Road trip time

7 05 2015

So where do I start (again)?

Loyal readers will keel over in shock that this blog has once again risen from the dead. Last year I promised pithy commentary on a regular schedule but just trying to sort through my thoughts completely stressed me out. I left you all on the edge of your seats on Opening Day 2014 at Fenway Park. Hope none of you fell off. (And after their World Series victory in 2013, the Red Sox had a disastrous year.)

Not making any such promises this time around.

It’s road trip time. Two years in Boston have come to a mostly satisfying close… satisfying in the sense that we all survived the winter from hell without freezing to death or by killing ourselves while jumping from windows into 25-foot banks of snow. I have no idea how human civilization has thrived in these latitudes for so long.

It is time to move on and resettle in a more habitable place. We are transferring to San Francisco. And to get there we have decided on a typical ‘Murcan thing to do: Road trip.

5,000 miles, 16 states, 18 days.

5,000 miles, 16 states, 18 days.

The Dalai Lama says everyone should visit at least one new place every year. Our route will take us through the heartland… and to a bunch of places this Yankee has certainly never been. I honestly can’t remember when I last set foot in a red state and in the next couple of weeks I will probably spend more time in them than I may wish to remember. But on the other hand I’ll be seeing some great old friends and anyway, it’s important to separate the politics from the place, right? There’s a lot of beauty out there in the middle of the country – Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Arches National Park – in addition to the right honorable hog-castrating Senator from the great state of Iowa.

(And by the way, I do personally know some Oklahomans who would vote for Elizabeth Warren in a heartbeat. So much for stereotypes.)

So as three guys from a moving company load our worldly possessions onto a tractor-trailor that we hope to meet in one piece on the left coast three weeks from today, I want to write about some of the stuff we will see, smell and experience as we cross this vast continent from east to west. I’ve never traveled coast-to-coast by land, and I am sure I will learn a lot of really cool things along the way.

Because the journey is the destination. And because as one friend said to me recently: “….You can’t really know America until you have driven across it.”


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Categories : Americana, Cruisin'

Opening Day at Fenway Park

5 04 2014

My employer has four season tickets to home games of the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park. And one of the perks is that employees of all levels on the food chain get to use these tickets (for free), most of the time all you have to do is ask nicely. Of course, sometimes some client entertaining has to be done, so on game day one might discover that one’s planned afternoon or evening at the ballpark has fallen through at the last moment. That’s fair, though. The seats are in the 12th row just behind 3rd base. I can see why clients would want to go.

But sometimes, regular old staff like me gets lucky.

Yesterday was Opening Day. The 2013 World Series Champion Boston Red Sox came home to begin another season. It was an afternoon game, with the official celebration and “ring ceremony” – where the players from last year’s team pick up their official championship bling, beginning at 1pm.

Famous Fenway Park.

What more American thing is there to do than go to a ballgame at one of the oldest and most storied ballparks in the country? And what more American of American things to do than go to a ballgame at one of the oldest and most storied ballparks in the country on Opening Day? Lest we forget, last year’s Opening Day at Fenway happened just hours before the Marathon bombings. And of course everyone here in Boston can tell you where they were during the fairytale worst-to-first World Series run last October that made the city whole again.

So Friday morning, as part of a planned office meeting, leadership held a raffle, with the four coveted tickets going to four lucky winners. And… I won a ticket to Opening Day.

The pregame festivities were emotionally-laden and full of symbolism; they included bombing victims and first responders, as well as a salute to the city’s firefighters, after two of them died in a blaze not far from Fenway last week. A Coast Guard helicopter buzzed the 36,000 fans in a very-low-altitude flyover. The pennant was raised to great fanfare. The Boston Pops teamed up with the Dropkick Murphys for the national anthem. The old mayor tossed the ball to the new mayor, who threw the first pitch. The game was not exactly an afterthought, but it was a bit of an anticlimax, with the players and the fans fairly spent. The Sox lost to the Brewers 6-2.

How totally cool is this?

How totally cool is this?

So what did I make of it? Without getting too slushy or overly patriotic – it was an unforgettable day I was absolutely thrilled to experience. And I’m not sure that any of my friends overseas can understand the bond that links me to all of this. This is a small part of why I came back to the States after all these years.

An old dear friend needed just two words to sum up everything I felt, reducing me to tears. She said, simply: “Welcome home.”


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Categories : Americana, Just another working stiff, This & that in the real world

Seeing “home” through a different lens

5 07 2012

It was Independence Day this week, the day when all red-blooded ‘Mericans – at home and abroad – celebrate with fireworks and barbecues and the red-white-and-blue. On July 4th 236 years ago a bunch of smart guys in wigs and knickerbockers told the Brits to go stuff it, and founded their own country.

Recycled t-shirt.

I am also one of those who celebrated with a slab of seared beef and a fine bottle of California Cabernet Sauvignon. But I live overseas. No fireworks show on TV or outside my window, not even a sparkler within reach. But that makes me no less American. The U.S. is my home, Europe is where I am currently living.

Why? It just kind of happened that way. I finished my Master’s degree in 1992, just as the first George Bush was wreaking havoc on the economy. I couldn’t find a job at home so I took off and found a career elsewhere. But I have every intention of returning someday.

So for the past 20 years I have observed life in America from across the pond, sometimes with amusement and sometimes with disillusionment. Sometimes with envy and sometimes with sadness. Often, I wonder just how much it has changed in these years I have lived abroad, and if I will ever feel at home there again.

An squabble on Facebook overnight prompted me to think about this once again, intensely. A FB friend of mine, surely blinded by the sudden rediscovered patriotism that hits every American squarely in the gut as s/he watches fireworks over the Washington Mall and hears emotional renditions of the Star Spangled Banner, posted this comment:

Watching the DC July 4 show on TV. Every year it overwhelms me. I am honored and proud to be an American. Can someone explain to me why we are now trying to become Europe? We have fought long and hard for the freedoms and privileges of this beautiful, free country!

A wise woman friend of hers responded a short time later:

I don’t think I follow you. I think we’re just trying to secure an equal opportunity for a happy and healthy future for ALL our citizens, not just the wealthy ones.

It was July 5th by the time I saw these and added my own two cents:

Not quite following either… Last time I looked, Europe was also beautiful and free… Wouldn’t be living here if it wasn’t!

Upon which I got this slap in the face from the original poster:

The economics don’t work. And the resulting entitlement is disastrous. My immigrant grandparents would be disappointed.

And I’m thinking … “Lady, have you ever even been to Europe? Do you even know what the hell you are talking about? Could you locate Europe on a map? And your immigrant grandparents – they probably had really good reasons for leaving Europe during the Second World War… sooooo… what’s your point, exactly?”

This same FB friend already reproached me last week for celebrating the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare, writing something to the effect of: “Those of us who have to pay aren’t happy about this at all.”

Of course, this could just be a single slanted opinion from a single self-centered person. But I get the sneaky feeling that there are a whole bunch of folks in the U.S. who think this way.

So I am asking myself today – what happened to the solidarity and the kindness and the helpful, open, optimistic and accepting attitude I always remember Americans by? What happened to the mutual support, the looking out for one another, the spontaneous neighborliness and the caring for strangers that I remember from growing up in a small community in the Northeast? What happened to them? Where did they go?

Maybe I just need to de-friend this person on FB. But when I finally do find a way to live and exist in the United States again, with some kind of financial security, when I find a job I can live off of, with guaranteed health insurance and a pension that I will work hard for, that will still be there when I retire, whenever and wherever that may be: is this the kind of selfishness and ignorance I’m going to have to deal with? Is everyone like this? Will I even recognize this place anymore? This place I’ve always called “home”?


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Categories : Americana, Blood relations, Cruisin', EuroTrash, This & that in the real world

Oh, Chicago!

15 04 2012

One of the Dalai Lama’s rules for living a good and wholesome life is: Visit at least one new place a year. Or something like that.

So I went to Chicago.

The view from my hotel window on the 22nd floor.

I had never been to the mid-west, other than changing planes at O’Hare once, maybe 15 years ago. (With the exception of a week-long trip to Winnipeg for my best friend’s wedding in 2000. But that’s Canada. Doesn’t count.) And I will be honest, Chicago was not really at the top of my list of new places to go. It just so happens that the company I work for has its U.S. headquarters there, and the company sent me on a business trip. So I went.

As your typical Northeast-Mid-Atlantic-I-95-corridor-sophisticate, I never gave my country’s heartland a second thought. All these years I thought there was just lots of white space and corn fields and cowboys between where DC ended (Georgetown) and the San Francisco Bay Area started (Berkeley). Heck, until five years ago, I had never even been to San Francisco, either. So here I thought there was just 3,000 miles of nothingness between the left and right coasts. I guess I started taking note of Chicago when Barack Obama emerged as a potential presidential candidate in 2007-ish. But I never really felt like I had to go there.

So on my first trip to Chicago, I arrived last Sunday with zero expectations and was open for, you know, whatever. And I was really impressed. The first Chicagoan (or is it Chicagoite?) I met was friendly and  helpful, showing me how to use the ticket machines to buy a fare on the L. The second one I met, as I got on the train, wished me a great time in his fair city.

I called an old friend of mine I hadn’t seen in more than eight years – a native of the South Side who moved back after years away to work as a television producer for a major national network. He drove me up and down Lake Shore Drive, showed me all the sights – at least from afar – and fed me a Chicago deep-dish pizza (basically a cheese quiche with a half-inch of tomato sauce on top) in his neighborhood pizza parlor, as we caught up on each other’s histories.

On day two he took me to the 27th floor of some ritzy downtown hotel and we drank very expensive whiskey and prosecco while gazing out the floor-to-ceiling windows, as twilight fell upon the bustling city below and all around us.

The Loop from high up.

(Yes, I did go to the office, too, and met lots of really nice folks there as well. Mid-westerners, mostly.)

What a great surprise, getting to know this cool city under brilliant springtime sunshine, as well the wind that gives the place it’s nickname. Giving rise to the thought that I’m not sure I’d want to spend a winter there.

And I realized once again that the Dalai Lama is a really smart guy.


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Categories : Americana, Cruisin', Just another working stiff, This & that in the real world

Jake sets sail

11 03 2012

A very good friend of mine, let’s call him Jake, will be leaving his family soon on a seven-month journey that will take him to the other side of the planet.

He is doing this not completely voluntarily, because it’s part of his job. Jake is an officer in the U.S. Navy, and his ship is about to depart on a long military deployment.

I met Jake almost ten years ago, on a different Navy ship, just off the coast of Kuwait, its iconic city skyline on the horizon on the starboard side. Back then, he was a member of the crew and I was a journalist, and we watched the politics of the region heat up from front-row seats. The ground war in Iraq was a few months away but the conflict had claimed its first lives already.

Kuwaiti sunset, October 8, 2002

Jake and I kept in touch and we became really good friends. I got to know and love his parents, his wife and their two cool daughters, too. We visited each other – I traveled to both coasts of the United States to see them, they came to Europe to see us. They played a very important role at my wedding.

On a hot night in 2003, Jake, living in San Diego at the time, was my last link to the outside world as I sat in the back of an SUV, speeding through the darkness to Iraq from Amman, Jordan. We carried on a conversation by SMS until I got a few kilometers inside the border. Our chatting across 11 time zones ended abruptly as the sun began to rise, and I slipped out from under Jordanian cell phone coverage.

Iraqi sunrise, August 8, 2003

Nine years ago this month, the world saw a superpower and a dictator posturing for the public. The dictator lost on the first night of hellfire in Baghdad. Woe to those who try to tangle with the biggest military might in the world.

The politics of the region are, once again, in turmoil. The names of the places and the actors are different, but the anger behind it is similar. This new (and still verbal) conflict has very sinister undertones – there is talk of nuclear weapons for the first time since the Cold War ended. And Jake and his shipmates are sailing into the thick of it again.

It’s his fourth or fifth multi-month cruise in something like 12 years, and while I do understand his commitment and service to his country, I wonder how much more of this he and his family will be forced to endure. His father passed away recently, and he will miss his oldest daughter’s high school graduation this Spring. Last year she turned 18 without him… because he was underway.

I wish Jake – and the thousands of military personnel he sails with – Godspeed; that they return home physically and psychologically unscathed.  For the families and friends they leave behind, the wait will be a long one.


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Categories : Americana, Just another working stiff, This & that in the real world

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