Friday, 30 November 2018

Day 15 - McAllen

I'm going to say right up from that the Day 14 bus ride had nothing worth talking about, and no wifi, so it will have to be forever lost as a blog entry I'm afraid. I've been staying with another member of the American clan, the awesome Tootie, who kindly allowed me in to her home to drink gin and tonic and shoot the breeze for a couple of days. Even the fact that I beat the very slightly more mature but still sprightly Tootie 5:1 at pool, she displayed nothing but generosity in her hospitality and indeed defeat (I decided to ignore the 'dang' muttered as we exited the pool hall).
As I leave the deep South, there are two movies that you might want to check out that give a sense of what I've left behind. Alan Parker made two tremendous films based in the South, Angel Heart, and Mississippi Burning. Both cover different topics, but both are totally gripping and kinda provided some inspiration for my little exploration. I recommend both of them highly.
Of course the world and indeed the South has changed immeasurably since the subject matter in both took place, but you get a sense of how it has got to where it is today. I can see evidence of inequality still, but it isn't pronounced to the average tourist, although the Southern poor do seem to be dominated by people of colour, and where I have been at least, I've seen a fair few poor folk.

Everyone loves chicken, right? I mean it's so versatile! In the USA, there's pretty much nothing they can't do with the stuff and the South is positively drowning in hot fryer fat and feathers.
Around 300m people call the USA home, and I reckon they all get through 2 or 3 chickens a day. That means somewhere near a billion chickens a day sacrifice themselves, and that's in the US alone remember. In the UK, we must get through 1000 or so, and the Chinese love a chicken, but they probably have 1 a week or something, that's..... erm..... about 143m a day, and let's figure on another few tons for the rest of the world combined. So in total, we get through 1 billion and a bit chickens a day. Fact. Vegetarian readers can feel free to use my statistics in any anti-chicken campaigns they have coming up.

This leg of my trip is coming to a close, and I can't help feeling like it has been as much an education as it has a missed opportunity. I wish I'd had a car to get 'out there' but I've been stuck on the bus route and feel there must be more to see, but time and routing simply hasn't allowed.
In truth, I don't think those small town, authentically Southern communities that I wanted to visit exist anymore, so maybe I missed nothing in the end. Corporate America prevails, and perhaps I have been looking for something that only Alan Parker and history can provide.

In my view, and in the very short time I've been here, the Southern States of America have never truly recovered from the trauma of losing the rebellion. There is acceptance, but to this day it seems to come with a tinge of regret. I overheard some good old boys talking about how the Confederate Museum should have been more 'patriotic' and I don't believe they were the only ones that think that way. They are so evidently a proud people, and no longer wedded the darker ideals behind secession, but mourn their defeat and resent being dictated to by the federal government. And that's a long time to hold a grudge, but then proud people tend to do that.

I'm catching a bus tomorrow across the Rio Grande into Mexico. This shit just got real.

It's not all biscuits and gravy in the Deep South - some folk, ...quite a few folk, have it pretty tough.

My favourite place from New Orleans. Obviously it wouldn't quite match up to Las Iguanas, but it did a pretty mean plate nonetheless.

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