A Half-Baked Story

Somebody asks me, what I do with myself all day, I’ll say, I’m writing a book, sort of a memoir, an autobiography of the twists and turns my life has taken. I was looking for a name for this book and this is what I came up with: The Autobiography of a Half-Baked American. Now, you and I both know that I am not clever enough to come up with such a grand phrase for my work in progress. To put it as tactful as I can, I stole it from Aravind Adiga, the author of White Tiger, a book that’s an excellent read, by the way. I highly recommend it.

Before that I was toying with Non-Native Son as a title, but I dropped that, because it came across as a bit presumptuous. My opus really isn’t on the same plateau as Richard Wright’s disturbing story of a black man living in utter poverty in Chicago’s South Side in the 1930’s. Think about it: I’m neither black nor utterly poor nor have I ever lived in Chicago. How could I juxtapose my rather meek effort with the tragedy of Bigger Thomas’ life?

People have pointed out to me on occasion that I am not a real American, more an adopted one. I wasn’t born in America. My fellow countrymen, when I discussed this with them, would say, well, sure you are an American, but a naturalized one, which I guess, in their eyes makes me something less than a real citizen, a step below them, more a denizen of second class, of steerage, rather than the promenade deck reserved for native-born Americans. Such a small and insignificant word that “but”, yet it has the power to separate me from my betters.

In Canada, this dilemma doesn’t really exist. Here, if you believe what you read in the West Coast newspapers, the majority of citizens are immigrants, except for those who speak French or come from deepest Ontario or Newfoundland and the aboriginals, of course, but they have been pretty well marginalized. They don’t seem to count here. Citizens here usually identify themselves as hyphenated Canadians, as in French-Canadian or Irish-Canadian or Indo-Canadian or German-Canadian. There seem to be no real Canadians, so no second-class Canadians. That’s logical.

In the USA, even the constitution singles me out for special treatment. I am not eligible to be President. I couldn’t realize every American child’s dream to become the leader of the free world. Not that I ever had such a dream, but all the same. I’ve studied this document and I know that the founding fathers weren’t thinking about me or my man Arnold, when they put that restriction in there. They were trying to keep foreigners, meaning Brits, from sneaking in under the radar and retaking the country again. That makes sense to me. But the fact that I wasn’t born here, singles me out and puts me into a special category, one filled with people to keep an eye on, just in case. People not to be quite trusted for the big job. To be honest, I can live with that stigma.

In the States, when someone asks you: “Where are you from?” I can’t say, I’m from Gypsum, Kansas, Paducah, Kentucky, El Portal, Florida or Intercourse, Utah. I say, “I’m from deepest Bavaria” and they look at me as if I had just stepped off a UFO, because most Americans are not up on their geography and have no idea where deepest Bavaria might be. They only know it can’t be in the lower 48. Before I became a citizen, I was officially categorized as a resident alien. It can be difficult to lose that “alien” moniker. It cost me four years of service with Uncle Sam’s army.

In my mind, I always considered myself a real American. I served my country and did my duty here and in far away places without complaint. I swore an oath to protect the constitution, obey the orders of my commander in chief and keep my mouth shut about some of the more unsavory happenings I witnessed or was part of in Uncle Sam’s service. I pay my taxes without too much bitching. I’ve served on jury duty, voted in every election since 1964. I think I am a good citizen of my adopted country. I am comfortable with who I am.

Yet, I can pick up the vibe that there is something amiss. With most immigrants you can tell right away, because they haven’t mastered the idiosyncrasies and the flow and rhythm of American English. Their pronunciations and their unfamiliarity with the local idiom will give them away. When I arrived here, I decided to disappear into the melting pot and become indistinguishable from the natives. None of that multicultural crap for me. I’ve mastered that hurdle pretty well. When I talk to Canadians, they think I’m from Alberta. When I’m talking to Americans, they’ll regard me with a knowing look and say: “You’re from New Jersey, aren’t you. I can detect a definite Jersey accent buried there somewhere.” That’s funny, because I’ve only driven through Alberta maybe once or twice in my life and I only spent two days in New Jersey ever and I spoke not a word of English then. What’s even funnier is that when I go back to deepest Bavaria and speak what I believe is my mother tongue, the locals there think I’m a foreigner, pretending to be one of them and no amount of persuasion will change their mind.

This makes me a man without roots and that’s not a good thing. Without roots, you have to cast about for other anchors, otherwise you drift and eventually you will sink and perish. It is very important for one’s sanity to belong someplace, to be part of a group, to be from such and such a place. I pulled up my roots when I stepped on that boat 50 years ago and headed for points unfamiliar. Well, Hoboken isn't all that odd. I mean it’s Frank Sinatra’s home town. But it is not mine. Of course, when you’re young, you don’t think about things like that. You are looking forward to the adventure ahead, particularly, if you are coming from a place where you didn’t fit in to begin with, as it was the case with me.

I was a reject who wouldn’t conform to the expected norms in Germany. I asked too many questions, wasn’t satisfied with the answers, pointed out shortcomings and failures and was told by my teachers, that if I continued to rock the boat, my future there would be questionable at best. I drew the consequences and headed for the Promised Land, never once thinking about lost roots. I still think that decision made all those years ago was a good one. I did not feel like a steerage citizen in the military, at university, in business. I was engaged. I excelled. People patted me on the back and told me that I had the "stuff", whatever that means. What’s more, I took my experience in deepest Bavaria to heart and stopped rocking the boat. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have, but I was driven to get ahead. I didn’t take the time to ask questions. I was too busy chasing after success.

The problem with the roots only surfaced once I retired and had time on my hands to reflect about who I was, where I had been and what I had done. My mother used to say: “Busy hands keep the devil at bay.” She was right. I have too much time on my hands on this island on the edge of the world. I’ve been tempted to reach for the vodka bottle, but I think I can resist that siren’s call. Maybe I’ll go and chop some wood or entice a feral goat to slip over the edge of the cliff in front of my house. The eagles and the ravens need to eat too. Or I’ll get back to my desktop and continue writing my half-baked yarn. It’s a great exercise for my diminishing grey cells.