Spare Some Change

    The wind here was seemingly gale force, the sort where one almost feels as if your legs will be swept out from under you.  Add in the rain that came in drizzles but combined with the wind felt like sleet, and that we were walking atop a cliff-like island, and suddenly the wind felt a bit more threatening as if an ally of the chomping and hungry-looking ocean just below.   But we were back in England, birthplace of my wife and even with the thirty-one hours of being awake, a place that felt quite refreshing.  The cooler air and crashing waves of this coastal town was a nice escape and change from our home which was still stuck in its drought and heat combo.  Being here, our windbreakers being put to the test, we felt as if we had gotten a privileged early admission ticket to fall.

Plasticized money circa 2015

   The changes in this coastal town of the U.K. were here of course since it had been five years since I had lasted visited.  The money for one, our old paper ten pound notes now replaced with a mix of plastic (at least my recycling is going somewhere) and the pound coins now looking quite similar to the double loonie of Canada instead of the heavy single-metaled coin of old (fortunately, the banks will readily exchange any old currency).  And there were now flurries of curries decorating most menus, even those of Rick Stein's chippy outlet; and tiny packets of ketchup had now gained coveted space in the takeaway bowls along with the traditional HP brown sauce, English mustard, and flavored mayo which is politely termed "salad dressing" on this side of the Atlantic (ketchup was once as rare as getting ice in a cocktail here, even in this land of fries --or the British term, chips-- and often was a request only item and something for which there was generally a charge in the fast food places; unfortunately such items are still a charge in places such as Rick Stein's but not in the less-expensive pubs and such).  But beyond the appearance of new buildings and the disappearance of older ones (many of the earlier hotels were admittedly showing their age, their roofs needing repair and their interiors no longer drawing the crowds to support them), there was no taking away the beautiful coastline, the wild winds sloshing the waves even higher against the dark and craggy walls.  Protected by the royal side of the government, the Duchy of Cornwall (the Prince's Trust) owns this section of coastal land and as with many things royal is not for sale thus ensuring its walking paths and sweeping ocean views stay accessible to the public.  And something else had not changed...the people.  Cars still pulled over to let other oncoming cars come through when the narrow roads got a bit too narrow (the one exception I noticed was of all things, a mail car brightly labeled with the government's official logo, The Royal Mail); virtually everyone you passed on the paths greeted you with a "hiya" or a "mornin';" and there was a genuine interest when talking with people in the pubs and restaurants (it could have been my obvious American accent although as one person told me, "You're English is pretty good...I can still understand you.").  And in this part of the southwest there remained a certain defiance where the rains and winds were just a fact of life...you still walked the dog, still had the kids walk to school, still golfed and once in awhile even walked on the beach, pouring rain or not.  This was Cornwall after all, a county and people as stubbornly independent as the Welsh with their own identity and language (and quite possibly their own government if given the choice).  Dogs, soaked or not, were still welcome in most pubs which perhaps lent more truth to the term "salty old dog" since dogs were welcome on the beaches as well (although that freedom is now restricted somewhat in from June to September due to the influx of tourists who arrive in those summer months...the town swells from under 22,000 to well over 100,000 at that point).

   This rugged persona of sorts was exemplified by the pedestrian crossing lights which stopped the buzzing autos and buses that came from the opposite side (look right, then left vs. the other way around although I'm sure that more than a few Brits and old age pensioners --as we seniors are politely coined here-- have the same trouble when coming to the U.S.).  I timed the crossing lights -- 6 seconds.  Go on, git. Heaven help that rickety old man with a walker.  "I used to see old ladies dragging mini trolley carts around all the time, " my wife mentioned as I lugged both of my massive 2 liter bottles of fizzy water back to our room; "I wonder what happened?"  After barely making it across the street myself, I was afraid to offer my own theory.  Of course everyone seemed to walk quite briskly here, from the always-barefooted surfers (the town of Newquay is now an official stop in the surfing world competitions and come August, draws 50,000 people in its own right, this despite my never seeing the waves much larger than four or five feet and the water appearing as frigid as the arctic) to the elderly who sometimes appeared close to being blown away on those gusty cliff trails...which our host told us has happened, although I am still not sure if that was meant in jest, as a cautionary warning, or if he felt that my wife and I were looking a bit frail.

    And there is something about that British accent, each variant pretty much the same to my Americanized ears but distinctive and geographically identifying to my wife's way of hearing.  Still, a charming lass or lad seemed that much more innocent once they spoke as if they were children of the polite bus drivers we encountered; a quick nod, a slight smile on the lip, and a small glimmer in the eye softened even the hardest heart, I felt.  And it seemed pervasive in this part of the U.K.  When a car driver rushed by a few of us crossing the street, one in a wheelchair, all I heard was a slightly sarcastic "thank you very much" (I was tempted to think that it had to be an American tourist driving although there was no hand gesture so perhaps not).  It was good to be unwinding, as if I had been placed in a zen shopping mall.  Stress and rushing were futile, even as people walked around me or gathered in front.  Perhaps it was the cold, or the wind, or the place we were staying, or the people we were meeting, but I couldn't help but feel that it was just the way it was. Tradition.  Comfort food.  Calm.  Tomorrow would come so why rush?

Traditional bangers and mash in a pub

   Author Paul Gruchow wrote about this looking back, this hanging onto the old ways, in his book Grass Roots: Nostalgia, we believe, is a cheap emotion.  But we forget what it means.  In its Greek roots it means, literally, the return to home...the clinical term for homesickness, for the desire to be rooted in a place. This desire need not imply the impulse to turn back the clock, which of course we cannot do.  It recognizes, rather, the truth --if home is a place in time-- that we cannot know where we are now unless we can remember where we have come from.  The real romantics are those who believe that history is the story of the triumphful march of progress, that change is indiscriminately for the better. Those who would demythologize the past seem to forget that we also construct the present as a myth, that there is nothing in the wide universe so vast as our own ignorance. Knowing that is our real hope.

    Little was apparently going to change here even if you saw it happening in front of you (such as the launderettes going up to $6.50 per wash...yikes!).  The soup would always be tomato or a version of it, a bisque or a bit of basil thrown in; the eateries would all close at 3 and open at 6; the darkest beers would always be the ales ((still no porters or stouts, dang it...but it's much the same in the U.S.).  Like the ins and outs of the tides presenting a massive stretch of sand then erasing it all away like watery monks it was sun, sand, surf then wind, rain, cold...repeat, then repeat again, and again.  But then again I was now older and looking at all of this through different eyes, perhaps not seeing the frustration of the younger generation who maybe felt stuck like farmers in a world of older ways down in a locked-in corner of this small island. Or maybe like me, they themselves were now ready to settle down and had returned to raise their own children and teach them the old ways, somewhat evidenced by a beautiful young mother with an even more beautiful 5-month old daughter who busily chatted with us as she breastfed her baby in the hotel restaurant, embarrassing to my wife and I but not to her OR her mother sitting next to her.  This was the country, and perhaps that was the secret.  Get out of the city, the hustle and bustle, the technology and always-on attitude.  Slow down was what I was hearing; and it appeared to me that it was taking me a trip across the Atlantic to discover that...