US Journeys: Away from the Elections, Enjoying Small-Town Pleasures

I know I should be excited by the mid-term elections next week. Will Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lose his seat? If so, who will take his place? Indeed, will the Democrats even keep their majority in the Senate? What about the House of Representatives? Will the Tea Party make real inroads? Could they split the Republicans, giving Obama a clear run for re-election 2012? Does the American public realize that the Democrat administration has cut taxes for 95% of them, as well as passing health care legislation for the first time in more than 40 years and revising finance regulation?

The trouble is I really don’t care about these issues. My mind is now officially outside the Washington Beltway as for the past three weeks, I have enjoyed what I regard as some of the best of America.

A few nights into a trip through New England, I was introduced us to one of the great American small-town traditions, the church supper.

I am not of the Christian persuasion, so I felt a little odd walking into the house of worship. Would it be noticed, remarked upon? Absolutely not --- I was made most welcome, as were all others. After a few minutes, we were ushered to our table in the church basement. (I would say crypt but the church was Unitarian and I doubt it uses such a description.) Then, for the princely sum of $10.00 a head, our party was treated to a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, followed by a choice of ten varieties of pie.

What impressed me most was not the quality and quantity of the food, which was up to usual excellent American standards, but the service. There were so many volunteers cooking, cleaning, clearing, carving, preparing dishes, serving, all with such good grace and pleasantness. The event raised $1,000 for the church, which seemed a huge effort for comparatively little reward, but this is small-town America where such victories are seen as eminently worthwhile. 

Linda, my American wife, and I moved on from Vermont, driving on the back roads to Cooperstown, New York, the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. 

I don’t get baseball. I understand most of the rules, but the meaning and interpretation of the many baseball statistics escape me. I know some of the legends: who hasn’t heard of “the curse of the Babe”, the "spell" that prevented the Boston Red Sox from winning the World Series for almost a century? The trouble is I don’t know anyone who can truly explain “the curse”. Apparenlty, someone nicknamed "The Bambino" [Editor's Note: Babe Ruth] was traded from the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees for $100,000, an enormous sum in 1918. The Gods of Baseball looked askance at this event and the Red Sox didn’t win a World Series until 2004. (It seems that the Baseball Gods have turned on the Yankees this year, judging by the howls of anguish from their supporters as they collapsed in the semifinals against the Texas Rangers.)

“Cooperstown is named for Thomas Fenimore Cooper,” said Linda. Well, it isn’t. It is named for his father, William Cooper, who bought 40,000 acres of land in 1786 --- from whom, we don’t exactly know, so the legality of the transaction may be in doubt. “Baseball was invented by General Doubleday,” was her next utterance. “And it has its roots in England from the game of rounders.” The latter is a possibility but the former, no way. Evidently, the game started in the 1850s, somewhere in New Jersey.

The "Hall of Fame" is a most impressive building whose vast contents need to be viewed over several days. Sadly, most of it was wasted on me, but it got me to thinking how much baseball and cricket have in common, something I have never wanted to admit in 40 years of visiting the US. Both games are about pitching/bowling a ball, hitting a ball and fielding/catching it on the fly. Both games are side on, whether pitching/bowling or batting. Both games have long periods of boredom, followed by moments of sheer excitement.

There are differences, of course. Cricket is watched in respectful silence with a round of applause for a good shot or a wicket. Baseball is noisy at most times, given that Americans are much less reserved than we Brits. And there is one clear triumph for baseball. There has never been a movie about cricket which was memorable. Baseball has Field of Dreams, The Rookie, The Natural, and many others.

Why would the Hall of Fame be based in a small town in New York State? I don’t know and don’t much care except to think that the economy of this small town will be solid so long as baseball remains America’s game. 

I don’t know how many Americans now live in small-town and rural America. I suspect this year’s census will confirm it is substantially less than half the population. Yet the values of that small-town America seem to resonate with so many people I have spoken to this trip, especially the one “that you don’t buy what you can’t pay for”.

Too soon, I returned to the "normal" of Manhattan, London, mid-term election results, Britain's coalition government and its economic troubles. r e

Those of you still reading may well be asking, “What on earth has all this got to do with EA WorldView, US foreign policy, or politics?” The answer: “Nothing.”

There are so many more aspects of life to fascinate, astonish, and enjoy away from The Beltway and City Hall. Maybe those of us who are not cursed to live in poverty would become less agitated people were we to just relax a little more, rather than “wake up, smell the coffee, and fight through the day.” And maybe those who are in a position to do something about poverty –-- I read in The New York Times that one in seven Americans now live below that line –-- should relax a little less and wake up.