Notes Upon Re-entry

We are back in the US of A! Did anyone miss us? Did anybody notice we were gone? 6 years. To quote Simon, “Six years is forever when you are seven.”

So this is what is hitting me upon being back to the US, I don’t mean any of this in a judgmental way, truly just observational:

• File this one under Profound Observations of the Obsurdly Obvious but still...lots of American accents here in the USA. I am not unique or exotic anymore.

• Checks. Places still accept checks for payment. It seems so provincial – a harkening back to a time of trust. I am having trouble remembering how to fill in a check.

• Did I get skinny or did Americans get really fat? The ploy I introduced back in 1987 to offer cookies and candy bars to everyone to help them get fat so I would look smaller in comparison really took off. Little did I realize McDonald's had the same strategy…and Burger King, and KFC, and Chick Fillet. I feel positively svelte. Think I will have another piece of chocolate cake.

• Drivers in this country are tough. In the past 3 weeks I have driven in NY, NJ, PA, VA, CT, SC, NC, GA, VT, DE and AZ and the M.O. seems to be “Don’t use your signals (clickers? indicators?) because that is giving the enemy information”. In the UK when someone turns on their signal showing they would like to move over a lane, the person in the next lane slows down and…lets them in! Horrors! In the US once you turn on your clicker it is a challenge for your fellow racers on the interstate – drive faster and close the gap between cars.

• Miss Wendy. They call me Miss Wendy in the American South.

• God is everywhere. Complete strangers are ready, willing and able …not to mention excited...to talk about their personnel experience with the Lord Jesus Christ. I was waiting to get the car repaired in Atlanta off Peachtree Industrial. The television was turned on to the 700 Club and a man was giving testimony to how the horrible facial rash that had plagued him for years disappeared once he found prayer.

I watched this for about 30 seconds and could hardly contain my surprise on a varity of levels: 1. There was a clean waiting room; 2. There was a working television; and 3. There was a God program playing. I was giving myself a little snicker thinking of how different this experience was to CB Motors in London under the train bridge where I use to bring our car and there was no waiting room, let alone a TV, when my fellow waiting room attendee in Atlanta brought me back to the hear and now by asking, “Ma’am do you believe?”

I am thinking to myself, “No. This guy can’t really be asking me if I believe in God? In a car dealerships waiting area?” I was wrong. And it wasn’t the Lord God he was interested in – it was the Lord God Jesus Christ. Did I have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ? I would have been happy to talk about God, how wonderful it was that he found something, but no, he didn’t want a discussion. He wanted an audience. It takes a lot to shut me down. I was shut down.

• Can we talk restrooms - I am talking public restrooms here? Clean! Even the one at the park, the gas station, Jones Beach on Long Island. Ahhh, I am back in the land of 2 ply toilet paper.

To paraphrase Lee Greenwood, “ I am proud to be an American where the public restrooms are clean.”