The Fado Irish Bar in Columbus was busy on Saturday morning. Like most fake Irish pubs around the world, Fado had multiple TV screens all showing English football. Much as I despise this cultural hi-jacking, I am enough of a hypocrite to immerse myself in it occasionally.
I pushed my way past the replica jersey wearing masses and found the TV at the back that was showing the Arsenal game. Space was tight and I was anxious to try out the “Full Irish Breakfast” which promised more cooked pig than you could shake an artery at. So I found a seat at the corner of a table where three blond, blue eyed American kids were watching the game, bedecked in 1979 Cup final replica shirts. I assumed their Dad was an English exile, cursed to live out his later years in the mind numbing emptiness that is mid west America.
But when he came over to check on them, it turned out that he too was a died in the wool yank, as where most of the other viewers. It seems that the pandemic of English football knows no boundaries. White Americans are the latest cheerleaders.
Having consumed the vast amounts of pig presented to me and having celebrated another great win with my three young friends; I left Fado and headed for the mall to prostrate myself before the God of American consumerism. I’d spent all week working in a dark windowless room and this would be my first chance to see Columbus properly. I had low expectations and sadly they were entirely met.
I had arrived at midnight six days earlier and found that my bag had miraculously made it through three flight connections. It’s a sad indictment of modern travel that we are pleasantly surprised when something works. I caught a cab to the Hotel and peered into the murky darkness to get some sense of what Ohio looks like. I couldn’t see much, but as it turned out, there isn’t much to see in daylight hours either.
Ohio is one of the fly-over States. Those you fly over when trying to get to interesting places on either coast. You have to wonder therefore why people live in places like Columbus. In the 19th Century there were gold rushes and a thirst for farming land that drove pioneers inland. But in the 21st Century what would make the average yank move there, rather than New York, New Orleans or Los Angeles? Or for that matter, what makes the poor unfortunates who are born there decide to stay?
Perhaps they like the emptiness, the big sky and the straight roads. Or maybe they just don’t like crowds and the smell of saltwater. Whatever the reason, Columbus is now a City of almost a million people, some of whom have even seen the big world outside and still decided to stay.
The Easton mall, which was luring my dollars on this Saturday morning, is unusual by American standards in that it at least tries to look like a normal town. That’s fine in summer I’m sure, but an outdoor mall is less alluring when it’s minus three and falling. I’ve become a soft Aussie in the last couple of years and I’ve grown intolerant to the cold. My mood wasn’t helped when I noted the type of shops that populated the mall. They were aimed at the more discerning customer, one willing to pay ridiculous amounts for designer gear. I’m more the Walmart kind of guy and was hoping to find one of those gargantuan factory stores for which America is famous. The sort of place that sells T-shirts up to XXXXXL and jeans for five bucks. Instead I found perfumed shops that would not have looked out of place on the Champs-Elysees .
So I jumped into a cab and hightailed it for the City, assuming I’d find more of the real America there. Unfortunately, America had packed its bags and headed to the suburbs for the weekend. Maybe there was a time when American city centres were vibrant at weekends. But I’m guessing that’s before the black folks got uppity and started demanding equal rights. The white people fled to the suburbs were they could watch English football in fake pubs and educate their kids in mono cultural schools.
America is the most ethnically mixed country in the world, yet it’s also the most ghettoised. I walked from North Columbus to the South through the Central Business district with its empty, gleaming skyscrapers and shuttered up coffee shops. I guess the cold didn’t help, but the streets were deserted apart from occasional groups of young black guys dressed in out sized puffy jackets and baseball caps worn at strange angles.
I suddenly felt very white and thought of all those episodes of “The Wire” I’d watched over the previous month. But confidence is everything and I struck my best James Deane pose and imagined I was strolling down the boulevard of broken dreams. Nobody mugged me or tried to sell me drugs. Like me, the street corner guys seemed only interested in avoiding the cold. Preconceptions are generally unfair on people.
My destination in the south was the German village which the guidebooks suggested was a little slice of Bavaria in the mid west. It turned out to be less German than the Queen of England. But it did have an authentic American Bar, with high stools at the counter and a world weary barman who knew everyone’s order before they did. I pulled up a stool and ordered a beer and a burger, just so people wouldn’t think I was an outsider. The TV behind the bar was showing a college football game between Florida State and Alabama and I quickly became immersed in it. Most Americans prefer college sport to the professional game and it’s easy to see why. It’s faster, less cautious and the crowds are vocal. I suddenly thought that Columbus wasn’t such a bad place after all.
But as I trudged out into the cold, I was reminded of Dr Johnson’s comments about the Giant Causeway. It’s worth seeing, but not worth going to see.
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