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Ralph in the United States of America
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The USA wouldn't spring to mind, perhaps, as a natural stomping ground for a red-haired, almost bald, pale Englishman wearing a floppy hat and baggy shorts. Indeed, he is remarkable enough to encourage pretty and extrovert American girls at supermarket checkouts to demand: "Talk to me — I want to hear that cute accent!". He is accustomed to such attention. For example, once, walking along a hot Sicilian road, a mad Englishman out in the midday August sun, his pale, freckled knees and shapeless white headgear caused raucous and thankfully unitelligible hilarity amongst a gang of immensely muscled and bellied road menders resting beside their gravel. Yet he feels perfectly at home in the dry, buzzing heat of the Arizona and California deserts, delights in the crackling flight of grasshoppers, the grey vegetation, the silent sentinel cacti, the electric buzz of crickets, the crumbling almost-ghost towns, the unforgiving, stern sky. These pages include some of his impressions of the western USA. |
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