{"id":44,"date":"2022-05-03T14:53:24","date_gmt":"2022-05-03T14:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/from-across-the-pond-palmond\/?post_type=chapter&p=44"},"modified":"2022-05-24T11:03:31","modified_gmt":"2022-05-24T11:03:31","slug":"chapter-3-cleveland-1971","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/from-across-the-pond-palmond\/chapter\/chapter-3-cleveland-1971\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 3. Cleveland, 1971"},"content":{"raw":"American salesmanship:\r\n
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Memory Flash:\u00a0 downtown Cleveland, January 1971 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n

\r\n\r\nI\u2019m standing in the Reitman Camera photo shop on E9th Street, past which I have been regularly walking and ogling the cameras all year. I have \u2018THE LATEST\u2019 Canon movie camera in one hand, a Bell and Howell shoulder-carried tape recorder in the other, and a Bell and Howell 469 Super 8 cassette\/film projector on the table before me.<\/em>\r\n\r\nThe shop assistant is explaining how it all works:\u00a0first, film my scene for the movie. As soon as I squeeze the camera\u2019s trigger a flash of light automatically travels down the wire to turn the tape recorder on for the synchronised sound. At the conclusion of both tapes they are sent off to a processing lab to develop the film and put light marks on the tape. The two come back in the mail to the owner, who threads film from the reel through the Bell and Howell projector, plugs in the cord from one to the other, switches on the projector and away she goes.\u00a0 <\/em>\r\n\r\nThe salesman has a prepared demonstration to show me (of course).\u00a0\u00a0 I get a sense of how it must have felt to witness the arrival of talking movies in the mid 1920s.\u00a0 <\/em>\r\n\r\n\u201cThis is the LATEST, yes?\u201d\u00a0 I ask the salesman. <\/em>\r\n\r\n\u00a0\u201cThe LATEST and the BEST!\u201d he says. \u201cThere won\u2019t be anything as good as this for years!\u201d <\/em>\r\n\r\n\u00a0I\u2019m skeptical. I\u2019m a newspaper reporter, right? \u00a0But I\u2019ve already looked through camera magazines and seen good reports about it. Filmosound just might be here to stay for awhile. So, at the cost of nearly \u00a31,000, I buy it.\u00a0\u00a0And yes, it did work.<\/em>\r\n\r\n\u2026\u2026\u2026 For about six months. Then Bell and Howell came out with a better processing system, because it did not stand up to repeated use. Basically, I fell for American salesmanship and I\u2019m still a just-off-the-boat sucker.\u00a0 <\/em>\r\n\r\nWe did try to stick with Filmosound for several more years, but never got the lip-sync together again. <\/em>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\nIts hard to start thinking of the major cultural changes (besides racial) in American life without thinking about Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners<\/em>, the CBS situation comedy that dominated TV in the late 1950s and sixties. Kramden, a bus driver played by Jackie Gleason, fills the series with his pretentious scheming and is ALWAYS brought down by his long-suffering wife Alice, played by Audrey Meadows. \"One of these days!\u201d he threatens her emptily, \u201cPow! Right in the kisser! To the moon, Alice!\u201d\r\n\r\nWe watched the show in 1970, just in time to understand the public appeal of balancing up the sexes, but realizing that was about to change \u2013 dramatically - by a new show on the same network that we had essentially been seeing for years in England. This was All in the Family<\/em>, a straight lift of Till Death Us Do Part<\/em>, which had been running on BBC TV since 1965.\r\n\r\nAmong the \u2018duties\u2019 of being the only resident Brit in the Cleveland Press newsroom I was to be a resource on all things British, so at the request of the paper\u2019s veteran TV and radio critic Bill Barrett, on Jan 22 1971 I wrote a comparison between the two shows.\r\n\r\nIf I had the space I\u2019d probably just run my published critique here, but it may be best to start with the Wikipedia entry:\u00a0 \u201c(All in the Family) is often regarded in the United States as one of the greatest television series in history. Following a lackluster first season, the show soon became the most watched show in the United States during summer reruns and afterwards ranked number one in the yearly Nielsen ratings from 1971 to 1976. It became the first television series to reach the milestone of having topped the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive years<\/em>\u201d\r\n\r\nI told Press readers that, basically, Carroll O\u2019Connor, as Archie Bunker, the foul-mouthed bigot star of the show, was every bit as good as his British original, Alf Garnett, played by Warren Mitchell. And so was the ensemble. Maybe the British original was stronger in its use of language, but the transatlantic concept was culturally identical, if more shocking to Americans who had yet to receive the even more acerbic (and hysterically funny) Monty Python\u2019s Flying Circus<\/em>.\u00a0In the first episode of All in the Family, I noted, there was heard \u201cshouting matches about sex, blacks, Jews, Poles, religion, liberals, conservatives, crime, justice, age, intelligence, and the economy\u2026. How\u2019s that for openers?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe opening sequences were similar, I noted; aerial shots of New York descending to the Bunker home in Queens, and aerial shots of houses of central London descending to Garnett\u2019s home in the East End. \u201cI doubt, however, if Alf would have appreciated his American counterpart,\u201d I wrote. \u201cMost probably he would have reached out to his \u2018telly\u2019 and turned it off, muttering \u2018Bleedin\u2019 Yanks. Wot do they know about anything?\u201d\r\n
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Memory Flash: The Chagrin Falls Armoury, mid March, 1971<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n

\r\n\r\nI\u2019m at the home of Company G of the 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment of the Ohio National Guard. I\u2019ve come to talk to them about joining up, because it seems to be the only viable alternative to being drafted into the regular Army - and Vietnam. <\/em>\r\n\r\nI\u2019ve had my call-up papers and told to report for duty by the end of May. My Lady of Light at the draft-board office has done her best to help, I\u2019m sure. But now it\u2019s up to me \u2013 or rather me and Anna. Do we move to Canada and start again? Do we quit and return to England?\u00a0 Do I sign up for the National Guard and spend seven years of training, two-week annual Guard camps, two-week or monthly meetings \u2013 and be ready for call-outs such as that at Kent State University last May?\u00a0 <\/em>\r\n\r\nOr do I just submit to the draft, do my duty as a non-American (yes, I know), resign myself to \u2018Nam\u00a0 and be back as a Veteran within two years?\u00a0 But what and where would that leave Anna?\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t a quitter, so the National Guard looked to be the only real alternative. <\/em>\r\n\r\nI find a recruiting sergeant who gives me some forms to fill out, and he indicates a likely job because they have vacancies:\u00a0tank turret operator. That\u2019s one of the four-man crew inside an M60A1 tank. It didn\u2019t seem very pleasant. I hate close confinement.<\/em>\r\n\r\nI ask the sergeant where I should take my forms because the armoury seemed pretty quiet.<\/em>\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, they\u2019re not here,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019re in Vietnam.\u201d\u00a0 <\/em>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\nIn mid April the Cleveland Press subtly reminded me where my work family is: with them, not the army.\r\n\r\n\u201cTransplanted Englishman keeps tabs on 16 suburbs\u201d reads the headline on a little info\/promo blurb that pops up in the paper every so often about individual reporters and their \u2018beats.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201cConsidering the ground he covers it should surprise nobody that Peter Almond is a strong advocate of metropolitan government. Peter, who came to The Press from England about 16 months ago, covers 16 eastern communities for our suburbs department and even his little old Mustang sometimes rebels at the expense of real estate it must traverse.\r\n\r\n\u201cHowever, Almond\u2019s reasons for consolidation transcend any selfish desire for personal comfort and convenience.\u00a0 A practical young man, he frankly admits his thoughts on metro government are far from original. Still, it is refreshing to hear this recent transplant digress on the ramifications and awkwardness of an unwieldy conglomeration of autonomous municipalities.\r\n\r\n\u201cMetro government works well in England,\u201d says Peter in his pleasant accent (grrr-ed). \u201cIt just doesn\u2019t make sense to me that intelligent, reasonable people can\u2019t get together and work out a system of government that would be so beneficial to so many.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cGetting down to specifics, Almond\u2019s foremost priorities would be safety forces and transit. He cannot comprehend why each suburb and township must support individual police and fire departments, nor why the communities could not be linked to the central city by an efficient yet moderately-priced transportation network.\r\n\r\n\u201cPeter also is finding his early enchantment with the City of Cleveland becoming tarnished. He deplores its divisiveness and he finds it difficult to understand the reticence of many of the immigrants to learn the English language.\r\n\r\n\u201cI can understand why they would want to retain their native customs in food, culture etc,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I should think that one who adopts America would be eager to converse in its tongue.\u201d\r\n\r\nOh, wot wisdom from a 25-year-old immigrant!\u00a0 Almond for president!\r\n\r\nTwo days later:\u00a0\u00a0The draft board has sent me a letter:\u00a0 Oh Gawd, what now?\r\n\r\nIt says I\u2019m 4F<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 4F!<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 NOT REQUIRED!!\u00a0 4F!!!\u00a0 I\u2019m no longer wanted for the army, navy, air force, marines, street cleaning, sausage making, window-washing, you name it!<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThey don\u2019t give a reason, but I hear on the grapevine that it is probably a hardship call.\u00a0 Hardship for Anna, certainly: spouse left without family support, particularly as she has missed two periods and her gynaecologist has written a letter (not sure to where) saying she appears to be pregnant.\u00a0(Actually, it was a false pregnancy, and it would not be the last of a series of reproductive problems we would have).\r\n\r\nIt could be because I was now 25, possibly in the \u2018too old\u2019 bracket. Or that the military was starting to cut back a little on Vietnam deployments.\r\n\r\nI never did find out.\u00a0 But when Anna\u2019s brother Rob invited us to visit him and girlfriend at his rented house in the Bahamas, we jumped at the chance. Late April in Nassau. Perfect! Snorkelling in beautiful clear waters, Margheritas by the pool.\u00a0 What\u2019s not to like for a few days?\r\n\r\nAs for Cleveland\u2019s problems?\u00a0\u00a0Well, I see I have a certificate from Cleveland State University, dated March 29, 1971, that says I have completed the City of Cleveland\u2019s\u00a0Institute of Urban Studies and Community Relations Board\u2019s First seminar on urban problems for mass media personnel.<\/strong> So there.\u00a0 (I don\u2019t remember it).\r\n\r\nAND I have a copy of a letter dated Mar 1 \u201971 from one professor to another at Ohio University that accords me 20 hours\u2019 college credit for my school work on fiction, poetry, drama and Shakespeare. PLUS, in the words of one Prof Lawrence Bartlett, that I write \u2018exceptionally well\u2019 and that my work \u2018manifests a sensitive and mature approach to literature.\u2019\r\n\r\nSo there, again!\u00a0 Like the Scarecrow with his Diploma in the Wizard of Oz, I am now a Doctor of Thinkology. I have a brain!\r\n
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Memory Flash: Cleveland Public Library, May 24, 1971<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n

\r\n\r\nSometimes The Press clippings library outdoes itself. Here\u2019s one I have absolutely no memory of:<\/em>\r\n\r\n\u201cPress suburbs reporter Peter Almond will give a slide talk on Wales, France, Germany and Austria to the Live Long and Like It Club tomorrow at 1.30pm in the Main Library. The program is free and open to the public.\u201d<\/em>\r\n\r\nIt includes a mugshot of me and a date stamp of May 24, 71. <\/em>\r\n\r\n??????\u00a0\u00a0 Not a clue. But it sure beats crawling through a Vietnamese jungle<\/em>!\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\nThat summer of \u201971 seemed to be full of action and passion around the world. India and Pakistan fought battles across their borders; A huge and long postal strike in inflation-hit Britain was the start of ever-worse labor strikes that would cripple the country two years later. And my family\u2019s money went decimal: no more pounds, shillings and pence.\r\n\r\nAt least the Rolling Stones released their next hit, Brown Sugar. John Lennon, fresh from the disbanded Beatles, sang \u2018Imagine\u2019, David Bowie released \u2018Life on Mars.\u2019\u00a0Don McLean recorded \u2018American Pie,\u2019 and kept people puzzled for the next 50 years (Was it, or was it not, about the death of Buddy Holly in 1959, marking the end of an \u2018innocent era of the fifties?\u2019)\u00a0 McLean himself says there is much more after that. His original 16-page manuscript of notes about the lyrics were sold to an anonymous bidder for $1.2 million in 2015.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=iX_TFkut1PM\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=iX_TFkut1PM<\/a>\r\n\r\n\u201cFebruary made me shiver, with every paper I\u2019d deliver. Bad news on the doorstep, I couldn\u2019t take one more step.\u201d\r\n\r\nEven paper boys have a heart.\r\n\r\nWe got away as much as we could:\u00a0to Niagara Falls, Toronto, and down to Cincinnati and Wright Air Base and its US Air Force museum, followed by a domestic air show as the National Air Races returned to Burke Lakefront airport to mark the 175th anniversary of the founding of Cleveland.\r\n\r\nAnd friends Jim and Marcy introduced us to the Mohican River at Walhonding, central Ohio.\u00a0 It became a special place to us: a small campsite on the banks of the secluded Mohican River, a tributary of the Walhonding river which led ultimately to the Mississippi.\u00a0 There we would set up our tents and stake out our campfires, then arise in the morning to the sound of a pickup truck towing a rattling canoe trailer.\u00a0 With packed lunches our hosts would take us 10, 15 or even 20 miles upstream to a quiet spot and a slow, peaceful paddle downstream back to our campsites. We will never forget the silence, broken only by a splash of a jumping fish or the call of a Hawk or Red Cardinal, the state bird of Ohio.\r\n\r\nAnd not far away the rolling, quiet roads of central Ohio, much of it occupied by the devout Amish, with their horses and buggies. The small town of nearby Sugarcreek hosts the \u2018world\u2019s biggest cuckoo clock shop,\u2019 a tourist center relatively few Clevelanders appeared to know anything about.\r\n\r\nBut across America the news was still Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam. In April half a million people packed the streets of Washington DC to protest the war.\u00a0Another 700 Vietnam veterans threw their medals onto the steps of the Capitol.\u00a0While President Nixon and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger were trying to work up \u2018Peace diplomacy\u2019 Daniel Ellsberg was leaking the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. The secret Papers revealed a history of American involvement in Vietnam that was filled with the lies and misinformation the government told over many years. Wounded veteran John Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:\u00a0\"Someone has to die so that President Nixon won't be the first president to lose a war. How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?\u201d\r\n\r\nSixty per cent of Americans told opinion pollsters they were against the Vietnam War; Australia and New Zealand announced they were pulling their troops out of Vietnam;\r\n\r\nBut in September my mother came to visit.\r\n
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Memory Flash: Times Square, New York, September, 1971<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n

\r\n\r\nWe\u2019re in our soft-top Mustang. Anna is by my side, Mum is in the back with her suitcase. (There isn\u2019t room for it in the trunk). We\u2019ve driven the Finger Lakes route to Buffalo and Boston. Now we\u2019re coming into New York City and deciding we can\u2019t just go straight through to our overnight stop at Atlantic City, we\u2019ll stop for half an hour and look around Times Square. <\/em>\r\n\r\nHold on. This isn\u2019t Podunk. This is the HEART of the Big Apple. I wouldn\u2019t dream of looking for a parking space at Piccadilly Circus in London, would I?\u00a0But where, for half an hour?\u00a0Around and around we go, down side streets, up main streets, every parking garage and vacant space full. <\/em>\r\n\r\n\u00a0And then I spot a car moving out next to a restaurant. No obvious restrictions. I go for it.\u00a0 We alight, Mum pats her suitcase and I get a nice, assertive smile from the uniformed door guard of the restaurant. Yes, he says, you\u2019ll be Ok for half an hour. I\u2019ll keep my eye on it.\u00a0We do our tourist stuff, agog at the sights and sounds of Times Square, cameras flashing, video whirring. Then back to our car 30 minutes later.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>\r\n\r\nBut\u2026.. Is this our car?\u00a0 A green soft top Mustang yes, but there is a large rip in the canvas top next to the nearside window.... And Mom\u2019s suitcase is no longer there. Gone. Stolen. All the clothes for her holiday, much of it hand made.\u00a0This is her first big foreign holiday, and it has taken so much effort just to get her here:\u00a0the first jumbo jet may have crossed the Atlantic, but it is much too expensive for the average tourist. My mother had to be a member of the Britons in America Club\u00a0for almost a year in order to join with other members to charter a plane for them all. <\/em>\r\n\r\nBroad daylight, on a busy street, in the heart of bustling New York City. And nobody sees a thing? Not the shop workers next door, the newspaper seller, and especially not the restaurant concierge, who says he has not moved from his spot, barely ten feet from the car.\u00a0 Not a thing. We call the police. That takes about 45 minutes for a car to arrive.\u00a0 I say we haven\u2019t touched anything, officer, and suggest they might find some fingerprints. I tell them my mother has come all the way from England to see their city.\u00a0 <\/em>\r\n\r\nNeither officer steps out of their car. One simply hands me a piece of paper with a case number on it.\u00a0 \u2018Call your insurance company. Give \u2018em that,\u201d he says, without a smile. <\/em>\r\n\r\nNa\u00efve. Stupid. Careless. What a fool I am. As we drive away from New York it starts to rain and I have to find a store to buy duct tape for the torn roof. We are all silent, miserable. The rain is misting the windshield, or I have something in my eyes. We don\u2019t go to Atlantic City. We head home to Cleveland. <\/em>\r\n\r\nBut one tune keeps running through my head, over and over:\u00a0 the haunting theme from Midnight Cowboy, last year\u2019s Oscar-winning hit movie, starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight. <\/em>\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZGORPUzLxtU\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZGORPUzLxtU<\/a>\r\n

Directed by the British director John Schlesinger (who made the award winning British \u2018kitchen sink\u2019 films A Kind of Loving and Billy Liar in the early 60s), Midnight Cowboy is now recognized as a major classic of US social commentary. (I\u2019d like to think I was more Joe Buck than Ratso Rizzo).\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\nSad to say, but on Sept 27, a few days after Ma went home, we traded in the old Mustang for a spanking new Chevy Camaro: silver gray in color, two doors and two sporty seats at the front and a bench seat for short legs at the back.\u00a0 I sent a photo of it together with Anna and me to my Uncle Bill in Devon. \u201cCor blimey!\u201d he responded on a tape recording a couple of weeks later. \u201cBit SMALL isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 You ought to have got a bigger one!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Where he lives, of course, country roads are only six feet wide.\r\n\r\nAnd sad at losing the Mustang because if we had kept it for the next 50 years and brought it back with us to Blighty it might now be worth $100,000, or \u00a380,000.\u00a0\u00a0 Ho hum\u2026.\r\n\r\nAt least with the Camaro we lived up to Charlie Miller\u2019s challenge: \u201cSee the USA in a C. Miller Chevrolet.\u201d\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/i-PxzelXAvA\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/i-PxzelXAvA<\/a>\r\n\r\nCharlie (already old in 1971) was the owner of a Chevrolet dealership in the township of Willoughby, east of Cleveland, but next to the I-271 and I-7I freeways where all good car sales are made. It was a hammed-up, low-class schlock commercial, but perfect for low-class, rebellious young Clevelanders, and effective because it played over and over on TV. You couldn\u2019t escape it.\u00a0 And being rebellious I decided not to buy my Camaro at Miller\u2019s place, but somewhere else.\r\n\r\nBack at the suburbs desk in the Cleveland Press I see I was still travelling a lot \u2013 in Cuyahoga County:\u00a0 \u201cState rules would limit Beachwood <\/strong>school,\u201d says one headline about planned changes in the number of minutes taught in classrooms.\u00a0 \u201cPost Office rezoning is rejected\u2019 says another about the South Euclid<\/strong> Plan Commission rejecting a proposal to rezone land on South Green Rd for a new $400,00 post office.\u00a0 Another about new Community Aid Officers, in police-type uniform, helping police at scenes of traffic accidents and civil affairs that do not require training in criminal matters.\r\n\r\nAnd another with the headline \u2018A feline felony?\u2019 about Ginger the cat, who has prompted a claim for damages of $57.84 after attacking her next door neighbor\u2019s car in Cleveland Heights<\/strong>. She does that, says Mrs Rose Perla, because neighbors the Littmans allow Ginger to run around freely and then, when she can\u2019t get back into the house again Ginger attacks the neighbor\u2019s Pontiac. And now it has scratches on it.\r\n\r\nThe lawyer for the Littmans, Philip Kurtz, says: \u201cIt shows what\u2019s wrong with this country today when people sue each other for such stupid little things.\u201d<\/strong>\r\n\r\nBy November 1971 the 101st Airborne Division had withdrawn from Vietnam, leaving only 6,000 combat troops to offer support to the increasingly-ineffective South Vietnamese Army.\u00a0Just as well I didn\u2019t accept my call-up that previous May: American air power would be running the show from now on, but as a draftee soldier I would probably have been twiddling my thumbs in Nome, Alaska.\r\n\r\nThat Christmas Eve Anna and I followed Jim and Marcy to Marcy\u2019s parents home in Ashtabula. We enjoyed a fabulous seven-course seafood dinner, made the Italian way with seven different fishes, and left them with many thanks as they made their way to their own church midnight Christmas Mass.","rendered":"

American salesmanship:<\/p>\n

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Memory Flash:\u00a0 downtown Cleveland, January 1971 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/header>\n

\n

I\u2019m standing in the Reitman Camera photo shop on E9th Street, past which I have been regularly walking and ogling the cameras all year. I have \u2018THE LATEST\u2019 Canon movie camera in one hand, a Bell and Howell shoulder-carried tape recorder in the other, and a Bell and Howell 469 Super 8 cassette\/film projector on the table before me.<\/em><\/p>\n

The shop assistant is explaining how it all works:\u00a0first, film my scene for the movie. As soon as I squeeze the camera\u2019s trigger a flash of light automatically travels down the wire to turn the tape recorder on for the synchronised sound. At the conclusion of both tapes they are sent off to a processing lab to develop the film and put light marks on the tape. The two come back in the mail to the owner, who threads film from the reel through the Bell and Howell projector, plugs in the cord from one to the other, switches on the projector and away she goes.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

The salesman has a prepared demonstration to show me (of course).\u00a0\u00a0 I get a sense of how it must have felt to witness the arrival of talking movies in the mid 1920s.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the LATEST, yes?\u201d\u00a0 I ask the salesman. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThe LATEST and the BEST!\u201d he says. \u201cThere won\u2019t be anything as good as this for years!\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m skeptical. I\u2019m a newspaper reporter, right? \u00a0But I\u2019ve already looked through camera magazines and seen good reports about it. Filmosound just might be here to stay for awhile. So, at the cost of nearly \u00a31,000, I buy it.\u00a0\u00a0And yes, it did work.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026 For about six months. Then Bell and Howell came out with a better processing system, because it did not stand up to repeated use. Basically, I fell for American salesmanship and I\u2019m still a just-off-the-boat sucker.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

We did try to stick with Filmosound for several more years, but never got the lip-sync together again. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Its hard to start thinking of the major cultural changes (besides racial) in American life without thinking about Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners<\/em>, the CBS situation comedy that dominated TV in the late 1950s and sixties. Kramden, a bus driver played by Jackie Gleason, fills the series with his pretentious scheming and is ALWAYS brought down by his long-suffering wife Alice, played by Audrey Meadows. “One of these days!\u201d he threatens her emptily, \u201cPow! Right in the kisser! To the moon, Alice!\u201d<\/p>\n

We watched the show in 1970, just in time to understand the public appeal of balancing up the sexes, but realizing that was about to change \u2013 dramatically – by a new show on the same network that we had essentially been seeing for years in England. This was All in the Family<\/em>, a straight lift of Till Death Us Do Part<\/em>, which had been running on BBC TV since 1965.<\/p>\n

Among the \u2018duties\u2019 of being the only resident Brit in the Cleveland Press newsroom I was to be a resource on all things British, so at the request of the paper\u2019s veteran TV and radio critic Bill Barrett, on Jan 22 1971 I wrote a comparison between the two shows.<\/p>\n

If I had the space I\u2019d probably just run my published critique here, but it may be best to start with the Wikipedia entry:\u00a0 \u201c(All in the Family) is often regarded in the United States as one of the greatest television series in history. Following a lackluster first season, the show soon became the most watched show in the United States during summer reruns and afterwards ranked number one in the yearly Nielsen ratings from 1971 to 1976. It became the first television series to reach the milestone of having topped the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive years<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

I told Press readers that, basically, Carroll O\u2019Connor, as Archie Bunker, the foul-mouthed bigot star of the show, was every bit as good as his British original, Alf Garnett, played by Warren Mitchell. And so was the ensemble. Maybe the British original was stronger in its use of language, but the transatlantic concept was culturally identical, if more shocking to Americans who had yet to receive the even more acerbic (and hysterically funny) Monty Python\u2019s Flying Circus<\/em>.\u00a0In the first episode of All in the Family, I noted, there was heard \u201cshouting matches about sex, blacks, Jews, Poles, religion, liberals, conservatives, crime, justice, age, intelligence, and the economy\u2026. How\u2019s that for openers?\u201d<\/p>\n

The opening sequences were similar, I noted; aerial shots of New York descending to the Bunker home in Queens, and aerial shots of houses of central London descending to Garnett\u2019s home in the East End. \u201cI doubt, however, if Alf would have appreciated his American counterpart,\u201d I wrote. \u201cMost probably he would have reached out to his \u2018telly\u2019 and turned it off, muttering \u2018Bleedin\u2019 Yanks. Wot do they know about anything?\u201d<\/p>\n

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Memory Flash: The Chagrin Falls Armoury, mid March, 1971<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/header>\n

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I\u2019m at the home of Company G of the 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment of the Ohio National Guard. I\u2019ve come to talk to them about joining up, because it seems to be the only viable alternative to being drafted into the regular Army – and Vietnam. <\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had my call-up papers and told to report for duty by the end of May. My Lady of Light at the draft-board office has done her best to help, I\u2019m sure. But now it\u2019s up to me \u2013 or rather me and Anna. Do we move to Canada and start again? Do we quit and return to England?\u00a0 Do I sign up for the National Guard and spend seven years of training, two-week annual Guard camps, two-week or monthly meetings \u2013 and be ready for call-outs such as that at Kent State University last May?\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Or do I just submit to the draft, do my duty as a non-American (yes, I know), resign myself to \u2018Nam\u00a0 and be back as a Veteran within two years?\u00a0 But what and where would that leave Anna?\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t a quitter, so the National Guard looked to be the only real alternative. <\/em><\/p>\n

I find a recruiting sergeant who gives me some forms to fill out, and he indicates a likely job because they have vacancies:\u00a0tank turret operator. That\u2019s one of the four-man crew inside an M60A1 tank. It didn\u2019t seem very pleasant. I hate close confinement.<\/em><\/p>\n

I ask the sergeant where I should take my forms because the armoury seemed pretty quiet.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOh, they\u2019re not here,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019re in Vietnam.\u201d\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In mid April the Cleveland Press subtly reminded me where my work family is: with them, not the army.<\/p>\n

\u201cTransplanted Englishman keeps tabs on 16 suburbs\u201d reads the headline on a little info\/promo blurb that pops up in the paper every so often about individual reporters and their \u2018beats.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cConsidering the ground he covers it should surprise nobody that Peter Almond is a strong advocate of metropolitan government. Peter, who came to The Press from England about 16 months ago, covers 16 eastern communities for our suburbs department and even his little old Mustang sometimes rebels at the expense of real estate it must traverse.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, Almond\u2019s reasons for consolidation transcend any selfish desire for personal comfort and convenience.\u00a0 A practical young man, he frankly admits his thoughts on metro government are far from original. Still, it is refreshing to hear this recent transplant digress on the ramifications and awkwardness of an unwieldy conglomeration of autonomous municipalities.<\/p>\n

\u201cMetro government works well in England,\u201d says Peter in his pleasant accent (grrr-ed). \u201cIt just doesn\u2019t make sense to me that intelligent, reasonable people can\u2019t get together and work out a system of government that would be so beneficial to so many.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting down to specifics, Almond\u2019s foremost priorities would be safety forces and transit. He cannot comprehend why each suburb and township must support individual police and fire departments, nor why the communities could not be linked to the central city by an efficient yet moderately-priced transportation network.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeter also is finding his early enchantment with the City of Cleveland becoming tarnished. He deplores its divisiveness and he finds it difficult to understand the reticence of many of the immigrants to learn the English language.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can understand why they would want to retain their native customs in food, culture etc,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I should think that one who adopts America would be eager to converse in its tongue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh, wot wisdom from a 25-year-old immigrant!\u00a0 Almond for president!<\/p>\n

Two days later:\u00a0\u00a0The draft board has sent me a letter:\u00a0 Oh Gawd, what now?<\/p>\n

It says I\u2019m 4F<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 4F!<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 NOT REQUIRED!!\u00a0 4F!!!\u00a0 I\u2019m no longer wanted for the army, navy, air force, marines, street cleaning, sausage making, window-washing, you name it!<\/strong><\/p>\n

They don\u2019t give a reason, but I hear on the grapevine that it is probably a hardship call.\u00a0 Hardship for Anna, certainly: spouse left without family support, particularly as she has missed two periods and her gynaecologist has written a letter (not sure to where) saying she appears to be pregnant.\u00a0(Actually, it was a false pregnancy, and it would not be the last of a series of reproductive problems we would have).<\/p>\n

It could be because I was now 25, possibly in the \u2018too old\u2019 bracket. Or that the military was starting to cut back a little on Vietnam deployments.<\/p>\n

I never did find out.\u00a0 But when Anna\u2019s brother Rob invited us to visit him and girlfriend at his rented house in the Bahamas, we jumped at the chance. Late April in Nassau. Perfect! Snorkelling in beautiful clear waters, Margheritas by the pool.\u00a0 What\u2019s not to like for a few days?<\/p>\n

As for Cleveland\u2019s problems?\u00a0\u00a0Well, I see I have a certificate from Cleveland State University, dated March 29, 1971, that says I have completed the City of Cleveland\u2019s\u00a0Institute of Urban Studies and Community Relations Board\u2019s First seminar on urban problems for mass media personnel.<\/strong> So there.\u00a0 (I don\u2019t remember it).<\/p>\n

AND I have a copy of a letter dated Mar 1 \u201971 from one professor to another at Ohio University that accords me 20 hours\u2019 college credit for my school work on fiction, poetry, drama and Shakespeare. PLUS, in the words of one Prof Lawrence Bartlett, that I write \u2018exceptionally well\u2019 and that my work \u2018manifests a sensitive and mature approach to literature.\u2019<\/p>\n

So there, again!\u00a0 Like the Scarecrow with his Diploma in the Wizard of Oz, I am now a Doctor of Thinkology. I have a brain!<\/p>\n

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Memory Flash: Cleveland Public Library, May 24, 1971<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/header>\n

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Sometimes The Press clippings library outdoes itself. Here\u2019s one I have absolutely no memory of:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cPress suburbs reporter Peter Almond will give a slide talk on Wales, France, Germany and Austria to the Live Long and Like It Club tomorrow at 1.30pm in the Main Library. The program is free and open to the public.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

It includes a mugshot of me and a date stamp of May 24, 71. <\/em><\/p>\n

??????\u00a0\u00a0 Not a clue. But it sure beats crawling through a Vietnamese jungle<\/em>!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

That summer of \u201971 seemed to be full of action and passion around the world. India and Pakistan fought battles across their borders; A huge and long postal strike in inflation-hit Britain was the start of ever-worse labor strikes that would cripple the country two years later. And my family\u2019s money went decimal: no more pounds, shillings and pence.<\/p>\n

At least the Rolling Stones released their next hit, Brown Sugar. John Lennon, fresh from the disbanded Beatles, sang \u2018Imagine\u2019, David Bowie released \u2018Life on Mars.\u2019\u00a0Don McLean recorded \u2018American Pie,\u2019 and kept people puzzled for the next 50 years (Was it, or was it not, about the death of Buddy Holly in 1959, marking the end of an \u2018innocent era of the fifties?\u2019)\u00a0 McLean himself says there is much more after that. His original 16-page manuscript of notes about the lyrics were sold to an anonymous bidder for $1.2 million in 2015.<\/p>\n