Bill Sykes' Newsletter from America.
(February 2003)
An ex-Brit gives his views-(without fear
or favor)---of the American Scene
Webmasters Note - After
reading Bill's February newsletter I decided to ask a
few questions of my own.
If you could live your life over---would you
do it all again?
Now, that’s one hell of a question to ask - which
I really do not feel qualified to answer - but if you
will forgive me for hedging my bets along the way, I will
try. You must realize that we as persons have changed
our attitudes to life considerably during the thirty six
years that we have been here, and of course so has the
world at large. The Tony Blair Britain of today horrifies
me with its welfare mentality which provides far more
than basic necessities to foreign born asylum seekers
and consequently is destroying the British middle class
system, (which was always the backbone of UK society),
by placing unacceptable financial burdens upon them.
We came to America with great expectations and to a
degree fulfilled those expectations. We found the way
of life in America to be very different to the British
way of life, somewhat more flamboyant, naïve, and
in many cases devoid of the integrity that we had been
used to.
America was once described to me as being similar to the
tinsel town exterior appearance of Hollywood—a magnificent
façade up front, with no behind the scene substance.
We of course were appalled by what we considered to be
lower educational standards in the grade schools, but
in all fairness I must point out that higher educational
opportunities were available to most students with at
least a vestige of intellectual capability, and both our
children graduated from four-year Universities. Patricia
in particular, completed her degree in Micro-Biology and
was fortunate to be chosen out of six hundred applicants
for three positions that were available for a one year
internship at a local hospital and went on to become a
Medical Technologist, a goal that I’m sure that
she would have been unable to achieve under the British
University system of the 1960s.
Another thing that concerned us was the population’s
general reluctance to accept a form of hand gun control,
which resulted in indiscriminate and unlawful use of guns
in criminal activities. This we considered to be a throw
back to the wild west cowboy era and associated it with
an unbelievable number of murders which were committed
within the United States on a daily basis.
But on the other side of the coin, we enjoyed the affluence
of a society that provided us with the financial means
to do most things that we wished to do, which to many
in this world is still unattainable.
Did the GOOD outweigh the BAD? - Oh dear, now I’m
clearly put on the spot - Let me try to put this as diplomatically
as I can - we were fortunate enough not to become involved
in any incident which was life threatening.
So, if the world was the same as it was when I made the
decision to transfer our affiliations to the United States,
I suppose the answer I would have to give to your question
would be, "Yes I would do the same again".
I can of course only give my opinion. Let me put it this
way, after suffering the inclement weather of Britain
for forty years, the answer given has certainly been influenced
by the positive factor of California sunshine and beaches.
I know these observations and answers may be considered
totally inadequate but what can one do in such a situation.
A question related to accent - after all these
years have you picked up an American accent?
The answer is rather short. Not exactly---we certainly
use American colloquialisms and speech patterns, and when
in Britain are generally recognized as Americans, but
we still in most cases think British and will always have
the ability to regress to our British accent when the
occasion occurs.
Thoughts for the day.
-
If one wants to look into the future, does one have
to look back at the past. !!!
-
History only shows events that have occurred in
the past and cannot predict, (with any degree of infinite
accuracy), events that will occur in the future. !!!
We welcome feedback about any of the contents of these
newsletters. Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
|
