary union – like peanut butter and jelly, or ham and eggs; it is a combination that has been embraced in England for centuries – at one time it was served in newspaper, but this was deemed inappropriate after health and safety regulations came to the fore in our everyday lives. You could have been reading this article now while pulling chips off the page and reading around the vinegar stains. The chips in Britain are not really like fries, they are cooked twice, thick cut, and not crispy; they are soft and flavorsome – they are almost solely a vehicle for the bombardment of salt and vinegar, or mayonnaise. The fish would be a large cod dipped in a crispy golden batter and deep fried; it was probably swimming around somewhere in the North Sea that very morning - wondering what its day would bring.
I then decided, in a moment of uninformed culinary enthusiasm to make my own; the chips were a simple operation and achieved without issue. The fish, however, was a slippery beast that provided an ideal opportunity for my patience to be tested. The language that emanated from my kitchen would have led my neighbors to believe I was undertaking some form of amateur home improvements. The batter would not stick to the fish and I ended up with a saucepan where the fish presented itself to me naked, and the batter followed separately in the form of some bizarre incarnation of popcorn, which congregated nervously at the bottom of the pan – no sticky tape, glue, or nail gun was going to easily resolve this disappointment.
I suspect I was fully to blame for this aberration, as I did not sufficiently follow the recipe instructions to the letter, your imperial weighing systems are unfamiliar to my metric mind and I guessed all of the proportions required for each ingredient - there are three kinds of people in this world, those that are good at math and those that aren’t.
I believe many conventions have now been put in place, due to the amount if time I have resided here; late on Saturday night I ventured to the truck stop (in a funk of kitchen related disappointment) and as I positioned myself in the chair, ready to peruse the menu, the lady waiting on my table instantly brought me over a hot black tea with milk. They say variety is the spice of life, but I just really like hot black tea, and if it means I get it quicker, then it should be regarded as a good a result.
28th May - The Art of Defensive Walking
I may be foreign, but I was under the impression that many of the rules and conventions of the road user are the same the world over. So perhaps I could have somebody explain to me how I barely escaped being hit twice this week by automobiles at the town’s main intersection of Sinclair Lewis Avenue and Main Street. I fully understand that the concept of anybody walking anywhere in this country is alien - so I can vaguely accept that the thought of wanting to cross the road on foot does not come instantly into the thinking of most drivers. Yet on both occasions the lights were clearly red and my little green man was indicating for me to perambulate – surely red should be red, you are either allowed to go or you are not, no grey area should exist in this thinking; fortunately I was dexterous enough to leap out of the way as the cars blindly belted through the glow of the red light.
Brits love to walk, we invented it in the summer of 1587 during the great bicycle plague, and it is intrinsic to our DNA - like being overly polite, feeling the necessity to continually moan about the weather, and having an affinity for warm beer; sadly walking through our town genuinely seems to be a dangerous pastime - regular readers of my column will recall all kinds of sidewalk based shenanigans over the last year, including two random dog attacks, a car reversing incident and various ice induced slippages.
So I ask myself the question, what is so monumentally important that another 20 seconds would make a difference, in the act of stopping and waiting for me to cross safely. I have therefore invented a list of fun activities that last around 20 seconds to see if any are worth hospitalizing me for. Firstly, you could see how long you could hold a note for (amusement potential: low to moderate) - not that much fun, but play with a friend or try to beat your own personal best; inhale deeply and then try and make a noise for as long as you can - earn extra points for making your partner laugh or by ending on an amusing note. Secondly, repeat the same word over and over until it loses its meaning and becomes a random set of noises (amusement potential: high – I started out with the words apple pudding, but elbow worked well too). I also realized that 20 seconds is about the average time it takes watching an Adam Sandler film before picking up a book to read.
I am not sure how to remedy the problem of being a lure for fast travelling vehicles, other than to embrace the pedagogy and skills of defensive walking (defensive walking classes are mandatory for pedestrians that have been warned for having an overly aggressive stride pattern - or for any casual strollers caught walking confidently whilst wearing a loud shirt in a built up area between the hours of darkness).
I put my new defensive walking skills to good use on Monday this week, when I saw a blind lady trying to cross the road outside of the post office - I politely asked if she required assistance and she accepted my offer; I confidently stepped into the road as she held my arm, before asking her to remind me which way I had to look first.
1st June - The Mystery of the Missing ‘T’
I have pondered for some time the mystery of the missing letter ‘T’; it is apparently absent without leave whenever I hear the word Minnesota being pronounced. To my ear, local resident’s verbalizing the state in which they live, leaves me to think I reside in Minnesoda – which I believe is a small sized fizzy carbonated drink. Not only has the poor ‘T’ been made redundant without any good reason, but the letter ‘D’ has muscled onto the scene and taken over. You would think that ‘D’ would have enough to do with words like, daddy, doddle, didactic and dodecahedron around. This trend of ostracizing the ‘T’ further to the point of disappearance is continued, when that small sized fizzy carbonated drink happens to be Mounain Dew; you can almost see the capital ‘D’ in Dew laughing at ‘T’s misfortune – they both need to get along otherwise this trend could be detrimental in making certain words redundant.
If this theme continues all ‘T’ letters could suddenly become extinct and the Twins would instantly become the Wins; I have no knowledge of baseball matches but I am led to believe that this name could be seen as an ironic parody due to their recent form, and perhaps would be seen as inappropriate. I hope to bring back the ‘T’ by placing the maligned letter into places where it would not be normally be used or employed, so as to bring back a sense of symmetry and equality - which would be tremendulous. Perhaps the Canadians could use ‘T’ more on our behalf, like the way they proliferate sentences with unnecessary amounts of what sounds like ‘A’.
This whole scenario reminds me of when the fall of the Iron Curtain came during the late 1980s in Europe; countries that were formally occupied under Soviet rule began to become independent democracies. Almost overnight the country of Czechoslovakia became two separate countries: the Czech Republic and Slovakia; I then wondered for some time what became of the people that lived in ‘O’, they had no representation in the new regime and were forgotten in a single stroke. I bet most people could not even point to the region of ‘O’ on a map or recognize their flag.
Another region that I wish to bring to your attention is the small town of Adrian, which I discovered on a map in the southwestern part of the state; a road trip will be planned shortly so I can stand next to the sign that has my name emblazoned upon it – I get the impression that the early settlers just simply ran out of names for their towns and lakes, so reverted to using their Christian names; I suspect I will have to travel through the towns of Colin, Bob, Chuck, Tom, Erm, Thingy, Cannotthink, Havewenotusedthatbefore, and Theremustbeonewecanthinkof - just to get there.
4th June - The Experience of going to the Cinema
You would think going to see a film would be a universal experience - wherever you are from, but a visit this week to the local cinema outlined more differences between our nations. Firstly, I was asked by one of the cinema staff if I wanted concessions; a concession in Britain is where you can access the cinema or a museum for a reduced amount (if you can prove you are unemployed, a student or of retirement age). I said I was British to try and be funny and to see if that might help me to gain a reduction in the admission fee (like I had some sort of affliction that would make him take pity on me - the symptoms of which would include consuming copious amounts of tea, talking about the Queen, and in severe cases, insisting on eating with a knife and fork). He looked at me in the same way I look at my TV remote when I am trying to record a program on BBC America; I was then informed of my misunderstanding.
Let me discuss root beer; root beer does not exist in Britain and I was reliably told that it had to be tried (I do not want to be accused of not broadening my horizons) - so I asked for a root beer. I don’t know whether I own different taste buds to that of the American nation - but doesn’t it just taste like liniment? It has a medicinal flavor and I wasn’t sure whether to drink it or rub into my arthritic knee. Portion sizes seem to be racing out of control too, I asked for a small drink and received 32 ounces of pop (I am sure children can drown in smaller amounts of liquid). My bladder only holds 10 ounces and as any good doctor will inform you it sends messages to be emptied when it reaches around 25% of its working capacity - which would be 2.5 ounces (anymore can cause a bladder stretch injury and no amount of liniment can help you then). That works out at 12.8 visits to the rest room per soda (I am guessing the .8 is where you didn’t quite get there in time and .2 went astray). This all adds up to a pretty poor scenario when one is required to sit quietly for 2 hours and concentrate on a film.
Everything seems so much larger here (and not just the pop quantities in cinemas) some cars are bigger than my first house in Britain, we would not be able to easily accommodate them on our roads - many of which evolved from Roman or Medieval routes that were only required to be the width of a horse’s bottom. They are small and narrow and large cars could simply not get around our roundabouts, as they have the turning circle of an oil tanker. Our fuel prices are also too high to economically accommodate larger vehicles; if you convert liters into gallons and pounds into dollars you will discover that Britain is currently paying $15 a gallon for gas - this is why we walk everywhere. Furniture is bigger too; my couch is so long that when I went to retrieve a cushion from the other end I came back with an accent.
It was then a further shock during the film when I grabbed a handful of popcorn and shoveled it into my mouth, only to discover that it was salty! All of our popcorn is sweet and there was a jolt as my brain was expecting one type of flavor and my mouth was giving polemic messages about another. This reminded me of an incident I once had where I mistakenly drank my brush cleaner as I glanced down at my brushes sitting in a cup of tea that I had placed next to it; one does not want to be disparaging but I recall this still tasted better than the root beer – some things are just cultural I guess.
8th June – S’more than Meets the Eye
During the weekend I had the pleasure of sampling a cuisine that I had not previously been aware of, but I believe is well known to anyone native to this country - the humble s’more. My lack of knowledge comes from the fact that Hershey’s chocolate and Graham Crackers are not sold in Britain - so I was previously unaware of two thirds of their constituent ingredients, let alone construction techniques.
After some cursory research, I discovered that s’mores are a traditional nighttime campfire treat popular in the United States and Canada, consisting of a roasted marshmallow and a layer of chocolate wedged betwixt two pieces of Graham Cracker – or as I would describe: a sugar sandwich. The first recorded version of the recipe can be found in the publication "Tramping and Trailing with the girl scouts of 1927; thus ever since young children of all ages have been enjoying and experiencing varying stages of advanced tooth decay.
So I placed my marshmallow on the toasting fork as directed and presented it to the fire, a lack of campfire cooking experience and an over exuberating technique caused by a rumbling belly, saw my marshmallow ignite on the end of the prongs and flames danced mercurially around the soft sticky end - I didn’t know whether to blow it out or launch it over the wall of an under-siege castle with the aid of a longbow. Ironically I discovered that August 10 is actually designated as national s’more day; which also happens to be the date that the Palace of Tuileries came under attack during the French Revolution in 1792.
The direct result of its consumption left me with itchy teeth and the kind of sugar laden buzzing headache that stops one from sleeping for several hours; in a cruel twist of fate I later read that s’mores pack 140 calories per serving and the average man burns around 70 calories for every hour they spend asleep.
I sat in the field illuminated by the glow of an iridescent campfire slapping myself like an overly enthusiastic hyperactive Tyrolean folk dancer with self-esteem issues - as I became plagued by a random assortment of irritating insects with a thirst for the scent of Englishman. I was then asked if I had actually managed to kill any of them, I replied that I had swatted and killed at least five flies – three male and two female. The fellow campers looked puzzled and asked how I had managed to differentiate between the genders of the flies in question; I confidently informed them that I had seen three landing on a can of beer and the other two had buzzed back and forth between the smore and my cell phone.
11th June - The Healing Properties of Tea
I want to dedicate this week’s article to tea; I am happy to reinforce stereotypes by saying that I drink vast amounts of tea throughout my average day - our entire nation and empire was built on the process, manufacture and tradition of tea drinking (this you can research for yourself as I don’t have the room here to discuss the history of the East India Company). My grandmother always had tea available in various states of brewing; it was kept in a big tea pot that she often placed in the oven to keep warm. This made the tea hazardously strong and my spoon would stand up in it without the handle reaching the sides of the cup.
All the pain of the world can be swept away in Britain with the aid of a cup of tea; the screech of brakes and the distant cry of an unlucky distracted pedestrian, or the scream of a pregnant woman in the throes of a contraction, would always be punctuated with the words, ‘I better go and put the kettle on.’ It is how we successfully got through the Second World War; the Luftwaffe could flatten your house, destroy all of your belongings and leave Uncle Arthur with 50% less toenails to cut, but out of the mist of brick dust and cordite smoke a cup of hot tea would be handed to you from somewhere.
Let me describe what tea is; it is the process of using hot water to draw subtle flavors from the tips of the newest sprouting leaves of the tea plant - preferably growing somewhere in Northern India. With the addition of milk it is a suspension of slightly acidic emulsion colloid fat globules in a hot aqueous solution of antioxidant catechins. It is NOT a mug of hot water accompanied by a Lipton’s teabag – which I soon discovered was a brand name used here as a colloquial collective noun to describe the sweepings taken from the tea factory floor, mixed with the detritus found by the side of I-94 (I rarely get a chance to use the word detritus and it is one of my favorites).
The recent discovery and subsequent patronage to a tea shop in Maple Grove has resolved my fear of running out of tea (I crammed a large supply into my suitcase when I came over). As we know the importing of tea to the Americas is fraught with difficulties and I will tactfully skip over the Boston Harbor incident. During my visit I was shown various containers that held what looked like the contents of a lawnmower grass box married with the faint base note smell of grub worms - the smell was not prohibitive but the price certainly was. I drink so much tea that it would be economically detrimental to use this tea for every pot I make, so the ability to cut it with cheaper grocery store (amusingly named) English tea has led me to run my kitchen tea operations like a drug lord. An insight into why I find the term ‘English tea’ amusing can be given when I tell you that I was recently asked what we call ‘English muffins’ in England, to which I replied, ‘muffins’.
This week I experienced the new phenomenon of receiving large electrical static shocks whenever I touched anything; I have become so paranoid about receiving pain when I reach for a light switch, the furniture, door handles or a shopping cart, that I have got into the convention of touching the floor first with a finger to earth myself (like some sort of religious ceremony). This could be the early onset of some sort of superpower that I must learn to control and use for the benefit of mankind (I was thinking of the names ‘The Spark’ or ‘Electro-man’ and I have already pressed into action several local seamstresses in regard to proper attire.) Alternatively, I could consider the compound facts of a progressively dry atmosphere, rubber soled sandals and the amount of nylon you appear to place in the manufacturing of your carpets.
As I do not recall receiving a bite from a radioactive animal recently and have managed to avoid incidents involving chemical factories, overhead power cables or solar flares, I must err on the side of caution and embrace the latter of the two scenarios to explain my new affliction (if anyone is in need of an XL bright yellow spandex suit with red trim and a cape let me know - it has hardly been worn). I will console my throbbing fingers, and the pins and needles that regularly run the length of my arm, with a nice cup of hot soothing tea. If you see me around Sauk Centre and I touch the floor before shaking your hand I have not gone completely mad, this is a selfless philanthropic act that will protect you from a large electrical discharge; I may not be able to save the world, but like tea, I can help to lessen the pain and suffering.
15th June - The Trials and Tribulations of Fishing
This week I embraced the sport of fishing; for one moment I do not wish you to believe I am any kind of fisherman - I have fished but a handful of times; but I have read all the right books, my tackle box is an array of many wondrous unused sparkly objects and I can proliferate any fishing related tale with a professional sprinkling of technical words and phrases.
On Monday I asked a friend (who has a lakeshore property) if I could fish on his land, and he heartily agreed. This notion quickly expanded into an adventure (as men are inclined to do when left alone to their own devices) when it was suggested that we dust off an old canoe to actually go out into Sauk Lake. So off we set, like a cross between an Ernest Hemmingway novel and Deliverance - with the theme tune of Hawaii five-O running through my head like an irritating meta-narrative. I paddled with vim and vigor, and all the misplaced youthful exuberance of a man half my age – this lasted for around 30 seconds, before I realized that being a writer does not provide you with the upper body strength required to maneuver a canoe through the water with any kind of alacrity.
As I sat there with my line in the water, trying to catch more than my breath, I pondered one of life’s mysteries: when did fish get a taste for earthworms? Perhaps from the possible action of suicidal worms – I agree that depression amongst annelids is not an area that has been extensively researched; or we may need to consider that fish are keeping quiet about their inland nocturnal feeding habits. Don’t be surprised to look out over your lawn late at night to see adventurous walleye sucking worms out of the grass - this is where it begins of course, this time next year they will be going through our trash cans.
At the end of a long day I jumped into the bath and noticed the redness of my arms and legs from the affects of the day’s sun; I was lit up like a mildly embarrassed cherry tomato - the kind that has forgotten your name at an office party. I also knew I was lacking moisture from the moment the majority of the bathwater disappeared, like I was some kind of giant sponge. Luckily the pain of the sunburn was soon forgotten as I awoke the following morning with the affliction of backache – I must have been sleep digging again (last week I arose from my slumber to find three trenches of potatoes dug in and mud all over my carpet slippers) – I am lucky I wear pajamas.
You may enquire as to the success of my foray onto the lake as a budding fisherman; despite my many discomforts the fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad.
18th June - Stick to What you Know
On the realization that I am British, it is common for the residents of Stearns County to try and imitate what I am saying back to me. Everyone suddenly becomes a cross between Austin Powers and what sounds like an upper class 1930s public schoolboy (or a posh actor playing a Second World War fighter pilot in an old black and white movie). They start using words that I have never heard in any conversation I have ever engaged with - things like, ‘pip-pip’, ‘cheerio’ and ‘hello mate’. Then they will start discussing some sort of gecko - I have no idea what they are talking about and I sit with a polite smile fixed on my face as they run through their repertoire.
During this part of the interaction I am often told how lovely my teeth are (of course I am happy to take any compliments that are thrown my way and clasp them with both hands). I genuinely believe that Americans think all British people have the kind of teeth Druids would worship around during the summer solstice – a myth that Austin Powers also seems to perpetuate. Many stereotypes are based on fact, but I have no idea where this could have come from - I don’t know any Brits with poor teeth. We have the National Health Service (NHS) in Britain and dentistry is subsidized out of our taxes, thus anyone can access free dental treatment. The NHS was set up in 1948, so I would suggest that before this point it was possible to have poor teeth, but since that moment corrective measures have been undertaken on the young so that our children can smile unashamedly and with free abandon at anything that makes them happy (this is usually the sight of their Dad dancing at a wedding or the contents of a text message received at 12.30am).
I have personally discovered that nothing inspires oral hygiene more than beef Jerky, this product (that I was previously unaware of) drives me insane – I’m fiddling with my teeth for hours afterwards, flossing and picking like an archeologist maneuvering around an artifact on an ancient burial site (I will have to give up on it all together soon or just resort to sucking it) - I am done with the chewing! Better still, make it into a smoothie, this would be no different from the bacon flavored ice-cream sundaes that are now available at Denny’s (it’s almost like there is an over abundance of pork in this country and two marketing executives, looking up at a mountain of bacon in a warehouse somewhere on the outskirts of Sauk Centre, are thinking up new and bizarre ways of selling us the same product) – an example of this stratagem would be the foot long chocolate covered bacon on a stick I experienced at the state fair.
I noticed in the grocery store on Saturday a special offer on a citrus flavored mouthwash, and against my better judgment, decided to purchase this over my usual mint based one - it tasted just like a hotdog. As much as I love hotdogs I do not want to start every morning with the refreshing taste of one. This I believe is another measure undertaken to reduce the pork mountain – next you will find pop stars making clothes out of it! I know dogs can get meat flavored toothpaste so I was wondering if next door’s dog would like to start a new oral hygiene regime, because I now have a large bottle of mouthwash he can try. I believe the moral of this story (bare with me, there is one) is stick to what you know; unfortunately after my experience with geckos, jerky and mouthwash, I appear to know very little.
Geckos, Jerky and Mouthwash should be the name of an attorney’s office - if it isn’t already.
21st June - St. Lewis Week
I was asked last Friday, by a Sauk Centre citizen, when St. Lewis week was starting; I know that Sinclair Lewis has gained more affection in town during recent years - more than when he was alive, but canonization seems a heady step; as the owner of an inquisitive mind and with an assiduity for research, I looked to discover if a Saint Lewis actually exists.
The name St. Lewis is an anglicized version of St. Louis - whom the city in Missouri is named after; he was a French king born in 1214. Other Saints are brought to their death in all manner of inventive and creative ways, making their demise a moment of awe and wonder - St. Peter was crucified upside down, St. George had molten lead poured down his throat, had his skin flayed off, and was beheaded - and poor St. Lawrence was barbequed; unfortunately St. Louis died from amoebic dysentery in 1270. During the Italian Renaissance Saints were identified in Frescos and paintings by the symbols and objects that martyred them - so St. Catherine holds a wheel and St. Stephen holds a stone – to the best of my knowledge I have never seen St. Louis depicted in iconographic art (I suspect he would have been in possession, or in close proximity to a bucket).
St. Louis is the patron Saint of hairdressers and the French – I would never frequent a French hairdresser though as there is little love between France and Britain, I would subsequently depart from the salon with a spring in my step and proceed to walk confidently down Main Street looking like someone had cut my hair with a knife and fork.
I visited Brooten for the first time this Monday; Brooten is named after the LiaBraaten family - which makes me wonder why it is not called Braaten? Tell me how is it even possible that I can travel between Las Vegas and Los Angeles through the barren wastes of Mojave Desert without seeing any sign of life, on the bleached dead land, and still have a constant perfect reception on my cell phone, but once in Brooten I may as well resort to two empty soup cans and a hundred yards of string?
As I drove through the town I saw pedestrians walking with one arm held up to the sky in worship of the telecommunication gods; evolution will dictate that in several million years time the good people of Brooten will have one arm shorter than the other, as gravity will not have the same pulling affect on growth patterns, by which time everyone in the district will only be able to swim in large meandering circles and men’s shirts will be sold with the labeling, hangs longer on the left arm.
I have long arms and the distance between me looking at my cell phone in the vain hope of contacting the outside world, and then raising it into the air in the hope of attracting a signal, could only best be described as around two feet. On the basis that satellites orbit the Earth at an altitude of 150 miles, it is ambitious thinking to believe that the shortened distance of 149 miles and 5,278 feet would make any substantial difference. I prayed to Saint Gabriel the patron Saint of communication for divine intervention, but alas my message never got through.
25th June - Driving me Mad
My British driving license is only valid for a set amount of time before I am required to obtain an American one. I use the phrase, ‘a set amount of time’ because this has ranged from thirty days, to sixty days, to ninety days - depending on which organization I speak to, what day of the week it is, what moon cycle we are currently in and whether there is an ‘r’ in the month. I generally receive rhetoric and platitudes when trying to make these kind of enquires because I truly believe that no one has the answer - so they make something up to placate me (with the proviso that any policeman would be understanding of my situation if I were to be pulled over). You will therefore be pleased to know that this week I passed my driving test - exactly twenty years after I first passed my driving test.
To pass a driving test in London you are required to know all the different parts of the engine and what they do, have on average sixty lessons, take a vigorous one hour theory test, then maneuver around the maelstrom that is the busiest and most congested capital city in Europe; so challenging is this process that I actually video recorded many of my mother’s driving lessons for posterity - some of the underwater shots were amazing!
It appears here (only from my own personal experiences) that if you drive around a few cones in a playground and go up and down a couple of blocks without incident, you will pass; I am not complaining though, this was very beneficial to me. The written test thought it was important for me to know the rules regarding the wearing of a seat belt if I were to become pregnant and that a brown sign means a local attraction. Thus I believe it would be more practical to update the driving test to procure a new skill set for the twenty first century (what you really need to know) - like how to position a can of coke between your legs without spilling any, how to put a cell phone to your ear and make it look like you are scratching your head if a cop goes by, the ability to unfold and read a map on top of the steering wheel and still watch the road, and the skill to be able to take the wrapper off a packet of gum/cigarettes/CD (with one hand and your teeth) whilst shouting at the kids in the back to stop fighting (any phrase like, ‘if I have to stop the car’ or ‘wait till I get you home’ would be marked as successful at this point).
Then coming quickly on the wheels of the car test was my motorbike test, I arrived at the bus depot next to the school with all the vim and vigor of a seasoned pro, as ten teenage boys looked on - all lined up against their shiny new machines. The nice lady instructor looked in turn at our documentation, she came to me and asked to see my permit; I told her I did not have one and she replied that I would not be able to take the test without one. I then presented my European driving license and said I had already passed my motorbike test in Britain and that I was currently legally driving with that license; I had already done the theory test and showed her the carbonated receipt to prove it (I was then told I should not have been allowed to complete the theory test without a permit).
She decided to call her boss; a twenty minute phone conversation ensued - the result of which saw me pass my motorbike test. I believe a policy was made up there and then on the spot, because in thirty five years nobody has ever tried to take a motorbike test in Sauk Centre who was a foreign national with a foreign driving license – which is not only remarkable, but would suggest that every alien driving a motorbike in this district is currently doing so illegally.
31st June - The Distraction of Television and Nuclear War
I cannot get used to the amount of advertizing breaks that appear on American television; the saintly BBC has no advertizing breaks - it is funded through a licensing scheme and everyone in possession of a television has to pay. A television detector truck drives around the streets to see who is receiving a signal - they then cross-reference that with a database. The sight of this truck normally facilitates the scene of grown men running in their underwear across the yard with a television under their arm - in the direction of the shed (just before there is a knock at the door).
Having come from that culture I find the ad-breaks in shows a maddening frustration. I found an old rerun of the Dukes of Hazard recently - the opening credits were still rolling as it went to the first ad-break. If you are old enough to recall, at the end of the intro, the General Lee leaps into the sky accompanied by the cry of yeeerrrrr - then it cut to an ad-break; three minutes later I saw the vehicle land to the sound of aaaaahhhh and the show began.
I also find the convention of placing televisions in restaurants and bars, on every sight line, very distracting; they are a magnet for your attention regardless of what is being shown. I find I have to concentrate hard into the eyes of the person I am having dinner with, as over their shoulder, a college basketball match is being played somewhere in Iowa. I truly believe that soccer will never catch on in America - as all your sports are solely designed to accommodate ad-breaks; soccer is two 45 minutes of continuous uninterrupted play – how is money to be made from that?
My childhood was punctuated with scary, two minute, public information films though - shown between shows and delivered by the government; they explained what to do during a full thermo nuclear attack - we also had leaflets put in the mail called, Survive and Protect. The rough theme was that you had four minutes to whitewash your house and organize a fallout shelter using a table, several tins of beans and a bucket – just before your skin, hair, teeth and bodily extremities were removed courtesy of Moscow. I suspect the time could have been put to better use by boiling a runny egg and having about a minute to eat it. Others might embrace the physical arts for the last time with their lady friend – I believe four minutes would allow most Brits to fully engage in this and still find time for a cigarette break; I think a lot of the 1970s saw men across the British Isles practicing for such an occurrence - we are always prepared if nothing else (this is why I have a sister).
I recalled the dark days of the Cold War more recently when I ventured into Ron’s Warehouse on the edge of Alexandria. It is a large discount store that sells all manner of items, with the common theme of, “useful things to have during a nuclear war.” The rows of tinned food alone could keep you alive in a bunker for at least two years (as the radiation dissipates enough for you to finally venture out); I now refer to this enterprise as, Ron’s Nuclear Warehouse.
3rd July - Gambling at the Buffet
This week a close friend of mine recently celebrated a Birthday and asked me if I would like to go and celebrate at a casino - I am if nothing else a cultural sponge, so armed with several dollar bills I made my way to the cornucopia of gambling. In Britain slot machines are legally allowed anywhere in public places and you will find them in locations like fish and chip shops and pubs. Casinos are more like selective clubs and you have to be a member to play; this requires at least 24 hours notice of application – so those that are intoxicated do not do anything they may regret in the cold light of day in terms of their financial stability.
As I walked onto the gaming floor I saw a randomly poorly parked car just left there, I know the art of parking in this country is sometimes beyond the grasp of many, but even I was surprised at how blatantly bad that was - it was lucky no one had got hurt (and the car looked new). I walked around for a while to get a feel for the place and positioned myself in front of a slot machine and fed my money in; as I sat down I was confronted by a bewildering collection of flashing lights and a myriad of strange noises – if I wanted that experience I could just buy a Ford.
The buffet was more of an interesting concept for me; even in an all-you-can-eat buffet - where you can go up as many times as you wish, people were still piling their plates in a swaying homage to the leaning tower of Pisa with a monolith of gravity defying food. That plate would boasts every type of animal species from mammal to mollusk, as shrimp was placed upon ribs, upon chicken, upon ham, upon fried fish, upon steak, upon sausage - and they would still sneak a couple of tomatoes from the salad bar into their pocket (just because you can does not mean you should). I have learnt through the bitter experience of such culinary establishments that you are wise to consider focusing on just one species of animal, or at the very least just pick between, fish, mammal or bird – as issues surrounding ones lower intestinal tract soon make themselves known; the only Roulette I played that night was Russian Roulette with an angry looking plate of sausage and sauerkraut. I know food is a large preoccupation with many in this state, but I genuinely believe Minnesotans actually walk around Como Park Zoo wondering what each attraction would actually taste like.
7th July - A Brit on Independence Day
This week I was asked on three separate occasions whether we celebrate the 4th of July in Britain; may I take this opportunity to publically say that Britain follows the strangest of conventions and fails to acknowledge or celebrate the conflicts and battles we lost – pretty much in the same way the German’s don’t fully embrace V.E. Day and the citizens of Hiroshima are apathetic about a grill out on August 6th.
So it was odd on Monday to find myself participating in the West Union parade - where I was joined by a cement mixer, a manure spreader, half a dozen dairy princesses and the plant machinery of a tree felling service; the parade seemed to go by very quickly under a hail of candy and diesel fumes. As I followed behind the locomotion of ancient industrial farmyard vehicles (that were tearing up the freshly laid tarmac on highway 27) I thought about how we tell our children not to except candy from strangers or run into the road - yet here I was encouraging them to do both.
If you would have said to me three years ago that I would be on a 4th of July parade sandwiched between a clown and a John Deere 1959 two cylinder 730 tractor (the one with the 24 volt electric starter motor instead of the V4 pony start engine) in a small Midwestern town, I would have assumed you were taking a large quantity of hard drugs (or at the very least prescription medications) - but here I was, in all my pallid English flesh.
It was a strange experience as a Brit to be amongst people that were intrinsically celebrating the defeat and killing of Brits - not a bad experience (just a little odd); Britain has the flippant attitude of seeing the War of Independence as nothing more than a group of Brits fighting against another group of Brits - but in a foreign land (I guess this makes defeat easier to take). I did love seeing all the patriotism and the fireworks and I fully embraced the fun and the food (the free hotdogs certainly hit the spot; it came as a surprise the following morning that I didn’t wake up looking like one – I was all ready to march into the bathroom singing, “let’s all go to the lobby” where I would have been joined by a bag of popcorn, two candy bars and a soda). It was always in the back of my mind though (as a historian) that we lost 20,000 troops in that conflict - in fact my seventh great grandfather, Edmund Fisher, was a redcoat in the 1770s (although I have no proof that he ever left Britain).
We are very happy to commemorate the battles we did win though and the Victorians even named places in London after them - like Trafalgar Square. In 1994 the Channel Tunnel was opened and 31 miles of undersea rail track finally linked France to England (the merits of which can be discussed at a later date); the terminal chosen for the Channel Tunnel trains was Waterloo Station - the biggest station in the south of London. So what awaits the thousands of French commuters coming daily into London is Waterloo Station; named after the battle of Waterloo - where we gave the French a good beating during the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 (welcome to England).
I really loved seeing the Stars and Stripes flag around town; back home you would rarely see the British Union flag or the English St. George Cross flown (except maybe on the odd church and property belonging to the royal family). This is not through a lack of patriotism though, because I believe we have a very patriotic nature; unfortunately far right pseudo political groups have hijacked the flag and used it as a symbol of extremism. Brits never like to offend anyone so it is now rarely seen (you must remember that we are also sensitive to our darker imperialistic past and realize that our flag represents repression in many countries around the world); a better way of understanding our imperialist history can be highlighted by the following scenario: if Portugal and Spain ever decided to unite they would probably call themselves Sportugal; when Scotland was forced to unify with England we called it England.
I was also teased throughout the day on why I was not wearing anything red or white to go with my blue shirt; I did then have to point out that you actually stole the colors from us in the first place. The Grand Union flag has always historically been referred to as America’s “first national flag” although it never had an official status; it was used in the American Revolutionary War by George Washington and formed the basis for the first official U.S. flag - this flag consisted of thirteen red and white stripes and had the British Union Flag in the top left hand corner (where your stars now reside). Of course your flag has gone through many changes since - like the Italian flag during the Second World War, which quickly evolved from a vertical tricolor of red, white and green to a white cross on a white background.
On Monday evening, after a day of eating hotdogs, throwing candy and watching fireworks, I discovered several bits of my milky white body residing next to parts that had turned red and stripy from the sun; as I sat there in my blue shirt I realized that I had become more assimilated – it had just taken the entire day for it to happen.
10th July - Animal Magnetism
I am sure the local Sauk Centre citizenry are now engaging in the sport of randomly approaching me in Wal-Mart, just to provide me with odd information and bizarre colloquialisms - as material for my editorials. When a complete stranger accosts you in the canned vegetable aisle with a sentence that start with, “do you know what a cow magnet is,” I wonder where my life is going - if I reply that the weather in Leningrad is very clement for this time of year, do I get given the microfilm?
I suspect that powerful cow magnets come with instructions warning the user not to engage the device in a built up area, as the action of creating a powerful magnetic attraction to all the bovine creatures in the vicinity could prove debilitating for local passing traffic – as the beasts roll along Main Street from several miles away (much to their surprise) and come to an abrupt halt in a pile of bewildered mooing and freshly squeezed milk. I can see the benefit of placing a cow magnet in a milking parlor though and turning it on when milking is required - this could be very beneficial to dairy farmers and could potentially save a lot of time.
I suspected that more research was required to find the facts over an active imagination, so I discovered the following: when the cow grazes, it often consumes and swallows what is called tramp iron - baling and barbed wire, staples, nails and other metallic objects. These objects are indigestible and can lodge in the reticulum and cause inflammation resulting in lower milk production - this condition is called hardware disease (not to be confused with the debilitating affliction that middle-aged Stearns County men suffer from - that requires them to go Menards in Alexandria every Sunday morning).
The cow magnet attracts such objects and prevents them from becoming lodged in the animal's tissue. While the resultant mass of iron remains in the cow's rumen as a pseudobezoar (this is the best word I have ever come across and I have said it incessantly every day since, much to the annoyance of my friends, family and colleagues – my Dad thought I was saying the name of a Brazilian soccer player)!
I shall now keep a careful eye open for the potential side-effects of the cow magnet. I believe cows could now easily becoming stuck to wire fences all over America; one of the first jobs given to an apprentice farm hand is to regularly patrol the boundaries of the property armed with a crowbar - looking to prize innocent cows back into the middle of the field.
14th July - It’s an Ill Wind
I guess now would be a good time to discuss the weather in Sauk Centre compared to Britain. The only severe winds I can recall back home were in 1987, when a freak storm ravaged the country (the worst since 1703); I remember looking out of my bedroom window in surprise that night as trees, cardboard boxes and random pieces of wooden fence paneling flew by - I suspect the hobos that were still sleeping in the boxes were more surprised though.
I was given the next day off school, so as an impetuous teenager, I made the most of the unique weather conditions and visited the local golf course - where the fallen trees made it look more like a giant mini-golf course. I have the vivid memory of standing at the first tee and hitting a drive with a 60 MPH tail wind (it was still gusting after the high winds of the night before); I then had to retrieve the ball from a different time zone - I firmly believe that only the astronaut Alan Shepard has hit a golf ball further (and that is still in orbit somewhere around the moon).
I was impressed by the quick reaction of the Sauk Centre emergency services on Sunday night, as many of the roads appeared to be cleared in a relatively short period of time; the emergency services were helped in this regard by middle-aged men all over Sauk who jumped for joy (as they finally had a proper legitimate reason to use a combination of chainsaws and tractors – and in the middle of the night)! In Britain the response was much slower (due to the rare nature of the event) and I believe that some of the trees are still in situ of where they fell - even now.
Then there was the power cut - this started for me with all the childlike fun and excitement of remembering power cuts as a kid (mixed with the memories of camping out). A hunt for the candles followed in the back of that kitchen drawer that has no name - but is used for playing card, birthday cake decorations, things you have confiscated from the kids and a dish towel (from Split Rock lighthouse) that an aunty gave you for Christmas in 1995.
Then after the initial blessed excitement of realizing that mosquitoes aren’t attracted into my house anymore, came the dawning reality of life without the television, internet access, phone charging, game consoles, music, the kettle, and ultimately the freezer. I sat in the semi-darkness eating a gallon of ice-cream (because it wouldn’t last until the morning) listening to the sound of arguing - as families all over town were forced to talk to one another over a board game. I spent the rest of the night trying not to randomly spray the bathroom (because I couldn’t see where I was meant to be aiming) and rubbing my swollen stomach. I went to bed on Sunday night in a mild panic due to the firm belief that by the end of the week the Sauk Centre community would have descended into a Medieval bartering society and that I would soon be swapping (with my neighbors) a defrosted chicken for a roll of toilet paper.
I did find this period of darkness without modern technology very educational though, due to the discovery that cats have eight nipples - of which only six are operational (it was a very long and boring Sunday night in the Lee household).
21st July - The Long Weekend
Isn’t it amazing that after the storm practically removed every other tree in the park last week, that I still had my view of Friday night’s firework display obscured by trees!
I now believe the mosquitoes at the lake use this event as their annual feast day – they exchange cards and gifts in the morning before eating a traditional meal in the evening. I have never seen mosquitoes so large - I swear I saw one with tattoos and a switchblade (I initially thought it was a cat that had taken up paragliding lessons). I fumigated myself thoroughly with an entire can of DEET before I ventured out – this was done with such liberal determination that I now believe I can be held solely responsible for a 2°F average yearly temperature increase across Northern Europe. Despite this action I was still being bitten through my clothing - I felt like a lamb’s carcass dangling in a piranha tank.
I come from a country where mosquitoes are very rarely seen - so there is still the element of surprise for me (this was especially true at the beginning of the week when I headed off down the Wobegon trail on my bicycle for the first time). It was twilight and I found myself riding through large clouds of them; I then spent the rest of the evening flossing them out of my teeth (luckily I am not a vegetarian). This resulted in giving my wife the shock of her life; I put the dental floss in the toilet and forgot to flush, she came out of the bathroom later that night thinking she had worms. This was the first time I have ridden my bicycle this year and I later regretted my misplaced youthful over enthusiasm, as I went the rest of the week walking with a lisp.
The rain came down so hard last week that it reminded me of the sea cut into vertical strips, and I arrived at the craft fair on Saturday morning to the sight of people mopping up water from the inside of covered buildings! The craft fair appeared to be a success though (despite the best efforts of Mother Nature) and I witnessed many citizens wandering through the town happy - juggling a bird house, a jar of pickled beets and an embroidered dish cloth (whilst trying to maneuver around a corn dog).
The new route for the parade on Saturday seemed easy enough to follow for anyone who had not seen the revised directions - from what I could tell you just followed the trail of dripping engine oil around (like some sort of Stearns County version of Hansel and Gretel). The day finished by watching two parents dancing in front of their teenage children to a live band in Sinclair Lewis Avenue - as they shouted out (much to their offspring’s horror), “look at me and your mother, we’ve still got it!”
24th July - Wake up, wake up, you’ve won!
I must admit to being homesick over the last two weeks; I was born and raised in London and my family have lived there since at least the 15th century – my parents only live a few miles from the Olympic stadium (they have complained bitterly that it has affected their television reception). It has therefore been difficult for me when I turn on the television, or read the newspaper, or go online, or even wander through the shopping mall in St. Cloud, to see images of London plastered everywhere.
We compete in the Olympics as Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but I suspect some confusion reigns over where I am actually from - so let me start by saying that I am English, this is a country of 53 million that is roughly the size of New Hampshire (you are never more than 75 miles away from the sea anywhere in England); our flag is the St George cross - a red cross on a white background. So far so good – but I am also British; the term Great Britain though is not a morale boosting self confidence based eulogy like, Fabulous Britain or Brilliant Britain (it would in fact be fun if countries prefaced themselves with an adjective to give a helpful synopsis of what to expect for the uneducated traveler - Cold Norway for example, Efficient Germany, Arrogant France and Oh no, my handbag appears to be missing Italy). The Great actually refers to the three countries that are land locked together to form one large island, Scotland, Wales and England; this flag is an amalgamation of these countries and is probably the one you are most familiar with, the red cross of England sitting in the middle, with bit of blue diagonally provided by Scotland - thus I am also British (there will be a test at the end of this). Now when Northern Ireland is added to this mix we get renamed the United Kingdom - although when we compete in the Olympics we are officially called Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Outside of the Olympics we tend to compete as individual nations, but sports like rugby and field hockey also have a British team as well as the individual national teams. So I am English, with a British passport and I come from the United Kingdom, which makes me European - all clear?
Due to our comparatively small size, to finish third in the medal table behind the heavy weights of America and China, was an incredible achievement. We do tend to excel at minority sports though, like the little known holding your breath competition (it was a shame our gold medalist was not able to collect his medal in person). My love of the Olympics does not come from watching the individual events though, it comes from seeing the reaction of the Olympians on the podium; the gold medalist is always proud and happy, the silver medalist is distraught and sad that they missed out on the gold, and the bronze medalist is in a state of joyous bewilderment thinking, wow, I got a medal!
28th July - The Stress of Choice
I now believe that I inherit a lot of unnecessary stress in this country through the concept of having too much choice – not a phenomenon that exists back in Britain; American psychologist Barry Schwartz highlights this growing problem in his book The Paradox of Choice.
Modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, but we don’t seem to be benefitting from it psychologically.
I have slowly realized that this manifests when I become increasingly anxious by the process of sitting down to eat in a restaurant (like Applebee’s or Famous Dave’s) when I am presented with five different menus. I am given the lunch menu, followed by the specials menu, then that month’s new menu, close on its tail is the main menu, then I am introduced further to a menu mounted on a flip board on the table, then I am made aware of what is written on the chalkboard behind me, and then the day’s specials are verbally announced to me - as I drown in a barraging sea of laminated paper and become bewildered via a string of rhetorical prandial information.
I don’t want more and more choice; I long for the days when there was only one kind of pasta sauce and not a 50 yard aisle with a myriad of red jars all laughing at me - as I try to distinguish from the jungle of choice that embraces the different ways the tomato has been chopped up, what herbs have been added or not, whether it is natural or organic (and what is the difference) or if a price reduction on one specific brand outweighs the benefits of getting any other.
I now crave the days when ice cream only came in three flavors - and anything other than vanilla meant it was my birthday or a special occasion. I was at the Cold Stone Creamery in St. Cloud last week and I have witnessed smaller recipes for rocket propulsion fuel than was presented to me on their menu-board for each cold creation (and less writing than is required on an equation to work out a fluid dynamic drag coefficient). A trip to the local pizza establishment is no better and I am now confronted with a mire of dough based questioning; what size, what kind of base (they come in threes), do you want a stuffed crust, what kind of cheese would you like, any extra toppings? I have spent less time in my life deliberating the purchase of a house.
I visited Culvers in Alexandria and asked for a cheese burger, I was then asked how I wanted it made and what I wanted in it – I am no expert on this (being foreign) but I believe cheese and a patty is the norm for such things. Surely that is the job of the person asking, that is what they get paid for, I was little short of going into the kitchens and cooking it myself after I was done explaining the minutia of nuisances of how I wanted my meal to be prepared, cooked and presented. They cook and construct the burgers for a living, I want them to decide - I don’t call my plumber and then tell them how and where to put the pipes in.
I have now concluded that I cannot have a stressful crisis next week: my schedule is already full.
2nd August - All the Fun of the Fair
I guess there could only be one topic of conversation this week - my adventures at the fair; so let me outline for you the things I had never seen before - until last weekend.
I saw a chicken that had hair like Tina Turner, a rabbit that looked like it was wearing mascara (unless it was making a little extra money by testing for a cosmetics company - I fully expected to see a rat in the next cage smoking a cigarette) and quite possibly the largest horse I have ever seen; this equine beast could easily straddle a time zone, so its bottom would be a full hour ahead of its brain (in Europe we call this phenomenon being French).
I had never had a pork chop on a stick before either and it still amazes me the various types of food you are willing to impale on a wooden skewer; the only thing that comes on a stick in Europe (that I can recall) is a grenade, and I believe they can both have a similar effect – especially if the chop is undercooked. I also bought some donuts and was informed by the lady who sold them to me that I had a fabulous accent and that I should keep it (I am sure she thought I was putting it on). I said thank you and told her I was experimenting with three or four, but if she liked that one I would stick with it - she seemed pleased that I would be taking her advice.
At the risk of sound depressive - I believe the American economy to be in a worse state than I had previously thought. With the rhetoric of politicians discussing debt repayments still ringing in my ears, I was made starkly aware of the terrible slump hitting the textiles industry – there appears to be a worrying shortage of material. I saw young gentleman at the fair in the awkward position of having to present themselves in public without the proper attire of having sleeves on their shirts and T-shirts. They seemed to be making the most of their misfortune and were putting a brave face on things but it must be hard for them during this time of recession – I felt bad for them. The idea of economics effecting fashion is not new of course - this is why hemlines on skirts rose during the Second World War. It is easy to imagine a history of Stearns County boys finding their first true love at the fair - with all the romance it can bring; the bright dizzying colored lights that illuminate a star filled sky, the thumping music that reaches down into your very soul and competes with your heartbeat to remind you you’re alive, the sweet heady smell of fair food that drifts through the warm night air and dances ethereally around you. Then you glimpse her for the first time (in amongst a crowd of people); everything and everybody suddenly moves in slow motion and the previous busy ambient noises of the fair drift away like the tide going out, and fade into a distant murmur. She looks immaculately turned out and was obviously making an effort to be noticed - she pretends she hasn’t seen you at first, as you casually wander over to tentatively and nervously say hello. She is now on her own and you realize this could be the only chance you ever get - your one single life defining moment; up close you notice her freshly waxed body and the alluring aroma of two stroke engine oil (other agricultural farmyard machinery would come and go, but she would always be the first). That night you write a letter to Santa Claus asking for a John Deere 1951 model R, with a primary plant two cylinder, four stroke, naturally aspirated 412 cubic inch direct injected diesel engine with a 16:1 compression ratio - Christmas is five months away, but it might as well be a lifetime.
7th August - A tale of Pork Chops and Ice-Cream
The opportunity arose last week to once again embrace and sample the egregious cuisine that is the staple of the town fair. The pork chop on a stick stand was my first edible destination – a product that does not grace Britain; I know I must have enjoyed it though, because I actually discovered barbeque sauce in my ears the following morning – I also managed to walk around the fair looking like a poor version of Batman’s arch adversary, the Joker, who in a mad early morning semi-twilight rush mistook the red lipstick for the brown (of course nobody made me aware of my situation until I had returned home). I also discovered one strange comestible phenomenon at the fair, after asking for an ice-cream, I was actually presented with a Styrofoam cup and a straw; in Britain our ice-cream tends to be licked or even eaten with a spoon (us crazy Brits have some strange ways).
As I sat and drank my ice-cream, I witnessed a procession of very large horses kicking up dust in the parade ground, as they presented various forms of horse-drawn antiquated farmyard machinery to the public; at the end of the show I brushed myself off, went back to the car, and played an impromptu game of Pictionary on the hood.
I found myself in Dairy Queen late on Tuesday night, looking for ice-cream that had a more solidified traditional look to it. I noticed they were currently promoting a new product they call Frozen Hot Chocolate - am I the only one who sees the contradiction in that statement? I believe this is what’s known as an oxymoron; a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms - the etymology of Oxymoron is derived from the ancient Greek word oxus, meaning sharp, and mōros, meaning dull.
Having been given enough time, I came up with a detailed summary of extra ordinary oxymoron’s that you may already know of – especially if you live in Stearns County: dollar value, buffet food, daily special, Dodge Ram, cheap gas, convenience store, dry beer, restless sleep, country music, a little pregnant and accurate rumors – a collection of statements that could easily catalogue the narrative of a Friday night-out for number of Sauk Centre residents of a certain age.
I also happened to notice that our local Main Street Cinema has the films Ted and Magic Mike playing this week. I believe this to be the only time in the history of recorded anthropology that men are going to see a film about a teddy bear and women are lining up to see a film about strippers - this though is not an oxymoron, this is known as a paradox. I truly believe that the end of the world can only be a matter of months away.
August 10th - Drawing religious inspiration
This week I paid a visit to the Jeffers Petroglyphs - a 23 mile pre-contact Sioux quartzite outcrop that extends from Watonwan County to Brown County (in the open prairie). The carved images are thought to be from around 9000 to 7000 years old and the ancient symbols are scrawled and pecked into the bedrock - that was flattened and smoothed over by glaciers 14000 years ago to apparently make a giant doodling pad (nature can be very accommodating).
We have prehistoric cave paintings in Britain and Europe (obviously nothing from the Native American cultures) but to my eye the entire area looked like a giant ancient indigenous peoples’ etch-a-sketch. I spent a good hour being told where the various animals and symbols would be seen at each location around the red sacred rock (I genuinely believed up until that moment that I was in fact a very visually aware person) but I could not make out a single design on the hot distressed rock surface that afternoon. It was like a cross between where’s Waldo and one of those magic eye pictures from the 1990s (where you need to go partially cross-eyed and induce a mild strabismus to identify the loose shape of a Tyrannosaurus Rex (children of today just don’t know what fun is anymore)) - only I was trying to find a strange shaped turtle and a cycloptic three-legged buffalo. I stood and stared for over an hour as the other visitors passed me by and gasped in moments of awe and wonder - as I strained to see the emperor’s new clothes.
I genuinely now believe that this site is nothing more than a communal telephone pad and that the naïve drawings were actually undertaken by children as a task to keep them occupied – “Don’t go further than the big rock and your dinner will be ready in an hour.” An innocent drawing of Mommy (with only one leg, giant hands and mad hair) by a five year old, is now being studied ten millennia later by an anthropologist writing a PhD paper on whether the image represents ancient alien contact or a naïve way of showing the Orion’s belt star constellation.
Such drawings by children of God-like creatures and religious iconography is not an old phenomenon though - even I engaged with such creative scribbling in my kindergarten years. During an art lesson in the early 1970s my teacher was observing the class and wandering around her pupils as they worked. As she got to my desk she asked me what I was working on, I replied diligently that I was drawing God. My teacher paused and then said, “But no one
knows what God looks like.” Without hesitation or looking up from my drawing I replied, “They will in a minute!”
15th August - The Perils of Walking through Sauk Centre
This week started poorly - I was walking through Sauk Centre, minding my own business and lost in thought, when a yappy little dog sprinted out of the house opposite; it bounded across the road with some considerable alacrity and sank its teeth into my ankle - with the same enthusiasm a lion applies to the carcass of a wildebeest. Not content with its first assault - and obviously finding a latent taste for Englishman that it was previously unaware of (I believe I am infused with a delicate blend of Earl Grey tea and muffins) it came back for a second go and bit me again; it then ran back from whence it came with all the swagger and satisfaction of a job well done.
I normally have a very good relationship with animals, but this convention is severely tested in this country. I was recently introduced to a horse – I have rarely been in close proximity to a horse (let alone sat on one) as a result of spending the majority of my life living in the densely populated urban conurbation of East London. So a friend kindly asked if I would be interested in riding a horse on his farm; this escapade allowed me to discover that I could have saved myself the bother of a whole day of pain and hardship, when I should have just stayed at home and replicated the experience by sandpapering my posterior. I then spent the entire evening making use of a bag of frozen peas in a way that a bag of frozen peas should not be used and cannot be outlined in polite society or newspaper articles. The owner said I would have more luck with the wayward animal if I showed it who was boss – but I had no need to do that, we both knew who was boss and it really wasn’t open for debate.
Despite my dog and horse experiences I really miss having a pet and thought seriously about my options on Tuesday; it needed to be a low maintenance pet that could be left for days on end due to my work related transient nature. After some cursory researching I read about hermit crabs - I thought this to be the ideal solution and raced off to St. Cloud. I had already chosen the name “Colin” in the car on the way there – it seemed very unassuming and embraced perfect alliteration (I sporadically strive to sneak some sort of similar sounding syllables into my sentences for the Sauk Centre Herald).
Sadly I left the pet shop empty handed - apparently hermit crabs need chemicals put in their water, sponges, special lights, differing sizes of shell and require being walked on a regular basis (I made the last one up) - I believe you can insert your own joke at this point of the article around the word play of “sidewalk”. What is happening in my life that I can’t even afford the time to look after a crab; I went home and painted a face on a rock that I now call Robbie.
19th August - Crazy little thing called golf
In Britain we have one or two crazy golf courses - I believe in this country you refer to them as miniature golf courses. As always in most comparisons with all things British, ours are a collection of loose waste building debris with some liberally delivered amounts of concrete (laid by a visually redundant cement worker with a lack of motor-neuron skills). Then garishly decorated with the result of finding the last few inches of paint from the bottom of several archaic cans - that have been retrieved from the most reclusive areas of a garage shelf (in a vain attempt to improve the overall look of the whole disaster). Your courses seem to be a professionally designed aesthetic animatronics cornucopia of floral framed wondrous tableaus and dyed blue waterfalls.
This realization came as a result of paying a visit to Casey’s amusement park in Alexandria this week. I went first and strolled onto the lush green velvet course with all the bravado of Tiger Woods - as I stared at the boulders, rocks, dips and undulations that stood before me and the flag. I confidently putted the ball and watched it ricochet about like the contents of a shaken pinball machine, pinging in random directions (at one point it went back past me). Fate decreed that despite my most fervent efforts, the ball in question simply would not go within the vicinity of the hole. I then realized that mini-golf not only appeals to the idiot in us, but the child; just how childlike became apparent when I conveniently lost the ability to count higher than ten.
My playing partner then stepped up for their turn, with a single stroke and all the apparent knowledge of a seasoned professor of geometry (with a working knowledge of chaos theory) the ball curved, detoured, and maneuvered its way around the glowing green artificial turf with a smooth balletic alacrity (as it bounced and rebounded around) before trickling towards the hole – it sunk with all the aplomb of a self-assured love affair with gravity. Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing, but if you are going to throw a club it is important to throw it ahead of you towards the next hole - so you don't have to waste energy and time going back to pick it up. My afternoon of sporting distress gave me an insight into our usage of the English language: put means to place a thing where you want it; but putt simply means a vain attempt to do the same thing.
24th August - Seven Days Unplugged
So far this week I have embraced the Sauk Centre unplugged event; this concept requires individuals to unplug their televisions, computers and video games (the distractions that stop families from engaging with one another, allowing them to undertake seven days of quality recreational time together – to my knowledge no shooting incidents have yet taken place). This would be similar to an experience I had as a child when my mother mistakenly told the family we had a power cut; we then proceeded to play board games and eat cold food for two days solid - until my Dad realized that it was just the light bulb that had blown (we hadn’t bothered to check anything else - we had very few electronic devices during the mid seventies). I am happy to write about my own experiences during this week long endeavor although my family is 4000 miles away and none of my electrical devices actually work here due to the wrong sized plugs and differing voltage.
I did however see this week as an opportunity to look at areas of my recreational life I had perhaps neglected; I have reached an age where I can no longer rely on my natural youthful exuberance - it exuded some time ago. This has, in part, been created by the food and drink I have consumed here since I arrived (and my own inactivity). Let me introduce you to the scenario that has helped to incapacitate me: it appears that at some point during the history of American cuisine the plain “ole cuppa Joe” (zero carbohydrates and zero calories) morphed into a white chocolate mocha with whipped cream (at 58 carbohydrates and 510 calories - for a “medium” 16 oz) – this transformation is reflective of many modern comestibles. My dietary intake has become so lax in recent times that I am trying to convince myself that White Grape Swisher Sweets are now one of my five-a-day fruit and vegetable portions.
This week was then seen as the ideal opportunity to start a fitness regime, so armed with just my enthusiasm and a gleaming pair of sneakers, I ventured into Snap Fitness. The enrollment required me to provide personal information about my health and general well being; during this process I was asked how flexible I was - I replied that unfortunately I could only make Wednesday and Friday nights.
I also saw this week as a chance to re-engage with some much needed housework; the time saved playing on electronic entertainment devices could be put to good use for a late spring clean. I will be the first to admit that I am not overly familiar with the conventions of laundry - although I do embrace housework in other areas (as a very trying 21st Century man). I thought my sweatshirt needed washing and mere seconds after stepping into the laundry room I shouted out, "What setting should I use on the washing machine?" My wife replied that it all depended on what was written on the shirt? I yelled back, "University of Minnesota." There was then a very long period of extended silence that was not broken by the usual sounds of the television or the radio.
28th August - You're only as good as your last haircut
It is a disappointment to me that the nights are becoming progressively darker and colder; I shall certainly not miss the amount of water vapor in the air though. I have never experienced this before and I discovered that in this country my hair has the unique capacity to go very frizzy in humid conditions; I can very quickly morph into looking like one of the Jackson Five, circa 1970; I never know whether to grab a hair brush or sing the opening verse of Rockin’ Robin.
So I decided to get my haircut this week in a bid to control my random tuneful outbursts of early 1970s Motown pop; having my haircut has always been a difficult experience for me - as I still carry some post-traumatic stress disorder from a childhood neurosis. I would be dragged briskly by the hand to the local barber’s shop and placed in a child’s chair; then the barber would stand over me menacingly - with the tools of his trade poised and ready for action. I would look back at him in the mirror and say, “I want it graduated at the back, with the sides nice and short - but leave a little bit of length on the top.” The barber would then look at my mother and my mother would say, “Skin him”- and my locks would be taken down to the wood in several swift mercurial movements. These incidents left me wanting to stay at home, so my mother (without any previous experience or learnt knowledge - and embracing all the motor neuron skills and hand-eye coordination of a convicted Arab shoplifter) undertook the job of cutting my hair herself - this single act was the sole reason I never kissed a girl until I was twenty-three.
My head has been witness to many haircuts, styles and colors over the years; one summer in a moment of youthful madness I bleached my hair white blonde - in the genre of Billy Idol (for those old enough to remember). The knock-on effect of this action, which I never fully considered pre-bleaching, saw me pollinated extensively by every insect within a hundred mile radius - I spent that entire summer being the sex object for every hymenoptera in England (I wouldn’t have minded but they never wrote to me afterwards or even stayed in touch).
Unfortunately, in the near future there will be a time when my wife will retort, “Let me run my hands through your hair” and I will only be able to facilitate this action by taking off my shirt; let me just say that I have noticed in my middle-aged dotage that I am now getting less for my money when I go to the barber than I used to. I have also found recently that the grey hairs in my beard appear to grow faster than the darker ones; I have no idea why this should be - but it leaves them looking like those single blades of grass (that no matter how many times you run over them with the lawnmower) continue to stand tall, upright and higher than the rest of the lawn. I think generally speaking the fairer sex are more concerned and preoccupied with their hair though; it would be true to say that when a woman worries too much about gray hair - she sometimes turns blond overnight.
2nd September - Spot the difference
Let me see if the more visually aware can notice any difference in my article this week (no prizes are at stake); due to the weight of public opinion and lobbying - and never let it be said that the good people of the Sauk Centre Herald don’t take notice of their readership, my photographic image has been changed. My “mean and moody, I am a serious Brit” picture has been replaced with a portrait that will no longer scare small children or be a danger to those with a delicate disposition or a cardio vascular disorder. There were rumors circulating that the children of Sauk Centre were being coerced nightly by weary parents telling them that the strange Englishman that writes for the Herald would come and get them if they did not get to sleep - and they were pinning my articles to the bedroom door.
Last Friday I was in attendance at the United Methodist Church annual fund raising salad lunch. I was somewhat taken aback and impressed by the number of people that arrived to participate, I thought for one moment the Pastor would have to come out with two fishes and five loaves of bread - which would have impressive me even more. Many fabulous salads where splendidly displayed and I was amazed to see a Snickers salad (which tasted exceedingly good) but brought a new meaning to the word salad that was previously unknown to me - I never thought I would see the word Snickers in the same sentence as salad, but here it is before your very eyes. I was brought up in a country that ridiculously thought salads were boring, generally green and good for you; a salad lunch event in Britain would comprise of a big plate of lettuce kept company by a solitary tomato rolling around and maybe a sprig of broccoli for the overly extravagant (the only thing I know about broccoli was gained as a four year old at the dinner table, when I discovered that you can’t hide it in a glass of milk).
I admire that no fear exuberance of mixing wildly differing polemic food stuffs together, but despite the tasty Snickers salad, many of these experiments should never leave the captivity of the kitchen or be released into the wild of the dining room; we have previously discussed the merits of mixing sausage, pancake and syrup at the breakfast table and the now infamous Denny’s bacon sundae. Then on Monday I had the scare of seeing the term “Mushroom and Swiss” in relation to a burger; I wasted twenty minutes of my life wondering what the taste of Switzerland actually was – I envisaged licking a cuckoo clock, mixed with the aftertaste of a sidewalk somewhere in the suburbs of Zurich (and why that would that be good with mushrooms) - I have been to a truck stop on the outskirts of Zurich and I don’t want anything to taste how that looked.
On Tuesday my food themed week continued when I noticed Chihuahua cheese being sold in the local grocery store - my mind instantly raced (not unreasonably) to rows of battery farmed lactating toy dogs and a small army of Mexican children with dexterously nimble milking fingers. I then realized of course that Chihuahua is a State in Mexico and it was simply stating where the cheese originated from; I was halfway through a cell phone conversation on the PETA hotline when this revelation came to me - they were not happy.
7th September - Stung at the Gas Station
I was driving through town this week, when without any prior warning, a wasp dived through the car window and flew straight down my shirt; before I had a single moment to enquire upon its situation, I had been stung on the sternum. I then proceeded to remove my shirt as quickly as possible - like a stripper working on commission (it was not dangerous in any way though as I managed to steer the vehicle in a straight line with my knees as I had my shirt fixed over my head).
I pulled over to the nearest gas station (that shall remain nameless) and went in to procure some ice to help with the swelling and pain that was now emanating from my ribcage - trying to keep all thoughts of John Hurt out of my head. Then, can you believe, they actually charged me for half a cup of ice; the price of my relief was sixty cents, not a great deal of money in today’s society, but sixty cents nevertheless. If I had broken my arm with a complicated compound fracture and suffered severe contusions to my cranium I would have needed my credit cards.
Now I have been stung many times throughout my childhood (due to long hot hazy summers spent outside - during a time of my life when I would fall asleep at night through the tiredness of playing hard all day). One wasp based incident from this period sticks firmly in my mind when a wasp flew up my shorts and stung me in the worst place possible (and I am not referring to the backyard). I remember wiping tears from my eyes as my mother stood over me with a tube of ointment; she had a look on her face that showed a frightening flicker of not knowing what to do for the best. Even in my sobbing state I wanted to reassure my mother of my condition and with my English sense of humor was still strong, like an unwavering meta-narrative running through my discomfort, I exclaimed, “I want something to take away the pain but keep the swelling!”
Let me now tell you that wasp stings differ greatly between England and America, now I have seen both sides of a hymenoptera coin. An English wasp sting feels more localized and is a sharp burning needle like pain that ceases after several hours; the American wasp sting is spread over a greater area in terms of pain and caused a more prolonged swelling (that stayed for several days). Given the choice I would go with the English wasp - it also says please and thank you and has conversational Latin.
I am still here though, so there was no anaphylactic shock; neither did I wake up the following morning in a black and yellow tight spandex stripy suit and discover that I had the new potent ability to be annoying at picnics (I have an uncle who already has these skills). The clichéd question I have to ask is what do wasps actually do - what is their purpose, their raison d'être? This mystery of the universe is on a par with such questions as, why do comedians finish routines with a song, why do toilet lids have fluffy covers, why is there a disclaimer on the Allstate Auto Insurance commercials that says “not available in all states,” why do hamsters smell of popcorn and why do birds suddenly appear………..
13th September – Welcome one and all
I have been made aware this week, due to the weather becoming colder at night in Sauk Centre, that a menagerie of wildlife has realized my house is decidedly warmer than outside; let me start with the smallest beast and we can work our way up from insects to mammals.
I would love to know why flies only live for 24 hours, yet those magical ones that get into my house appear to live forever? So I took on the role of the great white hunter (without any previous experience or skills in this particular field) armed with the latest fly killing technology - a trusty 20 inch woven metal handled swatter, complete with a convex aerated plastic aerodynamic swatting zone. Other members of the household took to wearing orange flash jackets as I wielded the swatter with a rapier like alacrity, in a maniacally fuelled lack of patience and a blur of buzzing, swearing and slapping - like a fervid windmill of death. I vanquished the kitchen of all random flying irritating objects and now have a series of mounted dead flies on wooden shields presented all the way up the hallway walls (I swear one got away that was at least the size of a grape!)
The inclement evenings were also the catalyst for seeing a spider in the house; it was black with a shock bright lightening shaped yellow marking running along its abdomen – if it was any larger I could have put a saddle on it! I am no expert on anything arachnid, but I am well aware that the color combination of yellow and black (as a general rule in the animal kingdom) needs to be respected and avoided – I was certainly not going to entertain him with tales of Britain and a nice cup of tea. In depth research slaving over Wikipedia for what seemed like minutes, revealed the beast to be an argiope aurantia (corn spider) - apparently they live in fields, like long walks and eat children (who knew).
I am also not enamored with mice, with their beady little eyes poking out from behind the cooker; keeping me awake with all night wild parties and excessive drinking - scurrying around my bedroom at night causing me to believe I was being burgled. They leave me with few options outside of the traditional trap – my flute playing skills are novice in nature and I was not about to dance a jig all the way down to Sauk Lake with a stream of them following me.
A friend also informed me this week of an incident she had involving a bat taking a shine to her lounge. She claims to have caught it in a net and then flush it down the toilet. This does seem over elaborate and I would be worried that it could make an accent via the interconnecting pipe-work just three houses down. I’d feel bad for any disgruntled neighbor that receives a surprise, causing the kind of mental distress and physiological harm that would facilitate an individual being fearful of bathroom functions for the rest of their natural life; especially if caught during mid-movement - no amount of counseling is going to erase that neurosis.
Bats are an endangered species in Britain, they are very small and very rarely seen – it is actually a criminal offense to interfere with them or their home. Thus it was amazing to find my cat bringing a live one into my London home one night. This was cat utopia as the bat epitomizes the perfect synthesis between a bird and a mouse - as the Germans are aware by calling the creature a flying-mouse (with their love of compound nouns). I then had a stern talk with the cat and outlined to her the possibility of jail time if caught.
18th September - A New Family Member
This week the Lee household welcomed a new member; it was completely unplanned and only happened after a series of unusual serendipitous events, but I am now the proud owner of a kitten (my first American pet). This animal then provided me with the shock of my life, when she somehow managed to worm her way into the bedroom - when I was still in that semi-conscious state; she positioned herself on me in such a way that she was draped across my forehead - as I slowly gaining sentience I could feel a lump weighing heavy on my head. I laid there motionless in a moment of panic (I was not yet used to having a pet around the house and I thought I had woken up with some sort of brain tumor); I spent a long miserable minute thinking of all the things I still had to achieve in life, followed by thoughts of how I was going to divide up my possessions between my friends and family after my passing. I then felt a raspy tongue flicking my ear - I exclaimed to my wife that it was inappropriate timing because I was currently consoling myself on a life cut short; then there were teeth and I was soberly reminded that I now owned a cat. You often read about dogs eating their deceased owners through starvation – this cat had started on my extremities and I was still alive! I predict, before the week is out, that she will be going on short sharp trip to Slappedbottyville (that I believe is just outside of Paynesville).
So a trip to the grocery store was in order, to purchase more cat food; when I last owned a cat (many years ago back in Britain) their food was a nondescript third grade unspecified meat. What I was now presented with was a whole row of cans that had exotic flavors, like sun dried tomato and white fish or basil and chicken - I didn’t know whether to put it in the cat’s bowl or spread it on my toast, she’s now eating better than me! I am not sure how to address this delicately, but I have also discovered that what comes out of her small rat like skinny carcass appears to be greatly disproportionate to what goes in. She only has two mouse sized portions of food a day, but pound for pound, she is producing more than me! When she gets to be an adult I will have to empty her litter tray with front-end loader – it is holy remarkable that the laws of physics do seem to apply to her defecations.
Let me outline to you the difference between a dog and a cat in the following episode; a dog would sit and watch me type this article and would wistfully think to itself, “I’m not quite sure what you are doing, but I bet it’s going to be great, you are so talented and it’s going to be the best thing ever.” My cat is currently sitting on the armchair opposite me, as I write this, with a nonchalant slitty-eyed look on her apathetic face and I know exactly what she is thinking, “So you think you can write do you, nobody wants to read your European witterings, who told you that this was funny anyway?” Now, without any warning, she has jumpe onto my lapptop ‘’’and shhhhheee iss{ssssssss walkkkkkkkkin allllll ovvvverrrrrrrrrrr tthee ggrrrrrrr.
23rd September - The Gift of Zucchini
On Tuesday I had the experience of witnessing the biggest zucchini I have ever seen, the gentleman that presented it to me had to put a kidney belt on to lift it from the trunk of his car - as to avoid injury; I didn’t know whether to eat it or hollow it out and kayak to Diamond Point in it - I can only assume that his vegetable patch is in close proximity to a nuclear power station.
I guess this is the time of the year for such things because I subsequently noticed other citizens of Sauk Centre wandering around the town cradling giant pod like zucchinis - reminiscent of a scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers; I then discovered (after extensive research) that tradition dictates that you leave them in unlocked cars or on people’s doorsteps - like a big green jolly autumnal vegetable giving Santa Claus (you have been good this year so I will only give you one).
I always thought that the definition of a zucchini was a vegetable that you could bake, boil, fry or steam, just before your kids refuse to eat it. I too was put off of such things when I was a child by my mother’s propensity to boil everything to within an inch of its life, thus my zucchini appeared on my plate like lime green wallpaper paste (interestingly enough it did a similar job to wallpaper paste after I ate it).
Allow me to outline to you that many of the foods and herbs that I come across in Sauk Centre have very different names to the ones I am used to - for example we call zucchinis, courgettes; cilantro is coriander, egg plant is an aubergine, arugula is rocket and so on – it’s like one a big game of “what’s my vegetable” every time I go to the grocery store.
This word play does remind me of an embarrassing incident that I have kept hidden down in the darkest basement of my unconscious and was being successfully repressed until this moment - let me start the healing process by unburdening myself to you. Back in 1992 I was in the south of France (Nice to be precise) and I wanted to purchase a ticket for a train journey to Paris - a distance of 579 miles; I needed to reserve a “couchette” - this is a sleeping compartment in French. So with my best French accent I boldly walked up to the lady at the ticket office, with a swagger that says I can speak French and I know how to do all my own plumbing; I then subsequently asked for a courgette - which to be fair does sound very similar (I suspect many of you are now saying couchette and courgette together in your mind). On her face I saw a faint flicker of exasperation and nonchalance, supported by a shrug of the shoulders that cannot be taught and is running through the evolutionary DNA of all Francophiles (as a result of spending the majority of the last millennium at arms with Britain). To this day I suspect she wondered what I wanted with a popular cultivated summer squash belonging to the Cucurbita pepo family on an overnight train to Paris.
I went to St. Cloud this week to buy warmer clothing and ventured upon a department store called Kohl’s – I laughed so hard when I saw it that it was all I could do to stop a small amount of wee from coming out (Kohl means cabbage in German).
28th September - The Dangers of the Drive-in
I found myself at a charity auction in town on Friday night - I have never attended such an event before, so I was unaware of the protocol; thus I was innocently picking my nose when I inadvertently bought a leaf blower for $375. I also have to admit to having no clue as to what the auctioneer was saying - to my ear he sounded like a hyperactive child that had just drunk a gallon of Sunny Delight; I looked around the room to see if anyone else was also having a moment of auditory redundancy - but it appeared to be just me. I caught the occasional number (in the same way that if someone throws a bowl of Cheerios in your face one or two will stick to your cheek) but he might as well have been speaking in tongues - how anyone else knew what the current bid was seemed remarkable to me.
I sometimes have trouble understanding people when they speak fast to me in a strong American accent, like in a diner for example, when the waitress quickly runs through the specials (and has been doing it all day and merges the words together to make a giant compound noun: pulledporksandwichchickenceasersaladandpotroast. This perfectly demonstrates how the German language works, our Teutonic friends butt their words together to form new words rather than inventing a new one - so they have the word fledermaus (flying mouse) instead of bat; this means they can have words that are incredibly long - for example, “carpet” can be literally translated as: fluffywarmthingonthefloorthatkeepsourfeetwarmaswewalkaroundthehouse.
Not being understood works both ways (or perhaps that should be doesn’t work) - I now pull up to the drive-in at fast food restaurants with trepidation after a recent incident. All I wanted was a strawberry milkshake and after the lady asked my for my order I articulated myself into the microphone and asked for a “Strawberry milkshake.” She replied by saying, “What,” - so I asked again. For the sake of this article I will not transcribe the whole of the dialogue that subsequently followed, suffice to say that this cyclical scenario repeated itself for several minutes – as a long series of cars now snaked out from behind me and weaved around the building.
After an embarrassingly long period of stimulus and lack of response I exclaimed, “You only sell three flavors, strawberry, chocolate and vanilla - which one of those three does strawberry sound like?”
“Chocolate” she replied?
I was genuinely unsure of what to do next, then thankfully I thought of a solution, that I am glad had no witness (due to my own embarrassment) - I embraced the concept of putting on an American accent. So I took a deep breath and said, “Stroorbary,” to which she responded, “Oh strawberry.”
So this is how it’s going to be is it, this is my life from now on in – stumbling through each day speaking in a poor parody of an American accent just to get through the minutiae of every day events that life presents to me. Retrospectively I should have just asked for the pink one.
1st October - A Very Dangerous Week
I played darts this week for the first time in about twenty years; I am normally a stranger to the dart board but I happened to be accosted by a bar owner - as I walked passed his drinking establishment. He asked me the leading question, “Are you British?” To which I replied, “It depends on what you want?” He was under the misapprehension that because of my nationality I would be talented in the area of darts (in the same way it is stereotypically believed that all black people can play basketball and all French people will be rude) - but that bubble burst very early on during the proceedings as my first dart hit a stuffed walleye above the board.
I would say the evening turned out to be successful though on the basis that no one received any flesh wounds and everyone left with the same number of eyes they arrived with – so any future depth vision problems were thankfully avoided. A bad workman always blames his tools, but the bar darts they gave me were bent, which provided me with the unique ability to throw them around corners. I then had the embarrassment of having to collect a dart from the sidewalk, as it bounced out of the board and headed down Sinclair Lewis Avenue – I was as dangerous as a Colorado melon; at this stage I was so far behind that throwing a porcupine would not have been sufficient in narrowing the deficit. They say it is a sign of a misspent youth when you are good at darts, cards and pool; unfortunately for the members of my team I spent my youth playing with Lego and reading history books.
I was then reminded again of my dart’s baptism the following morning, when my arm felt like I had spent the entire night competing in the inaugural all-open Minnesota arm-wrestling championships, at the truck stop.
Then at the weekend I had the opportunity to be gifted the chance to discuss the difference between British and American roads; I managed to come off my motorbike at a considerable speed and I can now tell you that American concrete feels as hard and as unforgiving as British concrete (so there is no difference). In Britain and Europe it is a legal requirement to wear a motorcycle helmet, so I have grown up with this convention and it is what I am used to; this habit then managed to inhibit me from spreading the contents of my skull (and the exact amount can be argued upon) liberally over 100 yards of I-94 – to which I am very grateful. The whole episode was solely down to the incredibly poor standard of the road service (that had all the grip and traction of a bucket of soapy frogs spilt on a kitchen floor). Then as I lay there on my back looking up at the stars with the onset of concussion and a twisted knee for company (and the faint familiar metronomic whirring of a distant police siren getting ever closer) I noticed that all your stars are in completely different places to where I know them to be in Britain.
5th October - The summer of Love
The summer wedding season is now over with the advent of fall; I had the pleasure of attending several ceremonies this year, and I thought this would provide me with an ideal opportunity to document the differences between the nuptial traditions of our two great nations. Unfortunately, for my creative writing, they appear on the surface to be the same – apart from the fact that we wear hats. Though there were some subtle differences that I managed to tease out - I believe we tend to have wedding cakes that have hard icing on them, rather than the soft variety, so the pushing of the cake into the face of your freshly betrothed during the cake cutting ceremony tends to be avoided due to the possibility of hospitalization (cake rash injuries and the like). Bachelor parties are called stag parties in Britain, but I believe they end in a similar way, usually with an individual handcuffed to a lamppost outside a prominent national monument in a state of undress - with significant amounts of their facial hair missing above the eyes and a tattoo that says “I love Doris”. Your hymns have the same tunes but different lyrics and our churches are much older – that, as far as I can see, is it; so what else shall I discuss?
I was once told a story about a lady that was apprehensive about her impending marriage and her tale will give you an insight into British culture; she got herself into such a state of debilitating nervous anxiety that she went to see a psychologist. In detail the lady explained that the future events of her special day kept running through her head, she could see herself walking up the aisle and saying her vows in her mind; this made her so nervous that she needed to keep rushing to the toilet. The psychologist replied that this was very common, at which point the lady responded, “Oh, I am sorry, I meant bathroom!”
This psychologist also told me about the theory of when you are told a fact or a piece of information, that it pushes other information out of your brain, like an attic that is full of boxes - so when another box arrives, a random one has to fall out. This sort of random fact could be something like: did you know in ancient traditional English folklore, Saturday is considered the unluckiest day to get married (this is ironic when you consider that it’s the most popular day of the week to get wed); Wednesday is considered the "best day" to marry, although Monday is representative of wealth and Tuesday reflects good health - now where was I………….?
25th October - Get Your Motor Running
I went on a bit of a road trip last weekend, as I ventured into the furthest south western parts of Minnesota, to a small town called Trimont - not far from the Iowa border. I love the concept of road trips, in Britain you are never more than 75 miles away from the sea, so after an hour and 10 minutes a road trip tends to come to an abrupt end (unless you went up and down instead of left and right – Britain is long and thin). I set out with the sound of the song “Born to be Wild” by Steppenwolf playing over in my head (although being sat in a 1997 Jimmy with an arthritic knee and middle age in full swing, it was more a case of born to be mild). I was recently told that it would be fun to do a road trip to Britain; I could not disagree but felt obliged to mention in passing that I could probably not hold my breath for the 4000 miles of Atlantic Ocean that inconveniently gets in the way. Although I do remember being good at holding my breath as a kid during impromptu school yard competitions, even now I can remember hearing a child’s voice saying, “Wake up, wake up, you’ve won!”
It was a very long and desolate journey; the countryside on the way down (once I left civilization) reminded me of the times I have driven through Holland - it was flat with very dark soil and lacked in any scenic features (a study of Van Gogh’s early work in Nuenen would furnish you with perfect visual image). I could not have previously believed that the introduction of wind farms would have improved a landscape (I believe they are trying a similar scheme along I-94 with the introduction of electric poles).
The journey was sporadically broken up with the visual stimuli of road kill – depression among Minnesotan ruminants must be running very high, as large numbers of animals appeared to have ended their own lives by the side of the highway. This brought back repressed childhood memories; my family was so poor that I made road kill puppets to play with - for just the price of a ball of string (Road Kill Puppets has to be the best ever name for a rock band - if any budding musicians wish to use it).
Ironically my journey took me through Darwin, which I believe is famous for having the world’s largest ball of twine; it appears that the entire identity of the town is linked to this phenomenon and people come from far and wide to observe the iconic wonder. This led me to embrace the idea of introducing such a concept to Sauk Centre; I have done some cursory research and believe that nowhere yet has the world’s largest belly-button lint ball. If we left a depository in the car lot outside of Snap Fitness people could stop by and donate the contents of their naval cavity, then after a year we could put together a pretty impressive monolithic attraction (I hope these thought processes give you an insight into how long and incident free my journey was); let me leave you with this thought, and it has kept me awake all week: why is the lint in your belly button always a different colour to any of your sweatshirts?
29th October - Hollywood and Halloween
I believe this week Americans celebrate the 3rd pagan festival of the autumn equinox – Halloween; we don’t embrace Halloween in England - trick or treat is an American tradition that has not traveled over the pond. Thus my youth was bereft of Halloween parties and the experience of dressing up (parents in Britain tend to discourage children from wandering around the streets in the dark asking random strangers on their own property for candy). I suspect the American tradition came about in the distant past when two pumpkin farmers started to discuss the many acres of unsold crop they both had – I believe their thought process would be similar to, “If only we could introduce a way that will encourage people to buy them - without even wanting to eat them!”
Some children in Britain did try to start up this concept though (because they saw it as a good enterprise to gain candy and other treats - possibly money); they knocked on a door and said in unison, “Trick or treat,” the unimpressed British homeowner replied in short shrift, “Go away, we don’t do that here!” To which they responded, “You need to embrace American culture mister,” his retort was, “Ok, go away or I’ll shoot you!”
They say during this part of the year the veil is at its thinnest between the living and the dead, and I have noticed a sharp increase in paranormal activity in my own household; I began to get scared this week when my food started spelling out paranormal messages for me, one morning it gave me the ghostly warning of ‘Oooooooooo!’ This concerned me greatly until my wife pointed out that I was eating a bowl of Cheerios.
I am not a big fan of horror, I find horror films to be exceptionally boring due to the way they follow predictable conventions in their cinematography. Although my Dad did make me watch the film Alien when I was ten (I have never been able to eat a boiled egg since); for those of you unaware of the film I will preface the basic plot for you: man in wetsuit roams rusty spaceship, hooking luckless American actors out of frame, whilst John Hurt exhibits all of the worst symptoms one associates with eating poor Chinese food.
There is of course a strong tradition of horror in Britain, going back to Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; it is also worth pointing out that Hollywood (rather unreasonably) appears to be only employing English actors in the role of the villains and baddies: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushion, Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, Tim Roth, Anthony Hopkins, James Mason, Charles Dance, Alec Guinness, Jason Issacs, Ralph Fiennes and Stewie from Family Guy – to name but a few.
I read this week that Anoka is the self-proclaimed Halloween capital of the world, because it hosted one of the first Halloween parades in 1920; city officials then persuaded the United States Congress to officially grant the title in 1937. So it ultimately appears possible that if I just randomly declare Sauk Centre to be the zenith of some cultural tradition, then through the power of the printed word, it will become fact through default; this seems a dangerous precedence to me, but here I am openly ready to now announce that Sauk Centre is the “Christmas Capital of the World” (a title yet to be taken); I haven’t really worked out all the details yet, but the first step was to place it in the public consciousness.
On the subject of annual holidays, I must protest most fervently that I saw my first Christmas television advertisement last week; the third week in October seems a little early to me - as Mary would only just be finishing her second trimester (surely they would still be picking out color schemes for the nursery at that stage of the pregnancy).
4th November - Winter has arrived
I had the horror this week of having to scrape early morning ice off the car for the first time; the grim reality of a Minnesotan winter was knocking at my autumnal car door. I was, of course, completely underprepared for this event and was left wanting for an ice scraper - but I found a CD case and put that to good use and then finished off with a credit card (isn’t it reassuring to know that these moments of fashioning rudimentary tools and implements for an unorthodox task is what sets us aside from animals) - the day I see a raccoon using a tire lever we are all in trouble.
I did not need to experience ice scrapping to know that the temperature and atmospheric conditions were starting to change; the miserable phenomenon of suddenly being statically electrocuted did that and returned with great gusto this week - when I went to turn off the bedroom light and subsequently spent the rest of the evening nursing a throbbing arm after a string of Anglo Saxon expletives (that rarely get an outing unless I accidently manage to tread on a Lego brick). I can’t believe how short autumn appears in this country, one minute it is summer, then there was a day of red and yellow leaves, then winter arrived (I believe fall this year was October 15th).
The onset of this colder weather was the unfortunate catalyst for a week of poor health - I claim I had influenza with the symptoms of aching limbs, a sore throat, a thumping head and a cold; my wife dismissed this as just a slight chill (I believe it is called man-flu over here). I wanted to spend my week laying helpless on the couch and being waited on, but my wife unreasonably refused to entertain the idea; the suggestion of issuing me with a bell, so I could facilitate the making of tea and the adjustment of my pillows, was met with silence and the raising of one eyebrow. Then I noticed that my cat had a small bell hanging around her neck, so I picked her up and shook her the next time she walked by - I don’t know who was more surprised, my wife or the cat! Then I had a coughing fit so hard that a Shrinky Dink came up, that I suspect became lodged in my lung in 1978 and had not seen the light of day since – that gained me marginally more sympathy.
I was told by a friend this week that black strap molasses were required to improve my condition, now granted I was slightly aurally impaired by my head cold and the lady in question did have a strong American accent (my confusion was also compounded by the fact that I had never heard of this product before) but I spent the rest of my bed ridden week pondering how on earth two black strapping lasses were going to ease my ailments.
10th November - The Danger of Fireworks
Last week I missed the annual British holiday celebration of “Bonfire Night” - this takes place every year on November 5th (I suspect this tradition is one of the reasons Halloween has failed to take off in Britain - as the two events would be too close together).
Its history begins with the events of November 5th, 1605, when Guy Fawkes (a member of the Gunpowder Plot) was arrested while guarding explosives that had been placed under the House of Lords; the conspirators were Catholic and their plan was to kill the Protestant King, James I. Guy Fawkes was arrested and executed in the worst possible manner (hung drawn and quartered) - if you are unaware of this process, feel free to look it up, let me just say that it would require more than a tube ointment to relieve that kind of stinging.
Bonfires were then lit all over London in celebration of the king surviving the attempt on his life; months later the introduction of the Observance of 5th November Act enforced an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot's failure. The present-day “Bonfire Night” (sometimes called, “Guy Fawkes Night”) is usually celebrated at large organized events, centered on a bonfire and extravagant firework displays, or with the lighting of fireworks at home. I can remember the excitement of my youth when my Dad came home from work with a big box of garish colored fireworks - with fabulous names like, “Thunder Clap” or “Fire of Hades.” We would then all stand shivering in the garden watching our baked potatoes cremate in the fire, waiting for him to send the fireworks into the air.
One incident sticks firmly in my mind and revolves around my Dad placing a large one foot high rocket into a milk bottle - all ready for launching high into the cold darkness of a crisp British November night; he lit the touch paper and ran to safe sanctuary. Moments later the milk bottle fell over onto its side, the rocket then ignited and zipped at high velocity into a neighbor’s buddleia bush in a blur of sparks and cordite - with a satisfying onomatopoeic whoosh; mankind had not seen such a selection of flames and colors in a shrub since Moses witnessed the same phenomenon in ancient times.
I would not say I am particular useful in regard to car maintenance, so when my vehicle started firing on only five cylinders this week, I decided to consult the internet - how difficult can it be to replace spark plugs? I knew I was in trouble when the first sentence said, “Drive the vehicle onto a ramp and then remove the front wheels,” in Britain I could lift up the hood and see the spark plugs in two neat accessible rows - now it appears that I require a Masters Degree in Mechanical Sciences and an heraldic gene running through my DNA that allows me to perform contortionism; I would have to train a monkey up to NASA specifications if I ever needed to access the air filter.
The Taste of Home
Snow arrived in Sauk Centre last week, it was the kind of dusting we might get in Britain for just a couple of days of the year over the winter period; this would bring the country to a national standstill and would see the facilitation of food parcels being airlifted (via helicopter) into the more remote towns, putting the nation into the brink of chaos.
I thus decided it was time to stock up and employ cold weather foods in my kitchen - so I went to the grocery store to look through their soup selection; it was then that I was made aware of the horror that is “cheeseburger soup.” Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t that just like placing a cheeseburger in a food processor followed by a pint of hot water? Under that convention I should be able to rustle you up a hotdog soup in no time; in fact the only time I want to apply this process to my dinners is when I reach the time of my life when I have trouble chewing, and when I am going with clockwork regularly to the toilet every morning at 8 a.m., but not getting up and until 9 a.m.
I long for the plain and simple foods of my country - this is the only area I feel homesick about; fish and chips, pie and mash and roast dinner. So I was very happy this week when I was kindly presented with a Cornish pasty by a Herald reader, they saw them and thought of me, which was very kind and reminded me of home.
For those of you without prior knowledge of the famous Cornish pasty, let me enlighten you – this is the fast food of the western part of England. The traditional Cornish pasty, which has Protected Geographical Indication status in Europe, is filled with beef, sliced or diced potato, rutabaga and onion - it is seasoned with salt and pepper and is surrounded by a pastry parcel and baked. Pasties have been around for many centuries and were originally designed to be taken by miners into the mine for their lunch, they would have a savory filling at one end and a sweet jam filling at the other; they would then throw the pastry away due to the dirt and coal dust. I have photograph of myself eating one at the age of three that was genuinely bigger than me (it is important to embrace overly ambitious food portion sizes at an early age).
The perfect cuisine based partner for the Cornish pasty is brown sauce, I often have food parcels arriving at my home sent by my parents, and one of the key constituents is brown sauce - I have a supply to last me well into the New Year. Brown sauce is a condiment that has been around since Victorian times and Brits put it on everything, but for the purposes of this article I had to actually look up what brown sauce was made of - I quote, “Brown Sauce has a malt vinegar base, blended with tomato, dates, tamarind extract (I thought tamarind was a type of monkey - I don’t think I will touch this sauce again if it has been made from freshly squeezed primates) sweetener (because primates can be bitter) and spices.”
Subsequently I have placed brown sauce bottles in various eating establishments throughout Sauk Centre, so I can now go and have breakfast safe in the knowledge that it will not be lacking in this accompaniment - on each bottle I have written in black sharpie, “Adrian’s sauce, or any other Brit (but passports must be shown)” it appears that I have started to infiltrate various localized eating establishments with Anglo-food condiments in a slow cuisine based invasion of savory sauces, next world domination muuaaaahahahaha.
Embracing Thanksgiving
It was asked of me recently whether or not we celebrate Thanksgiving in Britain, we tend to be a little bit thin on the ground in terms of Native American Indians back in Europe, so this is not a celebration I am familiar with. From what I have seen of Thanksgiving though, I believe it to be the annual convention of eating as many brown colored foods as you can possibly fit onto a single plate: turkey, stuffing, yams, corn, rolls, mash and gravy – this can range from light beige to mahogany on a Menards paint chart. This mountainous sepia tinted feast is then intestinally digested slowly as some kind of football match is watched - where people get overly excited every time a home run is scored; I believe the following day you practice the ancient art of combat shopping.
This week I prepared for winter, this involved the practice of placing warm clothes and a shovel into the trunk of my car, topping up the antifreeze, putting the patio furniture and BBQ set away, and packing up all of my summer clothing into a suitcase for storage. Then I went through the depressingly sad process of saying goodbye to my flip-flop sandals until 2012 - or indeed forever, if you have any religious background that would encompass the ancient Mayan calendar (I want to believe that the world will not end though, because I have barely got any wear out of them).
This process is completely new to me; preparation for winter in Britain involved oiling ones cricket bat and slipping a tortoise into its box (both took place in my house as a child and in no way represent any kind of unsavory euphemisms). It is some measure of my thinking that as a child, when led by the hand to the local pet store, was told that I could have the choice of anything I wanted - I came away with a tortoise. He hibernated for five months of the year so required only looking after for seven twelfths of the year – this was like having a new pet every spring (all gift wrapped in a cardboard box with straw); until one year when we had warm spell followed by another cold spell and he never made it through - even now I tear up when I see an individual meat pot pie.
We used to spend all day together going for long walks, from dawn to dusk, to the gate and back; I would often stick cardboard pentagons on his back like a stegosaurus and use him as a dinosaur in a more sedate version of the film, One Million Years B.C.; I played with him and my G.I Joe’s (we call this toy Action man in Britain) all summer. He was also quite the escape artist too; I once found him five doors further down the street eating dandelions on an unkempt lawn and entertaining a female tortoise – and what happens five doors down, stays five doors down!
Surviving Black Friday
So the snow we had last week has thawed and gone, that wasn’t so bad, I was told the winters were going to be long and very cold; so I guess we can now look forward to the spring with all its nice new buds and green shoots coming through – I don’t know what all the fuss was about.
I spent Thanksgiving volunteering with a fabulous group of people at the local legion, in preparing and serving Thanksgiving meals; I expected the whole process to be a chaotic and busy one, but the day was well organized and ran with military precision - if the United Nations would go about their peacekeeping in the same way, the coalition forces would have been home two years ago. I was placed in charge of the mashed potatoes (so if you ate at the legion on Thursday, or got a take out, and had an issue with the mashed potato part of your meal - you need to contact my legal team). I thought I was well on top of my duties and my ambidextrous nature served me well (the skill of not being able to do things with both hands) – although later that night I did discover mashed potato in my hair?
I was issued with those flimsy, thin, plastic, see-through disposable catering gloves for the mash delivery process; mid-serving I was asked to take a heavy roasting pot out of the big catering oven; I reached inside and removed the dish, only to discover that my gloves had shrink wrapped themselves around my hands and fingers with the intense heat - I spent the next ten minutes annoyingly picking and peeling the extra layer of skin I managed to give myself. It felt like the sensation of when you sleep on your arm and your fingers feel like a bunch of bananas when you touch your face with them (I hope it is not just me that does this, because I would feel silly otherwise).
As an outsider I believe I have learnt that Thanksgiving is a time when Americans realize why they only meet with some members of their family once a year; it is also a golden opportunity to facilitate issues surrounding non-functioning ovens, a burnt, raw, or frozen turkey (delete as appropriate), a surprise vegan guest and the strong feelings and opinions of those seated around the table. One childhood Christmas dinner my Dad threw our festivities into a war zone by innocently turning to me and saying, “Don’t upset your mother and chew up all your gravy” - to this day I’m sure he still doesn’t know what he said wrong. I also learnt that you use the term “gobbler” in reference to an adult turkey – so by this definition, is a baby turkey called a “goblet?”
I managed to spend last Friday in the comfort of my own home; just the name Black Friday makes me not want to embrace the madness of the day. The fact that the word Friday is prefaced with the word black would suggest to me that it is a bad thing - other examples of this convention (and things I would want to avoid) would be: the Black Death, the black widow spider, black holes and the black bear. I would rather pay the money I could have saved, so I could avoid not having to fight with marauding crowds (some armed with pepper spray) and for not having to get up at 3 a.m. (that is worth at least $50 on its own); so big savings can be made in my household by having a peaceful calm morning with a sleepy late start - this I will call “Slack Friday.”
6th December - A Nice New Shiny Coat
This week I shared an experience with millions of others across the nation, in a ceremony that is common to both our countries: I started my advent calendar. Week one tends to start quite slowly, you begin with windows (that when opened) display low level Christmas themed objects, that one could almost say were the props of the Christmas period: tree baubles, a solitary wrapped present with a bow, the simple gift of myrrh - maybe a star.
Week two picks up when you are introduced to the bit-part players (the extras of the nativity tableau) the sort of characters that I ended up playing in the school play - because my talents were very much dormant in 1975: third shepherd, camel, innkeeper, or perhaps a random ruminant (taken by surprise due to all the fuss and commotion of a crying new born baby and the traffic of constant visitors in a normally quiet stable). By the third week we have nicely promoted ourselves into the big hitters: a wise man, Joseph, maybe an angel; from this point on (as you briefly dip into the fourth week) you are on the home stretch, into the giddy world of Mary and mangers.
This week was also marked by the erecting of a Christmas tree in the Lee household, although I quickly discovered that my cat was operating (in deference to my efforts) a nighttime defoliation program that has not been since the Vietnam war - the cat now answers to the name Agent Orange; by the time Christmas rolls around I will be sporting a large twig with a solitary bauble hanging from its half chewed naked bark. She will have to improve dramatically in the behavior department if Santa is going to deliver the Wal-Mart cat stocking this year - complete with plush catnip mouse and plastic ball with bell and feather (the jury is currently out).
Last weekend also saw the start of the Christmas party season, and I visited Wisconsin to meet up with a group of friends; I stayed overnight at their house and showered in an alien bathroom on Saturday morning. In my sleepy somnambulistic state I reached out for a bottle of shampoo that was placed handily on the edge of the bathtub; it had the words aloe vera, tea tree oils, and organic written on its side - so I foamed up my scalp before rinsing thoroughly.
Later in the day (when I was more sentient) I ventured back into the bathroom, only to discover that the words preceding the ones I had previously read that morning said, “Dog Shampoo.” This was the cause of great hilarity to the whole household and comments then came thick and fast – your hair looks nice and shiny, is your nose feeling wet (plus all manner of jibes and jovialities); my wife even asked in the car on the way home if I wanted the window down so I could put my head out! I guess my embarrassment will be complete when I walk down Main Street this week and try to pass the first lamppost; I am now looking forward to a worm and tick free Christmas.
18th December - The Christmas Shopping Experience
I managed to visit the Mall of America this week for the first time; this pre-Christmas shopping experience was like opening the gates of Hades and being pushed in clutching a credit card and a shopping list. Shopping centers in Britain tend to be calm, relaxing, soothing, environments in which to browse and peruse; at the Mall I had a rollercoaster whizzing over my head, the lights, colors and noises usually associated with taking bad LSD, and a delayed physical fatigue that felt like I had played an entire season as a defenseman for the Wild. The parking garage alone was the size of a small European country and I suspected that car crime was probably rife in its farthest, darkest parts (crime in a parking garage is wrong on so many levels).
After a very draining day in this concentration camp of consumerism (formed in an ironic circular route to reflect the sense of going nowhere) I came away not having bought a single item - I have no need for solely beige or navy blue clothing (so GAP was irrelevant) and I have tried wearing baseball caps and Twins t-shirts (in a bid to assimilate) but it really does not suit me - I just look like an Englishman with a baseball cap on. I did think it was very innovative though that they made the floor all around the food court sticky - so blind people would know where they were. Outside of the library last summer I helped a visually impaired lady to cross the road (I am the embodiment of an English gentleman) - I took her by the arm before saying, “Which way do I look first again in this country?” Not the most encouraging statement to make at that time - as I saw the blood drain out of her face.
I saw that Kohl’s, JC Penny, Sears and Macy’s all had a Santa Claus to entice customers into their stores; it is a universal truth that parents tell their children all year long not to go anywhere near strange old men they don’t know - especially those in possession of toys and candy. Then they actively tell their offspring to go and sit on the knee of an unknown guy, who judging by his belly has obviously let himself go and has unkempt facial hair (that could best be described as a creepy disguise); who is harboring the promise of gifts and treats (as Mom and Dad sit by and take photographs). Then the children are informed that he will be coming into their room at night by effectively breaking into the house and will penetrate their bedroom when they are sleeping – that all sounds perfectly reasonable!
In Britain we use the term Father Christmas rather than Santa Claus, and I once had the privilege of helping him get dressed for the giving of presents. My granddad thought it would be a good idea to obtain a Santa Claus costume in order to disguise himself as the philanthropic present giver, so he could provide an awe and wonder moment for my younger cousins. I spent a full hour with him, stuffing his ill fitting costume with pillows, applying the bushy and whimsical beard securely, making his cheeks that rosy rouge glow that we all know and love - my granddad was finally transformed and unrecognizable in his rues. Thus he entered the fore with his sack bulging full of presents for the young awestruck grandchildren that gathered hypnotically around him; he removed the first present from his sack and struggled to read the name of the recipient, my grandmother instantly chipped in and said loudly, “Put your glasses on Ted!”
24th December - The Ghost of Christmas Past
Firstly, on behalf on my country and her Majesty’s government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (although I have no official role) may I wish you all a Merry Christmas – my average day normally consists of diplomatic work on a considerable scale in the area of Anglo-American relations (this is what comes with marrying a Minnesotan girl).
There are several seasonal customs that I will sadly miss this year from my homeland; the Queen’s speech would be one of them. At 3 o’clock on the afternoon of Christmas Day the nation will sit down after dinner to hear what the Queen has to say about the events of the year. This is normally accompanied by my Dad’s lower intestinal tract - as it struggles to ingest the unfamiliar and unusually high roughage content of sprouts; the noises that emanate from his stomach are normally a clear indication to all that any trip to the bathroom (after him) would only now be facilitated by the carrying of a small canary in a cage.
The day after Christmas Day we call Boxing Day (St. Stephen’s Day); this has its traditions and name wrapped up in medieval culture (and has nothing to do with the sport of boxing – although this may be taking place in some households due to the strain of the previous 24 hours). This was the day that my extended family (cousins, aunties and uncles) traditionally went to my grandparent’s house to meet and exchange gifts. My grandmother always put together a buffet for our comestible festivities, this consisted of tradition English faire: mini sausage rolls (flaky pastry wrapped around a small sausage), Twiglets (a savory snack similar to pretzels that resemble twigs), crisps (potato chips), vol-au-vents (I wonder if the French have a word for this), triangular cut cucumber sandwiches, chicken drumsticks, cubed pineapple and cheese on cocktail sticks, a selection of cold meats, cooked prawns, and a traditional Christmas cake (a heavy boozy dark rich fruit cake decorated with hard icing, novelty robins and holly sprigs).
In a moment of sheer boredom (and the devil really does delegate dark artisan tasks for those with little external visual stimuli) I pulled the eye off one of the prawns – and my sister and cousins (all younger than myself) agreed that it looked like a current. Then sitting next to me in a temptation too far (for a ten year old boy) was the Christmas cake; with an accusing proud erect index finger (and with my adoring audience looking on, hardly able to contain themselves in childlike mirth) I pushed the prawn’s eye deep into the cake. Later my grandmother cut the cake into segments and it was distributed liberally around the family in axe head shaped slabs to accompany a cup of tea. In reflection I now liken this incident to a game of Russian roulette – and we shall never know who got the slice with the prawn’s eye.
My sister and I both used to look forward to pulling the wishbone on the turkey that my grandmother saved from the previous day’s meal. On one occasion we both closed our eyes and strained to visualize our own unique wants and needs (mine are long since forgotten, but in 1980 you would not be far away with some Lego, football boots, or a Farah Fawcett calendar). I placed my little finger around the bone and fixed my sister with a steely glare - her thoughts of an etch-a-sketch, doll’s pram, Barbie clothes and a Jamie Summers hair styling boutique were at stake (high odds indeed). We both pulled hard and heard a sharp snapping sound as the wishbone splintered in two, I looked down in optimistic hope, only to see my proportionate half lacking the piece required to make my wish come true - my heart sank; my sister looked at hers and also had what could be described as a losing hand. We both tentatively looked upwards and saw the missing piece firmly wedged into the foam ceiling tile high above us like an arrowhead, neither of us got a wish that Christmas; perhaps we just weren’t well behaved that year - but I find that hard to believe!
25th December - A Dog is Just for Christmas
Last week I experienced an occurrence that I was underprepared for; I had just got up and was in the process of making the first cup of tea of the day - before undertaking my ablutions. I then thought it would be providential to step out into the garage and get my car started - so it had a chance to warm up (an undertaking I had never embrace before I came to Minnesota). As I ventured onto the freezing sobering concrete of the garage floor and edged my way along the side of the car (wearing nothing but my boxer shorts and slippers) the lights went out; throwing me into complete darkness. I fumbled to press the handheld button that operates the garage door, hoping this salvation would provide light to illuminate my path, but alas this operation was also redundant – it was a power cut. I stumbled around in the darkness falling over the empty Christmas decoration boxes and all manner of stored gardening equipment; I also happened to get indelicately interfered with by a snow shovel (it hadn’t even bought me dinner or taken me to the cinema). I struggled to find my bearings in this sensory deprived environment, panicked thoughts of being trapped fleetingly went through my mind; I was not even sure whether I could pull the garage door up – using a mixture of brute force and blind luck.
As I stood lost in the darkness, I wondered how long this situation would be incumbent upon me, and then mused whether that half eaten Twinkie (that got away from my back in October) would still be under the passenger’s seat somewhere. I finally managed to edge my way back to the door that led to the warmth and sanctuary of my house (without receiving any further assaults) - where a nice warm cup of tea would not be waiting for me.
On Christmas Day morning I once again made the familiar journey from the bedroom to the kitchen - as is the convention to starting my day. As a rubbed my bleary eyes in the semi-darkness of the day’s dawn, I noticed (out of the corner of my gaze) what I thought was the outline of a motionless large black dog - just standing in the hallway looking at me (may I add at this juncture that I do not own a dog - just a cat of high maintenance). As I stood staring at the shadowy canine shape, wondering what fanciful illusions my still sleepy unconscious was trying to trick me with, I started to get a little scared - it is never a good omen for a successful Christmas period to find yourself followed around by a phantom hellhound – and is one expected to feed such a thing? As I started to gain more sentience, I realized that I had invited a friend from Chicago to come and stay with us for Christmas; I had left the front door unlocked for him that night as I knew he would be arriving in the early hours of the morning - after his long drive. I then recalled somewhere in the back of my mind that he had asked to bring his dog with him (this conversation happened several weeks ago and had been lost to my knowledge during the intervening days of Christmas preparation); the dog was in fact called Chewie (in reference to the Star Wars character).
For those of you under the age of thirty, Star Wars was a science fiction fantasy film from the 1970s, where the evil British imperialistic forces (played by David Prowse and Peter Cushing) go up against the good American actors and two subjugated British droids (Kenny Baker and Anthony Daniels). I genuinely believe that mornings are now best avoided in my household.
31st December - My New Year’s Resolution
Another year has passed us by - and I genuinely believe it is a sign of getting old that I think a decade ago was the early 90s. I will be missing the New Year’s tradition of my home city of London, this is a time when 250,000 people gather along the River Thames to hear Big Ben chime midnight – this instigates a ten minute firework display around and above the London Eye (a giant Ferris wheel); normally accompanied by a few drunken verses of Auld Land Syne (where everybody holds hands) - Auld Lang Syne was partially written by the Scottish poet Robert Burns in the 1700's, it literally means “old long ago,” or simply, “the good old days.” It is around this time that my father manages to get his fingers trodden on, during his way home from the pub.
It is interesting to me that many of my recollections of New Year’s Eve revolve around my family. One incident sticks firmly in my mind when I happened to be driving home late in the early hours of the morning - with my inebriated father by my side (I don’t drink so I am always the designated driver – it is amazing how many friends this can make you). I was randomly pulled over by a policeman on a routine patrol, who was checking for those drinking and driving; as I wound down the window he asked me where I was going. My father, in an intoxicated slur, leaned over across me and said, “We are on our way to a lecture.” The policeman sarcastically enquired, “And who on earth, in their right mind, is going to give a lecture at this time on New Year's Eve?” My father grimly replied, “My wife!”
The Romans originally dedicated New Year’s Day to Janus, the god of gates, doors, and beginnings (the month of January owes its name to this deity); Janus had two faces - one looking forward and the other looking back. January 1st was given special significance by the Romans; this came about after Julius Caesar reformed the calendar in 46 BC - after Caesar was murdered the Roman Senate voted to honor his life on January 1, 42 BC and to commemorate his achievement of introducing the new rationalized calendar.
So with the concept of looking forward and to new beginnings, I have put together a list of New Year’s resolutions on behalf of my cat - as I feel she needs them more than I do: I will not chew red crayons or pens - because my master will think that I am hemorrhaging, I will not roll my toys behind the fridge, I will not steal my master’s underwear from the bedroom and run around the backyard with it, I will not pull all of the stuffing out of the back of the armchair, I will not paw the television by following the ball when there is an important soccer match being played (I am sure many of you will be thinking: is there such a thing as an important soccer match) and finally, I will realize that the potpourri placed around the house in little bowls is not dry cat food.
Perhaps my resolution will be to rely less heavily on my use of the semi colon; although I do find resolutions very hard to keep.
1st January - A Year in the Making
I have now been permanently residing in Sauk Centre for exactly a year (and each week you have been getting a glimpse into my own personal diary – without the worry of breaking into my house and riffling through my underwear draw); so this week, I will reflect on the many things I have learned and discovered throughout the last twelve months - as a stranger in a strange land.
Let me start by saying that I can now expertly distinguish between the differing smells of turkey, cow and pig defecation – a skill that had been lying dormant in me, as I had not previously been exposed to such olfactory sensations in east London. I have now realized that snow can come in many different shapes, temperatures and textures, and I quickly came to understand that a bottle of water left in the car overnight freezes solid like concrete (do you think anyone has ever considered the concept of bludgeoning someone to death with the frozen hard blunt aqueous item – then drunk the murder weapon an hour later to avoid detection?)
I discovered (early on during my residency) that it actually takes Americans by surprise and alarm when I go to kiss them on both cheeks (as is the norm in Europe when greeting people) - even some of the ladies seemed shocked!
On a lower cultural level, I am now fully conversant and informed as to what a wedgie actually comprises of, and what the term to pants somebody means - which I believe in many respects (and correct me if I am wrong) is the direct opposite of a wedgie. If the action to pants somebody actually took place in any random English playground (among bored angst ridden teenagers) I believe we would probably refer to it as a “polemic dichotomous wedge inversion in a poor unfortunate’s undergarments.” I am also now sadly aware, through the trauma of personal experience, of what a wet willy comprises of.
I have added to my vocabulary since I arrived here by embracing the terms “boohay” and “uff da” – neither of which appears to have any documented meaning in any dictionary I can find. In general I have found the lack of consistency in the way words are spelt to be confounding and a distraction; I noticed that you leave out the ‘u’ when spelling words like: honor, color, parlor, odor and labor, for example. So I subsequently removed the ‘u’ from my text under those circumstances, only to find myself driving past a sign that says liquor store. I see that you also swap the ‘r’ and the ‘e’ around for words like: center, liter, theatre and meter; I then find myself living in Sauk Centre.
I have found that I can actually send a room into an apoplectic eruption of laughter, by just uttering the word “squirrel.” I have been informed that I make the fatal error of pronouncing properly all of the letters in the words I speak - especially when there are two of the same letters together in the middle of the word; I believe you would say something like “squirl.” The way you pronounce these words is still a mystery to me, but I am hoping to get beter at it son.
The snow in Sauk Centre always takes me by surprise when I come home from London; if we get two inches in Britain there is a national emergency and the government starts airlifting in food parcels and warm clothing - you are so much better organized; the one redeeming feature here is it fills in the pot holes.
I tried to contact the social security office this week upon my return and spent the first 25 minutes talking to an automated voice. I became ever more frustrated as the computer failed to recognize any of the letters I tried to spell out - my British accent and vernacular was beyond its comprehension. Towards the end I tried to put on an American accent to be understood - but it sounded like I was having a stroke (I can’t do accents). How difficult can it be to spell L-e-e and still be misunderstood - I was lucky my name was not Emmanuel Arceneaux: I would still be there.
Automated voices give me a chill, especially after seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey as a child - I was half expecting towards the end for it to say it wasn’t going to open the airlock. I discovered what Alcea was though, as this is what the machine kept repeating back to me in response to me saying Lee repeatedly. It is a genus of erect herbs of the Middle East having showy flowers like a hollyhock; in some classification systems synonymous with Althea - so not a completely wasted afternoon then. At least my call was kept within the country, if I try and ring my local British bank I get put through to a call center in India.
I try and remind myself of America as much as I can when I’m Britain. I try and eat sausages with pancakes and syrup for breakfast, despite the fact one is a reconstituted mechanically retrieved pork based savory product and the other is a molasses based dessert (but it seems to work) - I will always eat my pancakes with a spoon though, and after my bacon and eggs if that is ok. I also miss NASCAR, so I try and bring some of the thrill and excitement into my London home by emptying the contents of a packet of M&Ms down the toilet and then flushing, I sit and watch all the colors go around in a mesmerizing circle, it’s a poor second best but better than nothing.
Driving is always a battle when I get back from London; not only am I on the wrong side of the road, but I’m sitting on the wrong side of the car. I spent 15 minutes on Tuesday looking to undo my seat belt down to my left before I realized the release button was on the other side. I have a tendency to drift over to the hard shoulder too - as my brain thinks I should be hugging the right hand side of the road from my driving position. It is a constant battle with my unconscious and I would give yourself plenty of room if you intend to change a tire on I-94 or the surrounding roads over the next few weeks (just saying).
8th January - The Coming of the Storm
As I wandered around town this week, I had a large number of people asking me if I was enjoying the weather - I am led to believe it is unseasonably warm for January and the lack of snow is relatively unusual. My reply was that (at present) it is not too dissimilar to the climate in Britain during this time of the year - so I am currently feeling more than at home. Then almost uniformly I am told (with an overly enthusiastic glee) that we are on the verge of bad weather - coming in Biblical proportions in terms of ice, snow and subzero temperatures; the weight of expectation to this coming event of doom and gloom is almost unbearable - there appears to be a painful inevitability of knowing it will happen, but with the depressive frustration of not knowing when it will happen.
This reminds me of watching the opening scenes of an old black and white Second World War film, where one of the youthful protagonists casually explains (that back in civilian life) he is a watchmaker or a promising young baseball player that has a trial lined up with the Yankees after the war has finished. There is a convention in place, that at some point during the later stages of the film, there will be an unfortunate incident (or enemy engagement) that will result in that particular soldier never again receiving gloves for Christmas. It is like having to sit through the first 90 minutes of the Titanic film knowing with a grim sense of inevitability that at some point (and we are not quite sure when) they are going to be getting their feet wet.
As I continued to traverse through the town I found myself bizarrely edging towards the road every thirty yards or so. I thought I was going mad and could not work out what was happening. As it transpires, due to my right knee only working at 95% of his usual function during days of cold weather, it renders me to walk in an almost unnoticeable shallow arc – that over a distance would slowly see me creeping disconcertingly towards oncoming traffic. It then took me over an hour to get home along the same route, because I found myself involuntarily going into every third shop down Main Street – I eventually made it home with a Tiffany reading lamp, a poinsettia, life insurance, a Chinese set meal for two, and a prescription for reading glasses.
Some nights when I am on the sofa, and I have not moved for a couple of hours, I have to start any journey around the house (from that position) by using the furniture as a support - like some sort of contemporary gymnastics discipline; this is an event that could be introduced to try and give Britain a chance of gold medal in the summer Olympics - here comes Adrian on the pommel horse, rings, sofa, mantle piece and A-symmetric nest of tables, making steady progress towards the bathroom, he may even break his personal best.
The theme of snow and films coincidently came together again for a second time on Monday, when I was required to enter a password onto a website - in order to participate with long distance internet banking; I was prompted to input a password that was eight characters long, so I picked “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.”
10th January - My first Twinkie
Last Saturday marked the momentous moment I consumed my first ever deep fried Twinkie – in fact I have never eaten a Twinkie of any description before, deep fried or otherwise (I am led to understand that due to the possibility of a forthcoming bankruptcy case involving its makers, my window of opportunity to sample further may be closing rapidly). I was then informed (by a medical practitioner) that the Twinkie has a half-life of 25 years - due to the number of preservatives that prevail throughout its innocent looking spongy form (clearly this now marks the product out as the food of choice for any aftermath involving a thermonuclear war, suggesting that the end of Twinkie production should be viewed as an issue of national importance - if we want to leave any kind of comestibles for those unlucky enough to survive the fallout).
The deep fried Twinkie was actually very good, but I suspect the American general populous would probably state that most food substances taste better deep fried. This train of thought reminded me of the national food of Tunisia, which is basically a deep fried egg in batter, called a brik - an ironic name considering the affect it had on my lower intestinal track. Each restaurant has its own variation of this delicacy - so in each eating establishment I found myself asking for the house brik. An old Tunisian tradition dictates that a bride-to-be's mother would prepare a brik for any potential bridegroom suitor; if the bridegroom manages to eat the brik (without spilling any of the egg yolk) he is then allowed to marry their daughter. Ultimately, this sounds much more reasonable (and less costly and time consuming) than endless dinner dates, trips to the cinema, and the potential pitfalls posed by a Sunday dinner with any future possible in-laws – this may suggest that the skill of “not spilling one’s yolk” in North African Arabic culture, is ultimately more beneficial to a long term marital relationship, than say the qualities of being good with children or household tasks.
I then feared that the deep fried Twinkie may have taken ten minutes off my life expectancy; this caused me much consternation - on my death bed I would probably welcome those extra 600 seconds, so I undertook a brisk walk and a carrot smoothie on Sunday morning to keep me in credit. I have generally tried to embrace a more healthy breakfast as part of my New Year’s resolutions (so I cut down on my briks) my breakfast now embraces cereals that claim to provide roughage, but I found this statement to be misleading – as it should be called smoothage. I do recall that the whole deep fried Twinkie ensemble had a cherry presented on it (displayed resplendently on a bed of whipped cream and chocolate sauce); the humble cherry has only 4 calories, with traces of vitamin C, ascorbic acid, thiamin, riboflavin and niacin – so it was not all bad.
17th January - A Shock at the Grocery Store
I still cannot get used to the unique set of barometric conditions and ambient micro climates that prevail in Stearns County - that conspire together to deliver the biggest electrical shocks whenever I touch anything. The latest electrical transgression duly arrived on Monday evening as I participated (and I use this word in its most liberal sense) in the weekly shop at the local grocery store. During this endeavor I tentatively reached out to touch (in a tender loving way) the naked exposed ear that belonged to my wife; just half an inch short of its fleshy destination a spark jumped from my outstretched digit to the aural cartilage with the biggest blue electric flash. I then felt the jolt nauseatingly travel down my arm, leaving my humorous throbbing in its sleeve.
Alas my wife felt the majority of the discharge, and in a disgruntled state expressed her dissatisfaction in the public gaze of the pasta aisle (if you saw a well dressed man rubbing his arm next to the linguini, accompanied by a swearing lady clutching her head, that was me). She exclaimed that her entire brain now hurt and that she felt the shock travel around the inside of her head. Oddly though, from that moment on she could not remember a single item we came into the grocery store to buy.
I thought this event to be a very interesting occurrence and suspected that she may have obtained the kind of side effects normally associated with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). I cunningly thought this could be used to my advantage at a later date (if one was required to induce a short term memory loss for example). If in the future I have the oversight of forgetting an anniversary or birthday (as men are prone to doing), I could remedy the situation and resolve her unhappiness by simply shuffling around the house on my nylon carpets (wearing my rubber soled slippers) before making an earth like connection with any exposed parts of her head that presented themselves. I could then quickly slip out of the house (only to come back 20 minutes later) clutching a bunch of flowers, the prerequisite chocolates, and a fancy item of jewelry; I would then be greeted for a second time with a smile, a kiss, and on this occasion just the complaint of a headache.
The atmospheric conditions I am experiencing have also rendered my skin exceptionally dry, I only realized how dry when I took a shower this morning and discovered that not a single drop of water made it from the shower head into the shower tray (just a mere distance of around seven feet) - I have become a human sponge! I also found that it was probably a better idea to weigh myself before my shower in future; I nearly died when I saw the scales - did you know that a gallon of water weighs 8.35lbs.
24th January - The Mystery of the Orange Slice
I cannot reason why I continue to find a piece of fruit on my plate, whenever I eat out in town - this is not specific to any one establishment, but if somebody could explain why I keep discovering a single slice of orange keeping my meal company, I would be grateful. I believe it is not designated to be squeezed on the food (I don’t think eggs and orange, or steak and orange are generally considered to be good culinary combinations – even in a country that thinks bacon flavored ice-cream is a good idea); I can’t see that it could be described as being aesthetically decorative either – that would be like placing a solitary bauble on a Christmas tree.
It could even be suggested that this convention is potentially dangerous; I have extensively researched the phenomenon of having an allergic reaction to an orange – this is caused by the salicylates found in all citrus fruits. It can manifest itself in the affected by inducing headaches, limb pain, swelling and breathing problems; this would apparently also suggest that I am allergic to exercise - as they share all of the same symptoms. Do you know how many people died from orange related incidents in America last year? No, neither do I - but I suspect it could be quite a few. I did notice though that a significant number of people have died from choking on an orange – but this is not orange specific and you cannot blame the fruit for this; that would be like blaming a Chihuahua for killing a German Shepard dog because it got stuck in its throat and choked it.
To the best of my knowledge, I am under the impression that this Sunday is the Super Bowl final - an event I have yet to experience; we have a similar occasion back in Britain for the soccer Cup Final (see how I swapped the word football for soccer in that sentence – I am slowly being assimilated, I am aiming to be fluent by next year). We call it football back in Britain because we predominantly use our feet (like handball, basketball, and racquetball, that are descriptive compound nouns used to label those particular sports due to the nature of how they are played or the equipment they utilize).
I don’t know if it is a reflection of the expected standard of the entertainment on display this Sunday, but everyone I have spoken to has told me that the commercials at halftime are the thing to see; I cannot comment further other than to say that if I went to the opera and found the interval ice-cream and soda to be the event of the evening, I would have to question the standard of the production.
I will look out for the Patriots solely on the grounds that they have the word England in their name (having no affiliation or knowledge of either team); I hope it is a good game with lots of home runs.
30th January - The Perils of a Poor Accent
My average day in this country is normally littered with all kinds of difficulties, distractions and inconveniences that make my path through the minutia of every working week difficult – obstacles that the native Sauk Centre citizen would never have to experience or endure.
This convention raised its ugly head again on Saturday morning when I tried to contact an eating establishment in Freeport - to politely ask if I could be accommodated for a party of twenty that night. The lady I spoke to on the phone responded by asking me for my cell number (I have a terrible time remembering number sequences – I can only remember my PIN number through the muscle memory of the pattern my finger makes on the keypad); I could not recall my number (I know it has an eight in it towards the end) and as my phone was currently being operated next to my ear I could not access it.
I have to believe that her response to this came from a historical position of receiving endless hoax phone calls with silly accents, as she informed me that she thought the call to be a prank and that she would not be reserving an area for me – she added that my accent sounded ridiculous. At this juncture my options were severely limited as I only have one accent - it is not like I can change it out for something else; I genuinely did not know what to do next.
I was also slightly bemused that she thought my British accent to be a poor imitation; I have frequently heard many Sauk Centre citizens trying to mimic me in jest, and to my ear it always sounds less than authentic. In the same way any American accent I try to undertake lurches quickly into the colloquial vernacular of an Alabama banjo playing farm laborer with learning difficulties and an acute case of Bell’s Palsy (a debilitating dysfunction of the cranial nerve that leaves the afflicted with a facial paralysis on one side, meaning they cannot pronounce the letters B or P – thus making the labeling of the affliction particularly cruel.)
I wondered if some sort of citizenship test might be required over the phone, where I sing the first verse of God Save the Queen, explain the rules of cricket and outline how to make the perfect cup of tea (milk always first!) It was only after a second phone call that I managed to convince the lady I was in fact genuine and that the whole scenario had not been an elaborate prank phone call – even then I sensed her skepticism. I think no one was more surprised than her to see an Englishman walk through the front door of the building at 6 P.M. with twenty guests in tow.
To the credit of the establishment they gave us complimentary entrées for the misunderstanding and the service and food were faultless; needless to say my friends have now compounded my problems by asking me to book up all the restaurants we now eat at - in the hope of receiving free food.
4th February - The Subtle Signs of Getting Old
At the weekend I managed to get pulled over by the police; three times within a two hour window - all due to a faulty offside tail light. On the third occasion, I gave the officer the paperwork the previous two officers had given me, and he responded that I was about to get a third - three warnings in one night seems a bit oppressive, but I admire their assiduity. I suspect I now qualify for one of those frequently pulled over customer loyalty cards, where I can get a reduced jail term - if or when required.
I have never been stopped for the same offence in Britain; we have a document called an M.O.T. (Ministry Of Transport) test. We take our car to a garage every year and have a series of tests performed, to see if it is road worthy – faulty lights would then be found and fixed. This then leaves the police to concentrate on the pressing issues of crime prevention and the apprehension of recidivists.
Unfortunately a faulty light was not my only concern this week; it was only a matter of time, but the cold exacting Minnesota weather finally took a toll on my car battery. I was determined to replace it myself though, after throwing in the towel during the impossible to reach spark plug removal episode several months previously (suffice to say I could not get the marmoset monkey to climb behind the engine housing with tools - despite the promise of a year’s supply of nuts). The battery was duly replaced, but the following day I discovered it to be flat again - this led to the notion that I had a short somewhere in the electrical system. As is always the case, the mechanic pointed out many other issues on the car that required attention; he asked me (for example) when I last changed the air filter - to which I replied, “there’s an air filter?”
This grocery list of car faults reminded me of the circumstances surrounding how men (of a certain age) go to see the doctor - my dad only goes to see a medical practitioner when he has at least five complaints that need attention (otherwise he feels it is not worth his while). This is one of the key signs to look for in terms of a man’s aging process; others to be aware of are: the purchase of a wall mounted barometer that is referred to on a twice daily basis (this can be easily interchanged with the weather channel), the discovery that your toenails may as well be in a different state when it comes to bending down to trim them, the sudden awareness that you look through the car steering wheel - rather than over it, the realization that you hear your favorite song now played in elevators, and asking yourself what happened to your sexual relations – with the response that you didn’t even get a Christmas card from them this year. I guess the crucial sign is when you find yourself repeating the same things over again because you have forgotten that you have already said them, and repeating the same things over again because you have forgotten that you have already said them.
Whoever said there is no such thing as the wrong weather: just the wrong clothing, has clearly never driven in Minnesota.
12th February – Feeling a Little Horse
I suspect the tale that was presented to me this week could only have happened in this county - every single word of the following is true, but the names of the protagonists have withheld to protect their dignity.
A female friend (who owns a farm and stables) recounted a tale to me in a state of consternation on Monday. She was in her bedroom putting away the laundry; when she happened to glance down to see a long reddish brown hair lying on the bed. She picked up what she thought to be incriminating evidence (her own hair is black) and marched down to the kitchen to confront her partner with the offending item - held betwixt thumb and forefinger. He stringently and fervently denied any wrong doing, and as he examined the hair himself, was proud to announce that it was actually from a horse - and that she had nothing to worry about. At this point I interjected with a question, and asked if she thought the horse was male or female; her response came back by way of a look - that can’t be translated easily into words for the polite confines of this particular text.
I then (via a childhood exposed to Monty Python sketches) had in my mind the image of a horse trying to get ready in a state of rushed panic, because the sound of the wife’s car could be heard unexpectedly pulling into the driveway. “Quick, how does my mane look,” and “Oh no, I can only find three of my shoes!” Would be a good reflection of where my thought processes leisurely meandered.
I have very little experience of horses and hunting – they are not activities that are accessible to the average citizen of east London; I have many friends back in Britain that are against hunting though - in fact, as hunt saboteurs they go out the night before and shoot the fox.
20th February - Not a Good Start to the Day
This Monday I woke up (I have to say straight away that I am not a morning person – anything you say to me before 11 A.M. disappears into the ether and is never heard or seen of again and I’ll deny you ever said it). I sleepily sat up in bed and felt an acute piercing pain emanating from my right buttock; at this point I have to inform you that British people think pajamas are something you put under your pillow in case of a fire. I jumped up and did a kind of Native American series of dance moves around the bedroom (interestingly it threatened to rain later that afternoon). I asked my wife if she could see what thorn like discomfort was causing my distress, as the mirror proved inconclusive (and I nearly fell off the sink twice). As I was bending over I asked my wife what it could be - my wife said she could not see anything yet, but thought I was going to be going on a long journey, meet a tall dark stranger and be lucky with money – I have noticed that everyone’s a comedian over here.
Tweezers were then employed and the alien object removed, as I gazed at intently betwixt the prongs I became aware that it was actually a cat’s tooth. My cat is only just starting to reach adult hood and like most mammals, was losing her milk teeth, this particular tooth she left for me on the bed; isn’t it ironic that even when the cat is out of the room she still manages to bite me in the most unfortunate of places. This did lead me to think that I could put a new product onto the market: Butt-Tweezers, ideal for the removal of cat’s teeth, in those most awkward to reach of places (not available in Canada) – ideal as a stocking filler for the animal lover. I then put the offending tooth under my pillow and woke up the next day to find a dollar - so I had the last laugh (little is known of the cat tooth fairy).
I then stumbled, bleary eyed, in my somnambulistic state, to the bathroom - still rubbing my sore associated discomfort and reached out for the toothpaste, only to later discover, that the cortisone cream in this country comes in a very similar looking tube – I can say now, to the best of my knowledge, that my teeth have not been itchy all week.
In all truth Valentine’s Day could have gone a lot better in the Lee household; even now, after the flowers have faded, a frost still permeates the air. During the preceding week of Valentine’s Day my wife informed me of a dream she had, where I surprised her with the gift of expensive jewelry - she asked me what I thought it meant; I told her that she would find out on Valentine’s Day. For some reason I sensed an atmosphere over our romantic dinner, especially when she unwrapped the book I had bought her on “The Meaning of Dreams.” I thought she liked my sensitive metaphysical nature?
12th March - A Sign of the Times
Last week I discussed the inconsistencies that abound when writing in American English, that I am currently trying to become knowledgeable of – this inconsistency (I have discovered) can also be applied to driving and the way the roads are positioned in Sauk Centre.
We do not have stop signs in Britain, we employ the humble roundabout and the give way sign – our roads evolved over thousands of years, first with horse tracks, and then when the Romans invaded (with their enthusiasm for urban planning and their concern for the quickest and shortest way an army can march into another country). Most American towns were designed with a ruler in one hand - thus every hundred yards is a crossroads that requires you to stop. The inconsistency I refer to is the strange way I find myself driving along a road in Sauk Centre only to find a four way stop sign junction impeding my progress; I then continue along the same road to the next crossroads, where I find only a two way stop sign in operation. At the next junction there are no stop signs at all, and it is a case of survival of the fittest and every person for themselves. You can always recognize these junctions by the broken glass that litters the gutter and the pieces of semi-abstracted exhaust systems and fenders that randomly present themselves in the surrounding front yards.
When I first ventured onto the tarmac of Sauk Centre I spent many a journey wondering what on earth a “xing” was; I had seen it written on the road and displayed at various times on roadside signage. To the best of my geographical Asian knowledge, Xing is a state in the Hebei province of China that was overthrown in 662BC; descendants from this locale are entitled to use Xing as their last name - I believe Xing is also the name of a South Korean boy band, but I can’t whistle any of their tunes.
Then this week I found myself driving from Wal-Mart along Ash Street going north, as I started approaching the bisection of the Wobegon trail, I was suddenly made aware that I had never driven along a road anywhere in the world where there were more sign posts. The entire stretch of this area is polluted with more visual stimuli for the driver than I can possibly compute, it is remarkable that vehicles have not mounted the sidewalk and drifted into front yards as innocent drivers struggle to read the bombardment of information that is presented to them – you are welcome to go and check for yourself (just make sure there are no pedestrians around).
Sauk Centre boasts uniqueness in its road names though, compared to other American towns; the most common street name in America is 2nd Street, as 1st Street often gets renamed – here they changed the name of 3rd Street.
19th March - A Lack of Basketball Knowledge
My Prime Minister, David Cameron, arrived in Washington last week to meet with President Obama. You would think that their most pressing issue would be to discuss Afghanistan, Syria or Iran – but wisdom saw fit that the first business conducted together was to watch a basketball game in Ohio.
I am led to believe that the President is passionate about the sport, and British diplomats say the Prime Minister sees the invitation as a compliment, stressing the value the President places on their friendship. Unfortunately I suspect that Mr. Cameron shares the same knowledge of basketball that a cup of tea knows about the history of the East India Company. Basketball is not a sport many Brits are familiar with, and to my untrained and uneducated eye, it would appear to be a game where one side gains possession of the ball and goes up to the other end to score a basket; then the other team gets the ball and goes up to the other end to score a basket, and the last team to score before the buzzer goes off wins. Mr. Cameron will have the chance reciprocate this invitation though, when Mr. Obama comes to visit Britain, because he can be taken to all the thrills and spills that a cricket match has to offer – and they last for five days and normally end in a tie!
The Washington Post claims that the USA and Britain have an "essential" relationship; I am not sure what the term “essential” actually means in this context though, as I believe you could suggest that a wiener has an essential relationship with a bun, and your car has an essential relationship with its braking system - I also suspect that the Irish celebrating St. Patrick’s Day last weekend were having an essential relationship with their Guinness. I was asked if I would be joining the jovialities on Saturday night, but in Britain only the Irish would be celebrating this day, as the Welsh, Scottish and English have their own patron saint’s day. If I walked into an Irish pub back in Britain with my English accent I would probably struggle to get out again safely with everything intact – history dictates that the relationship between the Irish and English could easily be lukewarm in those circumstances, especially if there are libations involved.
I managed to meet a fellow Englishman in town on Saturday as I perused the local stores; he lives in Alexandria and has been a resident here for ten years. I was happy to hear a familiar accent (be it a strong northern Manchester accent compared to my east London vernacular) but could not feel a little disappointed that I went from being unique to common in a single swoop.
I can safely say that before this week I have never before witnessed the sight of people walking around a lake in shorts, T-shirts and sunglasses - when the lake in question is frozen solid.
22nd March – A Distinct Lack of Fingers
I did not realize that snow could be so different in different parts of the world. In Britain, on the one day of the year we get an inch of snow, it is all wet and claggy (I think I made this word up but it seems to work, which is tremendulous). You can scrape it into a snowball and it sticks together like a baseball - it is not that cold and you can play in it for a good hour without gloves. The cold weather in Sauk Centre has delivered two shocks to me in recent weeks; when I first arrived back in Sauk Centre from London, I jumped straight into the nearest drift and started messing around like a child – it’s amazing how a mound of untouched white snow can make you regress to your childhood. It then came as a complete shock to me that after five minutes I could not feel my fingers - it was a scary moment, I thought I would never be able to operate a digital watch again!
My mother worked in a London hospital, one day a man came into E.R. having severed off the majority of his fingers with an electric hedge trimmer. He was informed that his fingers could have been sewn back on, if only he would have brought them with him - he replied that he could not pick them up!
I have never grown a full beard, but the Sauk Centre weather has facilitated this; my second shock came when I subsequently discovered so many grey hairs. I then found that my grey hairs appear to grow faster than the darker ones - I have no idea why this should be, but it leaves them looking like those single blades of grass (that no matter how many times you run the lawnmower over them) continue to stand tall, upright, and higher than the rest of the lawn. It seems inevitable that my older dotage here is going to be punctuated by prolonged periods of looking like Ernest Hemingway.
What I have found progressively irritating is the process of taking my boots on and off every time I wish to embrace the frozen tundra outside. During the summer months I could easily just kick my sneakers off or remove my sandals quickly without thought. During this week I calculated the time I was losing to this process, including the subsequent fiddling that takes place with the laces - if I leave the house twice on an average day and spend a minute putting my boots on and then off again, it leads to the sum of 4 minutes; this increases to 28 minutes a week made up of solely loosening, pulling and tying. Over a winter period of roughly 16 weeks I would be dedicating 448 minutes to this task - which equates to 7 hours and 46 minutes a year of time lost to winter related boot lacing incidents. During the course of a lifetime this could easily stretch to over a month - when I am on my death bed I will want those 4 weeks back and I suspect there will not be any credit considered; this is valuable time that could be spent rolling around in the snow like a 7 year old.
25th March - A Late Christmas Surprise
I had the unique experience of opening my Christmas presents this week; my parents and sister had posted a parcel for me three weeks before Christmas and it arrived on Monday. I had actually given up all hope of receiving it and had resigned myself to the image of several overweight customs and excise officials sat belligerently on Christmas Day, bemoaning the fact they have to work on the day of our savior’s birth, eating my European chocolate and drinking my tea.
I suspect the third world has a quicker postal service, and the geographically redundant arthritic pack donkey that brought my parcel from New York harbor to Minnesota, probably had to row single handed across the Atlantic as well (or single hoofed in this case). The parcel had been opened of course and every present inside had been unwrapped and defiled – I should have realized that a middle-aged, middle class, well educated, white historian from England would be a threat to American national security – obviously I am trying to undermine the American economy with the illegal import of foreign foodstuffs. By my reckoning it would now require my parents to post their Christmas presents to me on August 11 - for them to arrive on the big day this year.
If you walked at an average speed of 3 M.P.H. for 15 hours a day (not unreasonable) – it amounts to 45 miles per day; if this was repeated over the 3 month period it took for my parcel to arrive (90 days) – it amounts to 4050 miles: London is 4000 miles away. My mother, with her knee replacement, could have actually walked it to me and then perambulated onto Brainerd for afternoon tea - within the same time frame!
When I left home, my mum said: "Don't forget to write." I thought: "That's unlikely – it's a basic skill, isn't it?"
My gifts included a T-shirt, which brought a smile to my face when I saw the label, as it was an X-large; I am still happy that I am a medium in this country, rather than the X-large I find myself in Britain. This is how you can drop down two sizes in just eight and a half hours of flying - by coming to America; it could put a serious dent in your self-esteem going back the other way though.
This time last year I discovered that my grass allergy, which I have suffered remorsefully with since 1976, was no longer applicable - it appeared that I was not allergic to American grass; this made for a very happy sneeze and sore eye free summer. This week I was suddenly hit by the heavy bat of an allergic reaction, and my year of rest bite seems over, as I stumble around sneezing and heavy headed in my itchy distress - with my eyes looking like a plate photograph from a dusty medical dictionary outlining the symptoms of hyperthyroidism.
Grassallergies.com: that's a site for sore eyes.
30th March – Money Issues
It is noticeable to me how American bank notes are all similar in size and color - this makes me wonder how the visually impaired manage to organize their finances. The ability to see one’s money does not improve things though; for example, denominations are not written on all of the coins, so if you have no prior knowledge to what a ‘dime’ actually represents in terms of monetary value you are lost - nowhere does it have the number ten on it (trust me, you don’t have to start looking through all the loose change in your pockets right now). Coins have to be designed like every other manmade object, so at what point in the process did the Art Director say, ‘yes, I love the design with the torch and the foliage, but let’s be radical and lose the number ten and replace it with the word, ‘one’, then every foreigner will think it is worth only one!’
We have the Queen’s face on all of our banknotes and coins, which will make Prince William’s bachelor party difficult – especially when he attempts to stuff pictures of his grandmother into the undergarments of scantily dressed women. The Queen is also present on our stamps - did you know that Britain is the only country that does not have to write its name on its stamps because we invented them; although we had to wait until another country invented some too before we could receive any mail.
I am still in the habit of waiting to hear the mailman (or postman) deliver letters through my door -via the letterbox; I love the idea that mail can be left outside of the house without anyone interfering with it. If mail boxes existed in London my credit cards would be cloned within a week and a debt run up comparable to the national deficit of a small West African country via illicit websites and online gambling. We have milk delivered to our front door too - our love of tea first thing in the morning has facilitated this; early morning walks are littered with the sight of robed individuals with bed hair fighting off flocks of marauding sparrows in a bid to retrieve their milk bottles from the doorstep.
I went to the grocery store on Friday and perused the cheese section while internally debated the merits of cheese in a can (in Britain only paint and deodorant come in cans, so this is an alien concept). I have been fervently informed by a man from Montpelier that Vermont cheddar is the best cheddar - my knowledge of American cheese is very thin at present so it would be unfair to comment further on this statement, other than to say that surely the best cheddar comes from Cheddar (a small village in the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England). In the same way that the best brie comes from Brie and the best champagne comes from Champagne; I took my purchase to the cashier. I am hoping to embrace the day when I can quickly empty my pocket of coins and find $1.87 without pause or hesitation; at the moment I am in the habit of presenting all the coins I have in my possession and asking, ‘can you find that for me?
4th April - Firearms and Alcohol
This weekend saw the combination of the gun show in town and the holding of a wine tasting event (what could possibly go wrong with that combination) – interestingly, from my perspective, there are two experiences of which I have little knowledge. I have never had an alcoholic drink, and by default, have thus never been drunk; this is not through some religious practice or medical condition though – I just don’t like the taste of it (other members of my family more than make up for it). Even if the smallest trace of alcohol is present in a dessert - I can’t eat it; this makes me incredibly popular with my friends as I am unanimously chosen to perform chauffeuring duties during times of libatious joviality.
Until this weekend I had never seen a gun, held a gun, or knew anyone who owned a gun (even the police in Britain don’t carry them); if I were stopped and caught in possession of a gun in Britain I would receive a go straight to jail card and miss a go – I would then be the proud recipient of a ten year prison sentence.
A Sauk Centre citizen told me this week that America will never be invaded, because any potential invader would know that every American would be armed; I pointed out that no one in Britain is armed and we have not been invaded since 1066. He kindly replied that this was because we had nothing worth having – which depressed me greatly; as I thought we had some of the world’s best shortbread (the Napoleonic Shortbread Wars of the early 19th century are little known).
So on Sunday a close friend (who is also a pastor) took me on a surprise visit to a gun range; we walked in and bought some ammunition and a target (see I am learning all the technical terms) and preceded to the range - I was also provided with some ear protectors. I then asked where the gun was – at that point he removed it from a holster he had concealed under his jacket and handed it to me; this felt incredibly odd (imagine participating in something that would be highly illegal, and then finding yourself doing it in full public gaze with happy abandon). The handgun in question was more violent, heavy, smelly, and noisy than I ever imagined, and I sprayed the target liberally as best I could – I didn’t manage to hit any of the vital organs but the paper assailant would have certainly died of lead poisoning at some point in the distant future (you may be stealing my wallet now but in five years time you will be experiencing a deterioration of appetite, hair loss, and issues surrounding your muscle density).
I am glad I had the chance to experience this once in my life, but it is not an activity I will be embracing again – unless something goes seriously wrong with my life plan, or we find ourselves under attack by the French or an invasion of zombies (whichever comes first).
12th April - The Discovery of Rabbits’ Eggs
So the Easter bunny has come and gone, and children throughout the town are ingesting vast amounts of sugar and colorings as I write – leaving their teachers to pick up the pieces on Monday morning. This tradition does not exist in Britain - we do not send our minors into the undergrowth scavenging for eggs (I didn’t even realize that rabbits laid eggs until this week – we must have different laprine breeds back home). I then saw an article this week, reporting that stem cell research is undertaken on rabbit’s eggs - so it must be true! This country produces many great foods, alas chocolate is not one of them – it is of a poor standard; I don’t understand why the general public does not complain by taking to the streets to instigating change. If you look at the ingredients of a random Hershey’s bar, it will say artificial flavor - why would you need to add artificial flavor to a chocolate bar, surely the cocoa is the flavor?
I had the pleasure of patronizing the Space Alien restaurant in St. Cloud on Saturday; it was quite an assault on the senses, and I had no idea what I was walking into. It was the kind of bombardment of visual stimuli, noises, and smells that would have renderer any downed American pilot (with prolonged exposure during the cold war) to speak openly from a secret location in Moscow about the merits of communism. I ordered a pizza and was surprised to see for the first time my pizza cut into miniature squares - rather than triangular wedges I am used to. I pondered the merits of this presentation and supposed that they may be more bite sized, but dividing a circle into squares leaves some pieces very small and without sufficient topping; the triangular approach (if undertaken with due diligence) does leave everyone with the same sized piece - I also found that the topping has a habit of just slipping off with this approach to division.
As I made my way to the restroom, to remove aspects of my non uniform asymmetric lunch from my lap, I recognized that children were receiving strips of green tickets - as a reward for successfully operating arcade games; those tickets were then redeemed on the way out - for toys in ascending value. I saw one lad with his arms bulging full of tickets, and I was expecting to see him struggle to pull a power boat into the parking lot for his dad to tow away. I soon realized though that the exchange rate was similar to that of the dollar against the pound, as he trudged away with a small collection of what China has to offer in terms of plastic moldings – I suspect his prizes were broken before he got a chance to make it to the car.
I always believed in my younger school years that Jesus must have been a very special man indeed, to be born in December, only to crucified and resurrected at Easter – and to have done so many wondrous things in the four short intervening months.
3rd May – A lifetime of Royal celebrations
Now the wedding cake has gone stale and the confetti has blown away it is time to reflect on the royal wedding and the events of the day. My invite did not arrive in the mail so I had to watch the images unfold in the early hours of the morning from the comfort of my sofa in Sauk Centre. My lack of opportunity does allow me to give my perspective on the attitudes and the details of a royal celebration, as I recalled incidents from my youth that I compared to the television images - so William and Kate’s loss is apparently your gain.
My first recollection is from the 7th June 1977; it was the Queen’s Silver Jubilee - the marking of twenty five years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. In a small East London elementary school I was gratefully receiving a souvenir bookmark and mug - my sister was just a few years younger than me so our household gained two commemorative mugs (one of which was used as a toothbrush holder that I believe to this day is still in operation). A swift look at a well known online auction site as I write this article informs me that the mug in question is now worth the hefty sum of $4.23 - so I will not be retiring anytime soon on the proceeds of selling royal family memorabilia.
There could not have been a piece of red, white or blue crepe paper left in the country in the weeks leading up to the festivities, as people decorated their houses and windows with the Union Jack flag. For those with a more creative nature a cardboard box, a pair of scissors, glue and a roll of aluminum foil could be transformed into a crown or the words, ‘Silver Jubilee 1977’ - actually written in silver! There were competitions and prizes for the best decorated street, so you would be letting everyone else down by not complying to be patriotic. A costume party competition was also organized for the children that I appear to have little memory of (a psychologist would thus suggest that my parents dressed me in something suitably horrific and degrading - as if clothes from the 1970s were not bad enough).
Every street was closed for a party and each household brought tables and chairs out into the road - they were all put together and ran the entire length like a giant snake of party food. We had a long hot summer in 1977 and I recall sitting in the brilliant sunshine with a party sausage rolling around on my paper plate keeping a curled up cucumber sandwich company. I was put to bed early during a time when I could easily fall asleep through playing hard all day; my imminent slumber was accompanied by the distant sounds of ABBA and David Soul coming through my open bedroom window via an 8-track car stereo that allowed the older children to continue partying.
On the 29th July 1981 we again dusted down our flags and retrieved the crepe paper from the attic for the marriage of Prince Charles to Lady Diana. I received a commemorative bookmark and mug from my school and once more a street party was organized - I was now old enough to stay up, but the sounds of ABBA were replaced with Duran Duran and Adam and the Ants.
I fear the children of Britain will have no such memories from William and Kate’s wedding; health and safety regulation have made the bureaucracy of closing streets a near impossibility - as emergency vehicle access takes precedence over miles of card tables and party food. The appetite for eulogizing the royal family has also been diluted by three decades of failed marriages, infidelities, alleged clandestine business dealings and kiss and tell stories; a wider than normal dislocation from the common man has been made - whose hard earned taxed wages pay for their elitist lifestyle. The royal family has always embraced these activities (as almost a privilege in the past) but the glare of the media spotlight in the 21st century has left them exposed when they should have been evolving. We are a less subservient and more questioning, reflective society; the royal family now has to justify its existence - especially during a period of recession. The Association of British Travel Agents released figures this week suggesting that 45% of Brits did not even watch the wedding – and three million of us actually left the country all together. So what did they miss?
It is generally acknowledged without argument that we do pomp and ceremony better than anyone else; countless centuries of Imperialism and stifling repressive hierarchy have honed these skills. So they missed the soothing sounds of Elgar drifting on a light breeze over perfect lines of polished cavalry soldiers moving in unison, with their shiny brass emblazoned dress uniforms reflecting in the early spring sunshine, accompanied by the metronomic mesmerizing sound of horse’s hooves. They would have missed the warming cheers of beery crowds glowing in the red hue of collective sunburn; all waving their small plastic flags and licking over priced ice-creams. They lined the wedding route ten deep and were the extras for the BBC’s Royal wedding coverage – that was softly spoken with a whispered reverence by commentators obliged to wear dinner jackets and bow ties to deliver their rhetoric.
More modern conventions were also added to the canon of national celebrations and weddings; the Red Arrows (the Royal Air Force aerobatic display team) undertook dangerous flying maneuvers in fighter jets over the skies of the most densely populated area in Europe (yet you can’t get your street closed for a few hours). The pilots left a streaming trail of red, white and blue colored smoke so the well wishers could gaze up in awe and wonder (as bridesmaids covered their ears) at the patterns of where they had once been - this is also a good way of quickly tracing and pinpointing where the wreckage comes down if anything untoward should happen. Lucky the other modern common phenomenon of a cell phone going off during the ceremony was avoided.
The royal family is very omnipresent in our society and what this represents is a constant, which is reassuring during a period of our history when change happens at such a pace (only 67 years separated the first powered flight from the moon landings). The Queen can trace her direct ancestry back to William the Conqueror in 1066 and her reign has witnessed the comings and goings of twelve U.S. Presidents and thirteen Prime Ministers. This constant has unfortunately been to the detriment of Prince Charles, whom last week became the longest-serving heir apparent in British history. The previous record of 59 years, two months and 13 days was set by his great-great-grandfather - King Edward VII. At the age of 62 Prince Charles has yet to start his job, when most other people of the same age are thinking of, or have retired.
Unfortunately this constant will change when the Queen is no longer with us; so I sense this wedding is the last chance for the royal family to get it right and I believe there is a genuine will amongst British people for this, despite their surface apathy. There is then a lot of pressure and hopes resting upon William’s young shoulders, because if he gets it wrong the face of the monarchy in Britain and the Commonwealth countries could change irrevocably. The nation at this time does not have the stomach or the patience for another circus like debacle that was the separation and divorce of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, not to mention the Queen’s other children. A dilution and downgrading of the royal family would then see a whole generation of British school children growing up without anywhere to put their toothbrushes.
21st May – The Patron Saint of Zits
I drove past St. Cloud on my way up from the cities on Saturday - this made me wonder who St. Cloud actually was? Saint Clodoald (better known as Cloud) was born in 522 in what is now France; he was the son of King Chlodomer of Orleans and became exiled to Provence - where he was visited by many for his counsel and healing; he is the patron Saint of boils, abscesses and carbuncles! Perhaps some sort of statue needs to be erected on I-94 at junction 164 that captures the very moment a poor unfortunate, seeking relief, reveals their bottom to St. Cloud in the hope he will put his healing hands to work. It is a strange phenomenon that many patron Saints have never visited the country they are patron of; St. George, the patron saint of England, never set foot in Europe let alone England - he was a Syrian soldier employed by the Roman army (St. George’s day was celebrated last week in England on the 23rd of April).
My journey proceeded without incident, apart from noticing an unusual Chevy Silverado passing through Sauk Centre. It had been specifically converted for the task of fishing and had two removable swivel fishing seats mounted on the floor at the rear. Cities like Los Angeles and New York regularly experience incidents of drive-by shootings; it is therefore reassuring to know that Sauk Centre has nothing more to worry about than drive-by fishing. To be fair I have yet to see gangs of delinquent walleye roaming the streets of Sauk Centre late at night, so the vigilante fishing must be proving a good deterrent. Perhaps if Charles Bronson were still alive today he could breathe new life into his movie franchise of films, under the re-titled name of ‘Death Fish’.
Sadly I had never been fishing before I moved to Sauk Centre; East London only has the River Thames and a few canals running through it - anything you catch in those would see you hospitalized for a month. The River Thames has become cleaner in recent years though, and you can only walk across it in certain places now without the aid of a bridge. Sea fishing is more prominent because we are an island and do not have many fresh water lakes of any scale. The number and size of the lakes in Minnesota is very impressive to me, when you consider that England’s biggest lake is Lake Windermere at eleven miles long (Sauk Lake is also eleven miles long); the size of the fish took me by surprise too, they all look very mean and dangerous. Most of Britain’s wildlife is small, brown, and innocuous; we have no poisonous spiders and just one poisonous snake that has not caused a fatality since 1975 (mainly because it is shy and prefers to stay in and watch daytime TV). I am hoping to catch more than just weed and the occasional crappie this year; perhaps I should ask St. Peter, the patron Saint of fishing, for some divine help this spring.
20th April - Where the streets have no name
A local reader of the Herald contacted me last week and asked if I would like to meet with her - she was planning to go to London in the next few days and wanted my advice on the places to visit and eat. As I sat with her, and a London street map and visitors guide spread out in front of me, I felt truly homesick for the first time.
Looking at the map reinforced to me that all of the streets in London have specific names allocated to them; there was no 2nd Street or 3rd Street for example – and this is true for the whole of Britain. This is obviously a common practice in America, as the U2 song quotes: Where the streets have no name. I then read this week that the US state of Virginia is poised to become the first to sell naming rights to its bridges, highways and roads. This is an effort to raise money for its cash-strapped road network; the state has passed a law authorizing it to sell to private companies the rights to name its streets, highways and bridges. US roads and highways need about $166 billion a year to keep them in shape, but states and the federal government are spending only about $78 billion (according to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials) - they say the scheme is a creative funding alternative to raising taxes. The naming of sports facilities after corporate brands is already common practice, so why should roads be any different - the New York Giants and Jets football teams play at MetLife Stadium and the Chicago White Sox baseball team plays at US Cellular Field.
We already have a Sinclair Lewis Avenue in Sauk Centre, but the opportunity to change numbers into name specific roads could mean that your uncle Dave would receive the perfect birthday surprise – Uncle Dave Avenue; this could provide the town with a much needed economic boost. The only downside that I can foresee is when drivers spend time stuck in traffic and the subsequent risk of associating that negativity with your firm's name. I am sure large corporations would not want to be treated to traffic reports warning of lengthy delays on the Pepsi highway, the Coca-Cola Bridge, or the Doritos overpass. Aunty Joan would not thank you either for giving her a small stretch of crumbling pot holed road that needs resurfacing and is going downhill fast.
It was my Birthday last week, an event that further highlighted my homesick nature - due to the lack of family I have around me; I wish to thank all those who wished me many happy returns and for the gifts I received. My cake made me laugh for a full ten minutes, as my name was mistakenly spelt wrong on the icing - it read Happy Birthday Adrain - which I believe is a device that rainwater gets guided towards. On my cards I was everything from Aidrian to Andrian (they were among some of the more creative derivatives) - I only have six letters in my name and two of them are the same! I suspect though I would not have found it so amusing if I was taken outside and presented with the lasting surprise of Aidrian Street or Andrian Avenue.
21st April – Peanut Butter Jelly Time
I had my first peanut butter and jelly sandwich this week, I think that is one of the tasks required to become an American citizen - next is learning to sing the theme tune to Sesame Street and being able to light a barbeque grill; I should be fully assimilated by May.
Part of this program involves the obligatory visit to Cabela’s - this store always provides me with awe and wonder moments; let me briefly discuss guns. Guns are outlawed in Britain and I have never seen one or ever held one - being caught in possession of one would facilitate the passing of a low level qualification in woodworking and the habit of defecating in a bucket in front of 3 large men; this would be achieved over a period of around 5-10 years. Gun possession in Britain is made so difficult that an Olympic committee is currently wondering how to organize the shooting events in London for the summer of 2012 (a prerequisite of competing would be the ability to be in possession of a gun). So imagine doing something illegal in America that would get you 5-10 years of prison time - that is how guilty I feel when walking through the gun section of Cabela’s. This would be like going into Wal-Mart and seeing an entire aisle dedicated to hard drugs, where shelves would be lined with heroin and hallucinogenic substances (in fact this pretty much happens in Amsterdam with soft drugs, especially if you go shopping in Van Wal-Mart).
The Cabela’s tableaus of stuffed animals in their natural settings were a jarring reminder of the scene in Planet of the Apes, where Charlton Heston recognizes his fellow astronaut as one of the exhibits. This made me recall the singularly most ridiculous sentence I have ever heard uttered - that I now wish to share with you. It was in my youth during a Saturday morning cinema showing of Planet of the Apes, when at the very moment Mr. Heston breaks down emotively under the shadow of a ruined Statue of Liberty somebody behind me said, ‘how the bloody hell did that get there?’ This statement was challenged to the number one spot during last year’s State fair - when a hotdog seller told me that I had a lovely accent and that I should keep it. I thanked them and said I was experimenting with three or four but if they liked that one I would keep it.
The state fair also provided me with another awe and wonder moment; I wanted to sample every type of food available - but I should have paced myself. I later found out what the exact time was between consumption and apocalypse - nearly everything edible was on a stick and I love the idea that food can come with its own tools; this year I will stick to just a donut. I thought the peanut butter and jelly sandwich tasted very good.
29th April - Rain in April
Is it not ironic and typical of life in general, that last week when I started to write this article, the theme was based on the driest April experienced in Minnesota since 1947; subsequently large amounts of wetness (through precipitation) has since seen fit to ruin my text – rest assured it was very funny and informative. Thus I shall now address the events of leaving the house this Sunday morning; the very first moment my sole touched the wet concrete step leading to the car, I slipped and found myself rolling around the floor looking for some sort of purchase to get back on my feet, like a new born deer - it was as slick as a bucket of soapy frogs.
I’m sure the neighbors are used to my antics by now and behind the twitching of a drape I am convinced a comment was made similar to, “That strange English guy is now rolling around his front yard,” to which I would respond, “Yes, in Britain on the third Sunday of every month, we practice the ancient Celtic tradition of yard rolling to bring good luck.” Though anyone watching would have been impressed by the way I kept my cup of tea perfectly upright - without spilling a single drop (priorities).
This reminded me of an incident from my career as a teacher in Britain, where it is wet more often than not, and slippery stairs and steps are a constant hazard looking to catch out the unwary pedestrian. One rainy afternoon a student sprinted into the Food Technology corridor where I was patrolling on reassess duty, to tell me that a girl had slipped and fallen down the stairs and split her head open – apparently blood was everywhere and bits of her brain were spread in all directions. I quickly shouted out for someone to call an ambulance and I grabbed some towels before sprinting to the stairwell. As I looked down I saw the girl lying at the bottom of the stairs with blood smeared all over the walls to highlight the route of her decent - on every stair I could see the sight of lumps and bits of brain, in amongst the carnage.
As I ran to the girl I expected to see the worst and I braced myself for the grizzly sight; several grade six girls had seen the incident and were fainting – they were carried to the school nurse (kids were going down like cards.) The girl appeared to be fine though and did not have a single scratch on her, as I helped her to her feet; in a dazed voice she said, “I've dropped my cherry pie.” The entire area was covered in cherry pie filling - “Somebody cancel the ambulance,” I shouted!
18th May - Negotiating Parking
I suspect that many other people outside of foreigners are unaccustomed to the crazy conventions of the parking lot in this country; I have yet to work out what is required of me when leaving or entering Wal-Mart for example. My latest exposure to this maniacal practice came on Monday; correct me if I am wrong, but do the rules of the road get torn up and thrown away when it comes to going shopping.
When I leave Wal-Mart I find myself having cars coming directly at me, people drive on both sides of the road (I have only just got used to driving on your side of the road), people drive blindly diagonally through many columns of parked cars (looking to fox the visually redundant by coming from a sideways angle) and people park lengthways across three spaces. Cars weave in and out in what appears to be a wasp like random pattern and leave the premises in the same manner as a chocolate malt ball when a big open box of Whoppers has been dropped on a shiny floor. I have only known worse in my life when I lived in India, at least here I don’t have to contend with sacred cows wandering across my path, a complete lack of street lighting, or the added danger of the cars having no workable headlights – doors, roofs, or hoods come to that. This kind of madness is replicated on many of the interstate roads I have to negotiate, how an educated first world country can believe it is reasonable to enter and exit the road by using the same right hand lane together is open for conjecture.
I again ventured into the dangerous world of the parking lot by visiting the goodwill shop in St. Cloud this week; this type of establishment in Britain is called a charity shop and they are numerous in our high streets, as they obtain a rent reduction – and the current economic climate dictates that there are a lot of empty shop spaces. I worked in one of these shops as a volunteer back in the early 1990s when I was a university student, and saw many wondrous things. I was placed in charge of sorting books and records – the elderly ladies who ran the organization thought I was better placed to sort and price them than the octogenarians. I shared a room with them as they sorted through the clothes and gossiped; the faint base notes of moth balls and old clothing penetrated the air and mingled with the scent of rose water and toffees. Thus I was surprised at the seemingly professional way in which the store went about its business – like the façade of a commercial department store. I am now the proud owner of a set of teaspoons, a vase, and a picture frame – I also managed to negotiate my way out of the car lot without incident.
21st May - New London and Old London
For some time now I have been promising myself a trip to New London, solely on the basis that I was born and raised in London, so it seemed like an appropriate visit to make – and for the comparative material I hoped it would provide me in writing this article. I was wishing in my disillusioned thinking (that like London) it would perhaps embrace the culture, the architecture, the fine dining, and the 24 hour nightlife that the biggest capital city in Europe has to offer.
Unfortunately I initially passed through New London in the belief that I had not actually reached my destination yet, it was upon seeing the signpost reversed in the car mirror (on the other side of the road) that I realized I had gone through the town and out of the other side - within the blinking of an eye. The signpost read: population 1,251 - that would be just 10,998749 less than London; I now understand that your definition of a small town is one that only has a single bar.
I spent an enjoyable hour perusing the local shops and stores, but I was more intrigued to discover that New London is known as the starting point for the New London to New Brighton Antique Car Run - a 120-mile endurance tour for vehicles from 1908 and earlier; this event has been held in early- to mid-August each year since 1987. This I found very entertaining, as by a remarkable (or intentional coincidence) there is in fact a London to Brighton veteran car run every year back in England, with Brighton being a town on the south coast - a distance of 53 miles from the capital; it is the longest-running motoring event in the world and was first initiated in 1896.
I know I am becoming more like a Minnesotan due to the amount of time I have spent behind the steering wheel; like a native citizen, I now measure distance in hours, I now carry jumper cables in the car (and I know how to use them) and uniquely, I can now recognize if someone is from Iowa just by their driving. I have also gained a considerable knowledge of what the four Minnesotan seasons are from time spent in the car: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction.
The next town on from New London is called Spicer, this town appears to have more in common with London, because it has Green Lake and parts of the River Thames happen to be green - it also has sand, as (rather worryingly) does the current construction site for the Olympic stadium; fingers will be crossed right up until the first starting pistol is fired.
Did you know that a number of U.S. states, including California, Texas, Arizona and Ohio, outlaw the firing of a gun into the air - in Minnesota it is specifically forbidden in cemeteries (what kind of tension filled funerals were you having in this state)? Stringent health and safety regulations continue to take away our fun!
25th May - The Quest for Fish and Chips
My time spent in Sauk Centre has been undertaken with little recourse to think of home; yet this weekend, I hankered after fish and chips - the comfort food of Englishman all over the world. You must understand that fish and chips cannot be compared to anything I have yet to see over here; I have previously been whipped into a frenzy of excitement by well meaning locals who have informed me of establishments throughout the state that provide fish and chips, only to later frequent them to find out that in actuality, it is a plate of French fries with a frozen breaded walleye fillet and a side of ketchup.
Fish and chips is the perfect culinary union – like peanut butter and jelly, or ham and eggs; it is a combination that has been embraced in England for centuries – at one time it was served in newspaper, but this was deemed inappropriate after health and safety regulations came to the fore in our everyday lives. You could have been reading this article now while pulling chips off the page and reading around the vinegar stains. The chips in Britain are not really like fries, they are cooked twice, thick cut, and not crispy; they are soft and flavorsome – they are almost solely a vehicle for the bombardment of salt and vinegar, or mayonnaise. The fish would be a large cod dipped in a crispy golden batter and deep fried; it was probably swimming around somewhere in the North Sea that very morning - wondering what its day would bring.
I then decided, in a moment of uninformed culinary enthusiasm to make my own; the chips were a simple operation and achieved without issue. The fish, however, was a slippery beast that provided an ideal opportunity for my patience to be tested. The language that emanated from my kitchen would have led my neighbors to believe I was undertaking some form of amateur home improvements. The batter would not stick to the fish and I ended up with a saucepan where the fish presented itself to me naked, and the batter followed separately in the form of some bizarre incarnation of popcorn, which congregated nervously at the bottom of the pan – no sticky tape, glue, or nail gun was going to easily resolve this disappointment.
I suspect I was fully to blame for this aberration, as I did not sufficiently follow the recipe instructions to the letter, your imperial weighing systems are unfamiliar to my metric mind and I guessed all of the proportions required for each ingredient - there are three kinds of people in this world, those that are good at math and those that aren’t.
I believe many conventions have now been put in place, due to the amount if time I have resided here; late on Saturday night I ventured to the truck stop (in a funk of kitchen related disappointment) and as I positioned myself in the chair, ready to peruse the menu, the lady waiting on my table instantly brought me over a hot black tea with milk. They say variety is the spice of life, but I just really like hot black tea, and if it means I get it quicker, then it should be regarded as a good a result.
28th May - The Art of Defensive Walking
I may be foreign, but I was under the impression that many of the rules and conventions of the road user are the same the world over. So perhaps I could have somebody explain to me how I barely escaped being hit twice this week by automobiles at the town’s main intersection of Sinclair Lewis Avenue and Main Street. I fully understand that the concept of anybody walking anywhere in this country is alien - so I can vaguely accept that the thought of wanting to cross the road on foot does not come instantly into the thinking of most drivers. Yet on both occasions the lights were clearly red and my little green man was indicating for me to perambulate – surely red should be red, you are either allowed to go or you are not, no grey area should exist in this thinking; fortunately I was dexterous enough to leap out of the way as the cars blindly belted through the glow of the red light.
Brits love to walk, we invented it in the summer of 1587 during the great bicycle plague, and it is intrinsic to our DNA - like being overly polite, feeling the necessity to continually moan about the weather, and having an affinity for warm beer; sadly walking through our town genuinely seems to be a dangerous pastime - regular readers of my column will recall all kinds of sidewalk based shenanigans over the last year, including two random dog attacks, a car reversing incident and various ice induced slippages.
So I ask myself the question, what is so monumentally important that another 20 seconds would make a difference, in the act of stopping and waiting for me to cross safely. I have therefore invented a list of fun activities that last around 20 seconds to see if any are worth hospitalizing me for. Firstly, you could see how long you could hold a note for (amusement potential: low to moderate) - not that much fun, but play with a friend or try to beat your own personal best; inhale deeply and then try and make a noise for as long as you can - earn extra points for making your partner laugh or by ending on an amusing note. Secondly, repeat the same word over and over until it loses its meaning and becomes a random set of noises (amusement potential: high – I started out with the words apple pudding, but elbow worked well too). I also realized that 20 seconds is about the average time it takes watching an Adam Sandler film before picking up a book to read.
I am not sure how to remedy the problem of being a lure for fast travelling vehicles, other than to embrace the pedagogy and skills of defensive walking (defensive walking classes are mandatory for pedestrians that have been warned for having an overly aggressive stride pattern - or for any casual strollers caught walking confidently whilst wearing a loud shirt in a built up area between the hours of darkness).
I put my new defensive walking skills to good use on Monday this week, when I saw a blind lady trying to cross the road outside of the post office - I politely asked if she required assistance and she accepted my offer; I confidently stepped into the road as she held my arm, before asking her to remind me which way I had to look first.
1st June - The Mystery of the Missing ‘T’
I have pondered for some time the mystery of the missing letter ‘T’; it is apparently absent without leave whenever I hear the word Minnesota being pronounced. To my ear, local resident’s verbalizing the state in which they live, leaves me to think I reside in Minnesoda – which I believe is a small sized fizzy carbonated drink. Not only has the poor ‘T’ been made redundant without any good reason, but the letter ‘D’ has muscled onto the scene and taken over. You would think that ‘D’ would have enough to do with words like, daddy, doddle, didactic and dodecahedron around. This trend of ostracizing the ‘T’ further to the point of disappearance is continued, when that small sized fizzy carbonated drink happens to be Mounain Dew; you can almost see the capital ‘D’ in Dew laughing at ‘T’s misfortune – they both need to get along otherwise this trend could be detrimental in making certain words redundant.
If this theme continues all ‘T’ letters could suddenly become extinct and the Twins would instantly become the Wins; I have no knowledge of baseball matches but I am led to believe that this name could be seen as an ironic parody due to their recent form, and perhaps would be seen as inappropriate. I hope to bring back the ‘T’ by placing the maligned letter into places where it would not be normally be used or employed, so as to bring back a sense of symmetry and equality - which would be tremendulous. Perhaps the Canadians could use ‘T’ more on our behalf, like the way they proliferate sentences with unnecessary amounts of what sounds like ‘A’.
This whole scenario reminds me of when the fall of the Iron Curtain came during the late 1980s in Europe; countries that were formally occupied under Soviet rule began to become independent democracies. Almost overnight the country of Czechoslovakia became two separate countries: the Czech Republic and Slovakia; I then wondered for some time what became of the people that lived in ‘O’, they had no representation in the new regime and were forgotten in a single stroke. I bet most people could not even point to the region of ‘O’ on a map or recognize their flag.
Another region that I wish to bring to your attention is the small town of Adrian, which I discovered on a map in the southwestern part of the state; a road trip will be planned shortly so I can stand next to the sign that has my name emblazoned upon it – I get the impression that the early settlers just simply ran out of names for their towns and lakes, so reverted to using their Christian names; I suspect I will have to travel through the towns of Colin, Bob, Chuck, Tom, Erm, Thingy, Cannotthink, Havewenotusedthatbefore, and Theremustbeonewecanthinkof - just to get there.
4th June - The Experience of going to the Cinema
You would think going to see a film would be a universal experience - wherever you are from, but a visit this week to the local cinema outlined more differences between our nations. Firstly, I was asked by one of the cinema staff if I wanted concessions; a concession in Britain is where you can access the cinema or a museum for a reduced amount (if you can prove you are unemployed, a student or of retirement age). I said I was British to try and be funny and to see if that might help me to gain a reduction in the admission fee (like I had some sort of affliction that would make him take pity on me - the symptoms of which would include consuming copious amounts of tea, talking about the Queen, and in severe cases, insisting on eating with a knife and fork). He looked at me in the same way I look at my TV remote when I am trying to record a program on BBC America; I was then informed of my misunderstanding.
Let me discuss root beer; root beer does not exist in Britain and I was reliably told that it had to be tried (I do not want to be accused of not broadening my horizons) - so I asked for a root beer. I don’t know whether I own different taste buds to that of the American nation - but doesn’t it just taste like liniment? It has a medicinal flavor and I wasn’t sure whether to drink it or rub into my arthritic knee. Portion sizes seem to be racing out of control too, I asked for a small drink and received 32 ounces of pop (I am sure children can drown in smaller amounts of liquid). My bladder only holds 10 ounces and as any good doctor will inform you it sends messages to be emptied when it reaches around 25% of its working capacity - which would be 2.5 ounces (anymore can cause a bladder stretch injury and no amount of liniment can help you then). That works out at 12.8 visits to the rest room per soda (I am guessing the .8 is where you didn’t quite get there in time and .2 went astray). This all adds up to a pretty poor scenario when one is required to sit quietly for 2 hours and concentrate on a film.
Everything seems so much larger here (and not just the pop quantities in cinemas) some cars are bigger than my first house in Britain, we would not be able to easily accommodate them on our roads - many of which evolved from Roman or Medieval routes that were only required to be the width of a horse’s bottom. They are small and narrow and large cars could simply not get around our roundabouts, as they have the turning circle of an oil tanker. Our fuel prices are also too high to economically accommodate larger vehicles; if you convert liters into gallons and pounds into dollars you will discover that Britain is currently paying $15 a gallon for gas - this is why we walk everywhere. Furniture is bigger too; my couch is so long that when I went to retrieve a cushion from the other end I came back with an accent.
It was then a further shock during the film when I grabbed a handful of popcorn and shoveled it into my mouth, only to discover that it was salty! All of our popcorn is sweet and there was a jolt as my brain was expecting one type of flavor and my mouth was giving polemic messages about another. This reminded me of an incident I once had where I mistakenly drank my brush cleaner as I glanced down at my brushes sitting in a cup of tea that I had placed next to it; one does not want to be disparaging but I recall this still tasted better than the root beer – some things are just cultural I guess.
8th June – S’more than Meets the Eye
During the weekend I had the pleasure of sampling a cuisine that I had not previously been aware of, but I believe is well known to anyone native to this country - the humble s’more. My lack of knowledge comes from the fact that Hershey’s chocolate and Graham Crackers are not sold in Britain - so I was previously unaware of two thirds of their constituent ingredients, let alone construction techniques.
After some cursory research, I discovered that s’mores are a traditional nighttime campfire treat popular in the United States and Canada, consisting of a roasted marshmallow and a layer of chocolate wedged betwixt two pieces of Graham Cracker – or as I would describe: a sugar sandwich. The first recorded version of the recipe can be found in the publication "Tramping and Trailing with the girl scouts of 1927; thus ever since young children of all ages have been enjoying and experiencing varying stages of advanced tooth decay.
So I placed my marshmallow on the toasting fork as directed and presented it to the fire, a lack of campfire cooking experience and an over exuberating technique caused by a rumbling belly, saw my marshmallow ignite on the end of the prongs and flames danced mercurially around the soft sticky end - I didn’t know whether to blow it out or launch it over the wall of an under-siege castle with the aid of a longbow. Ironically I discovered that August 10 is actually designated as national s’more day; which also happens to be the date that the Palace of Tuileries came under attack during the French Revolution in 1792.
The direct result of its consumption left me with itchy teeth and the kind of sugar laden buzzing headache that stops one from sleeping for several hours; in a cruel twist of fate I later read that s’mores pack 140 calories per serving and the average man burns around 70 calories for every hour they spend asleep.
I sat in the field illuminated by the glow of an iridescent campfire slapping myself like an overly enthusiastic hyperactive Tyrolean folk dancer with self-esteem issues - as I became plagued by a random assortment of irritating insects with a thirst for the scent of Englishman. I was then asked if I had actually managed to kill any of them, I replied that I had swatted and killed at least five flies – three male and two female. The fellow campers looked puzzled and asked how I had managed to differentiate between the genders of the flies in question; I confidently informed them that I had seen three landing on a can of beer and the other two had buzzed back and forth between the smore and my cell phone.
11th June - The Healing Properties of Tea
I want to dedicate this week’s article to tea; I am happy to reinforce stereotypes by saying that I drink vast amounts of tea throughout my average day - our entire nation and empire was built on the process, manufacture and tradition of tea drinking (this you can research for yourself as I don’t have the room here to discuss the history of the East India Company). My grandmother always had tea available in various states of brewing; it was kept in a big tea pot that she often placed in the oven to keep warm. This made the tea hazardously strong and my spoon would stand up in it without the handle reaching the sides of the cup.
All the pain of the world can be swept away in Britain with the aid of a cup of tea; the screech of brakes and the distant cry of an unlucky distracted pedestrian, or the scream of a pregnant woman in the throes of a contraction, would always be punctuated with the words, ‘I better go and put the kettle on.’ It is how we successfully got through the Second World War; the Luftwaffe could flatten your house, destroy all of your belongings and leave Uncle Arthur with 50% less toenails to cut, but out of the mist of brick dust and cordite smoke a cup of hot tea would be handed to you from somewhere.
Let me describe what tea is; it is the process of using hot water to draw subtle flavors from the tips of the newest sprouting leaves of the tea plant - preferably growing somewhere in Northern India. With the addition of milk it is a suspension of slightly acidic emulsion colloid fat globules in a hot aqueous solution of antioxidant catechins. It is NOT a mug of hot water accompanied by a Lipton’s teabag – which I soon discovered was a brand name used here as a colloquial collective noun to describe the sweepings taken from the tea factory floor, mixed with the detritus found by the side of I-94 (I rarely get a chance to use the word detritus and it is one of my favorites).
The recent discovery and subsequent patronage to a tea shop in Maple Grove has resolved my fear of running out of tea (I crammed a large supply into my suitcase when I came over). As we know the importing of tea to the Americas is fraught with difficulties and I will tactfully skip over the Boston Harbor incident. During my visit I was shown various containers that held what looked like the contents of a lawnmower grass box married with the faint base note smell of grub worms - the smell was not prohibitive but the price certainly was. I drink so much tea that it would be economically detrimental to use this tea for every pot I make, so the ability to cut it with cheaper grocery store (amusingly named) English tea has led me to run my kitchen tea operations like a drug lord. An insight into why I find the term ‘English tea’ amusing can be given when I tell you that I was recently asked what we call ‘English muffins’ in England, to which I replied, ‘muffins’.
This week I experienced the new phenomenon of receiving large electrical static shocks whenever I touched anything; I have become so paranoid about receiving pain when I reach for a light switch, the furniture, door handles or a shopping cart, that I have got into the convention of touching the floor first with a finger to earth myself (like some sort of religious ceremony). This could be the early onset of some sort of superpower that I must learn to control and use for the benefit of mankind (I was thinking of the names ‘The Spark’ or ‘Electro-man’ and I have already pressed into action several local seamstresses in regard to proper attire.) Alternatively, I could consider the compound facts of a progressively dry atmosphere, rubber soled sandals and the amount of nylon you appear to place in the manufacturing of your carpets.
As I do not recall receiving a bite from a radioactive animal recently and have managed to avoid incidents involving chemical factories, overhead power cables or solar flares, I must err on the side of caution and embrace the latter of the two scenarios to explain my new affliction (if anyone is in need of an XL bright yellow spandex suit with red trim and a cape let me know - it has hardly been worn). I will console my throbbing fingers, and the pins and needles that regularly run the length of my arm, with a nice cup of hot soothing tea. If you see me around Sauk Centre and I touch the floor before shaking your hand I have not gone completely mad, this is a selfless philanthropic act that will protect you from a large electrical discharge; I may not be able to save the world, but like tea, I can help to lessen the pain and suffering.
15th June - The Trials and Tribulations of Fishing
This week I embraced the sport of fishing; for one moment I do not wish you to believe I am any kind of fisherman - I have fished but a handful of times; but I have read all the right books, my tackle box is an array of many wondrous unused sparkly objects and I can proliferate any fishing related tale with a professional sprinkling of technical words and phrases.
On Monday I asked a friend (who has a lakeshore property) if I could fish on his land, and he heartily agreed. This notion quickly expanded into an adventure (as men are inclined to do when left alone to their own devices) when it was suggested that we dust off an old canoe to actually go out into Sauk Lake. So off we set, like a cross between an Ernest Hemmingway novel and Deliverance - with the theme tune of Hawaii five-O running through my head like an irritating meta-narrative. I paddled with vim and vigor, and all the misplaced youthful exuberance of a man half my age – this lasted for around 30 seconds, before I realized that being a writer does not provide you with the upper body strength required to maneuver a canoe through the water with any kind of alacrity.
As I sat there with my line in the water, trying to catch more than my breath, I pondered one of life’s mysteries: when did fish get a taste for earthworms? Perhaps from the possible action of suicidal worms – I agree that depression amongst annelids is not an area that has been extensively researched; or we may need to consider that fish are keeping quiet about their inland nocturnal feeding habits. Don’t be surprised to look out over your lawn late at night to see adventurous walleye sucking worms out of the grass - this is where it begins of course, this time next year they will be going through our trash cans.
At the end of a long day I jumped into the bath and noticed the redness of my arms and legs from the affects of the day’s sun; I was lit up like a mildly embarrassed cherry tomato - the kind that has forgotten your name at an office party. I also knew I was lacking moisture from the moment the majority of the bathwater disappeared, like I was some kind of giant sponge. Luckily the pain of the sunburn was soon forgotten as I awoke the following morning with the affliction of backache – I must have been sleep digging again (last week I arose from my slumber to find three trenches of potatoes dug in and mud all over my carpet slippers) – I am lucky I wear pajamas.
You may enquire as to the success of my foray onto the lake as a budding fisherman; despite my many discomforts the fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad.
18th June - Stick to What you Know
On the realization that I am British, it is common for the residents of Stearns County to try and imitate what I am saying back to me. Everyone suddenly becomes a cross between Austin Powers and what sounds like an upper class 1930s public schoolboy (or a posh actor playing a Second World War fighter pilot in an old black and white movie). They start using words that I have never heard in any conversation I have ever engaged with - things like, ‘pip-pip’, ‘cheerio’ and ‘hello mate’. Then they will start discussing some sort of gecko - I have no idea what they are talking about and I sit with a polite smile fixed on my face as they run through their repertoire.
During this part of the interaction I am often told how lovely my teeth are (of course I am happy to take any compliments that are thrown my way and clasp them with both hands). I genuinely believe that Americans think all British people have the kind of teeth Druids would worship around during the summer solstice – a myth that Austin Powers also seems to perpetuate. Many stereotypes are based on fact, but I have no idea where this could have come from - I don’t know any Brits with poor teeth. We have the National Health Service (NHS) in Britain and dentistry is subsidized out of our taxes, thus anyone can access free dental treatment. The NHS was set up in 1948, so I would suggest that before this point it was possible to have poor teeth, but since that moment corrective measures have been undertaken on the young so that our children can smile unashamedly and with free abandon at anything that makes them happy (this is usually the sight of their Dad dancing at a wedding or the contents of a text message received at 12.30am).
I have personally discovered that nothing inspires oral hygiene more than beef Jerky, this product (that I was previously unaware of) drives me insane – I’m fiddling with my teeth for hours afterwards, flossing and picking like an archeologist maneuvering around an artifact on an ancient burial site (I will have to give up on it all together soon or just resort to sucking it) - I am done with the chewing! Better still, make it into a smoothie, this would be no different from the bacon flavored ice-cream sundaes that are now available at Denny’s (it’s almost like there is an over abundance of pork in this country and two marketing executives, looking up at a mountain of bacon in a warehouse somewhere on the outskirts of Sauk Centre, are thinking up new and bizarre ways of selling us the same product) – an example of this stratagem would be the foot long chocolate covered bacon on a stick I experienced at the state fair.
I noticed in the grocery store on Saturday a special offer on a citrus flavored mouthwash, and against my better judgment, decided to purchase this over my usual mint based one - it tasted just like a hotdog. As much as I love hotdogs I do not want to start every morning with the refreshing taste of one. This I believe is another measure undertaken to reduce the pork mountain – next you will find pop stars making clothes out of it! I know dogs can get meat flavored toothpaste so I was wondering if next door’s dog would like to start a new oral hygiene regime, because I now have a large bottle of mouthwash he can try. I believe the moral of this story (bare with me, there is one) is stick to what you know; unfortunately after my experience with geckos, jerky and mouthwash, I appear to know very little.
Geckos, Jerky and Mouthwash should be the name of an attorney’s office - if it isn’t already.
21st June - St. Lewis Week
I was asked last Friday, by a Sauk Centre citizen, when St. Lewis week was starting; I know that Sinclair Lewis has gained more affection in town during recent years - more than when he was alive, but canonization seems a heady step; as the owner of an inquisitive mind and with an assiduity for research, I looked to discover if a Saint Lewis actually exists.
The name St. Lewis is an anglicized version of St. Louis - whom the city in Missouri is named after; he was a French king born in 1214. Other Saints are brought to their death in all manner of inventive and creative ways, making their demise a moment of awe and wonder - St. Peter was crucified upside down, St. George had molten lead poured down his throat, had his skin flayed off, and was beheaded - and poor St. Lawrence was barbequed; unfortunately St. Louis died from amoebic dysentery in 1270. During the Italian Renaissance Saints were identified in Frescos and paintings by the symbols and objects that martyred them - so St. Catherine holds a wheel and St. Stephen holds a stone – to the best of my knowledge I have never seen St. Louis depicted in iconographic art (I suspect he would have been in possession, or in close proximity to a bucket).
St. Louis is the patron Saint of hairdressers and the French – I would never frequent a French hairdresser though as there is little love between France and Britain, I would subsequently depart from the salon with a spring in my step and proceed to walk confidently down Main Street looking like someone had cut my hair with a knife and fork.
I visited Brooten for the first time this Monday; Brooten is named after the LiaBraaten family - which makes me wonder why it is not called Braaten? Tell me how is it even possible that I can travel between Las Vegas and Los Angeles through the barren wastes of Mojave Desert without seeing any sign of life, on the bleached dead land, and still have a constant perfect reception on my cell phone, but once in Brooten I may as well resort to two empty soup cans and a hundred yards of string?
As I drove through the town I saw pedestrians walking with one arm held up to the sky in worship of the telecommunication gods; evolution will dictate that in several million years time the good people of Brooten will have one arm shorter than the other, as gravity will not have the same pulling affect on growth patterns, by which time everyone in the district will only be able to swim in large meandering circles and men’s shirts will be sold with the labeling, hangs longer on the left arm.
I have long arms and the distance between me looking at my cell phone in the vain hope of contacting the outside world, and then raising it into the air in the hope of attracting a signal, could only best be described as around two feet. On the basis that satellites orbit the Earth at an altitude of 150 miles, it is ambitious thinking to believe that the shortened distance of 149 miles and 5,278 feet would make any substantial difference. I prayed to Saint Gabriel the patron Saint of communication for divine intervention, but alas my message never got through.
25th June - Driving me Mad
My British driving license is only valid for a set amount of time before I am required to obtain an American one. I use the phrase, ‘a set amount of time’ because this has ranged from thirty days, to sixty days, to ninety days - depending on which organization I speak to, what day of the week it is, what moon cycle we are currently in and whether there is an ‘r’ in the month. I generally receive rhetoric and platitudes when trying to make these kind of enquires because I truly believe that no one has the answer - so they make something up to placate me (with the proviso that any policeman would be understanding of my situation if I were to be pulled over). You will therefore be pleased to know that this week I passed my driving test - exactly twenty years after I first passed my driving test.
To pass a driving test in London you are required to know all the different parts of the engine and what they do, have on average sixty lessons, take a vigorous one hour theory test, then maneuver around the maelstrom that is the busiest and most congested capital city in Europe; so challenging is this process that I actually video recorded many of my mother’s driving lessons for posterity - some of the underwater shots were amazing!
It appears here (only from my own personal experiences) that if you drive around a few cones in a playground and go up and down a couple of blocks without incident, you will pass; I am not complaining though, this was very beneficial to me. The written test thought it was important for me to know the rules regarding the wearing of a seat belt if I were to become pregnant and that a brown sign means a local attraction. Thus I believe it would be more practical to update the driving test to procure a new skill set for the twenty first century (what you really need to know) - like how to position a can of coke between your legs without spilling any, how to put a cell phone to your ear and make it look like you are scratching your head if a cop goes by, the ability to unfold and read a map on top of the steering wheel and still watch the road, and the skill to be able to take the wrapper off a packet of gum/cigarettes/CD (with one hand and your teeth) whilst shouting at the kids in the back to stop fighting (any phrase like, ‘if I have to stop the car’ or ‘wait till I get you home’ would be marked as successful at this point).
Then coming quickly on the wheels of the car test was my motorbike test, I arrived at the bus depot next to the school with all the vim and vigor of a seasoned pro, as ten teenage boys looked on - all lined up against their shiny new machines. The nice lady instructor looked in turn at our documentation, she came to me and asked to see my permit; I told her I did not have one and she replied that I would not be able to take the test without one. I then presented my European driving license and said I had already passed my motorbike test in Britain and that I was currently legally driving with that license; I had already done the theory test and showed her the carbonated receipt to prove it (I was then told I should not have been allowed to complete the theory test without a permit).
She decided to call her boss; a twenty minute phone conversation ensued - the result of which saw me pass my motorbike test. I believe a policy was made up there and then on the spot, because in thirty five years nobody has ever tried to take a motorbike test in Sauk Centre who was a foreign national with a foreign driving license – which is not only remarkable, but would suggest that every alien driving a motorbike in this district is currently doing so illegally.
31st June - The Distraction of Television and Nuclear War
I cannot get used to the amount of advertizing breaks that appear on American television; the saintly BBC has no advertizing breaks - it is funded through a licensing scheme and everyone in possession of a television has to pay. A television detector truck drives around the streets to see who is receiving a signal - they then cross-reference that with a database. The sight of this truck normally facilitates the scene of grown men running in their underwear across the yard with a television under their arm - in the direction of the shed (just before there is a knock at the door).
Having come from that culture I find the ad-breaks in shows a maddening frustration. I found an old rerun of the Dukes of Hazard recently - the opening credits were still rolling as it went to the first ad-break. If you are old enough to recall, at the end of the intro, the General Lee leaps into the sky accompanied by the cry of yeeerrrrr - then it cut to an ad-break; three minutes later I saw the vehicle land to the sound of aaaaahhhh and the show began.
I also find the convention of placing televisions in restaurants and bars, on every sight line, very distracting; they are a magnet for your attention regardless of what is being shown. I find I have to concentrate hard into the eyes of the person I am having dinner with, as over their shoulder, a college basketball match is being played somewhere in Iowa. I truly believe that soccer will never catch on in America - as all your sports are solely designed to accommodate ad-breaks; soccer is two 45 minutes of continuous uninterrupted play – how is money to be made from that?
My childhood was punctuated with scary, two minute, public information films though - shown between shows and delivered by the government; they explained what to do during a full thermo nuclear attack - we also had leaflets put in the mail called, Survive and Protect. The rough theme was that you had four minutes to whitewash your house and organize a fallout shelter using a table, several tins of beans and a bucket – just before your skin, hair, teeth and bodily extremities were removed courtesy of Moscow. I suspect the time could have been put to better use by boiling a runny egg and having about a minute to eat it. Others might embrace the physical arts for the last time with their lady friend – I believe four minutes would allow most Brits to fully engage in this and still find time for a cigarette break; I think a lot of the 1970s saw men across the British Isles practicing for such an occurrence - we are always prepared if nothing else (this is why I have a sister).
I recalled the dark days of the Cold War more recently when I ventured into Ron’s Warehouse on the edge of Alexandria. It is a large discount store that sells all manner of items, with the common theme of, “useful things to have during a nuclear war.” The rows of tinned food alone could keep you alive in a bunker for at least two years (as the radiation dissipates enough for you to finally venture out); I now refer to this enterprise as, Ron’s Nuclear Warehouse.
3rd July - Gambling at the Buffet
This week a close friend of mine recently celebrated a Birthday and asked me if I would like to go and celebrate at a casino - I am if nothing else a cultural sponge, so armed with several dollar bills I made my way to the cornucopia of gambling. In Britain slot machines are legally allowed anywhere in public places and you will find them in locations like fish and chip shops and pubs. Casinos are more like selective clubs and you have to be a member to play; this requires at least 24 hours notice of application – so those that are intoxicated do not do anything they may regret in the cold light of day in terms of their financial stability.
As I walked onto the gaming floor I saw a randomly poorly parked car just left there, I know the art of parking in this country is sometimes beyond the grasp of many, but even I was surprised at how blatantly bad that was - it was lucky no one had got hurt (and the car looked new). I walked around for a while to get a feel for the place and positioned myself in front of a slot machine and fed my money in; as I sat down I was confronted by a bewildering collection of flashing lights and a myriad of strange noises – if I wanted that experience I could just buy a Ford.
The buffet was more of an interesting concept for me; even in an all-you-can-eat buffet - where you can go up as many times as you wish, people were still piling their plates in a swaying homage to the leaning tower of Pisa with a monolith of gravity defying food. That plate would boasts every type of animal species from mammal to mollusk, as shrimp was placed upon ribs, upon chicken, upon ham, upon fried fish, upon steak, upon sausage - and they would still sneak a couple of tomatoes from the salad bar into their pocket (just because you can does not mean you should). I have learnt through the bitter experience of such culinary establishments that you are wise to consider focusing on just one species of animal, or at the very least just pick between, fish, mammal or bird – as issues surrounding ones lower intestinal tract soon make themselves known; the only Roulette I played that night was Russian Roulette with an angry looking plate of sausage and sauerkraut. I know food is a large preoccupation with many in this state, but I genuinely believe Minnesotans actually walk around Como Park Zoo wondering what each attraction would actually taste like.
7th July - A Brit on Independence Day
This week I was asked on three separate occasions whether we celebrate the 4th of July in Britain; may I take this opportunity to publically say that Britain follows the strangest of conventions and fails to acknowledge or celebrate the conflicts and battles we lost – pretty much in the same way the German’s don’t fully embrace V.E. Day and the citizens of Hiroshima are apathetic about a grill out on August 6th.
So it was odd on Monday to find myself participating in the West Union parade - where I was joined by a cement mixer, a manure spreader, half a dozen dairy princesses and the plant machinery of a tree felling service; the parade seemed to go by very quickly under a hail of candy and diesel fumes. As I followed behind the locomotion of ancient industrial farmyard vehicles (that were tearing up the freshly laid tarmac on highway 27) I thought about how we tell our children not to except candy from strangers or run into the road - yet here I was encouraging them to do both.
If you would have said to me three years ago that I would be on a 4th of July parade sandwiched between a clown and a John Deere 1959 two cylinder 730 tractor (the one with the 24 volt electric starter motor instead of the V4 pony start engine) in a small Midwestern town, I would have assumed you were taking a large quantity of hard drugs (or at the very least prescription medications) - but here I was, in all my pallid English flesh.
It was a strange experience as a Brit to be amongst people that were intrinsically celebrating the defeat and killing of Brits - not a bad experience (just a little odd); Britain has the flippant attitude of seeing the War of Independence as nothing more than a group of Brits fighting against another group of Brits - but in a foreign land (I guess this makes defeat easier to take). I did love seeing all the patriotism and the fireworks and I fully embraced the fun and the food (the free hotdogs certainly hit the spot; it came as a surprise the following morning that I didn’t wake up looking like one – I was all ready to march into the bathroom singing, “let’s all go to the lobby” where I would have been joined by a bag of popcorn, two candy bars and a soda). It was always in the back of my mind though (as a historian) that we lost 20,000 troops in that conflict - in fact my seventh great grandfather, Edmund Fisher, was a redcoat in the 1770s (although I have no proof that he ever left Britain).
We are very happy to commemorate the battles we did win though and the Victorians even named places in London after them - like Trafalgar Square. In 1994 the Channel Tunnel was opened and 31 miles of undersea rail track finally linked France to England (the merits of which can be discussed at a later date); the terminal chosen for the Channel Tunnel trains was Waterloo Station - the biggest station in the south of London. So what awaits the thousands of French commuters coming daily into London is Waterloo Station; named after the battle of Waterloo - where we gave the French a good beating during the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 (welcome to England).
I really loved seeing the Stars and Stripes flag around town; back home you would rarely see the British Union flag or the English St. George Cross flown (except maybe on the odd church and property belonging to the royal family). This is not through a lack of patriotism though, because I believe we have a very patriotic nature; unfortunately far right pseudo political groups have hijacked the flag and used it as a symbol of extremism. Brits never like to offend anyone so it is now rarely seen (you must remember that we are also sensitive to our darker imperialistic past and realize that our flag represents repression in many countries around the world); a better way of understanding our imperialist history can be highlighted by the following scenario: if Portugal and Spain ever decided to unite they would probably call themselves Sportugal; when Scotland was forced to unify with England we called it England.
I was also teased throughout the day on why I was not wearing anything red or white to go with my blue shirt; I did then have to point out that you actually stole the colors from us in the first place. The Grand Union flag has always historically been referred to as America’s “first national flag” although it never had an official status; it was used in the American Revolutionary War by George Washington and formed the basis for the first official U.S. flag - this flag consisted of thirteen red and white stripes and had the British Union Flag in the top left hand corner (where your stars now reside). Of course your flag has gone through many changes since - like the Italian flag during the Second World War, which quickly evolved from a vertical tricolor of red, white and green to a white cross on a white background.
On Monday evening, after a day of eating hotdogs, throwing candy and watching fireworks, I discovered several bits of my milky white body residing next to parts that had turned red and stripy from the sun; as I sat there in my blue shirt I realized that I had become more assimilated – it had just taken the entire day for it to happen.
10th July - Animal Magnetism
I am sure the local Sauk Centre citizenry are now engaging in the sport of randomly approaching me in Wal-Mart, just to provide me with odd information and bizarre colloquialisms - as material for my editorials. When a complete stranger accosts you in the canned vegetable aisle with a sentence that start with, “do you know what a cow magnet is,” I wonder where my life is going - if I reply that the weather in Leningrad is very clement for this time of year, do I get given the microfilm?
I suspect that powerful cow magnets come with instructions warning the user not to engage the device in a built up area, as the action of creating a powerful magnetic attraction to all the bovine creatures in the vicinity could prove debilitating for local passing traffic – as the beasts roll along Main Street from several miles away (much to their surprise) and come to an abrupt halt in a pile of bewildered mooing and freshly squeezed milk. I can see the benefit of placing a cow magnet in a milking parlor though and turning it on when milking is required - this could be very beneficial to dairy farmers and could potentially save a lot of time.
I suspected that more research was required to find the facts over an active imagination, so I discovered the following: when the cow grazes, it often consumes and swallows what is called tramp iron - baling and barbed wire, staples, nails and other metallic objects. These objects are indigestible and can lodge in the reticulum and cause inflammation resulting in lower milk production - this condition is called hardware disease (not to be confused with the debilitating affliction that middle-aged Stearns County men suffer from - that requires them to go Menards in Alexandria every Sunday morning).
The cow magnet attracts such objects and prevents them from becoming lodged in the animal's tissue. While the resultant mass of iron remains in the cow's rumen as a pseudobezoar (this is the best word I have ever come across and I have said it incessantly every day since, much to the annoyance of my friends, family and colleagues – my Dad thought I was saying the name of a Brazilian soccer player)!
I shall now keep a careful eye open for the potential side-effects of the cow magnet. I believe cows could now easily becoming stuck to wire fences all over America; one of the first jobs given to an apprentice farm hand is to regularly patrol the boundaries of the property armed with a crowbar - looking to prize innocent cows back into the middle of the field.
14th July - It’s an Ill Wind
I guess now would be a good time to discuss the weather in Sauk Centre compared to Britain. The only severe winds I can recall back home were in 1987, when a freak storm ravaged the country (the worst since 1703); I remember looking out of my bedroom window in surprise that night as trees, cardboard boxes and random pieces of wooden fence paneling flew by - I suspect the hobos that were still sleeping in the boxes were more surprised though.
I was given the next day off school, so as an impetuous teenager, I made the most of the unique weather conditions and visited the local golf course - where the fallen trees made it look more like a giant mini-golf course. I have the vivid memory of standing at the first tee and hitting a drive with a 60 MPH tail wind (it was still gusting after the high winds of the night before); I then had to retrieve the ball from a different time zone - I firmly believe that only the astronaut Alan Shepard has hit a golf ball further (and that is still in orbit somewhere around the moon).
I was impressed by the quick reaction of the Sauk Centre emergency services on Sunday night, as many of the roads appeared to be cleared in a relatively short period of time; the emergency services were helped in this regard by middle-aged men all over Sauk who jumped for joy (as they finally had a proper legitimate reason to use a combination of chainsaws and tractors – and in the middle of the night)! In Britain the response was much slower (due to the rare nature of the event) and I believe that some of the trees are still in situ of where they fell - even now.
Then there was the power cut - this started for me with all the childlike fun and excitement of remembering power cuts as a kid (mixed with the memories of camping out). A hunt for the candles followed in the back of that kitchen drawer that has no name - but is used for playing card, birthday cake decorations, things you have confiscated from the kids and a dish towel (from Split Rock lighthouse) that an aunty gave you for Christmas in 1995.
Then after the initial blessed excitement of realizing that mosquitoes aren’t attracted into my house anymore, came the dawning reality of life without the television, internet access, phone charging, game consoles, music, the kettle, and ultimately the freezer. I sat in the semi-darkness eating a gallon of ice-cream (because it wouldn’t last until the morning) listening to the sound of arguing - as families all over town were forced to talk to one another over a board game. I spent the rest of the night trying not to randomly spray the bathroom (because I couldn’t see where I was meant to be aiming) and rubbing my swollen stomach. I went to bed on Sunday night in a mild panic due to the firm belief that by the end of the week the Sauk Centre community would have descended into a Medieval bartering society and that I would soon be swapping (with my neighbors) a defrosted chicken for a roll of toilet paper.
I did find this period of darkness without modern technology very educational though, due to the discovery that cats have eight nipples - of which only six are operational (it was a very long and boring Sunday night in the Lee household).
21st July - The Long Weekend
Isn’t it amazing that after the storm practically removed every other tree in the park last week, that I still had my view of Friday night’s firework display obscured by trees!
I now believe the mosquitoes at the lake use this event as their annual feast day – they exchange cards and gifts in the morning before eating a traditional meal in the evening. I have never seen mosquitoes so large - I swear I saw one with tattoos and a switchblade (I initially thought it was a cat that had taken up paragliding lessons). I fumigated myself thoroughly with an entire can of DEET before I ventured out – this was done with such liberal determination that I now believe I can be held solely responsible for a 2°F average yearly temperature increase across Northern Europe. Despite this action I was still being bitten through my clothing - I felt like a lamb’s carcass dangling in a piranha tank.
I come from a country where mosquitoes are very rarely seen - so there is still the element of surprise for me (this was especially true at the beginning of the week when I headed off down the Wobegon trail on my bicycle for the first time). It was twilight and I found myself riding through large clouds of them; I then spent the rest of the evening flossing them out of my teeth (luckily I am not a vegetarian). This resulted in giving my wife the shock of her life; I put the dental floss in the toilet and forgot to flush, she came out of the bathroom later that night thinking she had worms. This was the first time I have ridden my bicycle this year and I later regretted my misplaced youthful over enthusiasm, as I went the rest of the week walking with a lisp.
The rain came down so hard last week that it reminded me of the sea cut into vertical strips, and I arrived at the craft fair on Saturday morning to the sight of people mopping up water from the inside of covered buildings! The craft fair appeared to be a success though (despite the best efforts of Mother Nature) and I witnessed many citizens wandering through the town happy - juggling a bird house, a jar of pickled beets and an embroidered dish cloth (whilst trying to maneuver around a corn dog).
The new route for the parade on Saturday seemed easy enough to follow for anyone who had not seen the revised directions - from what I could tell you just followed the trail of dripping engine oil around (like some sort of Stearns County version of Hansel and Gretel). The day finished by watching two parents dancing in front of their teenage children to a live band in Sinclair Lewis Avenue - as they shouted out (much to their offspring’s horror), “look at me and your mother, we’ve still got it!”
24th July - Wake up, wake up, you’ve won!
I must admit to being homesick over the last two weeks; I was born and raised in London and my family have lived there since at least the 15th century – my parents only live a few miles from the Olympic stadium (they have complained bitterly that it has affected their television reception). It has therefore been difficult for me when I turn on the television, or read the newspaper, or go online, or even wander through the shopping mall in St. Cloud, to see images of London plastered everywhere.
We compete in the Olympics as Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but I suspect some confusion reigns over where I am actually from - so let me start by saying that I am English, this is a country of 53 million that is roughly the size of New Hampshire (you are never more than 75 miles away from the sea anywhere in England); our flag is the St George cross - a red cross on a white background. So far so good – but I am also British; the term Great Britain though is not a morale boosting self confidence based eulogy like, Fabulous Britain or Brilliant Britain (it would in fact be fun if countries prefaced themselves with an adjective to give a helpful synopsis of what to expect for the uneducated traveler - Cold Norway for example, Efficient Germany, Arrogant France and Oh no, my handbag appears to be missing Italy). The Great actually refers to the three countries that are land locked together to form one large island, Scotland, Wales and England; this flag is an amalgamation of these countries and is probably the one you are most familiar with, the red cross of England sitting in the middle, with bit of blue diagonally provided by Scotland - thus I am also British (there will be a test at the end of this). Now when Northern Ireland is added to this mix we get renamed the United Kingdom - although when we compete in the Olympics we are officially called Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Outside of the Olympics we tend to compete as individual nations, but sports like rugby and field hockey also have a British team as well as the individual national teams. So I am English, with a British passport and I come from the United Kingdom, which makes me European - all clear?
Due to our comparatively small size, to finish third in the medal table behind the heavy weights of America and China, was an incredible achievement. We do tend to excel at minority sports though, like the little known holding your breath competition (it was a shame our gold medalist was not able to collect his medal in person). My love of the Olympics does not come from watching the individual events though, it comes from seeing the reaction of the Olympians on the podium; the gold medalist is always proud and happy, the silver medalist is distraught and sad that they missed out on the gold, and the bronze medalist is in a state of joyous bewilderment thinking, wow, I got a medal!
28th July - The Stress of Choice
I now believe that I inherit a lot of unnecessary stress in this country through the concept of having too much choice – not a phenomenon that exists back in Britain; American psychologist Barry Schwartz highlights this growing problem in his book The Paradox of Choice.
Modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, but we don’t seem to be benefitting from it psychologically.
I have slowly realized that this manifests when I become increasingly anxious by the process of sitting down to eat in a restaurant (like Applebee’s or Famous Dave’s) when I am presented with five different menus. I am given the lunch menu, followed by the specials menu, then that month’s new menu, close on its tail is the main menu, then I am introduced further to a menu mounted on a flip board on the table, then I am made aware of what is written on the chalkboard behind me, and then the day’s specials are verbally announced to me - as I drown in a barraging sea of laminated paper and become bewildered via a string of rhetorical prandial information.
I don’t want more and more choice; I long for the days when there was only one kind of pasta sauce and not a 50 yard aisle with a myriad of red jars all laughing at me - as I try to distinguish from the jungle of choice that embraces the different ways the tomato has been chopped up, what herbs have been added or not, whether it is natural or organic (and what is the difference) or if a price reduction on one specific brand outweighs the benefits of getting any other.
I now crave the days when ice cream only came in three flavors - and anything other than vanilla meant it was my birthday or a special occasion. I was at the Cold Stone Creamery in St. Cloud last week and I have witnessed smaller recipes for rocket propulsion fuel than was presented to me on their menu-board for each cold creation (and less writing than is required on an equation to work out a fluid dynamic drag coefficient). A trip to the local pizza establishment is no better and I am now confronted with a mire of dough based questioning; what size, what kind of base (they come in threes), do you want a stuffed crust, what kind of cheese would you like, any extra toppings? I have spent less time in my life deliberating the purchase of a house.
I visited Culvers in Alexandria and asked for a cheese burger, I was then asked how I wanted it made and what I wanted in it – I am no expert on this (being foreign) but I believe cheese and a patty is the norm for such things. Surely that is the job of the person asking, that is what they get paid for, I was little short of going into the kitchens and cooking it myself after I was done explaining the minutia of nuisances of how I wanted my meal to be prepared, cooked and presented. They cook and construct the burgers for a living, I want them to decide - I don’t call my plumber and then tell them how and where to put the pipes in.
I have now concluded that I cannot have a stressful crisis next week: my schedule is already full.
2nd August - All the Fun of the Fair
I guess there could only be one topic of conversation this week - my adventures at the fair; so let me outline for you the things I had never seen before - until last weekend.
I saw a chicken that had hair like Tina Turner, a rabbit that looked like it was wearing mascara (unless it was making a little extra money by testing for a cosmetics company - I fully expected to see a rat in the next cage smoking a cigarette) and quite possibly the largest horse I have ever seen; this equine beast could easily straddle a time zone, so its bottom would be a full hour ahead of its brain (in Europe we call this phenomenon being French).
I had never had a pork chop on a stick before either and it still amazes me the various types of food you are willing to impale on a wooden skewer; the only thing that comes on a stick in Europe (that I can recall) is a grenade, and I believe they can both have a similar effect – especially if the chop is undercooked. I also bought some donuts and was informed by the lady who sold them to me that I had a fabulous accent and that I should keep it (I am sure she thought I was putting it on). I said thank you and told her I was experimenting with three or four, but if she liked that one I would stick with it - she seemed pleased that I would be taking her advice.
At the risk of sound depressive - I believe the American economy to be in a worse state than I had previously thought. With the rhetoric of politicians discussing debt repayments still ringing in my ears, I was made starkly aware of the terrible slump hitting the textiles industry – there appears to be a worrying shortage of material. I saw young gentleman at the fair in the awkward position of having to present themselves in public without the proper attire of having sleeves on their shirts and T-shirts. They seemed to be making the most of their misfortune and were putting a brave face on things but it must be hard for them during this time of recession – I felt bad for them. The idea of economics effecting fashion is not new of course - this is why hemlines on skirts rose during the Second World War. It is easy to imagine a history of Stearns County boys finding their first true love at the fair - with all the romance it can bring; the bright dizzying colored lights that illuminate a star filled sky, the thumping music that reaches down into your very soul and competes with your heartbeat to remind you you’re alive, the sweet heady smell of fair food that drifts through the warm night air and dances ethereally around you. Then you glimpse her for the first time (in amongst a crowd of people); everything and everybody suddenly moves in slow motion and the previous busy ambient noises of the fair drift away like the tide going out, and fade into a distant murmur. She looks immaculately turned out and was obviously making an effort to be noticed - she pretends she hasn’t seen you at first, as you casually wander over to tentatively and nervously say hello. She is now on her own and you realize this could be the only chance you ever get - your one single life defining moment; up close you notice her freshly waxed body and the alluring aroma of two stroke engine oil (other agricultural farmyard machinery would come and go, but she would always be the first). That night you write a letter to Santa Claus asking for a John Deere 1951 model R, with a primary plant two cylinder, four stroke, naturally aspirated 412 cubic inch direct injected diesel engine with a 16:1 compression ratio - Christmas is five months away, but it might as well be a lifetime.
7th August - A tale of Pork Chops and Ice-Cream
The opportunity arose last week to once again embrace and sample the egregious cuisine that is the staple of the town fair. The pork chop on a stick stand was my first edible destination – a product that does not grace Britain; I know I must have enjoyed it though, because I actually discovered barbeque sauce in my ears the following morning – I also managed to walk around the fair looking like a poor version of Batman’s arch adversary, the Joker, who in a mad early morning semi-twilight rush mistook the red lipstick for the brown (of course nobody made me aware of my situation until I had returned home). I also discovered one strange comestible phenomenon at the fair, after asking for an ice-cream, I was actually presented with a Styrofoam cup and a straw; in Britain our ice-cream tends to be licked or even eaten with a spoon (us crazy Brits have some strange ways).
As I sat and drank my ice-cream, I witnessed a procession of very large horses kicking up dust in the parade ground, as they presented various forms of horse-drawn antiquated farmyard machinery to the public; at the end of the show I brushed myself off, went back to the car, and played an impromptu game of Pictionary on the hood.
I found myself in Dairy Queen late on Tuesday night, looking for ice-cream that had a more solidified traditional look to it. I noticed they were currently promoting a new product they call Frozen Hot Chocolate - am I the only one who sees the contradiction in that statement? I believe this is what’s known as an oxymoron; a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms - the etymology of Oxymoron is derived from the ancient Greek word oxus, meaning sharp, and mōros, meaning dull.
Having been given enough time, I came up with a detailed summary of extra ordinary oxymoron’s that you may already know of – especially if you live in Stearns County: dollar value, buffet food, daily special, Dodge Ram, cheap gas, convenience store, dry beer, restless sleep, country music, a little pregnant and accurate rumors – a collection of statements that could easily catalogue the narrative of a Friday night-out for number of Sauk Centre residents of a certain age.
I also happened to notice that our local Main Street Cinema has the films Ted and Magic Mike playing this week. I believe this to be the only time in the history of recorded anthropology that men are going to see a film about a teddy bear and women are lining up to see a film about strippers - this though is not an oxymoron, this is known as a paradox. I truly believe that the end of the world can only be a matter of months away.
August 10th - Drawing religious inspiration
This week I paid a visit to the Jeffers Petroglyphs - a 23 mile pre-contact Sioux quartzite outcrop that extends from Watonwan County to Brown County (in the open prairie). The carved images are thought to be from around 9000 to 7000 years old and the ancient symbols are scrawled and pecked into the bedrock - that was flattened and smoothed over by glaciers 14000 years ago to apparently make a giant doodling pad (nature can be very accommodating).
We have prehistoric cave paintings in Britain and Europe (obviously nothing from the Native American cultures) but to my eye the entire area looked like a giant ancient indigenous peoples’ etch-a-sketch. I spent a good hour being told where the various animals and symbols would be seen at each location around the red sacred rock (I genuinely believed up until that moment that I was in fact a very visually aware person) but I could not make out a single design on the hot distressed rock surface that afternoon. It was like a cross between where’s Waldo and one of those magic eye pictures from the 1990s (where you need to go partially cross-eyed and induce a mild strabismus to identify the loose shape of a Tyrannosaurus Rex (children of today just don’t know what fun is anymore)) - only I was trying to find a strange shaped turtle and a cycloptic three-legged buffalo. I stood and stared for over an hour as the other visitors passed me by and gasped in moments of awe and wonder - as I strained to see the emperor’s new clothes.
I genuinely now believe that this site is nothing more than a communal telephone pad and that the naïve drawings were actually undertaken by children as a task to keep them occupied – “Don’t go further than the big rock and your dinner will be ready in an hour.” An innocent drawing of Mommy (with only one leg, giant hands and mad hair) by a five year old, is now being studied ten millennia later by an anthropologist writing a PhD paper on whether the image represents ancient alien contact or a naïve way of showing the Orion’s belt star constellation.
Such drawings by children of God-like creatures and religious iconography is not an old phenomenon though - even I engaged with such creative scribbling in my kindergarten years. During an art lesson in the early 1970s my teacher was observing the class and wandering around her pupils as they worked. As she got to my desk she asked me what I was working on, I replied diligently that I was drawing God. My teacher paused and then said, “But no one
knows what God looks like.” Without hesitation or looking up from my drawing I replied, “They will in a minute!”
15th August - The Perils of Walking through Sauk Centre
This week started poorly - I was walking through Sauk Centre, minding my own business and lost in thought, when a yappy little dog sprinted out of the house opposite; it bounded across the road with some considerable alacrity and sank its teeth into my ankle - with the same enthusiasm a lion applies to the carcass of a wildebeest. Not content with its first assault - and obviously finding a latent taste for Englishman that it was previously unaware of (I believe I am infused with a delicate blend of Earl Grey tea and muffins) it came back for a second go and bit me again; it then ran back from whence it came with all the swagger and satisfaction of a job well done.
I normally have a very good relationship with animals, but this convention is severely tested in this country. I was recently introduced to a horse – I have rarely been in close proximity to a horse (let alone sat on one) as a result of spending the majority of my life living in the densely populated urban conurbation of East London. So a friend kindly asked if I would be interested in riding a horse on his farm; this escapade allowed me to discover that I could have saved myself the bother of a whole day of pain and hardship, when I should have just stayed at home and replicated the experience by sandpapering my posterior. I then spent the entire evening making use of a bag of frozen peas in a way that a bag of frozen peas should not be used and cannot be outlined in polite society or newspaper articles. The owner said I would have more luck with the wayward animal if I showed it who was boss – but I had no need to do that, we both knew who was boss and it really wasn’t open for debate.
Despite my dog and horse experiences I really miss having a pet and thought seriously about my options on Tuesday; it needed to be a low maintenance pet that could be left for days on end due to my work related transient nature. After some cursory researching I read about hermit crabs - I thought this to be the ideal solution and raced off to St. Cloud. I had already chosen the name “Colin” in the car on the way there – it seemed very unassuming and embraced perfect alliteration (I sporadically strive to sneak some sort of similar sounding syllables into my sentences for the Sauk Centre Herald).
Sadly I left the pet shop empty handed - apparently hermit crabs need chemicals put in their water, sponges, special lights, differing sizes of shell and require being walked on a regular basis (I made the last one up) - I believe you can insert your own joke at this point of the article around the word play of “sidewalk”. What is happening in my life that I can’t even afford the time to look after a crab; I went home and painted a face on a rock that I now call Robbie.
19th August - Crazy little thing called golf
In Britain we have one or two crazy golf courses - I believe in this country you refer to them as miniature golf courses. As always in most comparisons with all things British, ours are a collection of loose waste building debris with some liberally delivered amounts of concrete (laid by a visually redundant cement worker with a lack of motor-neuron skills). Then garishly decorated with the result of finding the last few inches of paint from the bottom of several archaic cans - that have been retrieved from the most reclusive areas of a garage shelf (in a vain attempt to improve the overall look of the whole disaster). Your courses seem to be a professionally designed aesthetic animatronics cornucopia of floral framed wondrous tableaus and dyed blue waterfalls.
This realization came as a result of paying a visit to Casey’s amusement park in Alexandria this week. I went first and strolled onto the lush green velvet course with all the bravado of Tiger Woods - as I stared at the boulders, rocks, dips and undulations that stood before me and the flag. I confidently putted the ball and watched it ricochet about like the contents of a shaken pinball machine, pinging in random directions (at one point it went back past me). Fate decreed that despite my most fervent efforts, the ball in question simply would not go within the vicinity of the hole. I then realized that mini-golf not only appeals to the idiot in us, but the child; just how childlike became apparent when I conveniently lost the ability to count higher than ten.
My playing partner then stepped up for their turn, with a single stroke and all the apparent knowledge of a seasoned professor of geometry (with a working knowledge of chaos theory) the ball curved, detoured, and maneuvered its way around the glowing green artificial turf with a smooth balletic alacrity (as it bounced and rebounded around) before trickling towards the hole – it sunk with all the aplomb of a self-assured love affair with gravity. Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing, but if you are going to throw a club it is important to throw it ahead of you towards the next hole - so you don't have to waste energy and time going back to pick it up. My afternoon of sporting distress gave me an insight into our usage of the English language: put means to place a thing where you want it; but putt simply means a vain attempt to do the same thing.
24th August - Seven Days Unplugged
So far this week I have embraced the Sauk Centre unplugged event; this concept requires individuals to unplug their televisions, computers and video games (the distractions that stop families from engaging with one another, allowing them to undertake seven days of quality recreational time together – to my knowledge no shooting incidents have yet taken place). This would be similar to an experience I had as a child when my mother mistakenly told the family we had a power cut; we then proceeded to play board games and eat cold food for two days solid - until my Dad realized that it was just the light bulb that had blown (we hadn’t bothered to check anything else - we had very few electronic devices during the mid seventies). I am happy to write about my own experiences during this week long endeavor although my family is 4000 miles away and none of my electrical devices actually work here due to the wrong sized plugs and differing voltage.
I did however see this week as an opportunity to look at areas of my recreational life I had perhaps neglected; I have reached an age where I can no longer rely on my natural youthful exuberance - it exuded some time ago. This has, in part, been created by the food and drink I have consumed here since I arrived (and my own inactivity). Let me introduce you to the scenario that has helped to incapacitate me: it appears that at some point during the history of American cuisine the plain “ole cuppa Joe” (zero carbohydrates and zero calories) morphed into a white chocolate mocha with whipped cream (at 58 carbohydrates and 510 calories - for a “medium” 16 oz) – this transformation is reflective of many modern comestibles. My dietary intake has become so lax in recent times that I am trying to convince myself that White Grape Swisher Sweets are now one of my five-a-day fruit and vegetable portions.
This week was then seen as the ideal opportunity to start a fitness regime, so armed with just my enthusiasm and a gleaming pair of sneakers, I ventured into Snap Fitness. The enrollment required me to provide personal information about my health and general well being; during this process I was asked how flexible I was - I replied that unfortunately I could only make Wednesday and Friday nights.
I also saw this week as a chance to re-engage with some much needed housework; the time saved playing on electronic entertainment devices could be put to good use for a late spring clean. I will be the first to admit that I am not overly familiar with the conventions of laundry - although I do embrace housework in other areas (as a very trying 21st Century man). I thought my sweatshirt needed washing and mere seconds after stepping into the laundry room I shouted out, "What setting should I use on the washing machine?" My wife replied that it all depended on what was written on the shirt? I yelled back, "University of Minnesota." There was then a very long period of extended silence that was not broken by the usual sounds of the television or the radio.
28th August - You're only as good as your last haircut
It is a disappointment to me that the nights are becoming progressively darker and colder; I shall certainly not miss the amount of water vapor in the air though. I have never experienced this before and I discovered that in this country my hair has the unique capacity to go very frizzy in humid conditions; I can very quickly morph into looking like one of the Jackson Five, circa 1970; I never know whether to grab a hair brush or sing the opening verse of Rockin’ Robin.
So I decided to get my haircut this week in a bid to control my random tuneful outbursts of early 1970s Motown pop; having my haircut has always been a difficult experience for me - as I still carry some post-traumatic stress disorder from a childhood neurosis. I would be dragged briskly by the hand to the local barber’s shop and placed in a child’s chair; then the barber would stand over me menacingly - with the tools of his trade poised and ready for action. I would look back at him in the mirror and say, “I want it graduated at the back, with the sides nice and short - but leave a little bit of length on the top.” The barber would then look at my mother and my mother would say, “Skin him”- and my locks would be taken down to the wood in several swift mercurial movements. These incidents left me wanting to stay at home, so my mother (without any previous experience or learnt knowledge - and embracing all the motor neuron skills and hand-eye coordination of a convicted Arab shoplifter) undertook the job of cutting my hair herself - this single act was the sole reason I never kissed a girl until I was twenty-three.
My head has been witness to many haircuts, styles and colors over the years; one summer in a moment of youthful madness I bleached my hair white blonde - in the genre of Billy Idol (for those old enough to remember). The knock-on effect of this action, which I never fully considered pre-bleaching, saw me pollinated extensively by every insect within a hundred mile radius - I spent that entire summer being the sex object for every hymenoptera in England (I wouldn’t have minded but they never wrote to me afterwards or even stayed in touch).
Unfortunately, in the near future there will be a time when my wife will retort, “Let me run my hands through your hair” and I will only be able to facilitate this action by taking off my shirt; let me just say that I have noticed in my middle-aged dotage that I am now getting less for my money when I go to the barber than I used to. I have also found recently that the grey hairs in my beard appear to grow faster than the darker ones; I have no idea why this should be - but it leaves them looking like those single blades of grass (that no matter how many times you run over them with the lawnmower) continue to stand tall, upright and higher than the rest of the lawn. I think generally speaking the fairer sex are more concerned and preoccupied with their hair though; it would be true to say that when a woman worries too much about gray hair - she sometimes turns blond overnight.
2nd September - Spot the difference
Let me see if the more visually aware can notice any difference in my article this week (no prizes are at stake); due to the weight of public opinion and lobbying - and never let it be said that the good people of the Sauk Centre Herald don’t take notice of their readership, my photographic image has been changed. My “mean and moody, I am a serious Brit” picture has been replaced with a portrait that will no longer scare small children or be a danger to those with a delicate disposition or a cardio vascular disorder. There were rumors circulating that the children of Sauk Centre were being coerced nightly by weary parents telling them that the strange Englishman that writes for the Herald would come and get them if they did not get to sleep - and they were pinning my articles to the bedroom door.
Last Friday I was in attendance at the United Methodist Church annual fund raising salad lunch. I was somewhat taken aback and impressed by the number of people that arrived to participate, I thought for one moment the Pastor would have to come out with two fishes and five loaves of bread - which would have impressive me even more. Many fabulous salads where splendidly displayed and I was amazed to see a Snickers salad (which tasted exceedingly good) but brought a new meaning to the word salad that was previously unknown to me - I never thought I would see the word Snickers in the same sentence as salad, but here it is before your very eyes. I was brought up in a country that ridiculously thought salads were boring, generally green and good for you; a salad lunch event in Britain would comprise of a big plate of lettuce kept company by a solitary tomato rolling around and maybe a sprig of broccoli for the overly extravagant (the only thing I know about broccoli was gained as a four year old at the dinner table, when I discovered that you can’t hide it in a glass of milk).
I admire that no fear exuberance of mixing wildly differing polemic food stuffs together, but despite the tasty Snickers salad, many of these experiments should never leave the captivity of the kitchen or be released into the wild of the dining room; we have previously discussed the merits of mixing sausage, pancake and syrup at the breakfast table and the now infamous Denny’s bacon sundae. Then on Monday I had the scare of seeing the term “Mushroom and Swiss” in relation to a burger; I wasted twenty minutes of my life wondering what the taste of Switzerland actually was – I envisaged licking a cuckoo clock, mixed with the aftertaste of a sidewalk somewhere in the suburbs of Zurich (and why that would that be good with mushrooms) - I have been to a truck stop on the outskirts of Zurich and I don’t want anything to taste how that looked.
On Tuesday my food themed week continued when I noticed Chihuahua cheese being sold in the local grocery store - my mind instantly raced (not unreasonably) to rows of battery farmed lactating toy dogs and a small army of Mexican children with dexterously nimble milking fingers. I then realized of course that Chihuahua is a State in Mexico and it was simply stating where the cheese originated from; I was halfway through a cell phone conversation on the PETA hotline when this revelation came to me - they were not happy.
7th September - Stung at the Gas Station
I was driving through town this week, when without any prior warning, a wasp dived through the car window and flew straight down my shirt; before I had a single moment to enquire upon its situation, I had been stung on the sternum. I then proceeded to remove my shirt as quickly as possible - like a stripper working on commission (it was not dangerous in any way though as I managed to steer the vehicle in a straight line with my knees as I had my shirt fixed over my head).
I pulled over to the nearest gas station (that shall remain nameless) and went in to procure some ice to help with the swelling and pain that was now emanating from my ribcage - trying to keep all thoughts of John Hurt out of my head. Then, can you believe, they actually charged me for half a cup of ice; the price of my relief was sixty cents, not a great deal of money in today’s society, but sixty cents nevertheless. If I had broken my arm with a complicated compound fracture and suffered severe contusions to my cranium I would have needed my credit cards.
Now I have been stung many times throughout my childhood (due to long hot hazy summers spent outside - during a time of my life when I would fall asleep at night through the tiredness of playing hard all day). One wasp based incident from this period sticks firmly in my mind when a wasp flew up my shorts and stung me in the worst place possible (and I am not referring to the backyard). I remember wiping tears from my eyes as my mother stood over me with a tube of ointment; she had a look on her face that showed a frightening flicker of not knowing what to do for the best. Even in my sobbing state I wanted to reassure my mother of my condition and with my English sense of humor was still strong, like an unwavering meta-narrative running through my discomfort, I exclaimed, “I want something to take away the pain but keep the swelling!”
Let me now tell you that wasp stings differ greatly between England and America, now I have seen both sides of a hymenoptera coin. An English wasp sting feels more localized and is a sharp burning needle like pain that ceases after several hours; the American wasp sting is spread over a greater area in terms of pain and caused a more prolonged swelling (that stayed for several days). Given the choice I would go with the English wasp - it also says please and thank you and has conversational Latin.
I am still here though, so there was no anaphylactic shock; neither did I wake up the following morning in a black and yellow tight spandex stripy suit and discover that I had the new potent ability to be annoying at picnics (I have an uncle who already has these skills). The clichéd question I have to ask is what do wasps actually do - what is their purpose, their raison d'être? This mystery of the universe is on a par with such questions as, why do comedians finish routines with a song, why do toilet lids have fluffy covers, why is there a disclaimer on the Allstate Auto Insurance commercials that says “not available in all states,” why do hamsters smell of popcorn and why do birds suddenly appear………..
13th September – Welcome one and all
I have been made aware this week, due to the weather becoming colder at night in Sauk Centre, that a menagerie of wildlife has realized my house is decidedly warmer than outside; let me start with the smallest beast and we can work our way up from insects to mammals.
I would love to know why flies only live for 24 hours, yet those magical ones that get into my house appear to live forever? So I took on the role of the great white hunter (without any previous experience or skills in this particular field) armed with the latest fly killing technology - a trusty 20 inch woven metal handled swatter, complete with a convex aerated plastic aerodynamic swatting zone. Other members of the household took to wearing orange flash jackets as I wielded the swatter with a rapier like alacrity, in a maniacally fuelled lack of patience and a blur of buzzing, swearing and slapping - like a fervid windmill of death. I vanquished the kitchen of all random flying irritating objects and now have a series of mounted dead flies on wooden shields presented all the way up the hallway walls (I swear one got away that was at least the size of a grape!)
The inclement evenings were also the catalyst for seeing a spider in the house; it was black with a shock bright lightening shaped yellow marking running along its abdomen – if it was any larger I could have put a saddle on it! I am no expert on anything arachnid, but I am well aware that the color combination of yellow and black (as a general rule in the animal kingdom) needs to be respected and avoided – I was certainly not going to entertain him with tales of Britain and a nice cup of tea. In depth research slaving over Wikipedia for what seemed like minutes, revealed the beast to be an argiope aurantia (corn spider) - apparently they live in fields, like long walks and eat children (who knew).
I am also not enamored with mice, with their beady little eyes poking out from behind the cooker; keeping me awake with all night wild parties and excessive drinking - scurrying around my bedroom at night causing me to believe I was being burgled. They leave me with few options outside of the traditional trap – my flute playing skills are novice in nature and I was not about to dance a jig all the way down to Sauk Lake with a stream of them following me.
A friend also informed me this week of an incident she had involving a bat taking a shine to her lounge. She claims to have caught it in a net and then flush it down the toilet. This does seem over elaborate and I would be worried that it could make an accent via the interconnecting pipe-work just three houses down. I’d feel bad for any disgruntled neighbor that receives a surprise, causing the kind of mental distress and physiological harm that would facilitate an individual being fearful of bathroom functions for the rest of their natural life; especially if caught during mid-movement - no amount of counseling is going to erase that neurosis.
Bats are an endangered species in Britain, they are very small and very rarely seen – it is actually a criminal offense to interfere with them or their home. Thus it was amazing to find my cat bringing a live one into my London home one night. This was cat utopia as the bat epitomizes the perfect synthesis between a bird and a mouse - as the Germans are aware by calling the creature a flying-mouse (with their love of compound nouns). I then had a stern talk with the cat and outlined to her the possibility of jail time if caught.
18th September - A New Family Member
This week the Lee household welcomed a new member; it was completely unplanned and only happened after a series of unusual serendipitous events, but I am now the proud owner of a kitten (my first American pet). This animal then provided me with the shock of my life, when she somehow managed to worm her way into the bedroom - when I was still in that semi-conscious state; she positioned herself on me in such a way that she was draped across my forehead - as I slowly gaining sentience I could feel a lump weighing heavy on my head. I laid there motionless in a moment of panic (I was not yet used to having a pet around the house and I thought I had woken up with some sort of brain tumor); I spent a long miserable minute thinking of all the things I still had to achieve in life, followed by thoughts of how I was going to divide up my possessions between my friends and family after my passing. I then felt a raspy tongue flicking my ear - I exclaimed to my wife that it was inappropriate timing because I was currently consoling myself on a life cut short; then there were teeth and I was soberly reminded that I now owned a cat. You often read about dogs eating their deceased owners through starvation – this cat had started on my extremities and I was still alive! I predict, before the week is out, that she will be going on short sharp trip to Slappedbottyville (that I believe is just outside of Paynesville).
So a trip to the grocery store was in order, to purchase more cat food; when I last owned a cat (many years ago back in Britain) their food was a nondescript third grade unspecified meat. What I was now presented with was a whole row of cans that had exotic flavors, like sun dried tomato and white fish or basil and chicken - I didn’t know whether to put it in the cat’s bowl or spread it on my toast, she’s now eating better than me! I am not sure how to address this delicately, but I have also discovered that what comes out of her small rat like skinny carcass appears to be greatly disproportionate to what goes in. She only has two mouse sized portions of food a day, but pound for pound, she is producing more than me! When she gets to be an adult I will have to empty her litter tray with front-end loader – it is holy remarkable that the laws of physics do seem to apply to her defecations.
Let me outline to you the difference between a dog and a cat in the following episode; a dog would sit and watch me type this article and would wistfully think to itself, “I’m not quite sure what you are doing, but I bet it’s going to be great, you are so talented and it’s going to be the best thing ever.” My cat is currently sitting on the armchair opposite me, as I write this, with a nonchalant slitty-eyed look on her apathetic face and I know exactly what she is thinking, “So you think you can write do you, nobody wants to read your European witterings, who told you that this was funny anyway?” Now, without any warning, she has jumpe onto my lapptop ‘’’and shhhhheee iss{ssssssss walkkkkkkkkin allllll ovvvverrrrrrrrrrr tthee ggrrrrrrr.
23rd September - The Gift of Zucchini
On Tuesday I had the experience of witnessing the biggest zucchini I have ever seen, the gentleman that presented it to me had to put a kidney belt on to lift it from the trunk of his car - as to avoid injury; I didn’t know whether to eat it or hollow it out and kayak to Diamond Point in it - I can only assume that his vegetable patch is in close proximity to a nuclear power station.
I guess this is the time of the year for such things because I subsequently noticed other citizens of Sauk Centre wandering around the town cradling giant pod like zucchinis - reminiscent of a scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers; I then discovered (after extensive research) that tradition dictates that you leave them in unlocked cars or on people’s doorsteps - like a big green jolly autumnal vegetable giving Santa Claus (you have been good this year so I will only give you one).
I always thought that the definition of a zucchini was a vegetable that you could bake, boil, fry or steam, just before your kids refuse to eat it. I too was put off of such things when I was a child by my mother’s propensity to boil everything to within an inch of its life, thus my zucchini appeared on my plate like lime green wallpaper paste (interestingly enough it did a similar job to wallpaper paste after I ate it).
Allow me to outline to you that many of the foods and herbs that I come across in Sauk Centre have very different names to the ones I am used to - for example we call zucchinis, courgettes; cilantro is coriander, egg plant is an aubergine, arugula is rocket and so on – it’s like one a big game of “what’s my vegetable” every time I go to the grocery store.
This word play does remind me of an embarrassing incident that I have kept hidden down in the darkest basement of my unconscious and was being successfully repressed until this moment - let me start the healing process by unburdening myself to you. Back in 1992 I was in the south of France (Nice to be precise) and I wanted to purchase a ticket for a train journey to Paris - a distance of 579 miles; I needed to reserve a “couchette” - this is a sleeping compartment in French. So with my best French accent I boldly walked up to the lady at the ticket office, with a swagger that says I can speak French and I know how to do all my own plumbing; I then subsequently asked for a courgette - which to be fair does sound very similar (I suspect many of you are now saying couchette and courgette together in your mind). On her face I saw a faint flicker of exasperation and nonchalance, supported by a shrug of the shoulders that cannot be taught and is running through the evolutionary DNA of all Francophiles (as a result of spending the majority of the last millennium at arms with Britain). To this day I suspect she wondered what I wanted with a popular cultivated summer squash belonging to the Cucurbita pepo family on an overnight train to Paris.
I went to St. Cloud this week to buy warmer clothing and ventured upon a department store called Kohl’s – I laughed so hard when I saw it that it was all I could do to stop a small amount of wee from coming out (Kohl means cabbage in German).
28th September - The Dangers of the Drive-in
I found myself at a charity auction in town on Friday night - I have never attended such an event before, so I was unaware of the protocol; thus I was innocently picking my nose when I inadvertently bought a leaf blower for $375. I also have to admit to having no clue as to what the auctioneer was saying - to my ear he sounded like a hyperactive child that had just drunk a gallon of Sunny Delight; I looked around the room to see if anyone else was also having a moment of auditory redundancy - but it appeared to be just me. I caught the occasional number (in the same way that if someone throws a bowl of Cheerios in your face one or two will stick to your cheek) but he might as well have been speaking in tongues - how anyone else knew what the current bid was seemed remarkable to me.
I sometimes have trouble understanding people when they speak fast to me in a strong American accent, like in a diner for example, when the waitress quickly runs through the specials (and has been doing it all day and merges the words together to make a giant compound noun: pulledporksandwichchickenceasersaladandpotroast. This perfectly demonstrates how the German language works, our Teutonic friends butt their words together to form new words rather than inventing a new one - so they have the word fledermaus (flying mouse) instead of bat; this means they can have words that are incredibly long - for example, “carpet” can be literally translated as: fluffywarmthingonthefloorthatkeepsourfeetwarmaswewalkaroundthehouse.
Not being understood works both ways (or perhaps that should be doesn’t work) - I now pull up to the drive-in at fast food restaurants with trepidation after a recent incident. All I wanted was a strawberry milkshake and after the lady asked my for my order I articulated myself into the microphone and asked for a “Strawberry milkshake.” She replied by saying, “What,” - so I asked again. For the sake of this article I will not transcribe the whole of the dialogue that subsequently followed, suffice to say that this cyclical scenario repeated itself for several minutes – as a long series of cars now snaked out from behind me and weaved around the building.
After an embarrassingly long period of stimulus and lack of response I exclaimed, “You only sell three flavors, strawberry, chocolate and vanilla - which one of those three does strawberry sound like?”
“Chocolate” she replied?
I was genuinely unsure of what to do next, then thankfully I thought of a solution, that I am glad had no witness (due to my own embarrassment) - I embraced the concept of putting on an American accent. So I took a deep breath and said, “Stroorbary,” to which she responded, “Oh strawberry.”
So this is how it’s going to be is it, this is my life from now on in – stumbling through each day speaking in a poor parody of an American accent just to get through the minutiae of every day events that life presents to me. Retrospectively I should have just asked for the pink one.
1st October - A Very Dangerous Week
I played darts this week for the first time in about twenty years; I am normally a stranger to the dart board but I happened to be accosted by a bar owner - as I walked passed his drinking establishment. He asked me the leading question, “Are you British?” To which I replied, “It depends on what you want?” He was under the misapprehension that because of my nationality I would be talented in the area of darts (in the same way it is stereotypically believed that all black people can play basketball and all French people will be rude) - but that bubble burst very early on during the proceedings as my first dart hit a stuffed walleye above the board.
I would say the evening turned out to be successful though on the basis that no one received any flesh wounds and everyone left with the same number of eyes they arrived with – so any future depth vision problems were thankfully avoided. A bad workman always blames his tools, but the bar darts they gave me were bent, which provided me with the unique ability to throw them around corners. I then had the embarrassment of having to collect a dart from the sidewalk, as it bounced out of the board and headed down Sinclair Lewis Avenue – I was as dangerous as a Colorado melon; at this stage I was so far behind that throwing a porcupine would not have been sufficient in narrowing the deficit. They say it is a sign of a misspent youth when you are good at darts, cards and pool; unfortunately for the members of my team I spent my youth playing with Lego and reading history books.
I was then reminded again of my dart’s baptism the following morning, when my arm felt like I had spent the entire night competing in the inaugural all-open Minnesota arm-wrestling championships, at the truck stop.
Then at the weekend I had the opportunity to be gifted the chance to discuss the difference between British and American roads; I managed to come off my motorbike at a considerable speed and I can now tell you that American concrete feels as hard and as unforgiving as British concrete (so there is no difference). In Britain and Europe it is a legal requirement to wear a motorcycle helmet, so I have grown up with this convention and it is what I am used to; this habit then managed to inhibit me from spreading the contents of my skull (and the exact amount can be argued upon) liberally over 100 yards of I-94 – to which I am very grateful. The whole episode was solely down to the incredibly poor standard of the road service (that had all the grip and traction of a bucket of soapy frogs spilt on a kitchen floor). Then as I lay there on my back looking up at the stars with the onset of concussion and a twisted knee for company (and the faint familiar metronomic whirring of a distant police siren getting ever closer) I noticed that all your stars are in completely different places to where I know them to be in Britain.
5th October - The summer of Love
The summer wedding season is now over with the advent of fall; I had the pleasure of attending several ceremonies this year, and I thought this would provide me with an ideal opportunity to document the differences between the nuptial traditions of our two great nations. Unfortunately, for my creative writing, they appear on the surface to be the same – apart from the fact that we wear hats. Though there were some subtle differences that I managed to tease out - I believe we tend to have wedding cakes that have hard icing on them, rather than the soft variety, so the pushing of the cake into the face of your freshly betrothed during the cake cutting ceremony tends to be avoided due to the possibility of hospitalization (cake rash injuries and the like). Bachelor parties are called stag parties in Britain, but I believe they end in a similar way, usually with an individual handcuffed to a lamppost outside a prominent national monument in a state of undress - with significant amounts of their facial hair missing above the eyes and a tattoo that says “I love Doris”. Your hymns have the same tunes but different lyrics and our churches are much older – that, as far as I can see, is it; so what else shall I discuss?
I was once told a story about a lady that was apprehensive about her impending marriage and her tale will give you an insight into British culture; she got herself into such a state of debilitating nervous anxiety that she went to see a psychologist. In detail the lady explained that the future events of her special day kept running through her head, she could see herself walking up the aisle and saying her vows in her mind; this made her so nervous that she needed to keep rushing to the toilet. The psychologist replied that this was very common, at which point the lady responded, “Oh, I am sorry, I meant bathroom!”
This psychologist also told me about the theory of when you are told a fact or a piece of information, that it pushes other information out of your brain, like an attic that is full of boxes - so when another box arrives, a random one has to fall out. This sort of random fact could be something like: did you know in ancient traditional English folklore, Saturday is considered the unluckiest day to get married (this is ironic when you consider that it’s the most popular day of the week to get wed); Wednesday is considered the "best day" to marry, although Monday is representative of wealth and Tuesday reflects good health - now where was I………….?
25th October - Get Your Motor Running
I went on a bit of a road trip last weekend, as I ventured into the furthest south western parts of Minnesota, to a small town called Trimont - not far from the Iowa border. I love the concept of road trips, in Britain you are never more than 75 miles away from the sea, so after an hour and 10 minutes a road trip tends to come to an abrupt end (unless you went up and down instead of left and right – Britain is long and thin). I set out with the sound of the song “Born to be Wild” by Steppenwolf playing over in my head (although being sat in a 1997 Jimmy with an arthritic knee and middle age in full swing, it was more a case of born to be mild). I was recently told that it would be fun to do a road trip to Britain; I could not disagree but felt obliged to mention in passing that I could probably not hold my breath for the 4000 miles of Atlantic Ocean that inconveniently gets in the way. Although I do remember being good at holding my breath as a kid during impromptu school yard competitions, even now I can remember hearing a child’s voice saying, “Wake up, wake up, you’ve won!”
It was a very long and desolate journey; the countryside on the way down (once I left civilization) reminded me of the times I have driven through Holland - it was flat with very dark soil and lacked in any scenic features (a study of Van Gogh’s early work in Nuenen would furnish you with perfect visual image). I could not have previously believed that the introduction of wind farms would have improved a landscape (I believe they are trying a similar scheme along I-94 with the introduction of electric poles).
The journey was sporadically broken up with the visual stimuli of road kill – depression among Minnesotan ruminants must be running very high, as large numbers of animals appeared to have ended their own lives by the side of the highway. This brought back repressed childhood memories; my family was so poor that I made road kill puppets to play with - for just the price of a ball of string (Road Kill Puppets has to be the best ever name for a rock band - if any budding musicians wish to use it).
Ironically my journey took me through Darwin, which I believe is famous for having the world’s largest ball of twine; it appears that the entire identity of the town is linked to this phenomenon and people come from far and wide to observe the iconic wonder. This led me to embrace the idea of introducing such a concept to Sauk Centre; I have done some cursory research and believe that nowhere yet has the world’s largest belly-button lint ball. If we left a depository in the car lot outside of Snap Fitness people could stop by and donate the contents of their naval cavity, then after a year we could put together a pretty impressive monolithic attraction (I hope these thought processes give you an insight into how long and incident free my journey was); let me leave you with this thought, and it has kept me awake all week: why is the lint in your belly button always a different colour to any of your sweatshirts?
29th October - Hollywood and Halloween
I believe this week Americans celebrate the 3rd pagan festival of the autumn equinox – Halloween; we don’t embrace Halloween in England - trick or treat is an American tradition that has not traveled over the pond. Thus my youth was bereft of Halloween parties and the experience of dressing up (parents in Britain tend to discourage children from wandering around the streets in the dark asking random strangers on their own property for candy). I suspect the American tradition came about in the distant past when two pumpkin farmers started to discuss the many acres of unsold crop they both had – I believe their thought process would be similar to, “If only we could introduce a way that will encourage people to buy them - without even wanting to eat them!”
Some children in Britain did try to start up this concept though (because they saw it as a good enterprise to gain candy and other treats - possibly money); they knocked on a door and said in unison, “Trick or treat,” the unimpressed British homeowner replied in short shrift, “Go away, we don’t do that here!” To which they responded, “You need to embrace American culture mister,” his retort was, “Ok, go away or I’ll shoot you!”
They say during this part of the year the veil is at its thinnest between the living and the dead, and I have noticed a sharp increase in paranormal activity in my own household; I began to get scared this week when my food started spelling out paranormal messages for me, one morning it gave me the ghostly warning of ‘Oooooooooo!’ This concerned me greatly until my wife pointed out that I was eating a bowl of Cheerios.
I am not a big fan of horror, I find horror films to be exceptionally boring due to the way they follow predictable conventions in their cinematography. Although my Dad did make me watch the film Alien when I was ten (I have never been able to eat a boiled egg since); for those of you unaware of the film I will preface the basic plot for you: man in wetsuit roams rusty spaceship, hooking luckless American actors out of frame, whilst John Hurt exhibits all of the worst symptoms one associates with eating poor Chinese food.
There is of course a strong tradition of horror in Britain, going back to Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; it is also worth pointing out that Hollywood (rather unreasonably) appears to be only employing English actors in the role of the villains and baddies: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushion, Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, Tim Roth, Anthony Hopkins, James Mason, Charles Dance, Alec Guinness, Jason Issacs, Ralph Fiennes and Stewie from Family Guy – to name but a few.
I read this week that Anoka is the self-proclaimed Halloween capital of the world, because it hosted one of the first Halloween parades in 1920; city officials then persuaded the United States Congress to officially grant the title in 1937. So it ultimately appears possible that if I just randomly declare Sauk Centre to be the zenith of some cultural tradition, then through the power of the printed word, it will become fact through default; this seems a dangerous precedence to me, but here I am openly ready to now announce that Sauk Centre is the “Christmas Capital of the World” (a title yet to be taken); I haven’t really worked out all the details yet, but the first step was to place it in the public consciousness.
On the subject of annual holidays, I must protest most fervently that I saw my first Christmas television advertisement last week; the third week in October seems a little early to me - as Mary would only just be finishing her second trimester (surely they would still be picking out color schemes for the nursery at that stage of the pregnancy).
4th November - Winter has arrived
I had the horror this week of having to scrape early morning ice off the car for the first time; the grim reality of a Minnesotan winter was knocking at my autumnal car door. I was, of course, completely underprepared for this event and was left wanting for an ice scraper - but I found a CD case and put that to good use and then finished off with a credit card (isn’t it reassuring to know that these moments of fashioning rudimentary tools and implements for an unorthodox task is what sets us aside from animals) - the day I see a raccoon using a tire lever we are all in trouble.
I did not need to experience ice scrapping to know that the temperature and atmospheric conditions were starting to change; the miserable phenomenon of suddenly being statically electrocuted did that and returned with great gusto this week - when I went to turn off the bedroom light and subsequently spent the rest of the evening nursing a throbbing arm after a string of Anglo Saxon expletives (that rarely get an outing unless I accidently manage to tread on a Lego brick). I can’t believe how short autumn appears in this country, one minute it is summer, then there was a day of red and yellow leaves, then winter arrived (I believe fall this year was October 15th).
The onset of this colder weather was the unfortunate catalyst for a week of poor health - I claim I had influenza with the symptoms of aching limbs, a sore throat, a thumping head and a cold; my wife dismissed this as just a slight chill (I believe it is called man-flu over here). I wanted to spend my week laying helpless on the couch and being waited on, but my wife unreasonably refused to entertain the idea; the suggestion of issuing me with a bell, so I could facilitate the making of tea and the adjustment of my pillows, was met with silence and the raising of one eyebrow. Then I noticed that my cat had a small bell hanging around her neck, so I picked her up and shook her the next time she walked by - I don’t know who was more surprised, my wife or the cat! Then I had a coughing fit so hard that a Shrinky Dink came up, that I suspect became lodged in my lung in 1978 and had not seen the light of day since – that gained me marginally more sympathy.
I was told by a friend this week that black strap molasses were required to improve my condition, now granted I was slightly aurally impaired by my head cold and the lady in question did have a strong American accent (my confusion was also compounded by the fact that I had never heard of this product before) but I spent the rest of my bed ridden week pondering how on earth two black strapping lasses were going to ease my ailments.
10th November - The Danger of Fireworks
Last week I missed the annual British holiday celebration of “Bonfire Night” - this takes place every year on November 5th (I suspect this tradition is one of the reasons Halloween has failed to take off in Britain - as the two events would be too close together).
Its history begins with the events of November 5th, 1605, when Guy Fawkes (a member of the Gunpowder Plot) was arrested while guarding explosives that had been placed under the House of Lords; the conspirators were Catholic and their plan was to kill the Protestant King, James I. Guy Fawkes was arrested and executed in the worst possible manner (hung drawn and quartered) - if you are unaware of this process, feel free to look it up, let me just say that it would require more than a tube ointment to relieve that kind of stinging.
Bonfires were then lit all over London in celebration of the king surviving the attempt on his life; months later the introduction of the Observance of 5th November Act enforced an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot's failure. The present-day “Bonfire Night” (sometimes called, “Guy Fawkes Night”) is usually celebrated at large organized events, centered on a bonfire and extravagant firework displays, or with the lighting of fireworks at home. I can remember the excitement of my youth when my Dad came home from work with a big box of garish colored fireworks - with fabulous names like, “Thunder Clap” or “Fire of Hades.” We would then all stand shivering in the garden watching our baked potatoes cremate in the fire, waiting for him to send the fireworks into the air.
One incident sticks firmly in my mind and revolves around my Dad placing a large one foot high rocket into a milk bottle - all ready for launching high into the cold darkness of a crisp British November night; he lit the touch paper and ran to safe sanctuary. Moments later the milk bottle fell over onto its side, the rocket then ignited and zipped at high velocity into a neighbor’s buddleia bush in a blur of sparks and cordite - with a satisfying onomatopoeic whoosh; mankind had not seen such a selection of flames and colors in a shrub since Moses witnessed the same phenomenon in ancient times.
I would not say I am particular useful in regard to car maintenance, so when my vehicle started firing on only five cylinders this week, I decided to consult the internet - how difficult can it be to replace spark plugs? I knew I was in trouble when the first sentence said, “Drive the vehicle onto a ramp and then remove the front wheels,” in Britain I could lift up the hood and see the spark plugs in two neat accessible rows - now it appears that I require a Masters Degree in Mechanical Sciences and an heraldic gene running through my DNA that allows me to perform contortionism; I would have to train a monkey up to NASA specifications if I ever needed to access the air filter.
The Taste of Home
Snow arrived in Sauk Centre last week, it was the kind of dusting we might get in Britain for just a couple of days of the year over the winter period; this would bring the country to a national standstill and would see the facilitation of food parcels being airlifted (via helicopter) into the more remote towns, putting the nation into the brink of chaos.
I thus decided it was time to stock up and employ cold weather foods in my kitchen - so I went to the grocery store to look through their soup selection; it was then that I was made aware of the horror that is “cheeseburger soup.” Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t that just like placing a cheeseburger in a food processor followed by a pint of hot water? Under that convention I should be able to rustle you up a hotdog soup in no time; in fact the only time I want to apply this process to my dinners is when I reach the time of my life when I have trouble chewing, and when I am going with clockwork regularly to the toilet every morning at 8 a.m., but not getting up and until 9 a.m.
I long for the plain and simple foods of my country - this is the only area I feel homesick about; fish and chips, pie and mash and roast dinner. So I was very happy this week when I was kindly presented with a Cornish pasty by a Herald reader, they saw them and thought of me, which was very kind and reminded me of home.
For those of you without prior knowledge of the famous Cornish pasty, let me enlighten you – this is the fast food of the western part of England. The traditional Cornish pasty, which has Protected Geographical Indication status in Europe, is filled with beef, sliced or diced potato, rutabaga and onion - it is seasoned with salt and pepper and is surrounded by a pastry parcel and baked. Pasties have been around for many centuries and were originally designed to be taken by miners into the mine for their lunch, they would have a savory filling at one end and a sweet jam filling at the other; they would then throw the pastry away due to the dirt and coal dust. I have photograph of myself eating one at the age of three that was genuinely bigger than me (it is important to embrace overly ambitious food portion sizes at an early age).
The perfect cuisine based partner for the Cornish pasty is brown sauce, I often have food parcels arriving at my home sent by my parents, and one of the key constituents is brown sauce - I have a supply to last me well into the New Year. Brown sauce is a condiment that has been around since Victorian times and Brits put it on everything, but for the purposes of this article I had to actually look up what brown sauce was made of - I quote, “Brown Sauce has a malt vinegar base, blended with tomato, dates, tamarind extract (I thought tamarind was a type of monkey - I don’t think I will touch this sauce again if it has been made from freshly squeezed primates) sweetener (because primates can be bitter) and spices.”
Subsequently I have placed brown sauce bottles in various eating establishments throughout Sauk Centre, so I can now go and have breakfast safe in the knowledge that it will not be lacking in this accompaniment - on each bottle I have written in black sharpie, “Adrian’s sauce, or any other Brit (but passports must be shown)” it appears that I have started to infiltrate various localized eating establishments with Anglo-food condiments in a slow cuisine based invasion of savory sauces, next world domination muuaaaahahahaha.
Embracing Thanksgiving
It was asked of me recently whether or not we celebrate Thanksgiving in Britain, we tend to be a little bit thin on the ground in terms of Native American Indians back in Europe, so this is not a celebration I am familiar with. From what I have seen of Thanksgiving though, I believe it to be the annual convention of eating as many brown colored foods as you can possibly fit onto a single plate: turkey, stuffing, yams, corn, rolls, mash and gravy – this can range from light beige to mahogany on a Menards paint chart. This mountainous sepia tinted feast is then intestinally digested slowly as some kind of football match is watched - where people get overly excited every time a home run is scored; I believe the following day you practice the ancient art of combat shopping.
This week I prepared for winter, this involved the practice of placing warm clothes and a shovel into the trunk of my car, topping up the antifreeze, putting the patio furniture and BBQ set away, and packing up all of my summer clothing into a suitcase for storage. Then I went through the depressingly sad process of saying goodbye to my flip-flop sandals until 2012 - or indeed forever, if you have any religious background that would encompass the ancient Mayan calendar (I want to believe that the world will not end though, because I have barely got any wear out of them).
This process is completely new to me; preparation for winter in Britain involved oiling ones cricket bat and slipping a tortoise into its box (both took place in my house as a child and in no way represent any kind of unsavory euphemisms). It is some measure of my thinking that as a child, when led by the hand to the local pet store, was told that I could have the choice of anything I wanted - I came away with a tortoise. He hibernated for five months of the year so required only looking after for seven twelfths of the year – this was like having a new pet every spring (all gift wrapped in a cardboard box with straw); until one year when we had warm spell followed by another cold spell and he never made it through - even now I tear up when I see an individual meat pot pie.
We used to spend all day together going for long walks, from dawn to dusk, to the gate and back; I would often stick cardboard pentagons on his back like a stegosaurus and use him as a dinosaur in a more sedate version of the film, One Million Years B.C.; I played with him and my G.I Joe’s (we call this toy Action man in Britain) all summer. He was also quite the escape artist too; I once found him five doors further down the street eating dandelions on an unkempt lawn and entertaining a female tortoise – and what happens five doors down, stays five doors down!
Surviving Black Friday
So the snow we had last week has thawed and gone, that wasn’t so bad, I was told the winters were going to be long and very cold; so I guess we can now look forward to the spring with all its nice new buds and green shoots coming through – I don’t know what all the fuss was about.
I spent Thanksgiving volunteering with a fabulous group of people at the local legion, in preparing and serving Thanksgiving meals; I expected the whole process to be a chaotic and busy one, but the day was well organized and ran with military precision - if the United Nations would go about their peacekeeping in the same way, the coalition forces would have been home two years ago. I was placed in charge of the mashed potatoes (so if you ate at the legion on Thursday, or got a take out, and had an issue with the mashed potato part of your meal - you need to contact my legal team). I thought I was well on top of my duties and my ambidextrous nature served me well (the skill of not being able to do things with both hands) – although later that night I did discover mashed potato in my hair?
I was issued with those flimsy, thin, plastic, see-through disposable catering gloves for the mash delivery process; mid-serving I was asked to take a heavy roasting pot out of the big catering oven; I reached inside and removed the dish, only to discover that my gloves had shrink wrapped themselves around my hands and fingers with the intense heat - I spent the next ten minutes annoyingly picking and peeling the extra layer of skin I managed to give myself. It felt like the sensation of when you sleep on your arm and your fingers feel like a bunch of bananas when you touch your face with them (I hope it is not just me that does this, because I would feel silly otherwise).
As an outsider I believe I have learnt that Thanksgiving is a time when Americans realize why they only meet with some members of their family once a year; it is also a golden opportunity to facilitate issues surrounding non-functioning ovens, a burnt, raw, or frozen turkey (delete as appropriate), a surprise vegan guest and the strong feelings and opinions of those seated around the table. One childhood Christmas dinner my Dad threw our festivities into a war zone by innocently turning to me and saying, “Don’t upset your mother and chew up all your gravy” - to this day I’m sure he still doesn’t know what he said wrong. I also learnt that you use the term “gobbler” in reference to an adult turkey – so by this definition, is a baby turkey called a “goblet?”
I managed to spend last Friday in the comfort of my own home; just the name Black Friday makes me not want to embrace the madness of the day. The fact that the word Friday is prefaced with the word black would suggest to me that it is a bad thing - other examples of this convention (and things I would want to avoid) would be: the Black Death, the black widow spider, black holes and the black bear. I would rather pay the money I could have saved, so I could avoid not having to fight with marauding crowds (some armed with pepper spray) and for not having to get up at 3 a.m. (that is worth at least $50 on its own); so big savings can be made in my household by having a peaceful calm morning with a sleepy late start - this I will call “Slack Friday.”
6th December - A Nice New Shiny Coat
This week I shared an experience with millions of others across the nation, in a ceremony that is common to both our countries: I started my advent calendar. Week one tends to start quite slowly, you begin with windows (that when opened) display low level Christmas themed objects, that one could almost say were the props of the Christmas period: tree baubles, a solitary wrapped present with a bow, the simple gift of myrrh - maybe a star.
Week two picks up when you are introduced to the bit-part players (the extras of the nativity tableau) the sort of characters that I ended up playing in the school play - because my talents were very much dormant in 1975: third shepherd, camel, innkeeper, or perhaps a random ruminant (taken by surprise due to all the fuss and commotion of a crying new born baby and the traffic of constant visitors in a normally quiet stable). By the third week we have nicely promoted ourselves into the big hitters: a wise man, Joseph, maybe an angel; from this point on (as you briefly dip into the fourth week) you are on the home stretch, into the giddy world of Mary and mangers.
This week was also marked by the erecting of a Christmas tree in the Lee household, although I quickly discovered that my cat was operating (in deference to my efforts) a nighttime defoliation program that has not been since the Vietnam war - the cat now answers to the name Agent Orange; by the time Christmas rolls around I will be sporting a large twig with a solitary bauble hanging from its half chewed naked bark. She will have to improve dramatically in the behavior department if Santa is going to deliver the Wal-Mart cat stocking this year - complete with plush catnip mouse and plastic ball with bell and feather (the jury is currently out).
Last weekend also saw the start of the Christmas party season, and I visited Wisconsin to meet up with a group of friends; I stayed overnight at their house and showered in an alien bathroom on Saturday morning. In my sleepy somnambulistic state I reached out for a bottle of shampoo that was placed handily on the edge of the bathtub; it had the words aloe vera, tea tree oils, and organic written on its side - so I foamed up my scalp before rinsing thoroughly.
Later in the day (when I was more sentient) I ventured back into the bathroom, only to discover that the words preceding the ones I had previously read that morning said, “Dog Shampoo.” This was the cause of great hilarity to the whole household and comments then came thick and fast – your hair looks nice and shiny, is your nose feeling wet (plus all manner of jibes and jovialities); my wife even asked in the car on the way home if I wanted the window down so I could put my head out! I guess my embarrassment will be complete when I walk down Main Street this week and try to pass the first lamppost; I am now looking forward to a worm and tick free Christmas.
18th December - The Christmas Shopping Experience
I managed to visit the Mall of America this week for the first time; this pre-Christmas shopping experience was like opening the gates of Hades and being pushed in clutching a credit card and a shopping list. Shopping centers in Britain tend to be calm, relaxing, soothing, environments in which to browse and peruse; at the Mall I had a rollercoaster whizzing over my head, the lights, colors and noises usually associated with taking bad LSD, and a delayed physical fatigue that felt like I had played an entire season as a defenseman for the Wild. The parking garage alone was the size of a small European country and I suspected that car crime was probably rife in its farthest, darkest parts (crime in a parking garage is wrong on so many levels).
After a very draining day in this concentration camp of consumerism (formed in an ironic circular route to reflect the sense of going nowhere) I came away not having bought a single item - I have no need for solely beige or navy blue clothing (so GAP was irrelevant) and I have tried wearing baseball caps and Twins t-shirts (in a bid to assimilate) but it really does not suit me - I just look like an Englishman with a baseball cap on. I did think it was very innovative though that they made the floor all around the food court sticky - so blind people would know where they were. Outside of the library last summer I helped a visually impaired lady to cross the road (I am the embodiment of an English gentleman) - I took her by the arm before saying, “Which way do I look first again in this country?” Not the most encouraging statement to make at that time - as I saw the blood drain out of her face.
I saw that Kohl’s, JC Penny, Sears and Macy’s all had a Santa Claus to entice customers into their stores; it is a universal truth that parents tell their children all year long not to go anywhere near strange old men they don’t know - especially those in possession of toys and candy. Then they actively tell their offspring to go and sit on the knee of an unknown guy, who judging by his belly has obviously let himself go and has unkempt facial hair (that could best be described as a creepy disguise); who is harboring the promise of gifts and treats (as Mom and Dad sit by and take photographs). Then the children are informed that he will be coming into their room at night by effectively breaking into the house and will penetrate their bedroom when they are sleeping – that all sounds perfectly reasonable!
In Britain we use the term Father Christmas rather than Santa Claus, and I once had the privilege of helping him get dressed for the giving of presents. My granddad thought it would be a good idea to obtain a Santa Claus costume in order to disguise himself as the philanthropic present giver, so he could provide an awe and wonder moment for my younger cousins. I spent a full hour with him, stuffing his ill fitting costume with pillows, applying the bushy and whimsical beard securely, making his cheeks that rosy rouge glow that we all know and love - my granddad was finally transformed and unrecognizable in his rues. Thus he entered the fore with his sack bulging full of presents for the young awestruck grandchildren that gathered hypnotically around him; he removed the first present from his sack and struggled to read the name of the recipient, my grandmother instantly chipped in and said loudly, “Put your glasses on Ted!”
24th December - The Ghost of Christmas Past
Firstly, on behalf on my country and her Majesty’s government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (although I have no official role) may I wish you all a Merry Christmas – my average day normally consists of diplomatic work on a considerable scale in the area of Anglo-American relations (this is what comes with marrying a Minnesotan girl).
There are several seasonal customs that I will sadly miss this year from my homeland; the Queen’s speech would be one of them. At 3 o’clock on the afternoon of Christmas Day the nation will sit down after dinner to hear what the Queen has to say about the events of the year. This is normally accompanied by my Dad’s lower intestinal tract - as it struggles to ingest the unfamiliar and unusually high roughage content of sprouts; the noises that emanate from his stomach are normally a clear indication to all that any trip to the bathroom (after him) would only now be facilitated by the carrying of a small canary in a cage.
The day after Christmas Day we call Boxing Day (St. Stephen’s Day); this has its traditions and name wrapped up in medieval culture (and has nothing to do with the sport of boxing – although this may be taking place in some households due to the strain of the previous 24 hours). This was the day that my extended family (cousins, aunties and uncles) traditionally went to my grandparent’s house to meet and exchange gifts. My grandmother always put together a buffet for our comestible festivities, this consisted of tradition English faire: mini sausage rolls (flaky pastry wrapped around a small sausage), Twiglets (a savory snack similar to pretzels that resemble twigs), crisps (potato chips), vol-au-vents (I wonder if the French have a word for this), triangular cut cucumber sandwiches, chicken drumsticks, cubed pineapple and cheese on cocktail sticks, a selection of cold meats, cooked prawns, and a traditional Christmas cake (a heavy boozy dark rich fruit cake decorated with hard icing, novelty robins and holly sprigs).
In a moment of sheer boredom (and the devil really does delegate dark artisan tasks for those with little external visual stimuli) I pulled the eye off one of the prawns – and my sister and cousins (all younger than myself) agreed that it looked like a current. Then sitting next to me in a temptation too far (for a ten year old boy) was the Christmas cake; with an accusing proud erect index finger (and with my adoring audience looking on, hardly able to contain themselves in childlike mirth) I pushed the prawn’s eye deep into the cake. Later my grandmother cut the cake into segments and it was distributed liberally around the family in axe head shaped slabs to accompany a cup of tea. In reflection I now liken this incident to a game of Russian roulette – and we shall never know who got the slice with the prawn’s eye.
My sister and I both used to look forward to pulling the wishbone on the turkey that my grandmother saved from the previous day’s meal. On one occasion we both closed our eyes and strained to visualize our own unique wants and needs (mine are long since forgotten, but in 1980 you would not be far away with some Lego, football boots, or a Farah Fawcett calendar). I placed my little finger around the bone and fixed my sister with a steely glare - her thoughts of an etch-a-sketch, doll’s pram, Barbie clothes and a Jamie Summers hair styling boutique were at stake (high odds indeed). We both pulled hard and heard a sharp snapping sound as the wishbone splintered in two, I looked down in optimistic hope, only to see my proportionate half lacking the piece required to make my wish come true - my heart sank; my sister looked at hers and also had what could be described as a losing hand. We both tentatively looked upwards and saw the missing piece firmly wedged into the foam ceiling tile high above us like an arrowhead, neither of us got a wish that Christmas; perhaps we just weren’t well behaved that year - but I find that hard to believe!
25th December - A Dog is Just for Christmas
Last week I experienced an occurrence that I was underprepared for; I had just got up and was in the process of making the first cup of tea of the day - before undertaking my ablutions. I then thought it would be providential to step out into the garage and get my car started - so it had a chance to warm up (an undertaking I had never embrace before I came to Minnesota). As I ventured onto the freezing sobering concrete of the garage floor and edged my way along the side of the car (wearing nothing but my boxer shorts and slippers) the lights went out; throwing me into complete darkness. I fumbled to press the handheld button that operates the garage door, hoping this salvation would provide light to illuminate my path, but alas this operation was also redundant – it was a power cut. I stumbled around in the darkness falling over the empty Christmas decoration boxes and all manner of stored gardening equipment; I also happened to get indelicately interfered with by a snow shovel (it hadn’t even bought me dinner or taken me to the cinema). I struggled to find my bearings in this sensory deprived environment, panicked thoughts of being trapped fleetingly went through my mind; I was not even sure whether I could pull the garage door up – using a mixture of brute force and blind luck.
As I stood lost in the darkness, I wondered how long this situation would be incumbent upon me, and then mused whether that half eaten Twinkie (that got away from my back in October) would still be under the passenger’s seat somewhere. I finally managed to edge my way back to the door that led to the warmth and sanctuary of my house (without receiving any further assaults) - where a nice warm cup of tea would not be waiting for me.
On Christmas Day morning I once again made the familiar journey from the bedroom to the kitchen - as is the convention to starting my day. As a rubbed my bleary eyes in the semi-darkness of the day’s dawn, I noticed (out of the corner of my gaze) what I thought was the outline of a motionless large black dog - just standing in the hallway looking at me (may I add at this juncture that I do not own a dog - just a cat of high maintenance). As I stood staring at the shadowy canine shape, wondering what fanciful illusions my still sleepy unconscious was trying to trick me with, I started to get a little scared - it is never a good omen for a successful Christmas period to find yourself followed around by a phantom hellhound – and is one expected to feed such a thing? As I started to gain more sentience, I realized that I had invited a friend from Chicago to come and stay with us for Christmas; I had left the front door unlocked for him that night as I knew he would be arriving in the early hours of the morning - after his long drive. I then recalled somewhere in the back of my mind that he had asked to bring his dog with him (this conversation happened several weeks ago and had been lost to my knowledge during the intervening days of Christmas preparation); the dog was in fact called Chewie (in reference to the Star Wars character).
For those of you under the age of thirty, Star Wars was a science fiction fantasy film from the 1970s, where the evil British imperialistic forces (played by David Prowse and Peter Cushing) go up against the good American actors and two subjugated British droids (Kenny Baker and Anthony Daniels). I genuinely believe that mornings are now best avoided in my household.
31st December - My New Year’s Resolution
Another year has passed us by - and I genuinely believe it is a sign of getting old that I think a decade ago was the early 90s. I will be missing the New Year’s tradition of my home city of London, this is a time when 250,000 people gather along the River Thames to hear Big Ben chime midnight – this instigates a ten minute firework display around and above the London Eye (a giant Ferris wheel); normally accompanied by a few drunken verses of Auld Land Syne (where everybody holds hands) - Auld Lang Syne was partially written by the Scottish poet Robert Burns in the 1700's, it literally means “old long ago,” or simply, “the good old days.” It is around this time that my father manages to get his fingers trodden on, during his way home from the pub.
It is interesting to me that many of my recollections of New Year’s Eve revolve around my family. One incident sticks firmly in my mind when I happened to be driving home late in the early hours of the morning - with my inebriated father by my side (I don’t drink so I am always the designated driver – it is amazing how many friends this can make you). I was randomly pulled over by a policeman on a routine patrol, who was checking for those drinking and driving; as I wound down the window he asked me where I was going. My father, in an intoxicated slur, leaned over across me and said, “We are on our way to a lecture.” The policeman sarcastically enquired, “And who on earth, in their right mind, is going to give a lecture at this time on New Year's Eve?” My father grimly replied, “My wife!”
The Romans originally dedicated New Year’s Day to Janus, the god of gates, doors, and beginnings (the month of January owes its name to this deity); Janus had two faces - one looking forward and the other looking back. January 1st was given special significance by the Romans; this came about after Julius Caesar reformed the calendar in 46 BC - after Caesar was murdered the Roman Senate voted to honor his life on January 1, 42 BC and to commemorate his achievement of introducing the new rationalized calendar.
So with the concept of looking forward and to new beginnings, I have put together a list of New Year’s resolutions on behalf of my cat - as I feel she needs them more than I do: I will not chew red crayons or pens - because my master will think that I am hemorrhaging, I will not roll my toys behind the fridge, I will not steal my master’s underwear from the bedroom and run around the backyard with it, I will not pull all of the stuffing out of the back of the armchair, I will not paw the television by following the ball when there is an important soccer match being played (I am sure many of you will be thinking: is there such a thing as an important soccer match) and finally, I will realize that the potpourri placed around the house in little bowls is not dry cat food.
Perhaps my resolution will be to rely less heavily on my use of the semi colon; although I do find resolutions very hard to keep.
1st January - A Year in the Making
I have now been permanently residing in Sauk Centre for exactly a year (and each week you have been getting a glimpse into my own personal diary – without the worry of breaking into my house and riffling through my underwear draw); so this week, I will reflect on the many things I have learned and discovered throughout the last twelve months - as a stranger in a strange land.
Let me start by saying that I can now expertly distinguish between the differing smells of turkey, cow and pig defecation – a skill that had been lying dormant in me, as I had not previously been exposed to such olfactory sensations in east London. I have now realized that snow can come in many different shapes, temperatures and textures, and I quickly came to understand that a bottle of water left in the car overnight freezes solid like concrete (do you think anyone has ever considered the concept of bludgeoning someone to death with the frozen hard blunt aqueous item – then drunk the murder weapon an hour later to avoid detection?)
I discovered (early on during my residency) that it actually takes Americans by surprise and alarm when I go to kiss them on both cheeks (as is the norm in Europe when greeting people) - even some of the ladies seemed shocked!
On a lower cultural level, I am now fully conversant and informed as to what a wedgie actually comprises of, and what the term to pants somebody means - which I believe in many respects (and correct me if I am wrong) is the direct opposite of a wedgie. If the action to pants somebody actually took place in any random English playground (among bored angst ridden teenagers) I believe we would probably refer to it as a “polemic dichotomous wedge inversion in a poor unfortunate’s undergarments.” I am also now sadly aware, through the trauma of personal experience, of what a wet willy comprises of.
I have added to my vocabulary since I arrived here by embracing the terms “boohay” and “uff da” – neither of which appears to have any documented meaning in any dictionary I can find. In general I have found the lack of consistency in the way words are spelt to be confounding and a distraction; I noticed that you leave out the ‘u’ when spelling words like: honor, color, parlor, odor and labor, for example. So I subsequently removed the ‘u’ from my text under those circumstances, only to find myself driving past a sign that says liquor store. I see that you also swap the ‘r’ and the ‘e’ around for words like: center, liter, theatre and meter; I then find myself living in Sauk Centre.
I have found that I can actually send a room into an apoplectic eruption of laughter, by just uttering the word “squirrel.” I have been informed that I make the fatal error of pronouncing properly all of the letters in the words I speak - especially when there are two of the same letters together in the middle of the word; I believe you would say something like “squirl.” The way you pronounce these words is still a mystery to me, but I am hoping to get beter at it son.