From a Trans-Atlantic Nomad

After the huge success of the Minor League baseball event Drew took me to his church youth group’s pool party. This was on Saturday 23rd August (quite a wee while ago). It was fun, we had pizza and played pool games etc. Then we took it easy back at Drew’s had a couple of drams and we watched the whole first series of the Office American style.

On Sunday Drew was preaching in an alternative service at his church and I got involved playing some guitar which was all fine and dandy-o. Drew dropped me in Richmond and I jumped on board my willing travel companion Mr Greyhound to head to Philladelphia.

I wasn’t actually staying in Philadelphia but just outside it with the lovely Rosenau family, Ron Ida and Josh. Once again the kind hospitality I received was fantastic and greatly appreciated.On my first day there Ron (the pappa of the clan) did a big ol’ tour of Phillie which included Phillie cheesesteaks and me taking shameless photos on the Rocky steps. The most controversial part of the day was liberty bell and independence hall.

First was the mildly exaggerated claim that the Liberty bell is the “world’s symbol of liberty” (photo link at the bottom). I think there is sometimes a notion here that what is really important here must be important to the rest of the world. I mean I always thought Braveheart was the worlds symbol for liberty.

After the liberty bell Ron and I went on the tour of independance hall after which Ron proclaimed, “that was embarrasing”. It was really bad because of the guide. His name was Ed Welch and he was an ex-military man which was obvious before he mentioned it. He started the tour by kicking out a mother and her toddler because the child was making too much noise so that he couldn’t think. The child wasn’t even crying or anything just being a toddler. Ed’s way of interacting with the tour was to pick one person out and fire a question at them.

Mostly they were historical, like what year did… but my two favourites where when he asked one kid who the most important man in the world was. The kid looked terrified and didn’t answer and when good ol’ Ed said George Washington I giggled to myself a little bit.

My other favourite of Ed’s questions was when he asked another kid what state he was from, again the kid looked terrified (we were in a large group of about maybe 60 pepole). When the kid’s friend replied he’s from France I laughed out loud.

The final and most gauling of Major Welch’s statements was when he asked who the Americans were fighting in the Revolutionary war. As a prompt he said come on folks it’s an island….. England. It was quite the tour.

The following day Josh (ron and ida’s son) and I went to visit the church that Ron is the pastor of and headed into Philladelphia. We went to the southside which was pretty neat. We went to this really cool house and garden which has been entirely decorated in Mosaic. Then we went off for some lunch at this really big market place and ended up having a couple of beers with some old school Phillie men in an Irish pub. They were extraordinarily opinionated know it alls which I found thoroughly entertaining. I think Josh might have been mildly appalled, I probably should have been too.

That night we went to see a great brass band in Camden New Jersey which was a lot of fun. We almost wound up at a Cheap trick concert by accident which would have been majorly different.

All in all I had some good clean fun in Phillie and although some Americans, and even Philadelphians give it a bad press I kinda liked it.

I next moved on to visit a fellow that a few of you Iona Community types should remember called Drew Willson. Drew has recently become the associate pastor in the Highland United Methodist Church in Colonial Heights and it’s no surprise to find out that he is very well liked there.

Drew collected me from the station in Petersburg and we went off for some lunch when this huge motorcade pulled out in front of us. Every turn we took it took the same one before us and when we got to the place we were going it was surrounded by secret service agents. It turned out that Barack Obama was going for lunch there and we had to wait. I started to think that maybe he was following me and was considering me as his VP (he opted for Joe Biden instead). Obama finished his lunch, a cheeseburger I believe, and did the whole waving and smiling thing whilst the secret service guys were eyeballing everyone from behind shaded eyes primed and ready to take a bullet should the situation arise.  Our agent (by that I mean the agent dealing with our section of what was now a thronging crowd) was firm but efficient and once Obama had left I shook his hand and told him he did a good job. In fact he was more relaxed than most of the park rangers I have met here, I think the uniform makes em get all jumped up about their self-importance. Anyway, Drew and I ate lunch after the entourage left and went back to his appartment.

That evening we played some guitar together, Drew played and sang harmonies to my tunes whilst I sat and listened to his. He is an extraordinarily talented musician and it is a pleasure to play with him. I was reminded of us busking in Glasgow in the rain for a few hours and making a measly amount but having fun nonetheless.

The following evening we indulged in a true American past-time, minor league baseball. The Norfolk Tides played in a marginally less than scintillating game and lost 5-4. We did however get great seats behind homeplate for a bargainous $1.50 each and there is much more to get excited about at the baseball than just the game.

As we were going for the all-American experience we drank budweiser from a plastic cup, and ate peanuts and crackerjacks. Crackerjacks I found out are just toffee coated peanuts and popcorn. I bought my peanuts and crackerjacks purely because there is a song that everyone sings at every baseball game during the seventh inning stretch which heralds the delight of these things. I was very excited about this song and practiced the words before going, Drew and I sang boldly and courageously which gained us much respect (I think) from those in the seats next to us.

The most exciting part of the game was eating a corn dog. For those of you that don’t know what a corn dog is I shall explain henceforth. I liken eating corn dog to visiting Las Vegas. You’ve got to do it once, you know it’s not good for you and you should never, ever do it again. A corn dog consists of a standard plain old hot dog, surrounded by sweet conrbread and then deep fried. You get it on a stick and it tastes of a bizarre sweet and salty greasiness that I have never before encountered. Whilst eating it I was struck by this new sensation of being both disgusted and delighted all at the same time.

After the game we encountered that other American sporting ritual commonly known as waiting for ages to get out of the parking lot.

I have to dash but there shall be more frolics from the south coming soon.