Strangers in Paradise

  

  When anybody asks me what it feels like to be a Brit in America, I immediately think of a simple one word reply.....WELCOME. Joy and I have been living in the USA for 43 years and, even to this day, when meeting new people and they realize we are from Britain, (I wonder how they know?), they seem to go out of their way to make us feel welcome. This has to be the most welcoming country in the world.

  In August of 1966, the company that I worked for in England sent me to work at the parent company on Long Island, New York for four months. I brought Joy with me and we lived in a motel on the north shore at Bayville. That was one of the best times of our lives. The fun and experiences we had on that trip would be the making of a full novel. During the trip, we both came to the same conclusion "you know, this is a really nice place despite what Hollywood shows us." In some ways, this sums up the whole experience.
  About the same time as this trip, the airplane industry in Great Britain took an economic nosedive which continued for quite a while. At the same time, the "brain drain" of engineers from Europe to the USA had started and I was hired by Boeing to come to Seattle to work. So, in January 1968, we came to the Seattle area to live and start a whole new life. That was the best decision of our lives.

  Well, what was it like coming to the USA? 
  When we first arrived in Seattle, we learned that a dock strike on the east coast had kidnapped our furniture coming from England. Thirteen weeks later, it finally arrived on the west coast. We found a furnished flat (Oops - apartment) to live in near Kent and moved in there in the interim. Several other families from the UK were there also. We are still friendly with all of them except one, but they were in Group One (explanation anon). The second evening in the Pacific Northwest, we went out looking at cars and we bought a new Ford Torino GT, a beautiful lime-gold fastback which was sheer luxury compared with the Ford Cortina I drove in England. It cost $3340!
  We were both wine lovers and drank wine whenever we could afford it. Probably once a week in the UK. But here, we could drink it every day. We weren't too fussy about the wine for casual drinking, so we bought it in these huge 55 gallon jugs. (Well, actually, they were only 1 gallon!) from wineries like Eleven Cellars or Italian Swiss Colony. These huge jugs didn't go far though while we were all drinking around a big, log fire when camping.
  We found a new house in Kirkland in an area called High Woodlands. We had a large house in England but this one was nearly twice the size. It had three bedrooms. If we needed to pee in the night, we could just walk into the bathroom without negotiating any hallways. We had a whole extra room called a family room. What did we need two living rooms for? Who cares, we'll take it!We had a 2 1/2 car garage, but we weren't planning on buying half a car.
  We could eat beef every day if we wanted to. We found we had great neighbors who taught Joy how to do Mexican and Japanese cooking. It was a great life.
  We had indeed arrived. We were living in paradise.


  So, what's it like to be a Briton living in America?
  Let me think about that. In the first few years we were in this country, we would frequently discuss this topic with fellow expatriates at Boeing and it transpired that there were three different groups of people who came to this country at that time for different reasons. Group One is difficult to understand. I really don't know why they came in the first place. They always seemed ready to complain about anything and they typically only stayed in the USA for about 18 months, then went back to the UK.
  The Group Two people sometimes would say openly that they came here to save some money, then go home to the UK and buy a nice house and have some cash on hand. You could tell these people by the old clunkers they drove and the fact that they ate only hamburgers. They generally were here up to six years but some started to go home after about two to three years.
   Group Three is by far the largest group. You would not normally hear them complaining about something they could not change anyway. They used to say that, if you are here beyond six years, you are here for life. Virtually all of Group Three are now US citizens.

  As many expatriates from this era have realized, you seem to go through several stages during your first years in the USA. However, these stages may take many years to pass, depending on the individual. The end product of these stages is that you make the decision to stay in the USA permanently and thus you become an American citizen.

  Do I feel more British or American now? 
  For many years, I thought of myself as having been born and brought up in Britain, but living in America. This transitioned to --  originally from Britain, now an American citizen and then, quite simply to  -- American. I am an American. Quite when this transition happened, I really have no idea. But, its here to stay. I can honestly say, I am proud to be an American. However, do I still love Britain? Yes, of course I do. I am still human.

  What are some of the observations I have about these crazy Americans?
  When we first came to live in the USA, we formulated thoughts about our new neighbors. People seemed very interested in the new strangers in their midst. Americans are extremely friendly and they asked lots of questions and wanted to know the details of how we lived in our previous home. It seemed that Americans were more frequent churchgoers and talked about religion much more than we did in England.  Almost everyone seemed to ask "what do you like most about the USA?". Have you ever considered what a hard question that is to answer?  One thing we could say was definitely better here was the phone system. At that time in Britain, with the exception of the city of Hull, the phone system was run by Her Majesty's Post Office! Can you imagine if the phone system in this country was run by USPS? Come on now, be real!
  One thing was very noticeable. To an outsider, Americans are people who like to talk about all the freedoms they have and how they value them as a product of the greatest country in the world. I think this is a very healthy attitude. By contrast, I think the British take freedom for granted and thus do not talk about it much. I believe they take it for granted because it has been earned over so many centuries.

   What do I see as the differences between the Brits and the Americans?
  The longer I spend in the USA, the fewer the differences become. There is one obvious difference for which I cannot explain the reason but, nonetheless, it exists. That is that the British and the Americans each have a very different sense of humor. ( I wonder why the Americans just love to take the "U" out of things?).
  So, what is the difference in the British and American sense of humor? It is not that one is any better than the other but they definitely are different. I believe the difference stems from the fact that the American sense of humor is generally based on direct humor, whereas the British base theirs on both direct and indirect humor. Compare, for example, two TV comedy shows, Seinfeld and the Benny Hill show. On Seinfeld, something may be said or done which is immediately funny. So, you laugh at it. These things typically come fast and furious. In a Benny Hill show, a similar thing may be said or done, is also immediately funny, so you laugh at it. Then, if you are British, either your own brain or a look in Benny's eye will tell you that there is something else in there too, so you think about it and then laugh at that too. All of this happens in a flash. Some British comedy is based almost entirely on indirect humor. 
  I was brought up in England in a family in which almost everyone had a keen sense of humor. I am eternally grateful for this fact. Some of the family members, notably my father, had a somewhat outrageous sense of humor. I think, because of this, my mind works in such a fashion as to rearrange the thoughts I am about to express in as nonsensical a manner as possible without totally destroying the intended meaning. I think this too is a characteristic of the British sense of humor.
  I sincerely hope that what I have said in the last few paragraphs will confuse everyone as much as it has me!

  Do I think that "you" treat us differently because of our accent?  
  Definitely not. You see, since I was born and brought up in Britain, I am not the one with an accent, I have a dialect. Oops!!  I think I may have said enough.