Coal and Chips

Every time I visit a foreign country, I eagerly anticipate those things that instantly define the "otherness" of that place. I suppose you could call them my "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore" moments. This morning, when I walked out of our house in Novato, I caught a scent that reminded me of something I hadn't smelled in quite some time - coal smoke - and it took me back to one of those moments.

I don't know if the odor was caused by some conglomeration of car exhaust and somebody's fireplace, but it brought me back to my first trip to England in October 1971. I was traveling with my parents and we started our journey in Wigan, which is a bit like flying to New York and spending your first week in Hoboken, New Jersey. We ate at at rest stop that straddled the M-6 motorway, drank milkshakes that were simply flavored milk that had been shaken up, and ordered Wimpy Burgers that were just that.

After my father finished his business at the teaching hospital in Charnock-Richard, we escaped the industrial smog that hovered over Manchester and made our way north, through Lancaster and the Lake District to the border of Scotland. We saw a lot of English sights along the way. We visited chilly cathedrals and viewed acres of stained glass that needed a thorough cleaning. We drove through Blackpool (until you've been there, it's hard to imagine). We ate stuffy meals in stuffy hotels. I learned to hate the taste of fried tomatoes for breakfast and canned peas for dinner. I got fed-up with having chips (French fries) with virtually every meal (who would have thought to serve chips alongside a plate of spaghetti?) But, mostly, I was just an observer, sitting in the back seat of our little Ford Capri, watching the rainy English countryside pass by and slowly suffocating from the petrol fumes our defective rental was spewing.

That detachment changed forever when we arrived at Hadrian's Wall. Not knowing much about Roman history, I had to bone-up quickly as we visited the ruins of this massive fortification that stretches 80 miles across the northern border of England. But something visceral was taking place. I started to appreciate the astounding depth of English history. I mean, this wall had been constructed in A.D. 122. I tried to imagine those poor soldiers - hundreds of miles from their homes in sunny Italy and stationed here at the farthest reaches of the Roman Empire - waiting for the barbarians to descend from the North. Rumors were rife that the Scots would attack naked, with their skin dyed blue. Turns out, they eventually did just that.

Aside from the few comforts of civilization - lead pipes, indoor plumbing, glass windows - there was little to take the harsh edge off this forlorn posting. As I looked out over the vista towards Scotland, the weather turned and raindrops began to fall. You know the expression, "clouds raced across the sky"? Without any mountains to impede the wind's progress across the flat plain, these clouds did exactly that. They were mesmerizing.

Now that I had gone back to the beginning, I wanted to experience the England I had read about in novels. I wanted to imagine myself in the world of Sherlock Holmes. That second Dorothy moment happened at our hotel in Newcastle Upon Tyne, where we arrived that same day. The hotel was set back from the main road on a country lane. It featured lots of windows with tiny panes that looked out onto well-kempt gardens and lush countryside. But, the atmosphere inside was redolent of something new - the smell of coal burning in the fireplaces. It reminded me of steam train engines I had ridden in Sonora and transported me swiftly back to the 19th century. We took our tea in the parlor that afternoon and I half-expected to catch a glimpse of Professor Moriarty retrieving his cloak from the hatcheck girl. I was definitely not in Kansas anymore.

From that point on, I started to evolve. English history became my history. The Battle of Britain became the defining event of the 20th century. A newspaper story on the demolition of a hundred year-old hospital (which would have been declared a National Historical Landmark in the U.S.) was only significant in what ruins its removal might reveal. Even the discovery that our rooms at the historical and highly-touted Maids Head Hotel in Norwich would be located in a 1950s-era reconstruction that appeared to have been furnished by a Goodwill store in Grand Rapids was a non-issue. It certainly didn't dim my appreciation for the cozy pub below, which turned out to be the only remnant of the original hotel to survive the Luftwaffe's bombs. It was all good. History and culture were all around me - waiting to be discovered beneath the chintzy verneer of modernized England.

I stopped dwelling on the tawdry and the insignificant and began to assimulate. I started talking with a shy English accent and calling waitresses "Love." I watched dart competitions on ITV ("A hundred and twe-e-e-e-nty!"). I discarded my retainer and encouraged my teeth to celebrate their natural over-bite. I ate my weight in chips daily. I embraced my heritage with heavily-sweatered open arms. I became one with the "auld sod." With one notable exception.

I still refused to eat fried tomatoes for breakfast or canned peas for dinner. No, thank you very much, Love. I'm not that English.