MTHT Ep. 1: The U.S.A

MTHT Project

In what I’m going to call my Mostly Human Trafficking Series, for the why, see the associate link – I’m going to begin with my beginning. The United States of America. Now I’ve said it for years, and I don’t mean a thing against the well-meaning patriots who take offence – but there is no America. I don’t even mean that in the iconoclastic, rage against the machines way – but simply put: there is no one America. There are 50 States in the Union, each is different from the next. Most of the New England States are kissing cousins, but even among New Englanders there are as many different Americas as Counties.

Red State America? Blue State? Rural? Urbanite? Each have beautifully conflicting ways of life. To the outside, America is the land of burgers – and this is true for many. And if they can be happy this way, fine – good. I’m not. Sic semper memeensis. There is the commercial America, typified by rinse and repeat liberal and conservative tropes. MAGA this and Commie that – false dichotomies all. But we always were, and always must be, more than the false impressions of our system.

Take New England. Alone, we embody the “problem” of infinite regression identified in Mormonism by Papists. And others. Like any good myth, we have conflicting origin stories. Massachusetts claims to be the Spirit of America, even over Virginia which was there first but not by the same intent. Massachusetts forgets that it was Maine, before Massachusetts which was yet to be named, to have had the first English settlement. In Phippsburg – which stands still. Nevetheless, it was Puritans who settled New England – even this is not so. The Pilgrims were divided by Puritans and Strangers. All sought a freedom of conscience.

New England has been described as a land of a thousand dialects. Not content to make spins on a reel, each State has her twang, yes, but then variations on a spin. In Maine there were many accents. Downeast, sure. But then there was the County Accent. Accent could vary by County, even by town. And certainly by ethnicity. The Anglo-American descendants have a lingo besides the Franco-Americans, to say who is the more inflected remains with the observer. In the old days, when visitors from Away came they would remark how a tour through New England was like stepping back decades into Old England.

Even Benjamin Franklin lamented, and celebrated, this independence. His notation that each State was like a country beside led to his designing the “Join or Die” flag, an early warning toward English Unity in light of the French and Indian threat. At that time. Later, the ideal became weaponised against our British Cousins as English America fought for her English Rights in wake of the Britishing of the Empire.

From town names to local dishes, we still echo a past we are sometimes too close to for seeing. So it goes. And if one is tempted to think of Our New England as somehow mollified and erased, they can leave. Evidence to the contrary becomes quickly tangible that we retain an air of uniqueness. Even so amongst ourselves. And while I would prefer that the decline cease, and New England return to her English roots – the cultural branch remains. We remain ahead of the old Serpent which symbolised the Thirteen Stripes on the flag which betrays our origins. One can feel the difference between Maine and New Hampshire, Vermont or Massachusetts – the rest of New England stands like a beacon apart, with Massachusetts standing for some as an urban gateway with Connecticut feeling more like New York than New England.

Still, the Tri-State area of Northern New England remains. One can tour our convoluted roads, see the white-clad churches and the old cape homes. One can dally in town centres, and see where the Sunday meetings fell. One can happen by pubs and taverns hawking fish and chips, or attend bean suppers where the crocks are full of old NE. Dicker at flea markets – what of them remain – or better still, traverse the bogs and valleys, hills and fields our Colonial ancestors tamed long before Columbia had begun to gobble up the West like the glorious gluttoness she is.

I can tour the Pennsylvania countryside and feel the difference, too. Or I can hear the tales from refugees out of the ruined Americas, who come here to illustrate those differences either by volition or default. Those fleeing colourisation, liberalisation and above all – urbanisation – who ironically bring these all with them. Still it goes. There remain many Americas. Pennsylvania, as I said, is a gorgeous land which lies beautifully bloated with flowering fields and open spaces. Their roads are long, and their fields a-plenty. With space between towns not claimed by forest, one sees no point in imagining how the Pennamites themselves became so diverse and open. The Germans, Dutch and English formed the backbone there, with some French and Other besides. Then atop this came the religious pluralism, Quakers and Shakers and Amish too – the odd Puritan whose free conscience now seemed chained – and others. All working toward a harmony, blending into the sea of red barns and sweeping plains.

Yet still, like the TRV New England, the Old Colonial feeling remains. Building styles range from those so close to home, and gloriously Neocolonial and Graeco-Roman. They too have town centres and meeting houses, the physical flavour of which smack unmistakably of early Yankee influence. I could feel at home there.

I hear tales from the Texans among us, choosing to reverse the pioneer roads of their fathers and retvrn to America’s Promised Land in New England which by Providence seems blessed with so many gifts lacking elsewhere. Such as an agreeable climate not wracked with hurricanes, earthquakes and sinkholes, the likes of which indicate an angry god is destroying the post-colonial states. These Texans come with tales of Germantowns, and Little Pioneer Europes. Some settlements sound as Anglicised as you like, as was the case with many pioneer expats. Other towns are the fertile ground where the Celts grow, whose hillsong sounds in the tone of old country Western music. So it goes.

It pays to remember that America is not the despicable monolith presented on television, a juggernaut slowly cannibalising itself into mediocrity. There are many Americas beneath the surface, and each in her way is beautiful and worth saving.

But that’s just me. I’m not the King of America, George the III was the last official King of America but she has had many more uncrowned. Again. My opinion. But what is yours, Reader? Are you American? What is your America? Is it the televised trainwreck that Z.O.G. exports to the world for our shame? Perhaps you are foreign to these shores, and that is all you know – like a Rammstein song. Are you a New Englander, like me? What is your New England? Do you come from another region? Be you Yankee, or Southron, Yooper or what-ever flavour – I would be happy to hear you wax poetic. Bear only in mind, the point of my Trafficking project is to recapture a sense of positive nationalism. Every country has something worth waxing romantic about, and that is what I want to hear. Wōden knows, I already know what’s wrong with this country, but it’s worth remembering what’s right.

Cheers for now, hope to read from you soon!

 

Till then, enjoy some random pictures from the America in my head on loan from a dieing breed and select client houses. Note to self: upload pictures, don’t close window or you’ll forget, you stooge.

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Black Phillip Sees You When You Live Deliciously.

And New England IS delicious, so get your own cake. ;p Get your cake here.

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Some paintings I like. A lot.

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Some photos I didn’t snap…

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