The Willimers in America

Alaska Day 10 - 4th July at Seward

Today was a big day, with festivities and races all morning, and the big race at midday. The big race is the Seward Mountain Marathon, an annual event where runners leave the centre of town, run to the top of the nearest mountain, then half run, half tumble back to the finish line. For the best runners, going up takes about half an hour, coming down takes much much less. The town was filled with street vendors, with every kind of food and drink available.

So it was a big surprise that when we finally hit the streets just after 10am, nowhere was serving breakfast. Whilst Linda and I were looking forward to trying the street food, Tom wanted pancakes, but had to settle for pizza and fries for breakfast, which didn't put him in a good humour. We had some rough times of Ryan and Amy's schedule, which gave us plenty of time to wander around. The town had a real community vibe, and the day felt not unlike the Shadfest in Lambertville (where Ryan and Amy live) so there was no surprise why they like it so much.

  

During the morning, we went to the Alaska Sealife Center, where Bob Hicks had worked previously. We watched sea lions and seals pirouette gracefully around the tanks before heading back to town to meet up with the gang. After ice cream, our group dispersed, while the Willimers stayed with Ryan to watch the race start. A huge field of runners of mixed ability set off, and we tracked them from the centre of town as small dots disappearing up the hillside. 50 minutes later the leader returned, mud-spattered and bruised to cross the finish line. The end of the race was surprisingly low key, as the crowds of earlier seemed to have thinned out. And apart from a few groups of young herberts letting off stink bombs, the anticipated rowdiness never materialised. We finished the evening with a fine meal at Cristo's Palace, where I was able to extol and demonstrate the virtue of serving salmon with melted cheese, in my excellent Salmon Quesadilla.

  

More pictures of the day are here.

The moment I realised soccer would never catch on in the U.S.A....

On Saturday Thomas and I went to see the NY Red Bulls play the L.A. Galaxy in the MLS regular season game. We're fairly regular visitors to Giants Stadium, but the big attraction of this game was, of course, the appearance of Goldenballs himself in the Big Apple - sorry, I mean David Beckham's first visit to New York with his new team.

One of the biggest wrenches of leaving England was giving up my season ticket at White Hart Lane, especially as I felt I'd really arrived in the adult world when I first splashed out my £400. But the discovery of Fox Soccer Channel gave me my Premiership fix, and I set about trying to become emotionally attached to a team that played in a huge concrete bowl only one-eighth full, in a style that conjured up visions of energetic college students. Yes, once in a while you would see a quality player, but they would either be imported (Jaime Moreno) or a mature European looking for a little twilight glory and money (Youri Djorkaeff) and boy, was it hard to get involved.

And if it was hard for me, someone who had grown up spending every minute of every school vacation playing soccer in the lower field, someone who had been going to Spurs regularly since 1977 - except for interludes at college in Coventry, Brighton and Derby, when I was a regular at those local teams, watching in three stadiums that no longer exist - then how hard was it going to be for Americans who had never grown up with a football terrace culture and rarely got to see their teams on TV, drowned out by the ubiquitous baseball and 'big event' American Football ? Would it ever be possible for soccer to be a 'proper' game here in the U.S.A. ?

So I applauded Beckham's decision to come and play here - not for what it was doing for his career (you're fooling no-one, David) or for the effect on his bank balance, or his profile, or his greater ambition of "raising the profile of the greatest game in the world in the biggest sports market in the world" - no, I applauded David for what he was doing for me - making me feel like I really wanted to go and see an MLS game, making me look forward to what I was about to receive, and making me feel just a little bit invested in the result.

Of course, the circus arriving in town was fascinating in itself. There were multiple TV shows about David, and about Victoria. The American press and TV critics spectacularly missed the point about Posh, which is not surprising. In America celebrities NEVER make fun of themselves or their image - god forbid - so the critics really did not know what to make of her self-deprecating sense of humour - translation, she was taking the piss out of herself, making a great job of it, and the self-important critics didn't get the joke.

Anyway, David gave all of us hope that this time, maybe, just maybe, the stone in the pond would make ripples big enough to rock the boat, and soccer would finally launch in the US. Not after one game of course, or even one season, but over time, with kids seeing La Beckham, and the atmosphere surrounding him, and wanting to come back again and again.

Expectation was high and the atmosphere was electric at Giants Stadium. The usual Red Bulls crowd of 10-11,000 had swelled to 66,000 noisy revellers, most wearing soccer shirts of some description, many inevitably with the Galaxy's 23 on the back. Tom and I had fantastic seats in the front row of the balcony, and as the game kicked off it was clearly a great occasion - if only the match could live up to it.

And of course it did. By now you might know that the scoring went to and fro from almost the first minute to literally the last, as the Red Bulls clinched the game 5-4 with a Juan Pablo Angel goal (Remember him ?) at the death. But my heart sank like a stone when it came - the moment I realised that soccer would never catch on in the US came in the 18th minute. By then, Red Bulls had gone one goal up in the 3rd minute, only for Beckham to lay on two inch-perfect crosses for the equaliser in the 5th minute and the go-ahead goal in the 8th. 2 minutes later, Beckham was tackled hard and got up from the ground snarling at the Red Bull's Van Den Bergh, inspiring a small but intense melee involving a dozen players.

I was caught up in the game by now, and so didn't notice the apparently fallow period between the 10th and 18th minutes where obviously nothing of interest happened on the field - because in minute 18 it happened. Signalled by tumultuous but undirected cheering, a Mexican Wave rose at the far end of the ground, and spread like a particularly virulent virus around the concrete bowl. Now let me state clearly, so there is no mistake. I hate the Mexican Wave with a vengeance, and for one simple reason. When I pay good money to see a sporting event, I do so because - well, I want to watch a good sporting event. I didn't pay $40 per ticket (well, I didn't actually, but that's another story) to party like it's 1999. I don't need to be 'part of the event'. And most of all I want people around me to sit down and shut up, or at least watch and shout about what's happening in front of them.

I've never understood the American habit of turning up late for games, or getting up in the middle of the action to go to the concession stand. Why would you pay all that money and deliberately miss a great chunk of the action ? I'm just about down with turning up early to have a party in the parking lot - especially if there's a BBQ going - but for heaven's sake, shut down the grill early and be in your seat for the kick-off. I've seen soccer matches in executive boxes preceeded by a five-course meal, but at 5 to 3, regardless of what deal is about to be hatched, or promotion discussed, I cut the conversation short and move my chair to the plexiglass window - after all, we came to watch the game didn't we ?

Sport in the US is perilously close to being no more than entertainment, ruled by television money and television schedules, and everyone knows soccer is going the same way. In England, we know the impact of Sky on the scheduling of matches, and although Sky's attempts to 'make every game an event' got some pushback, if you've ever been in a stadium where a trophy has just been presented you'll know you can't make your chorus of "Ee-Ay-Addio, We Won The Cup' heard above the strains of 'We Are The Champions' coming over the tannoy.

And there's the rub. Television and sports event organisers believe they need to create atmosphere at games. Wrong. Crowds create atmosphere. Crowds breed a communal sense of anticipation, a spreading sense of belonging to your team, shared songs and humour, a common rivalry to opposing fans, and a communal joy when a goal is scored. Sports crowds build a sense of belonging. And for too long in the US, television, stadium announcers and someone charged with 'creating an occasion' has usurped this role so that many American sports fans no longer know how to do it (even if they still felt it was their place to do so).

The result is the Mexican Wave - the 'look at me, I'm here and I'm having fun' gesture that has nothing to do with the action taking place, and everything to do with personal aggrandizement. I'd like to tell everyone that this event is not about you - it's about the teams, the players down there - by all means get behind them with noise and singing and cheering, but no-one came to look at you, so sit down.

But no-one is listening - no-one can hear ! The music is too loud, the announcer is drowning out the crowd's songs with lists of matchball sponsors, the pre-match crescendo of noise peters out as the referee waits for the TV adverts to finish before whistling the kick-off, half the kids have come for the halftime kickabout, so they're buried within the stadium corridors for half the game - and there's no space left for a true soccer fan to build the bond with the team that will make him care about what actually happens on the pitch, cursing and spitting on the way home after a bad defeat, or going into work on Monday with a song in his heart after a good win. And if he doesn't care, then how can he make his friends/colleagues/family/kids/future soccer crowd care too ?

And that's why soccer will never catch on in the USA.

Driving in New Jersey in Late Fall

We live in a lovely part of central New Jersey. You wouldn't know just by looking that New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the US, and that we are just a little over an hour from New York City. Central New Jersey is full of upscale communities like ours, and Hopewell Township is expert at clinging to its open spaces through planning committies and regulations. There's a lot of woodland in central New Jersey, and therefore a lot of wild deer. And everyone I know has a  'hitting a deer with my car' story. Mark up another US tradition to the Willimer family.

I was driving home from work in the winter darkness, when the poor deer appeared out of nowhere. He seemed to do that classic 'deer in the headlight' thing, with a look of "oh, **** "  when he knew I was going to hit him. I had that look too, if I'm being honest ! He almost seemed to crouch down and brace himself for the impact - which meant that luckily for me (but not the deer) the front fender of my car took all the impact. The red bits that flew past my windshield were not bits of deer as I first thought, but my front radiator grill disintegrating. The poor deer was killed outright, as was my radiator grill, one of my headlights and both of my turn signals.

I had to wait 30 minutes for a policeman to arrive from Princeton, only to be told that the jurisdiction followed the yellow line down the centre of the road, so then I had to wait another 30 minutes for a policeman from Montgomery (the other side of the road) to make the police report. I let the patrolman look for my missing licence plate - I was dreading finding it embedded in the poor animal's side. However my only souvenir is a sad little wisp of fur stuck in the broken remains of the grill...

Before and After...I'm in one piece but the car is going to be in hospital for at least a week.

Blizzard 2006

By now, you've probably read about the snow storm that hit the north east this weekend. Apparently 26.9 inches was measured in Central Park, NY.  We got 17 inches, which is less than we had three years ago. And of course, now we have the snowblower it makes clearing the drive so much more easy. It still takes a while, but at least my arms don't ache this evening.
This is the first winter in the new house, and the snow makes for a spectacular winterscape. Here are some pictures.

Wecome to the Huggins

My bad. Again. The Huggins came to stay with us over Christmas, which was now nearly three weeks ago, and I may not be able to do justice to it here, given the state of my short-term memory.

Sally, Roger and the girls arrived on the day after Christmas Day - that's Boxing Day to you, mate - (but not here). We'd checked online, and knew their flight was running a few hours late. So as we drove south through Philadelphia along Route 95, we were scanning the skies to see if we could see their plane landing. Tom spotted a plane descending over Lincoln Financial Field (The Eagles stadium) and we wondered if they were on board. Two miles on, and much closer to the airport, a British Airways 737 glided gently towards the runway, just alongside us - so close we could almost look into the cabin windows. 'That's their plane' we said.

Sally and Roger are the first English visitors we've had for some time, so we were really looking forward to entertaining, catching up on gossip from overseas, and of course, we were looking forward to the chocolate and teabags. On Tuesday, we re-did Christmas Day with a full table of guests. Sally had packed Christmas crackers, we had a 20lb turkey which lasted us the rest of the week, and we settled down to watch 'Elf', the perfect Christmas movie.

Next day, we set out for Philadelphia again. Sally had asked us to find out whether there might be somewhere where we could all go skating, and a friend of ours had told us about the Blue Cross River Rink at Penn's Landing. This was right on the banks of the Delaware, and quite picturesque. Tom thinks he is really good at skating, but this largely because he makes up for any shortfall in technique with a absolute unshakeable determination not to fall over, and not to give up even if he does. After a few minutes of refreshing his skills, he is tearing round the ice at (almost literally) 'breakneck' speed. Of course when he falls, he almost bounces. When I tripped on the front of my skates, I fell like a sack of spuds and crashed my knees into the rock-hard ice. Even now, three weeks later, my left knee is still raw and tender. We had lunch at Dave & Busters in Franklin Mills, where Bridget systematically worked her way through every last morsel on her plate (including the lettuce leaf) and I gave the girls $10 worth of tokens to play the machines, and Martha showed a worryingly precocious talent for successfully dropping said tokens into a slot machine in return for winning coupons.

After an entire day hitting the malls for shopping, we went to New York on the day before New Year's Eve. After an abortive attempt to visit the Empire State Building, where the lines were enormous, we did some of the less obvious things, including some things that Linda and I had not done before. We jumped in a cab, and drove upto the west side of Central Park, to see the Dakota Building where John Lennon was shot, and then visited the Strawberry Fields Memorial in Central Park. After a long and slightly circular walk through the Park, we ended up at the Central Park Zoo, and spent a delightful hour or two there, trying unsuccessfully to find Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria.

We were also unsuccessful in having lunch at the Carnegie Deli, and recreating our previous 12 inch high sandwich lunch for Roger's benefit. Instead we had lunch at Lindy's, home of the famous Lindy's Cheesecake (at least the sign said so, for the benefit of the tourists), and then made our way down to Times Square and Toys R Us, the biggest toy store in the world. Perhaps we should have been a little more far-sighted, but we were a bit taken by surprise by the huge number of people around, and it started to get a bit intimidating for the kids, who couldn't really see very much. Once we had done the business in Toys R Us, we struck out for Penn Station and the train home - at which point Martha burst into tears, and we found out that 'the one thing she wanted to do in America was see the Statue of Liberty'. By now it was late, dark and cold, and it was not going to happen that night. But I felt so bad that she was upset - and next day I promised to drive the girls upto Liberty State Park, from where we could at least see fantastic views of Liberty, as well as the lower Manhattan skyline. I also got to play with the new camera lens I had bought for Linda for Christmas.

Various photos here.

We were invited to our friends the Spragues for New Years Eve, and though it was a welcome invitation, much like previous years we felt a bit surplus to requirements, since most everyone else were close friends and neighbours. When the ancient school yearbook came out, and everyone looked for their own picture and their classmates, we knew it would soon be time to leave, and using the kids as an excuse, we left soon after watching the ball drop in Times Square. Martha was already asleep in Roger's arms, and the others were asleep soon after we got in.

Next day was departure day, but there was one last ritual to perform. Diner Breakfast. After four years here, we now have a very refined methodology of choosing the right one for our visitors. The Metro on the way to Flemington is great, but not for breakfast, because the pancakes are floury. Amwell Diner is all authentic chrome and leather (not quite as authentic as the Americana in West Windsor) but the food is not that good and the service is worse. For quirky, we go to Jimmy's on Route 29 south of Lambertville to look at the circus pictures. But most times, the quality of the food takes it, and we end up at the Red Oak Diner on Route 206. We watched as all three kids intelligently and politely ordered their food, and studiously polished off everything while we were able to look back over the week. I dropped the Huggins and their many new purchases at Philadelphia Airport ready for the flight home, and all was quiet, back at the ranch.

In the nicest possible way, it was almost a relief to get back to work for a break - the whole Christmas period (especially the run-up) had been hardwork and full of stress. But we do so enjoy having people to stay, and we talked several times about how we missed the sense of awe and wonder that visitors get from all sorts of sources - different kinds of roadsigns, eating in diners, the trip on the train (and explaining to Roger how the conductors do their job). We miss that, but we do get vicarious enjoyment from sharing it with others. So - do us a favour and think about a visit, eh ?