Happy Birthday, America The (Not Always) Beautiful

There’s a phrase that’s stuck in my mind  ever since the day I had the enormous (and effortless) good fortune to become an American citizen. Seventeen years ago, the judge who swore in a couple of hundred of us as new citizens told us to pursue our dreams, and to get involved in our communities. Then, she said: “America is not a perfect country. But it is a great land.”

Summer of Love

These days, it’s all too easy to bewail what makes America less than a perfect country. Given the emotional, verbal and physical abuse inflicted by those currently in power on innocents and so many other decent people and institutions, it’s been tempting to look for a way out (yes, those cottages for sale in the English countryside sure look inviting!)  But sometimes — especially on anniversaries like July 4th, or for example, August 31 (my anniversary of citizenship)– I feel I should remind myself of what made me fall in love with this great land in the first place.

So, I go back to the summer of 1969. It was the year of the moon landing, the slayings of Sharon Tate and her friends by Charles Manson in Beverly Hills, and of Ted Kennedy’s accident which killed Mary Jo Kopechne on Chappaquiddick, off Martha’s Vineyard.

It was also the year of my trip of a lifetime. On a Greyhound bus. To take a Greyhound bus trip across the length and breadth of this country is to appreciate its greatness and vastness (so much room for so many more people) — and its natural, breathtaking, awesome beauty. I took that trip at the end of my first year at the University of Warwick in the U.K.  I was 19.

99 Days For $99

Back then, a visitor to the US could purchase a Greyhound bus pass for unlimited travel. The catchy phrase was “99 days for $99.”  By the time I was ready to visit, the price was $132 dollars for 99 days. Not as catchy, but still a fabulous deal.  It was a dream come true for me. All through my teens, I’d longed to visit the country of Elvis, Tony Curtis, and the beaches where American “students” like Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello spent their spring breaks.

When I grew up, I wanted to live in Hollywood and write stories about movie stars for fan magazines — or at least to be a screenwriter. Or, as I decided, once I’d actually visited, I wanted to live in New York City — the center of the universe. It was a city unlike any other I’d ever visited with an energy that could hardly be described. Why,  people walked so fast, if you slowed down, they’d knock you over, and keep right on going!

Herald Square

I spent my first three nights on American soil at the corner of Broadway and 34th Street in the McAlpin Hotel. That’s as many nights as were included in the package deal organized by a British student club. The idea was that students would find work for a few weeks (we were provided with lists of agencies that employed temporary workers) and then use the earnings to travel.

I immediately landed a job as a nanny to Alexander and Victoria, ages 4 and 5. Yikes! What did I know about kids? Nothing. But their world-famous photographer father (their mother was vacationing in the South of France) took a liking to me, flew me up to the family’s summer home on the very exclusive island of Isleboro in Maine — and left me there with them while he went off on assignment.

From Sea To Shining Sea

A month later, having not poisoned the kids with my cooking, nor been careless enough to lose them or let them injure themselves, I took off from Isleboro on my great adventure from “sea to shining sea. ” First stop: Niagara Falls. Then, through the “amber waves of grain” zipping across the Mid-West, stopping in “alabaster cities” (Salt Lake City definitely, clean and sparkling; Chicago, not so much;) before crossing the Sierras under “halcyon skies” into San Francisco.

What an adventure!  I was on my own, travelling where I wanted to go, when I wanted to go there, meeting all kinds and types of people, carrying all my possessions in one tan, leather holdall which could be easily stowed either under a bus seat or in the overhead bin. I slept on the buses, boarding at night to ride several hundred miles, and arrive at dawn in a new destination. Many bus stations back then had shower facilities (maybe they still do?) Or I ducked into the nearest hotel.

Cheap Hotels,  Big Breakfasts

Being downtown where most bus terminals are located, the hotels were not of the five-star variety. Heck, they weren’t even two-star or, come to think of it, any star. They were the kind where several rooms along a hallway shared a bathroom at the end of the hall which was usually unlocked and (lucky for me) accessible to anyone who wandered in off the street. A breakfast of bacon, eggs and sausage with toast and coffee and refills cost under a dollar, and a booth in any diner came equipped with those little mini- jukebox things at the end of the table which I could feed to play Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline over and over.

Going To Pot in Hollywood

I did it all and saw it all that summer. I marvelled at the redwood forests north of San Francisco, and the magnificence of the Grand Canyon further South.  I shared a joint on Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills (and swore never to smoke pot again, but please, please God don’t let them arrest and deport me forever!) I sneaked into the Beverly Hills Hotel  for cocktails ( two decades before I stayed there while covering the Oscars for the Star.) I made a detour to Mexico City and Acapulco (where I almost drowned)  and came back in through Brownsville, Texas (before it became famous for caging children!)

Family & Friends Forever

On the last leg of my trip, I journeyed through the Deep South (as quickly as I could), and into Washington D.C. by September where I saw Ted Kennedy on the Senate floor, still wearing a neck brace from his summer accident on Chappaquiddick.  Along the way, I met a couple of unsavory characters whom I was happy to be  able to ditch by getting out of town fast, and made friends with a Columbia University student who remained a friend for several decades afterwards. I discovered my American family (friends of my parents who had all been together through the Warsaw Rising and World War II in Europe) who I call family to this day — although only my “brother” Andy and “sister” Ann are alive now.

Oh Beautiful For Pilgrim Feet

I saw more of my future homeland that summer than many citizens see in their lifetimes, and what I saw made me fall in love with this country, hook, line and sinker. Oh beautiful for spacious skies, indeed

Now, we just need to skip to the second verse, and again make this great land  “beautiful for pilgrim feet,” — no matter what the color or religion of those feet.

Happy Birthday, America. Happy July 4th to all.

Photo Credits from top to bottom: bigstockphoto.com; pinterest.com; Laura Toran (Isleboro coast); wikimedia.com (sierra nevada range); niagarafallsstatepark.com; tripsavvy.com