From the first man landing on the moon, to the classic TV series Dallas and the Black Lives Matter Movement, Richard Parry, head of Experience Economy at DIT, recalls his experiences to transport us to 1960s America up until present day…
It was in 1962 when I fell in love for the first time. And the second time. I was ten years old. The first object of my affections was Hayley Mills. My grandmother had taken me to see her in “Pollyanna” and I was immediately smitten (with Hayley, I mean, not my grandmother). But soon afterwards, another seductress came calling. A seductress with tall buildings, crazy cars, a strange but compelling accent, weird and wonderful words, and images of a glamourous world about as far from mine – a Welsh mining village – as you could imagine.
My next two years were filled with Americana. My collection of Dinky and Corgi American cars began to defy enumeration. My worldview was gleaned from DC Comics. I desperately wanted to send off for a set of 40 model Confederate soldiers but agonised about having neither a “check” to send, or a “ZIP code”. I wanted a Confederate flag (oops!) not because of any desire to embrace Confederate policies but it just looked so good. That Christmas, my parents got me a Union Jack. No amount of imagination could bridge that gap. I loved the Chrysler Building – was there ever a more beautiful edifice? – and the X-15 – was there ever a more beautiful machine?
As I went through boarding school, I dropped Hayley but stayed pretty faithful to the USA. I rejoiced in its athletes dominating at Olympic Games, I embraced the Beach Boys’ California (no easy task in Monmouth). I loved the USA (eventually) beating the USSR in the Space Race. Apollo 11 seemed to sum up all that was great about the States. But, somewhere in the background, my more wilfully worldly and radical chums were banging on about race riots, Vietnam, Nixon and so on. It’s not that I was unaware of the maelstrom which was engulfing the US – I just didn’t really want to know about it. It was only when my music idol, Keith Emerson, burned the Star Spangled Banner whilst playing Leonard Bernstein’s “America” at a concert at the Royal Albert Hall that I accepted that something might be wrong.
“America, where are you now? Don’t you care about your sons and daughters? Don’t you know, we need you now, we can’t fight alone against the monster.” (Steppenwolf).
And, so, my student (right on, man – love your loons) and early work years in the 1970’s saw me pretty much dissing the US and all it stood for. And then something transformative happened. I went there The TV Series “Dallas” was in full swing, and “Business Traveller” commissioned me to go to Dallas and write a profile piece about the city. I vividly remember having a window seat (and two free seats next to me – joy!) on a Braniff 747. Immersed in “Dallas” culture, I asked the stewardess for a Bourbon Branch (JR’s tipple of choice). I had no idea what the “branch” bit was, and to be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure that it was a real drink. But she served it without flinching. I was in America! I recall the clouds clearing as we flew down across the Midwest. That was the USA down there. The place that had so beguiled me for so long.
The next four days produced a torrent of experiences. Arriving at DFW and setting foot in the US for the first time. The sign saying, “Ground Transportation” (which, even to this day, makes me happy). The taxi ride on a freeway with loads of lanes. The stunning Hyatt Regency lobby. Sitting at the hotel bar drinking Lone Star beer. Being awake half the night, and happily so, listening to that distinctive horn that American trains use (bewitching when heard from a distance, less so when you’re actually trying to sleep on an Amtrak train and the goddam thing sounds every ten minutes). Having to wait to be seated at breakfast and finding a strawberry on my fry up (we didn’t do that in Blaenavon).
Lunch with the hotel’s PR lady – whose name, wonderfully, was Lucy. The grassy knoll, the Neiman Marcus department store, the Cotton Bowl, Texas Stadium and the Dallas Cowboys. Sunday morning and TV evangelists (I was so stunned by the sheer audacity of these villains, I nearly sent Oral Roberts a few “love dollars”), football, brunch.
Barely a month later, I was back in the USA, with my mate Jerry, doing the obligatory road trip. LA to Seattle by road, planes to Minneapolis then DC. Road to New York. My old friend Frank Barrett, until recently Travel Editor at the Mail on Sunday, beat me to the USA by a few months and said it struck him as being a giant theme park. And he was right. The people, places and landmarks seemed put there just for my amusement. It wasn’t so much a road trip as a long stay at a visitor attraction. And since then, there have been almost one hundred trips to the theme park across the water. Mostly to cities. Mostly hugely enjoyable. What of the people? It’s hard to make much of a judgement on such a small sample size, but most of the folk that I’ve spent time with have been open, engaging, positive and guileless. The high school geography teacher with whom I shared a taxi from the airport to downtown Houston – he had never been out of Texas. The cocktail waitress in Corpus Christi who had near-hysterics when I ordered a “neat” (not “straight up”) bourbon. Being bought a beer by Tex Schramm, GM of the Dallas Cowboys (“Thanks for coming to see us”). Sitting in a bar in SoHo NYC, unable to take my ears off a girl from Brownsville, Tx., whose accent made Sue-Ellen Ewing sound like Hayley.
And I have been struck, too, by how bureaucratic, rules-bound and old fashioned many of America’s business practices seem to be. A far cry from the dynamic “can do” image I had been brought up to believe.
“We come on a ship they called the Mayflower. We come on a ship that sailed the Moon. And we come in the age’s most uncertain hour and sing an American tune” Paul Simon
But, of course, despite this long and happy engagement, I was acutely aware of America’s subcutaneous troubles. JFK. RFK. MLK. KKK. KSU. NRA. And, last year, when visiting New Orleans, I felt something troubling. The legacy of Hurricane Katrina was still obvious and visible, but the impression of dystopia was deeper than that. I found it much harder to look away from the street people, to ignore the shabbiness of downtown. Disenchantment had set in. And all this against an increasingly, obviously, polarised society – rich/poor, black/white, Democrat/Republican. The fault lines seemed much more apparent. And that was before the huge magnification lenses of the struggles against COVID-19 and the BLM campaign. There’s an election coming up – and I’d vote for anyone who could Make America America Again.
But maybe it was always like this – after all, for my entire life, the USA has been fraught with divisions of one kind or another. It was just suppressed by the “have a nice day”-ness and the lingering theme park quality of the places I happened to visit.
Is the romance over? Once in a while, I see or hear something – a “ground transportation” sign, for example – that still causes a little leap in my heart. But it might be too late to rekindle the flame – and, in any case, I’ve noticed that Hayley is on “Celebrity Antiques Road Trip” tonight.
“America, America, step out into the light. You’re the best dream man has ever dreamed – and may all your Christmases be white” Randy Newman
Want to stay in the USA? Walt Disney World in Orlando is celebrating its 49th anniversary this week.
