LETTER FROM AMERICA

[Stanley]

LETTER FROM AMERICA

I thought we’d have a bit of a change this week because I’m not in Barlick but in Northfield, Minnesota in the upper mid-west of America staying with friends. I know that everyone is well travelled nowadays but I suspect that few people actually stay in one small American town for six weeks and in my experience, this gives an entirely different view of a country.
Northfield is forty miles south of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul and is about the size of Barlick. Like most of the small towns in this part of the country it started as an ethnic town, most of the original inhabitants were the same nationality, in Northfield’s case, Norwegian. You don’t have to be a genius to work out where the people who founded the neighbouring towns of Prague and New Ulm came from! The area’s main industry is rearing dairy cattle and growing corn (maize) but a very profitable subsidiary industry that has grown up is education, it has two of the largest private colleges (The equivalent of a university in the UK.) in the state within its boundaries and this helps the local economy.
The locals have a lot in common with Barlickers, they have their own ideas, don’t take kindly to strangers unless they prove themselves to be worthy of attention and they make jokes about themselves. One of these is the fact that nobody in town uses their indicators while driving around because everyone knows where they are going and which way they are going to turn! They are also incredibly polite, there is a concept here called ‘Minnesota Nice’ and it shows, I’ve never been called ‘Sir’ as many times in my life and everyone speaks to you or at least acknowledges you when you meet them on the street. Because I stay with two people who teach at Carleton College it is assumed I am a visiting professor and so I get the honorary title and people greet me with ‘Good morning Professor’ which does my self-esteem no end of good!
The local paper carries a ‘Police Report’ every week that lists all the incidents that the local police have dealt with. It makes hilarious reading for anyone from the UK because the ‘crimes’ are on the whole so trivial. ‘Driver of car containing four drunken men was found to be sober’ is a good example. People here lock their doors when they go out or retire to bed but are nowhere near as security conscious as we have to be in Barlick.
Northfield is very similar to Barlick twenty years ago in that there is a very good selection of shops in the centre of the town. However, there are disturbing signs that large stores on the outskirts are going to have an adverse affect on the town’s centre. There is already a Wal-Mart, the firm that has just taken over Asda in Britain, on the outskirts of town and Target are building a mall as well. It’s difficult to see how these big stores will not damage the smaller shops in the centre of the town. There is a wonderful drapery and outfitters shop on the main street run by a man called Bob Jacobsen and his family which sells everything from a dish cloth to a wedding suit, just the sort of store any town needs. I was talking to Bob the other day and he admitted that Target would make it much harder for them to stay in business. I know that the big stores represent progress and cheaper goods but there is a price to pay and it may be that small independent businesses may have to pay with their existence. Try buying a shirt or a pair of boots in Barlick and you will see what I mean.
Incidentally, Bob Jacobsen was with the 100th Bomber Group stationed at Diss in Norfolk during the war. He was a tail-gunner in a B17 and did almost three tours, 35 missions. The life expectancy of those blokes was 5½ missions so in my book that makes Bob a hero, we tend to forget that these people are still around and how much we owe them. I often point out to the students I teach at the college that when Bob was their age he was facing death on a daily basis. It’s always news to them.
One thing that Northfield has which we have lost in Barlick is the railway, it has one of the branches of the original Rock Island Line of Lonnie Donnigan fame. Like all small American towns this means level crossings. The reason for this is that the US railways were so long that far cheaper methods of construction had to be used to make them economical. Where we would have built embankments and stone bridges to allow road traffic to cross the railway the Americans just erect a sign that says ‘Railway Crossing’. All trains have to warn traffic that they are approaching by sounding their siren and as there are five crossings close together in Northfield this means that at any time of the day or night there can be a train passing and sounding it’s siren for every crossing. These are the big multiple note air horns and to anyone reared on American movies it is a very evocative sound, there’s one passing as I write this. The wonderful thing is that you get used to this and never hear them during the night. The trains are all carrying freight, there is no passenger service, and they are enormous sometimes needing four engines to pull them. Waiting at a level crossing can become a serious matter when one of these monsters crosses the street if you are late.
A visitor from England would find nothing surprising about the roads in the town and the main roads, they are all black top or concrete. However, the side roads and country roads are mostly dirt roads, no tarmac. You can always tell whether someone lives down one of these roads, their vehicle carries the evidence! Many people live out of town and have a few acres for gardens or animals. This is the biggest difference between Northfield and Barlick, there is so much room. At first everything seems to be sprawled across the landscape but then you realise that they have no need to crowd together. A good example is the width of parking spaces in a supermarket lot, there is plenty of room to open the door and get out without catching the car next to you. Mind you, when you consider that some of the vehicles parking are the biggest pick-up trucks in the world they need the space. I saw one the other day that could carry three tons in the back or tow a trailer carrying eight horses, big boys, big toys!
I realise that I begin to sound like an advert for the US tourist board but I’ve been coming here on and off for over twelve years now and really feel comfortable in the place. The only time I had any worries at all was when I was walking home one night and I knew that there was a raccoon living in the base of one of the trees I had to pass. So what I hear you say, raccoons aren’t that big! True, but I had just learned that some of them were rabid and was feeling a trifle insecure. Later that night I was having a smoke on the porch in the dark before going to bed and realised I was not alone, there was an animal just next to me. I got the toe of my boot underneath it and lifted it into the air off the porch. It was at this point I realised it was the household cat but by this time a very surprised moggy was learning how to fly over the lawn. It gave a yowl and ran off and I had to confess all to my hosts who thought it was hilarious. The cat arrived home for breakfast the next morning as though nothing had happened so that was alright.
The weather here is nothing like Barlick. They have very cold winters even though they are ten degrees further south than us. They measure the severity of the weather by how far the frost penetrates into the ground, this winter has been mild, it was only 39 inches! Spring comes suddenly at the beginning of May and today, May 5th, I’m writing this in a temperature of 90 degrees. The farmers are all planting corn and it will be 'knee high by the 4th of July' and harvested in September. The speed of growth is accounted for by the hot weather and frequent thunderstorms, you can almost see things growing if you sit still long enough! We’ve thunder forecast for tomorrow and if previous experience is anything to go by they can be spectacular. The TV has a channel devoted to showing the Doppler radar picture for the area. This might sound like over reaction but we are at the top end of ‘Tornado Alley’ and if one of these big storms is about you need to know. The ‘cells’ that spawn tornadoes are associated with big thunderstorms and last year we were sat on the porch watching a storm centred on Northfield that was 150 miles across and the actual thunderhead was 12 miles high! We had a big wind and torrential rain but nothing worse. At times like this you listen for the siren, just like the war at home and when you hear it you go into the cellar, the only relatively safe place. The power of these winds is fantastic. A friend of mine from Iowa told me that he still gets his father’s books returned to him by people who have found them in the fields where they were transported by the tornado which destroyed his family home, one of them was 270 miles from where the house was that was struck. So, rest easy, we may not have 90 degrees in May but we don’t get tornadoes either, swings and roundabouts.
One last thing before they throw me off the page for this week, America has never heard of metrication and what a good thing this is. I realise that younger readers are more at home in metric than imperial but to us crumblies there is something alien about the new measures. Here they are still using feet and inches, pounds and ounces and gallons and pints. For the engineers amongst you, they are still working with their version of the Whitworth and BSF threads as well!
Right, that’s enough for this week. Just to reassure all my friends in Barlick that even though I am so happy here I’m homesick for my own neck of the woods. They don’t have hills here, you can’t lift your eyes and see the Weets and most of all, they don’t have my Jack Russell bitch Eigg either, there are prices to pay for everything and if there is one thing I miss more than anything else it’s that faithful little dog. If Julie, Philip and the kids read this, give her a cuddle from me and let her sleep with David! Best to you all, I’ll be back in late June.

5th May 2000

[Tripps]

This is a remarkable piece of creative writing - and makes up for hundreds of'chicken and veg times threes'.

Brings all sorts of thoughts to mind. I doubt I'm bright enough to raise them properly, but I know what I mean.

"there is a concept here called ‘Minnesota Nice’ and it shows" Could do with some more of it now.

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I doubt that it would not be allowed in a modern university piece of work, as not being sufficiently "woke". Mention that the original inhabitants were largely of Norwegian origin would be deemed racist and thus "haram".

We learn lately that there is a large group of Somalians who have adopted Minneapolis as home. Questions about this group were asked last week in Congress. Minneapolis Somalians

There have been widespread reports of fraud in the matter of paid for care for children - largely comitted by this group. See here Minnesota fraud

The situation has been mentioned by President Trump in the last few days. No link as it will offend some on here. Easy to find however.

None of that takes away the quality of this piece of writing though - and I thank you for it.

PS In view of the fact that Minneapolis is in the headllines, perhaps a wider audience at this time would be good for this piece. Where though? I'd say The Spectator, or Conservative Woman blog perhaps.

[Stanley]

Thank you David..... feel free to copy and disseminate as you will.....