An Expat Rediscovers America

My goal, when starting this blog, was to offer an American’s perspective of Europe. Sort of like Alexis de Tocqueville, but in reverse, and more sarcastic. However, I have been in Spain nearly five years, and one can live in a foreign country only so long before the land stops being foreign. An outsider’s perspective becomes elusive.

This evolution was not entirely unexpected. However, I was surprised to find, upon my recent visit to the motherland, that many of my own country’s peculiarities left me agape with wonder. I was seeing with new eyes things I once had taken for granted.

An easy example, an example so easy that it has become cliche, is the size of stores. You could fit four or five Spanish grocery stores in your average Safeway. Five years ago I was struck by the smallness of Spanish tiendas. Now I am bowled over by the vastness of American stores.

And it is not just grocery stores. In Alicante, a city of 350,000, there are only a few shops dedicated to hard liquor, and they are small boutique dispensaries. Thus my slack-jawed awe when my lovely sister, Sarah, took me to Total Wine in Forth Worth.

Despite its name, Total Wine is a full service liquor store. I think it may occupy the same surface area as one of your smaller Targets. It has a wall of tequila. There are so many varieties that finding any particular brand is like locating Waldo.

I knew Casamigos, Sarah’s favorite tequila, must be there somewhere. By the time I unsuccessfully surveyed the floor-to-ceiling rows of bottles, each row dozens of yards long and each bottle competing for my attention with an interesting shape or color or font, Sarah said she was ready to go.

I gave up on Casamigos and grabbed a random bottle. I had never heard of the brand, but it seemed expensive enough to make a nice gift, but not so costly that Sarah would think I had lost my mind.

“Casamigos probably is overrated, anyway,” I muttered to myself.

“What was that?” Sarah asked.

Surprised that she heard me, I said, “I hear this tequila is awesome. Even better than Casamigos!”

Oh, and did I mention the free samples? Well, I should have. There were attractive young women offering free samples of tequila, gin, and several flavored vodkas.

Do you enjoy recreational math? Of course you do! Here is the story of how I spent much of my time in Total Wine, expressed as an algebra problem:
X = Dan + It’s after 5 p.m. + (He is offered free shots • by attractive women) + Sarah is driving. Solve for X.

Is it any wonder we Americans love our country? And make no mistake, we do. I’ve spoken with liberals in New York and Seattle, and with MAGA Republicans in Texas and Iowa, and they all profess their love for the USA. They all say vile things about the Executive branch; and Congress; and the Judiciary; and the media (don’t get Americans started about the media); and the One Percent A-holes who are really running the country; and the mass shootings; and the fascist efforts to take our guns OR the irresponsible failure to ban the sale of war weapons; and the murdering of unborn babies OR the dictatorial restriction of a woman’s autonomy . . . AND YET, despite all this, they still profess profound affection for America.

How is it, I wondered, that everywhere I go people disparage nearly half the population and every American institution, but also exclaim love of country? The answer, I believe, is this: While we dislike peoples, we love each other.

You may think I am being sarcastic. That would be a good guess, but in this rare instance, incorrect.

You wouldn’t know from watching TV news programs that we love each other. Talking heads routinely present slanted stories designed to dehumanize and vilify a substantial cross section of our population. For some reason we consider this entertainment, as we have at least since 1991, when Jerry Springer got rich by flood-lighting ghastly examples of boorish behavior.

But the thing is, I rarely meet someone who believes they should think ill of a person, an actual person they have met in real life, just because that person’s political opinions seem misbegotten. They are far more likely to scratch their heads and say, “God only knows how such a smart sweet man (or woman) can be so wrong.”

Of course there will be exceptions to the rule. Every large population center will have small groups of truly hateful people. Think Klan meetings, and Nazi rallies, and the TSA Christmas party at New York’s JFK airport. But for every evil person there is a saint, both extremes being exceedingly rare, with most of us housing some measure of both darkness and light. We Americans are quick to find the light in our flesh-and-blood fellow citizens, even if we are too ready to find the darkness in each other’s affiliations and avatars.

* * * * * *

I was hoping to call this my Christmas Card to America and publish it before December 25. Unfortunately, I got distracted, first by moderately expensive tequila, and then by jet lag. Then I remembered how some people get really upset if I say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, so of course I suddenly wanted to call this a Holiday Card. But that sounds clunky, and spite really shouldn’t be part of my holiday tradition.

Anyway, I missed the deadline. I will instead call this my New Year Card to America.

Happy New Year, America!

Now go out there and tell someone with idiotic political opinions that you love them!

P.S.: Responding to this essay by writing that you love me will not be nearly as funny as you think.