Return to Big Cheeseburger Land

There’s nothing like returning to one’s boyhood home to feel re-connected. No matter how many times I begin a new life in a new place/country coming back is always re-invigorating. The stories…yes, the stories from my youth. I never get tired of hearing them or telling them. They are unbreakable link to my friends, family that are as strong as my love for them itself.

Sitting in a New Orleans airport waiting to catch a plane back to Europe drinking a luke-warm Heineken I am serenaded by a symphony of cell phone conversations around me. A final concert Americana to send me off like visiting nobility. Allegro, andante, forte, NO, fortissimo! A redneck in front of me with a thick Texas accent like a squeaky tenor sax telling his friend, “Dude, are you really going into rehab? Is it that bad? Man, if there’s anything I can do let me know. I’m serious!” He takes another swig of his Miller Lite.

Another….A hugely obese women in short jean shorts, big thick cellulite thighs spilling over into the iron patio chair. Her coarse laugh booms out like a bass drum over the area. “Darling,” she shouts into the phone “All my drinking friends were there. No, no that’s a damn lie! How many laps to go?” Could be NASCAR but I don’t want to know more. I think I’ve just been bitten by a mosquito which is strange because I’m sitting indoors in a mock patio. Can fake plants still attract bugs? I need to leave.

Some of my friends half jokingly call me a Euro snob. Fair enough! I do talk a lot about “how they do it in Europe”. It’s my life now. No one really cares that much in the end. Why should they? They live in the States. (That’s how we call America in Europe) They’ve traveled. They’re intelligent. Jokes aside, they accept me. So, in honor of their tolerance I’m presenting ten things I really, really like about the States in no particular order of importance (I hope you wouldn’t think I’d be so cliché as to do a “Top Ten” list)

Ten Things I Like About the USA

- People say “excuse me” when they enter your personal space
- Hotels almost always have an iron in them
- Drink specials
- Doggie bags
- Right turn on red
- 24 hour Drug Stores e.g. Walgreens
- Tex-Mex with spices only a true margarita can extinguish
- Soccer (football) is not considered a real sport for anyone over the age of 13
- Free refills on soda
- Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast or IHOP Rooty-Tooty, Fresh and Fruity equivalent

(Oops, forgot one. The friendly and "spirited" indigenous population)