My last image of America is this, the flags of the State of New York, Canada, and the United States flying together outside a truck stop restroom. After four years of suckling at the teat of American freedom (Not being able to drink until the age of 21, the lack of free healthcare, etc.) I was heading home to a place that does not feel so much like home. I am hyper-aware of American dysfunction, reading the newspaper any day alerted me to new crises like the impending collapse of the debt ceiling or the increasingly strict immigration laws passed in Arizona, but despite my moral objection to the American political climate, I genuinely liked the US. It's where I went to school and worked for the past four years, and where all my friends live. It's where New York City is! During my stay in the US I had the opportunity to live in the economic and political capitals of the American Empire, (New York City and Washington DC respectively) and now I'm exiled to its cleaner, blander Northern franchise.
Despite mortgaging out my future and ensuring I'll spend the next decade in debt, I'm glad I came to Cornell. It was a launching pad to some great experiences, but the best thing that resulted from me being at Cornell was being constantly out of my comfort zone. When I first went away to school I didn't know anyone in the entire country, let alone at the school, a situation I wouldn't have been in had I stayed in Canada. And whether going to frat parties with free beer and dogs, or going to classes where I felt intellectually inadequate, I was out of my element frequently at Cornell, and that was a good thing. I felt uncomfortable and insecure at Upper East Side penthouse dinner parties, at boozy football tailgates, and strangers' house parties in Collegetown, all because of Cornell. Being uncomfortable all those times was useful, and now I relish embarrassment and making a fool of myself, or I don't feel so bad about it.
My last meal in America was at that great culinary institution, the Cracker Barrel! It is the essence of American Exceptionalism distilled into a roadside eatery. When one enters, they are sequestered in a gift shop, modeled upon a old-time General Store, where one can purchase penny candy, moon pies, and Dolly Parton CDs. Of course, it is the food that attracts the customers, and the Cracker Barrel serves American delicacies like fried chicken, sweet tea, and biscuits. I ordered the Chicken 'n' Dumplings, a white on white on white creation that tastes better than it looks. One of the things I will miss most about the USA (other than freedom) is sweet tea! American sweet tea is real brewed tea, an elixir that surely Jesus Christ himself would drink if he could. Yet in Canada, ordering "Iced Tea" in a restaurant will cause the waiter to serve you a sweet brown sugar water that has as much to do with tea as MTV's "Teen Mom" has to do with maternal love and common-sense. The Cracker Barrel is concentrated Americana, it is what Sarah Palin is talking about when she espouses the "Real America", it's a commercialized nostalgia for a particular time and geographic location that never existed. Regardless of that, if one is looking for America, look no further than the interstate Cracker Barrel.
I'll miss the US and its plethora of fast-food chains, but I look forward to getting to know Toronto again. I moved away when I was 17, so I've never seen Toronto as an adult. I'll give it a try, and while I doubt it's "New York run by the Swiss" or the "New York of the North" as some cliches say, it is perhaps at least "Milwaukee run by the Swiss", or maybe the "Philadelphia of the North". We'll see!
No comments:
Post a Comment