Cultural Oddities

Photographic examples:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=111335&id=510568119&l=00bf606be8

There are many differences between the US and the UK, particularly if like me you’ve been living in a Southern US state. I thought it appropriate to note some of these differences for posterity:

1. Most people will know this already, but cars are significantly larger in the US, especially in the South where SUVs and pickups are the transportation mode of choice. By way of example, please see exhibit A, the first photo in the set accompanying this post. This is the government issue “car” which my office was given to ride around in for business purposes and which I therefore got to spend quite a lot of time driving. In case the picture doesn’t do it justice, the truck (let’s not keep up any sort of pretence that this is a car) is taller than me. I had to climb into it. It could drive less than 200 miles before needing more fuel and its gas tank is the size of a milk tanker. I called him Titan. I loved that truck.

2. Continuing the theme, some Americans aren’t content with taking a tent or a caravan on holiday, they need a mobile house to sleep in. Fortunately for them, the market is flooded with a wide variety of campervans the size of a rock superstar’s tourbus, and we saw countless examples of these environmentally friendly behemoths motoring along the interstates. Obviously such a monstrosity is far too cumbersome to drive around once you get to your holiday destination, so the savvy American camper tows their SUV/large truck behind it to give them something nippy to run around in. The truly enterprising also take a golf buggy for the mornings when walking 500 yards to the toilet block is just too much effort, but sadly I couldn’t get a photo of that particular setup.

3. I have seen many examples of foodstuffs of dubious nutritional value during my trip. The best examples are probably the frozen boxes of blueberry pancakes wrapped around sausages on sticks. I never tried one, but was impressed with the outlandishness of the concept when I saw them in the supermarket. And if fast food is just too darn speedy for you, you can pick up a box of your Taco Bell favourites in the frozen food aisle and cook them yourself at home. Genius.

There were also some nice little oddities in Winston-Salem that I kinda liked. Obviously the fact it's the home of Krispy Kreme donuts was a constant source of happiness (as the perfect excuse for eating donuts...). There's also an adorable Shell petrol station shaped like a shell (it doesn't sell petrol anymore but is the last one in the US so they kept it for tourists). And if the photo of the tower in this set looks familiar, that's because it was the trial run for the Empire State Building. Enough people liked the mini version in Winston-Salem that they built the full size one in New York. There's some knowledge for you.

Racism and the Death Penalty

Photos at the RJA vote (see below), and some of downtown Winston where I did my internship:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113220&id=510568119&l=9187b60be9

In August I went to the North Carolina state legislature in Raleigh to watch the representatives (MPs) vote on the Racial Justice Act or "RJA." The RJA became law and made it illegal to execute a person where it can be shown that race was a significant factor in the decision to seek or impose the death penalty, either in that person's case or in cases generally in the State, county, prosecutorial district or judicial division where the person was charged. You'd think it would be pretty well established that a person couldn't be executed on the basis of a trial significantly influenced by racism, but sadly that isn't the case. What what I came to learn during my internship is that racism in the American South is still a major issue, particularly in death penalty cases. Lots of studies on have been made of this topic, but for example a 2008 study in North Carolina concluded that black defendants who killed white victims were 14 times more likely to be sentenced to death than white defendants who killed black victims. Since the re-institution of capital punishment in the United States, there have been over 130 exonerations of death row inmates, and most of these have been African-American.

I met and worked with Darryl Hunt, a man who spent almost 20 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, and who would have spent that time waiting to be executed if the jury hadn't voted for life imprisonment as an alternative. His case was so controversial that it was turned into a major documentary which won awards and nominations from Sundance to the Emmys. (See the trailer here: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1928659225/ Mr Hunt, an African American, was charged with the rape and murder of Deborah Sykes, a white woman, in 1984. A witness reported seeing Ms Sykes with "an African-American man" on the morning of the crime and tentatively identified Mr Hunt as the man he had seen. Another witness identified a different man in a first photo lineup, but after Mr Hunt had been identified as a suspect, this witness changed his mind and claimed it was Mr Hunt he had seen as well. Despite numerous inconsistencies, evidential flaws and dubious prosecutorial techniques, Mr Hunt was convicted. Several appeals were launched, and in 1994, Mr. Hunt's attorney, who I worked for in Winston-Salem, requested that new DNA testing be done on evidence from the crime scene. The DNA test excluded Mr. Hunt as the contributor of the DNA found on the victim. Despite this, the courts ruled this evidence did not prove he was innocent and it was to be a further 10 years before he would be released. In 2003 the DNA profile from evidence from the crime scene was run through the State's database. The DNA matched a man in prison for another murder, who subsequently confessed to the Deborah Sykes’ rape and murder. Mr. Hunt was finally exonerated and was eventually officially pardoned in 2004. One of the things that struck me most when I met him was how his experience hasn't made him at all bitter. When he was released, he set up the Darryl Hunt Project to help convicted felons find work, housing, healthcare etc when they are released from jail - things that would usually be extremely hard to come by for them. He also travels around the country giving talks to students and various law enforcement conferences talking about the case and hopefully preventing the mistakes that were made with him being repeated. He's an absolutely lovely guy, unassuming, modest and very affable. If you can get your hands on the documentary it's well worth a watch.

Down in the Deep Ole' South

Tried my hand at being arty with some of these photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=111341&id=510568119&l=1c3fa93574

Spent a long weekend in the deep south of Georgia and South Carolina over Labor Day. First stop Savannah, SC. I fell in love with this place - the whole town has a sleepy Old South air to it, described perfectly in the novel "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" which I reread as soon as I got back to Winston. The historic district is built around lots of squares shaded by huge trees dripping with Spanish moss and flanked by grand old houses with impressive verandas and sweeping staircases. Slightly out of town and on the edge of the river is the gorgeous Bonaventure cemetery where Johnny Mercer (he wrote the lyrics to "Moon River" among other songs)is buried. The main attractions however are the long tree lined avenues and gothic angels and monuments that fill the spaces between them - I think I spent most of an afternoon taking photos there while Rich patiently followed me around, bless 'im.

Charleston is also a beautiful city, but in a much more ostentatious way. As soon as you arrive downtown you're surrounded by upmarket shops, art galleries and restaurants, and the grandest old houses I've ever seen, some of which overlook the harbour which hosts amazing sunsets. As night fell I forgave all of its pretensions when real gas powered lamps flickered into life along the cobbled streets and we took a tram ride through the center of the city. It felt a bit like how I imagine the nicer parts of Victorian London would have been, but with the added Southern grandeur of Gone With The Wind. It was pretty magical. The photos don't do it justice, but I took a fair few anyway, just in case...

To top off our Old South weekend we also took in a Bluegrass and BBQ festival at an big ole' plantation. Cue lots of banjo pickin,' foot stompin' hoe-down stylee frolics and plenty of tasty chargrilled fare smothered in Carolina style BBQ sauce. Nice :)

Driving the Dragon

Having thoroughly “done the Smokies” we decided to plan a route back to Winston-Salem that would show us some different scenery and bring us into Bryson City for the night in plenty of time to find a motel. Everything seemed to be going well until we joined up with Highway 129, what looked on the map to be a short bit of road that we’d be on for maybe 20 minutes tops. 30 minutes later I remember commenting to Cari “This road’s a bit twisty isn’t it?” as I manouevured the Kia people carrier the rental agency had deemed “compact” around yet another tight mountainside bend. “I feel like we should be on Top Gear.” After passing numerous motorbikes, very few cars, an ambulance and a police car stopped by the site of some kind of collision it had started to get dark and we still weren’t off the mountain. And I couldn’t remember that last time the road had been in any way straight. Finally we got to the bottom and decided to pull into what looked like a motel populated entirely by bikers to ask whether the road got any better from here. After being directed to Ben, the extremely helpful manager of the motel, we discovered we were still miles from our destination and he fixed us up with a map and recommended a local motel to stay at for the night. As we were about to leave he called us back and handed us each a sticker shaped like a dragon. “You guys need one of these” he said “seeing as how you’ve just driven the Dragon.” Turns out that twisty little stretch of highway 129 is a “world famous bike and sports car road.” 318 turns in 11 miles no less, and people come from all over the globe just to drive along it. This proved to be no exaggeration as we later met a woman who’d ridden her bike from Canada to get to the Dragon, and even motels 20 miles away were full of her fellow bikers. I bet the Stig would be proud.

Asheville & the Smokies

Photo central:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=110392&id=510568119&l=ac1c4121bb

Back in July Cari came out to visit and we took a trip to Asheville and the Great Smoky Mountains. Asheville is a cool little town, home to some crazy architecture and, the weekend we were there, the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival. Lots of clogging and banjo picking going on, with some pretty good North Carolina BBQ on the side.

Leaving Asheville, we headed up through Cherokee and into the Smokies. This time I actually saw some bears (yes, that is a bear in the photos - they're blurry because some clever American teenager decided to walk right up to it waving her cameraphone until it got a bit peeved, charged at her and then ambled off as she ran screaming in the opposite direction.)

The road through the Smokies brings you into Tennessee, and the delightful town of Gatlinburg. The town is really a road, lined on both sides by motels, glow-in-the-dark underwater themed mini-golf courses, fast food chains and faux olde-worlde restaurants, a Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum, folks dressed as hillbillies serenading tourists with Bluegrass tunes, and countless themed souvenir shops (we visited “Magnet World” and a place that sold nothing but 1950s memorabilia). Although you wouldn’t want to spend more than a night there (unless you’re a certain sort of American family who it turns out come for the week) after a margerita or two in No Way Jose’s Mexican cantina and subsequent late night visit to Ripley’s, it turns into a surprisingly entertaining place.

Ben & Jerry's, Drive-Ins and Diners

For photos, you know the drill:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=107694&id=510568119&l=23f7bfae90

Having completed ¾ of the Appalachian Trail Rich was rewarded with a visit from my good self and a long weekend in Vermont and New Hampshire. As I may have previously mentioned, Burlington, Vermont is the home of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and thus became our base for the trip. On the first night we tracked down the B&J café and, overwhelmed by the world of new flavours such as Chocolate Therapy, Cake Batter, New York Super Fudge Chunk, Chubby Hubby, Oatmeal Cookie, etc etc we decided the only sensible thing to do was try as many of them as we could fit into the largest cones the shop sold. This was both as messy and satisfying as it sounds, as evidenced by the accompanying photos…

Burlington was a great town to relax in – small, designed for pedestrians (a big deal in the US) and sitting along the shore of Lake Champlain next to the Green Mountains. We happily spent our time wandering around eating ice cream, drinking at the local brewery, mooching around the farmers’ market and artsy bookstores, playing connect4 in a cocktail bar and stuffing ourselves at Henry’s diner where breakfasts for 1 come on 2 full sized plates and the pancakes and maple syrup are to die for. We also hired a car and drove around the Green Mountains (which really live up to their name) and went along to a proper American drive-in movie theatre. This was all a bit of a novelty – you drive your car across a field and up to the screen showing the films you want to see (they’re all double or triple bills), park on one of the grassy hillocks that run in tiers across the front of each screen and tune your car radio to the fm frequency listed on your ticket to get the soundtrack to your film. Although they were showing films like Transformers and Harry Potter, they still play the 1950s adverts with the dancing popcorn and hotdogs that were playing at the drive-in in Grease. Pretty cool stuff.

Obviously no trip to Vermont would be complete without a visit to the Ben & Jerry’s factory, where we saw the dairylicious dessert being made and may have sampled a flavour or several. I think I have found my spiritual home.