Ptelevision.org

Since the beginning I have often had conversations with people who know their family, personal and national histories very well, much better than I knew my own.  They would ask me where I was from and I would say the United States, nothing more.  When I asked them of their origins they usually gave me detailed descriptions of family lineage, regional history laced with national pride.

A Swede once said, “I’m from Sweden the home of Ikea not cheese and watches, my family name has not changed for 500 years and during the summer our days are longer than the nights.” In one sentence he gave me a picture of his life, his pride and trivia that I used over and over again in future conversations. 

Suddenly, without his knowing it, he became an Ambassador for Sweden and I became a Swedish emissary.  In conversations with others I found myself repeating his story with an introduction that started something like “I met this Swede once who said…” A few weeks after reciting the same line about that Swede I had met in a bar I thought to myself a horrifying thought. 

What was he saying about the American he had met?  What was the message I had given him?  If he was a Swedish Ambassador for me then I must have been an American Ambassador for him.

  It wasn’t easy assuming my new role. I was young, I hardly knew myself and now in the mix of adapting to a new land, new language and culture I had to represent not only myself but my country, my people and my heritage.

How did I want to be perceived to the dozens of foreigners I would soon be meeting, I asked myself?  What lasting impression did I want to leave if I was going to be one, if not the only American they would meet?  If I could help them end their sentence, “I met this American once who said…” what I would I add? I thought long and hard and because I did not yet know my own identity I concluded on something short, open and complex. 

I borrowed from the Swede and other similar encounters.  I wanted to convey my pride, my heritage, my family and my history quickly and briefly.  I am from a country of known businesses, I thought, but more importantly great people a place of violence and of great tolerance, a country with endless land and definite regions, and from a people of many races, histories and religions with an ever changing culture.

I started to play with introductions.  I would say, “I had a Venezuelan mother and a father of European ancestry.  I was from the home of Martin Luther King Jr, Country Music and REM, Thomas Wolfe, Faulkner and Jimmy Carter, the place where Coke was born and Disney World was built.    I was an American from the South.”

Time has since passed and I’ve discovered more of who I am and the culture that’s mine.   I am still everything I once said I was but now it’s much simpler, I’m more confident.  I’ve been home again and again and each trip back I discover more of my identity and who my people are.  Now I realize I’m simply a small part of “Southern Fried Culture.”

Come on a ride with me to see some Southern Fried Culture I recently discoverd.  We’ll ride from Atlanta, Georgia to Chattanooga and Knoxville, Tennessee.  We’ll See Rock City and listen to Blue Plate Specials.  We’ll stop by Yee Haw Industries and discover how hard it is to drive 55.  We’ll ride through the Smokies to the “Paris of the South”, Asheville, North Carolina and discover that you can’t go home again. We’ll see an experimental college that changed the course of avant-garde art and we’ll end the trip staring at fish in the world’s largest aquarium.

Ride with me during the next few entries to Ptelevision.org and discover the message this unofficial Ambassador has brought back to Europe.

The Drive

Atlanta > Interstate 20 and the wrong turn > Interstate 75 to Chattanooga > Houston Museum overlooking the Tennessee > See Rock City > Knoxville I40 and can’t drive 55 > Golden Globe of World Expo 82 > Blue Plate Special > Yee Haw Industries > Smoky Night Ride > City Walk > Can’t go home again > Black Mountain College > The Atlanta Fish House