WE ARE LINCOLNED
On to Ohio State University where we stayed in a hotel named after a professor of marketing named Blackwell whose books were on display in the foyer. This was the best hotel experience we had duing our epic journey. The Concierge drove me twice to a camera shop to have my digital download card reader fixed and then replaced. He waited around while I was sold stuff I didn't need, then drove me back, in the hotel's Lincoln Continental. Would not take a tip. And was an interesting man to boot. He and his wife had run an elegant corporate mansion on an estate for 15 years before retiring and travelling for a year. They loved Australia. I invited them to Uamby should they ever reach our shores again. He is an intelligent gent.
In the constant battle to eat American food, I asked one night would the chef accept a challenge - to make a desert out of brie, stewed fruit and pastry. He did it, and it was magnificent. We called it Heckerburn Brie Carbonara.
Most of the staff in the hotel were students at OSU, which was refreshing. On the first night, we had a drinks waiter who asked "How are you tonight?" To which I answered "Stuffed. How are you?" He immediately got down on his haunches so we were at face level and repeated, "I'm stuffed, too." He can't have known what 'stuffed' meant, but as a major in Russian Literature and World Politics he had the nouse to figure it out from the context. getting down to our level was a master stroke of service. We were sick of "servile service" by this timeand someone treating us as an equal was just what the Aussies wanted. He is destined to a career in international politics, and he has the first ingredient: the human touch. The hotel was impressive, but inexpensive (thanks Expedia). Professor Lal seemed to think we were living it up staying there. It was part of the Fisher Business School which took the rather unusual position in its marketing of proclaiming that it was ranked 13th in the world by Business Week magazine. Now 13th is not a good look. 
Why not choose to frame the ranking around American business schools? They’d at least be top 10. And who ranks Business Week? Fortune would have been better, or the Wall Street Journal. Strange, such clumsy marketing in a hotel named for a marketing ‘guru’. Here at OHU we met Professor Lal, the big kahuna of soil carbon scientists. He was the man we came to see. He gave us 2 books, 1 hour and a half, a lot of help and the thrill of hearing ourselves referred to as 'colleagues' when he was telephoning the CEO of the Chicago Climate Exchange to tee up and appointment for us.Next stop Chicago, where we stayed in a business hotel out in the boonies, closer to the airport than to town. We encountered no one of enduring interest except
Michelle from the japanese Tepenyaki who was one of those Americans who love Australians and gave Louisa a hug and gave us a couple of seats in a crowded restaurant. We also met Mike Walsh (SVP CCX) who offered us a deal on 25,000 acres of no-til soil and an unnamed trade official from an unnamed country who gave us advice as to how to do business in Al Capone's city. He has to be unnamed and unknown because by this time an unnamed government was trying to discourage us from pursuing carbon credits trading in deifiance of its official policy against what it calls 'carbon taxes'.
While in Chicago we ate at a very nice Chinese restaurant across the road from a blues club called the something “mines” where we heard some solo artist playing to an empty room, then two bands in different rooms, laying it down like funkytown. Louisa decided to have a dance, I had my computer in my knapsack and wasn’t inclined to leave it. So she grabbed the nearest guy and danced with him. He was from Baltimore and probably thought his ship had come in. I was able to observe, at dinner, an elderly couple who were having relationship difficulties. They looked cultivated. She had a sweet face and he was bitter about life and his physical infirmities, which meant she had to help him with certain things. He spat at her, without spitting. At one stage she got up to walk out and he said, in a voice like a little boy, "Please don't go." Foolish man.
Finally we flew to San Diego where we had 3 massage treatments at the Chopra Centre in La Costa (a resort) while staying at the Four Seasons Resort. I hated it. Pimp rich. Trump trash. While Mexican maids 'manned' a picket line, hiding their faces and copping abuse from cabbies - for asking for a few bucks an hour or for being Mexican. They did have the foresight to warn us by signs that the place was toxic.
The resort’s haute couture boutique was irreverently called “Peaches En Regalia” which would have Zappa spinning in 10/8 time in his grave. The irony. Has his wife licenced this outrage?
God's contempt for money is evident by the people he gives it to. We enjoyed one trip with a mandolin playing cabbie. But California looks like a movie lot - all those houses clambering over the ridgelines waiting to be shaken off when the fault line tears again. (Long overdure, it will be a big one.)20 flights in 20 days... whew! America is the most highly evolved material culture in the history of humanity. Some of its people are also highly evolved. Some are not.
Like the guy overheard me criticising the level of moral corruption in the US government system (the streets of Washington are slippery with sleaze) and started taking photos of me with his cell phone (presumably to report me as a terrorist suspect)> I took photos of him to return the favour and he ducked down behind his seat each time.Final ray of hope for American civilisation. This sweet young girl personing the Kinky Friedman For Governor booth at Texas A&M. She was sitting in the sun, no hat or water. But so sweet, and her boyfriend looked sweet too. After she got through personing, they went off holding hands. Everyone on that campus looked sweet, like they were all in the military. There were 3 normal looking kids there. We got lost walking across campus. Lost in the sweetness of American life and light. Lost in a wilderness of white people being white and black people being black and other people being other colours. We saw no poverty but poverty of spirit. We saw no crime but the crime of neglect. We saw no violence but the violence we do to each other thoughtlessly when we fail to love wholly. We saw no hope but the hope of mankind. We saw no salvation but the salvation of the damned. We saw no end but the ending of all beginnings and the beginning of the end.
God, Please Bless America and all those people we met. Thank you for letting us see a little of your world.
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