Now
this is where—after such a slow beginning—my new found affair with the United
States begins to hot up. Here am I, in my thirties now, lecturing in History,
what else, and replete with family—when Margaret, the lady I am married to,
brings a new dimension into the whole business.
Apart from doting on Jim Reeves
and Country Music, I discovered that her maternal Grandmother, and Grandfather
(a blacksmith and farrier) had moved from North-East Scotland to Cody, Wyoming,
in 1911, leaving a daughter (Margaret's mother) and another child behind in
Scotland, to be looked after 'by the folks back home'.
From Cody, Margaret's
grandparents moved to Sheridan, where they had more children to add to the ones
who had been left behind. Their descendants are still there and also in greater
Chicago and spread all over Illinois. We even had a visit from a cousin from
the Chicago area.
The
family in Scotland blame Buffalo Bill's visit to Scotland for this exodus. They
think that William Cody's wonderful circus of Indians, horses, rodeos, and
such, hypnotised the blacksmith-cum-farrier so much, he just had to get 'to the
land of the free'.
The
Presidency of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (despite all we now know about his
private life) was accurately defined then (and now) as heralding a new and
better time.
The Irish, in particular, but most people I spoke to over here,
enthused about 'Camelot'. We did not like the support for South American
dictators, however; nor the Republican—Democrat stand-offs; nor the Cuban
business, and the Bay of Pigs; and were scared 'as all hell' (another
Americanism) by the confrontation with Khrushchev over missiles in Cuba.
JFK
Nor did
we like the growth of what seemed to us as rather sinister organizations (the
CIA, FBI) and the spying that went on. 'Hoover' became a dirty word (laugh -
please!).
The 'Mob', as you call organized crime, the mixing of Hollywood
glamour with politics and the Mafia, were greeted with unconcealed disbelief
here. We had plenty of crooks—but even Britain's 'Great Train Robbery' of those
years was never on this scale.
Meanwhile,
'back at the ranch', so to speak, the excitement issuing from across 'the pond'
continued to affect us mere mortals. American home and foreign affairs were
generating a tremendous amount of conversation.
Hollywood led, as usual: Marlon
Brando, Doris Day, James Dean, Marilyn Munro, Liz Taylor and Burton; the
activities of the 'Rat Pack' in Las Vegas; the list is endless and I could be
naming them from 'here to eternity'.
Marilyn Munro
We had
already fallen in love with 'Flower Power' and left our hearts in San
Francisco, succumbing to that fellow, Scott Mackenzie.
Also, the space race was
on; the Russians had sent a dog into the Cosmos; and now a man, Yuri Gagarin.
'We will send a man to the Moon', said President Kennedy, in response, and
before the 1960s had ended, so they had. But neither John F Kennedy, nor his
father,' Old Joe', nor his brother, Robert, would be there to see it.
To be continued...
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