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Is It Still Home? My Trip to America – Mississippi/Tennessee

13 Monday Apr 2020

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The sun is still bravely trying to brighten my day as I drive out of Natchez, but rain is forecast, and the skies are darkening. And I have no GPS, only an old map of the Southeastern States Robert gave me. I have studied the map and have an idea of a route I could take to reach Tennessee. From the map, it looks like the most direct route might be a road outlined in green called the “Natchez Trace“. The scenic route, no less! I will try and find that, but I’m never completely sure of where I am without Google Maps. If only I had internet! But at least as far as my phone is concerned, I am in a foreign country with no mobile program including roaming. I am left at the mercy of an old, outdated roadmap and the sun, which threatens to leave me at any moment.

Outside Natchez now, the road is lonely, with few cars on the highway. I turn on the radio and decide to listen to a country-western station to get an idea of the life I imagine Southerners to live. Then I switch to right-wing talk radio, then some Christian station, then NPR. Surely with all these choices, I will get some idea of how people in Mississippi live and think. I feel a little nervous, driving along the highway. Will I really find my way into Tennessee? Will all go well? But my curiosity is stronger than my fear, and I am intrigued by the hilly scenery, the little villages, the farms, and the wooded pretty countryside – and the many churches I keep passing. Most of them are Methodist or Baptist.

In my tummy I feel a mixture of fear and pleasure at finally being completely on my own, free to explore as I will, but afraid that I might get lost, or somehow end up in a car accident. It’s been wonderful visiting family and friends, but I’ve had very little time to myself. Now here I am, on my own! But unsure of how to get to where I want to go in the country I grew up in. My thoughts range between inner commentaries about what I hear on the radio, little snatches of fear about whether I will arrive at my brother’s and how many mistakes I will make getting there, and enjoying exploring a region I have never visited.

My thoughts are focused almost entirely in the present. The only thoughts about the future are about whether it will rain, and whether I will arrive at my brother’s house today or tomorrow, at the latest, with no accidents or problems with the car. There are no thoughts about how my life will look in a year from now, let alone in a month. At this moment I have no clue that life for everyone I know, as well as for myself, will become much more frightening in a year from now than my present little tugs of apprehension. I have no inkling that it is a luxury to even be driving across a part of America. The talk on the radio is about blackfacing, racism, and whether or not a wall will be built to keep the illegal immigrants away from the Southern border to Mexico. I cannot imagine that tiny, microscopic invaders will build a much stronger, far more effective barrier to migrants than any wall. Depending on whether I’m listening to a conservative radio station or liberal, the speaker is either proclaiming Trump to be truthful or a liar.  I can’t imagine that in one year there will only be one news item across the entire world. I can’t imagine that everyone in the entire world who doesn’t live in America will be denied access into this country, including wealthy Europeans.

I drive along a country road, US Route 84, which will take me, hopefully, to a freeway, Interstate 55, and onto the Natchez Trace in Jackson. Just at the intersection of Route 84 and 55, near a town my map and the road signs promise to be Brookhaven, I finally spot a place where I can probably eat. By now, mid-afternoon, I am truly hungry. Here is a big Chevron station with a large cafeteria inside. Everything there looks delicious! Pork and red beans, potato casserole, peach cobbler. I haven’t had any Southern fried chicken during my time in the South, and I see this being served. It looks so good! And others around me, many of them black, are eating this crispy chicken. I order some legs and fries and a diet Coke. They give me some cornbread along with the chicken. There are free local newspapers available. I take one and read between mouthfuls of delicious chicken. I find an article written by someone who confesses to having belonged to a sorority during her time as a student in a college in Mississippi. She couldn’t remember what happened while she was going to college, so she went through old yearbooks. There, she discovered that she had witnessed blackfacing during her college years, thinking nothing of it at the time. By now she is ashamed of what went on during her youth, as well as her own indifference. Blackfacing, for any readers unfamiliar with the term, is the act of painting one’s face black to imitate the appearance of a black person. It was apparently a big joke in years past for white people to attend parties dressed in blackface. Thankfully, by now it is considered to be racist, insulting behavior. I am really happy to discover that people in the South, which I am coming to like more and more, want to be rid of racist attitudes.

Southern Fried Chicken – Courtesy of Epicurious

It never crosses my mind that I am eating in the presence of strangers, that our bodies occasionally brush one another as we reach for ketchup or stand in line to pay. Focused on blackface, racism and getting into Tennessee, I cannot imagine that in a year’s time this cafeteria may be closed down, or that no cars will be lined up to buy gas, or that the employees here may well be at the unemployment office, filing for unemployment insurance or fighting to stay alive, or dead. I have no thoughts about whether many of these people of color around me may be either unemployed and unable to afford a meal of fried chicken at the local restaurant, or may even be dead, because good medical care is not there for those in America who can’t afford it. Those at the bottom of the heap, and those include black people, are the ones who will die first from this invasion of microscopic intruders, only because they can’t afford good medical care.

I fill up with gasoline, holding my bare hands to the pump, not imagining that there could be any other way of filling the gas tank, and swipe my credit card over the pump to pay, bare-handed. No one here is wearing a face mask or seems to be obsessed with hygiene. Surgical masks are not part of American life. No one has ever heard of home-made masks.

I climb back into the car and prepare for a long drive. By about five pm I’m encountering a bit more traffic from Vicksburg. How far am I from Tennessee? I need to find the Natchez Trace! Hopefully driving along there, I’ll soon be in Tennessee. Finally, I see a sign instructing me how to join the Natchez Trace. I turn off Interstate 55, onto the Natchez Trace. It is indeed green and beautiful. I am driving along a beautiful lake surrounded by pine trees. It is really getting late, but the speed limit is only 50 miles per hour, and this is only a two-lane highway! This is like driving to my grandparents’ house as a child, before there were any freeways and it took three hours to drive 120 miles! At this rate I will never reach Tennessee! But at least there is plenty of time to read the signs along this beautiful lake. I am driving along the Ross Barnett Reservoir.

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Ross Barnett Reservoir

There are no towns, no restaurants, not even any hotels as far as I can see. Only beautiful parkway. This was a mistake. How to get off this road? If only I had decided to pay for a toll road! But I thought the Natchez Trace would be my most direct route. Yes – if it were only a freeway.

Later I discover that this truly beautiful stretch of road was originally a footpath used by Native Americans for hunting. The parkway was built during the 1930s during the Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps. I am unaware that I am driving along a national monument of sorts, and also that in one year’s time our country may be experiencing a depression more severe than the Great Depression of the 1930s. I don’t consider the fact that in a year’s time more people will be applying for unemployment than in the 1930s and that even more businesses may go under than during that period.

I see road signs announcing a town coming up – Williamsville. Hopefully I can get off this Trace there and rejoin Interstate 55. This proves to be possible. One hour later, by now around 6 pm, I am back on the 55, heading north. Now and then my windshield wipers swipe off a few sprinkles. A road sign tells me I am about 152 miles from Memphis, Tennessee. Well, here I can drive faster, since I’m on the freeway. Maybe I can reach Memphis, or somewhere near Memphis and stay the night there. I should be able to make it by about 8 pm, I figure.

But then it begins to rain in earnest. Rain as heavy as an ocean crashing onto the windshield. Sometimes the showers are so heavy I have to stop the car and wait for the rain to lessen in intensity. At one of these stops I phone my brother. I apologize, saying I had wildly underestimated the time it would take to reach him. I will have to find a motel somewhere to sleep in.

The next morning the rain has stopped, for now, and before nine I am back on the 55. My roadmap has shown me that in Memphis I can branch onto the Interstate 40 and drive along there until I reach Knoxville, my destination. I drive along the 55, and before I know it, I see that I must be in Tennessee because most of the license plates now are from Tennessee.

Wow, are these roads in Tennessee treacherous! Huge potholes as big as cars, at least six inches deep, keep slowing me down. Don’t they improve the highways in this State? I later read that in 2018, the city of Nashville had 9,179 potholes, compared with over 5,000 in 2017. In 2019, today, there are more than in 2018. 2019 has seen the heaviest precipitation in Tennessee on record. By 11 am, it is raining heavily again, increasing the record margin. As I drive along, the radio blaring to keep me awake and alert as much as anything else, I hear talk of highway closures. One of them is my interstate! Then I see flashing lights warning the same, with a detour sign. I am going to have to take a detour into Knoxville. How will I ever find my way to my brother on a detour without a map? On and on I drive, anxiety mounting by the minute. There is flooding on the highways. I slosh along. The water is too deep to see the potholes. Traffic is very slow, visibility poor. Sometime in the afternoon, on my detour highway, I see a little snack bar and filling station. I stop there and buy a sandwich, diet Coke and a big package of M & Ms. Hopefully, this will keep me until I reach Knoxville.

Finally, at around 5 pm, I reach the Knoxville city limits. Visibility is poor, but I think I see my exit, and leave the freeway, hoping to find the car rental agency, which is almost certainly closed by now. I can only hope that there will still be someone working in the office. There is such major flooding along this road, portions of it are closed off and I cannot find the car rental agency. Besides, there is some big road construction project. I drive into a mostly deserted strip mall, and find a bar that is open. I ask about the car rental office. The man instructs me where to go. I arrive there, and find it closed, just as I feared. Not a soul in sight. But there is a sign saying that rental cars are to be delivered at the Knoxville airport. Yikes! Where is the Knoxville airport? It is not on my map! I phone my brother for the third time today, and he tells me how to get to the airport, and says he will be there to meet me. Hurray! I have almost made it to the end of a harrowing journey. I am unaware that the entire world will be experiencing something that goes much deeper and stretches much wider than what I have just been through. When I am relieved to almost be out of danger, I do not realize that many will die or lose loved ones from something that kills more people in one month than car accidents do in one year.

I arrive at the car rental at 6 pm, and there are my brother Jason and Ron, one of his sons. I throw myself into Jason’s arms in relief. The car didn’t break down, there was no accident, I am in Knoxville. We are all alive and well. Jason’s wife Lucy has cooked us a delicious, comforting lasagna dinner. We sit at the table, a happy family reunited. I am relieved to find both well. Each of them has been battling cancer and Lucy will have to go to the hospital next week for another round of immunotherapy. We are all unaware that another disease even deadlier, even swifter to kill than cancer, will be threatening us all in one year from now. I do not know that I will later savor these memories as perhaps the last time I was able to see my brother and his entire family because a disease disrupted all travel plans.

We are also unaware that in a year’s time we citizens of the world will value our families and friends much more than we have ever before. We will treasure phone calls, Skype and other video conferences, savoring little tidbits of each conversation. We don’t know then that much of the world will begin to linger over the little things, learning to be grateful for sunny weather and Skype or Zoom conversations. We don’t realize that in a year’s time strangers will greet strangers with a smile, wishing them a good day and good health. We don’t yet know that an afternoon bike ride along the river close to home can be just as beautiful, just as meaningful, just as full of discovery, as a drive along the Natchez Trace.

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Is It Still Home? My Trip to America – Mississippi 8

26 Thursday Mar 2020

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We wake up to glorious sunshine. And we need to get going, or we’re not going to see much of Natchez! Breakfast is in some building away from the main house. We use the map the staff provided us to find our way to the breakfast building. Yesterday was drizzly, no good day to do sightseeing, but today is perfect! Not only is the sun smiling down on us, the weather is warm! I’m finally getting to experience a warm Southern day. The grounds are gorgeous, like walking through a manicured park. We pass a pond with a fountain in the middle, and a bridge, an inviting little pagoda. There are magnolia trees in full bloom – in February! Every now and then we pass a piece of sculpture. We spot pretty white lawn chairs placed strategically around the grounds, as though beckoning us to stay a while and rest here. But sadly, we must move on. We’re already almost too late for breakfast, and we still have to check out.

A pond with a fountain on the grounds of Monmouth Inn
And a pagoda!

As we rush to try and get breakfast before they chase us out, we see a young woman sitting out on the terrace, drinking a cup of coffee in the sunshine while looking at her cell phone. She looks up at us briefly. Suddenly she’s waving at us with a big smile. Robert walks over to her and they hug. “Melissa! What are you doing here?”

“I could say the same! Robert, what brings you here?

Robert introduces us. Melissa is not exactly a friend, but someone who Robert sometimes runs into at some of the parties he’s invited to in Natchitoches. We’re over two hours out of Natchitoches now, and we’re still running into people from Robert’s life! Robert invites Melissa to come and join us for breakfast. She’s already eaten, she says, but she’d love to join us for a few minutes. She’s in Natchez on an overnight work trip. “I always stay here when I’m in Natchez,” she says. “I always stay in the carriage house. That’s where the best rooms are.” That’s where we have just spent the night – right next door to Melissa. She tells us we had the best room in the entire hotel. We talk about life in general and a bit about politics. Melissa is black, and she tells us about how people in her community compare President Trump and former President Obama. We have an interesting, lively conversation, and then she has to leave us to go to work.

After she leaves, Robert tells me that he has seen and talked with Melissa at several parties he’s been invited to, but he doesn’t feel comfortable talking to her because she seems to be so intent on showing off whatever she has to show the world – her intelligence, or her taste, or by talking about things in her home.

A distant memory from my childhood surfaces. My parents, who both grew up impoverished during the depression, became increasingly prosperous, but were very reluctant to show it off in any way. For that reason, my father never drove a Cadillac, but he criticized my uncle, who drove one, and another uncle whose wardrobe my father considered too large and ostentatious. My mother never let me wear red clothes. They also criticized black people for driving gleaming Cadillacs, “trying to show off”, they said.

Just a couple months before this visit, I visited my sister and African-American brother-in-law for Christmas. Sam was listening to the audio book “Becoming”, by Michelle Obama. “It’s amazing listening to her,” he said. “There are so many parallels to my own life. Just like her parents, my parents worked incredibly hard to make sure we children all had the best possible careers, given our race. We had to be better than the rest of them in order to be good enough.” I’m not like that. I think I was always afraid to reach for more than what was easily within reach. In my youth I chose to live as a hippie. One of my “achievements” was to accidentally end up at Woodstock. I regret that I have not achieved more.

I tell this story to Robert, who admires this free-spirited side of me. I think I understand Melissa a little better than I would have because of what my brother-in-law told me. And now I think Robert understands more of why Melissa may seem to be showing off.

While checking out, we learn that there is to be a guided tour of Monmouth Inn at 11 am. If we go, we will get to learn a lot about the history of the estate we have had a taste of, as well as receive an inside glimpse into something of Natchez. We eagerly sign up for the tour. Our tour guide is an African-American woman who proudly displays the opulence of the home in which she spends most of her day. The thing that impresses me the most, though, is a plaque outside the house, outlining the history of the estate. The plaque informs us of something our guide has not mentioned – that after the Civil War, the owners of the house could not afford to keep it. They were forced to sell parts of the land to former slaves. Reading this, I feel a sense of jubilation, realizing that those who once labored as slaves on this property later became the owners of it. I rejoice for people like Melissa, whose ancestors could never dream of sleeping in the carriage house unless they were unpaid mistress-slaves of the owners. Melissa, a descendant of slaves, is free and affluent enough to live in the same opulence the slave owners enjoyed. Here, a hundred and fifty years or so after the Civil War, in Monmouth Inn, black and white staff members work alongside each other, each of equal status. Knowing this, I feel it has been worth it to visit the South. There is some justice and retribution in this world after all.

I discover another “plaque” of sorts in the visitor’s restroom – a description of Southerners. I am utterly charmed, reading this.

What lovely values! These people are some of the friendliest and most polite I have met in all of America, no matter where I am in the South. They treasure memories and their private and collective histories. Their countryside is beautiful. They are the best hosts, who make me feel so comfortable, even inviting strangers into their homes, like Margie! I do see many cultures here, seeming to get along pretty well, although I think there could be more mixing. And I have tasted their cuisine, so different and much more carefully prepared than what I usually experience in America. But – it still feels foreign to me. It’s a lovely, magical world I’ve entered for a few weeks.

Our tour has taken an hour and a half. There’s not much more time left for us. Robert has to get back to Louisiana, and I need to get to Tennessee, hopefully by the evening. We agree to part, and each do a little more sightseeing on our own. I feel a pang of regret, having to part from Robert. We have grown much closer over the week. I have grown closer to everyone I am visiting! Their homes don’t feel like anyplace I could settle down in, but I have felt more and more at home spending time with them.

I drive alone into Natchez, park the car in the center of town, close to the Mississippi River, and start strolling. At first I rest my eyes, gazing at the mighty river I saw so often during my childhood and youth. It is the river that divides Minneapolis from St. Paul. How many times have I crossed it, driving into Minneapolis? But here it is amazingly wide and majestic.

  • The Mighty Mississippi

Then I walk away from the river, following the map in my hands, towards the center of town. It doesn’t take long before I see my first building. I am almost swept off my feet viewing it and all the magnificent buildings surrounding it. Homes as big as palaces, one after another. I begin to understand that this was truly once the wealthiest city in America. The synagogue, the oldest in Mississippi, looks more like a Greek temple than what I would imagine a synagogue to look like. Across the street is an equally impressive Episcopal church.

Temple B’nai Israel
Trinity Episcopal Church
Stanton Hall, one of the many mansions in Natchez
Both the US and the Bonnie Blue Flag adorn this mansion

Looking up at the flags flying from one of the mansions, I am confused by one of them, a dark blue flag with a white star in the center. I later read that it is the “Bonnie Blue Flag“, one of the flags from the Civil War period meant to symbolize the secession from the United States. I have no one to guide me now, no one to answer my questions. I can only assume that it hangs there to symbolizes someone’s pride in being both a Southerner and a US American. I hope both flags flying means that the owners stand for integration. Maybe it shows the “timeweaving” aspect of being Southern that I just read about – a treasuring of memories and tradition.

I must move on. I wish I could spend several days in Natchez, perhaps when they offer their open house tours of the mansions. If I had come just one month later, I might have had been able to have a tour of many more mansions than Monmouth Inn. But I have run out of time. Clouds are building up in the sky again, and precious daylight hours are slipping away from me. But I am very grateful to have been able to see a little of the city that was once the wealthiest in the land. Farewell, Natchez.

Is It Still Home? My Trip to America – Texas 6

18 Thursday Jul 2019

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I lie in bed this morning a little longer, listening to the strangely comforting drone of the oxygen machine. We have no plans for today. Today it’s family time. It will be an up-day for Rhett, and there is time for me to read some of the magazine articles Natalie has written, chat with Rhett and Natalie, and share photographs of my family over the past year. Perhaps I can show them a little of my life before Peter died. I can show photos of family members who traveled across the world to attend his funeral. Perhaps I can go for a walk in Rhett and Natalie’s neighborhood, exercising off some of all that delicious food I have consumed in the past five days.

I think about Rhett and Natalie’s life. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to have a terminal illness and be sick, year after year, wondering when the last breath will be. It has always my worst nightmare thought, as an asthma patient who suffered horrifying asthma attacks in younger years, to think of inhaling less and less air until you finally suffocate. Thank God I haven’t had one of these in decades. Still, the fear lingers. Rhett tries to reassure me, telling me he feels no pain. His oxygen machine can always adjust, giving him the level of oxygen he needs. Still. What a life. To have ever-diminishing energy.

I find in Natalie a kindred spirit and an inspiration. I have always found her to be gracious, calm, even-tempered, kind, and able to joke about some of the less pleasant things she is forced to endure. For me, she is the epitome of the devoted Christian wife, as I also strove to be. She has to constantly adapt her life to the ups and downs of her husband, as I had to do after Peter’s stroke. She has to find a way to live a life of her own, while always being available for whatever could befall her husband. And she does this with apparent ease, at least as far as I, an outsider, can see. She sees people. I have already met some of them – her cousin and her dear friend, both of whom she is close to and sees regularly. She does get out and take part in interesting things of life. She is active in their church, she sees the grandchildren whenever possible; she talks to her friends, her kids and grandchildren on the phone when too busy to get together. She reads and watches television sometimes. Natalie is beginning to feel more like a sister-in-law than a cousin-in-law. I guess that is only fitting, since Rhett was the brother I never had until I was six. In spite of the hardship each of them has to face, I find myself a little jealous of one thing. They are both of sound mind. They can carry on an adult conversation. This was hardly possible for me after Peter’s stroke. He was often in an entirely different world and unable to grasp his situation. It was a gift from heaven to have a husband I could care for and share some things with, after the agony of watching him in a waking coma for months, but I often felt lonely not being able to talk about my life with him in a way he could respond to. I missed my husband, even as he sat before me, even as we sat at the dinner table together, eating meals he helped me prepare.

I get up and walk into the kitchen, where Natalie is preparing breakfast. I share some of my thoughts with her. She laughs. “I’m no hero,” she says. Exactly what I told people who told me the same thing.

Rhett joins us for breakfast. It feels almost normal.

They tell me about a cruise they took to Alaska last year. Rhett would like to be able to travel with Natalie to Europe and go to England with me, where we could visit the homes, farms, churches and towns in Cornwall our ancestors dwelt in. Could he do this? They tell me how they traveled to the West Coast with oxygen machines, apparatus and all equipment necessary for survival, in addition to their suitcases. “A cruise is a great way to travel when you’re disabled,” they assure me. Rhett slept in the berth in their cabin on his down days, and on the up days he could participate fully in life on board. They met and became friends with another couple – it was wonderful! But could we do this? Rhett assures me he could, by flying first-class to England. Natalie’s expression reveals skepticism.

We look at family photos and then chat about this and that, and various family members. Eventually we get down to the subject I’ve been hoping to talk about – their view on the political scene in America.

“What do you think about Trump’s plan to build a wall on the Mexican border?” I ask. “You live in a border state. You see how many Mexicans and Hispanics are here.” Knowing that my cousins are politically conservative, I assume they will agree with Trump on everything.

“We don’t need a wall,” both chime in with one firm voice. “Even our Republican Governor doesn’t think we need one.” I feel reassured again. Maybe we’re pretty much on the same page.

I mention that I have downloaded the audio book Becoming, by Michelle Obama, onto my cell phone. I know my cousin doesn’t think much of President or Michelle Obama. This leads to a discussion of the “Black Lives Matter” movement. I have read a little about it and about police brutality, but I must admit, I am not very well informed. Here I get a very different response to the one about immigrants and the wall. “I think Michelle Obama has been a divisive force on this subject,” they say. “She approves uncritically of everything this movement stands for, and this movement is divisive. They have spread outright lies about some of the stories you hear in the news.” They go on for a while about how divisive America has become.

“Why can’t people just listen to each other, even when they disagree, without tearing each other apart?” they say. I heard the same thing from my sister when I visited her at Christmas. I decided while visiting her and her family that I would ask my questions of everyone I talked to on this trip, whether it raised hackles or not. I would express my opinions as well, in as kind and inclusive manner as possible. Why be part of the silent, frustrated masses, afraid to open their mouths because they have been shut down the few times they dared to talk about the issues that matter to them? Surely it is possible if we remain polite and respectful. I will not keep silent. I say to Americans, keep speaking. But even more than that, keep listening, and always stay respectful. I hope this culture of mutual respect and honest sharing of opinions while listening to one another can grow in the land I am proud to be a citizen of. I may not live there anymore, have questions about where home is, and been influenced by my life abroad, but I am still a loyal American. And I want to see our country’s people open up to each other! I am sure we have more uniting us than dividing us.

Rhett tells me about one of the favorite causes of the “Black Lives Matter” movement, the killing of black man Michael Brown by policeman Darren Wilson. He defends the policeman, who he says was terrified for his own life, and did what anyone would do in self-defense. I haven’t followed the story carefully, living in Europe, so don’t really have an opinion one way or another. But I tell Rhett and Natalie that my black relatives have told many stories about how they have experienced racism. We are listening and speaking respectfully to each other.

For the record, here is what former President Obama has to say about “Black Lies Matter”. I found this quote in an article in the online publication “The Undefeated“.

“I know that there’s some who have criticized even the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ as if the notion is as if other lives don’t matter. We get ‘All Lives Matter’ or ‘Blue Lives Matter.’ I understand the point they’re trying to make. I think it’s also important for us to understand that the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ simply refers to the notion that there’s a specific vulnerability for African-Americans that needs to be addressed. It’s not meant to suggest that other lives don’t matter. It’s to suggest that other folks aren’t experiencing this particular vulnerability and so we shouldn’t get too caught up somehow in this notion that people who are asking for fair treatment are somehow automatically anti-police or trying to only look out for black lives as opposed to others. I think we have to be careful about playing that game because, obviously, that’s not what is intended.”

Rhett then goes on to tell me a story of something that happened in his own childhood, while living in Virginia. His father, my uncle, was a US Naval officer and the family was continually on the move. They lived in Brazil, Portugal, and various parts of the United States. I believe travel broadens one’s perspective on life, and so it was with my aunt, uncle and their family. At this time, my uncle’s navy career had brought him and the family to Virginia. My aunt and uncle didn’t believe in school segregation, so they sent their all their children to public desegregated schools. Almost everyone they knew was sending their children to private, segregated schools, but they courageously chose a different path for their children. One evening the family looked out their living room window to see a cross burning on their lawn. The Ku Klux Klan had targeted their family. The children remained in their public, integrated schools.

We go out that evening for dinner, oxygen machine and all, with a family friend of theirs. Over dinner I learn that this friend, a stranger to me, prayed for my husband with Rhett and Natalie faithfully for four years after he suffered his stroke, until he finally passed away last year. Something melts inside my heart. This is family, here in Texas, so far away from the northern State I grew up in, but we are tied together. Their lives are very different from mine, and we don’t always agree about everything. But here are people I can truly count on. I feel more settled and relaxed than I have felt in a long time.

Is It Still Home? My Trip to America – Texas 1

25 Tuesday Jun 2019

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Texas Hill Country

Texas. The name evokes an uneasy feeling among many Northerners – those who grew up in the northern States. It’s funny how people nurse their prejudices and pass them down onto their kids, their friends and loved ones. But my cousin Rhett does it too – he has teasingly called me a Yankee. The first time I was called a Yankee, it was in a very different, derogatory tone, in Scotland. I was waitressing for the summer in a hotel and restaurant, and a couple of the servers went out of their way to make me feel unwelcome. What is a “Yankee”, exactly? I, who have been called one, can’t say I know. But I know how I feel when someone calls me one. I guess Texans must feel the same way when people talk about them.

I was in Texas once several years before with my husband, staying with Rhett and his wife Natalie. We had a wonderful time, and I learned a bit about the history of Texas during that visit. Did you know that at one time it was a country? It was a sovereign country for nine years – from 1836 until 1845, when it joined the United States. Actually, during its history, six flags have flown over Texas. Hence the name “Six Flags” for the amusement park chain, whose headquarters are in Texas. Texas has belonged to Spain, France, Mexico, been its own country, then the United States, then one of the Confederate States, and after the Civil War, part of the United States again.

This visit to Texas will be much different from my light-hearted last one. This time I am alone, with only memories of my Peter. And Rhett is very sick with pulmonary fibrosis. This is one of the reasons I’m visiting Natalie and him. It’s only a matter of time before Rhett also leaves us, and I want to be sure to make a visit before it’s too late. I wonder how the visit will be this time? Will it be depressing? Will we be able to really talk?

I fly into Austin on Southwest Airlines, an experience unlike any other airline experience I’ve had. I like the way they run things – first come, first serve for the seats. You can begin signing in for your slot exactly twenty-four hours before departure. Unfortunately, I was in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City yesterday, and missed the opening gong and stampede following by two hours. All that is left by the time my number comes around is a seat in the middle. Oh, well, it’s only for a few hours.

We arrive in Austin in the early evening, and I find that I’m not too exhausted. But how will Natalie find me? She’s picking me up. The first problem is that one of my bags is missing. I check and recheck and check baggage claim again. In the meantime, I keep looking over my shoulder for Natalie, but she’s nowhere to be seen. I would assume she’d be in the arrivals hall at the baggage claim section, the most logical place to meet. I try to text her on my German cell phone. No connection, although I’m getting wifi. Why can’t I reach her? It takes me a while to figure out that I need to put a +1 prefix onto my American phone numbers, not the old-fashioned 001 I’m used to typing in. I go back and look for my luggage again. By now everything is off the belt, so I look at the luggage standing around. My suitcase is not among them. So I walk over to the claims desk and fill out a claim.

“Before I hand my claim in to you, let me check the pile of luggage one more time,” I say. I walk back to the luggage pile, and there is my suitcase! One problem solved. But I’m not reaching Natalie. Maybe she’s in the cell phone lot? My sister does that in Oregon when she picks up someone at the airport. What is a cell phone lot? They don’t have them in Germany. I sit down on a bench and start typing out a text message. As I type, an airport employee walks up to me. “Are you Noreen?” he asks. “Yes, I am. How did you know?”

“Your ride is waiting outside the door for you,” he says. “She asked me to give you this message.” We walk outside with him carrying my luggage, and before long, Natalie drives up. I notice that the air is warmer than in New York City, but not that much warmer. I heave a sigh of relief when I spot Natalie, and thank the employee. Natalie hops out of the car to help with the luggage, but the employee has already put it into the trunk for her. “Can I give you something?” Natalie asks him. “That was so kind of you to find my cousin.”

” I don’t do these things for money,” he says. “I just want to help when I can.” He smiles, wishes us a good evening, and leaves. Are all Texans so kind and friendly?

I am so relieved to see Natalie. Other than Rhett and her, I know absolutely no one in Texas. What would I do here without them? We start talking as though we had just finished our last conversation half an hour ago. She is caught up on my news because I’ve been writing round robin emails ever since my husband suffered his stroke. We chitchat about the time in New York, how Rhett is doing, then Natalie says,

“We thought we could put you up in our house from the beginning, but the house still isn’t ready, so I’ve booked you a room in a nearby motel.” She and Rhett had flooding in their home when they left town for a funeral in another city, and their sump pump broke down. That was weeks ago, but the house is still not ready. “Don’t worry, ” Natalie says. “I’ve packed you a care package to tide you over until tomorrow, and then I’ll pick you up. Now we’re going out to eat. It’s my treat.”

We go to a very Southern-style restaurant, the Cotton Patch Café, https://www.cottonpatch.com/, a chain restaurant that’s only in the South. It turns out it’s really Texan – it began in Texas, and the headquarters are there. One thing that makes it unusual for me besides the menu full of strange things like chicken fried steak, okra and catfish, is that it has a gift shop you can shop in while you’re waiting for your table or your food, stuffed with toys and all sorts of clothes and scarves, all very cute and American-looking, country-style.

After eating our meal, Natalie drops me off at the motel, just down the road. I am alone in Texas. I feel like I’m in another country that speaks English, except nobody in the motel looks like an English-speaker to me. The receptionist looks like he flew in from Pakistan. I see a couple of guests at the reception area speaking Spanish. Maybe I am in another country.