Education System | The English & the American Dream

I think Spring is in the air, and I just found Jake cooking pasta for his girlfriend. Second time today……yep, it must be.

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This is an interesting season in Denver, the brown trees turned green in two weeks, and the bunnies in our back garden multiply, er like rabbits. Heather sits on the grass and they amble around her, as do the squirrels, it’s like a scene from Snow White. Or is it Wizard of Oz? I’m getting old, my memory is deserting me.

The reason we have rabbits is that the typical American middle class household is obsessed with baby substitutes, sorry, dogs. I can only count one of our neighbours who doesn’t have a canine or three, so the rabbits seek refuge under our decking. The unfortunate by-product of this is that the foxes that tour the area also like our garden, Heather found bits of rabbit strewn about last weekend after we had seen the fox sneaking in late at night, just as we were crawling in from the pub.

Yes, the good news is there are pubs of a sort in Middle America, and the amount of breweries is un-believable. There are supposed to be 175 in the Denver area, and so there is no need to drink Budweiser or similar filth. The only problem is that presumably to differentiate themselves, they make the beer out of some strange things, caramel or wheat I guess are ordinary, but what about “whiskey-soaked pumpkin seeds and orange blossom honey”. Yes, the majority of them taste like………

It might come as a surprise to you my reader (singular), but I am not a patient man. I hate queuing, but the amount of airports I am going through means I have to get used to it. 4 weeks ago visiting New York, I got back to Newark airport an hour and a half before the departure time, plenty of time you would say. But the queues at security were out the front door, apparently someone had shot himself at Houston airport and everyone was freaked, and progress through security just slowed to a crawl.

Americans do get freaked by some things, but ignore others that I would regard as being far more important. An average of 30 people are shot every day across America, which goes completely un-remarked upon, but then what is logically a small incident gets blown out of proportion.

The Aurora “Batman” killer is back making the headlines because he is about to be sentenced for that terrible act, which happened about 8 miles from where I sit right now. The prosecutors are making a big thing of the fact that the gunman walked past two cinemas to perform his deed in the third. Why? Because the first two allow guns in the auditorium and the prosecution are arguing that was a deliberate move to prevent him from being shot back, thereby justifying a death sentence.
Yes, dear Europeans, there are cinemas in America where you can take in a gun.

Anyway, to get back to Newark airport, I wanted to exploit my capitalist right not to queue, so I purchased a priority pass. $60 later, I got through security just in time, only to realise that I had managed to book myself on the only airline in America that doesn’t give you a reserved seat, unless you pay extra. Although a familiar concept for Europeans, thankfully those airlines are but a distant memory to me now.

So I had forgotten to pay for a seat, and they have a bizarre queuing system. You find your position behind a post – C19 is the 19th person in the C queue. Capitalism? I wanted to slit my wrists.

The kids have broken up from school and we are off on that true American tradition, the Road Trip. Jake has a friend joining us on #wardsontour, it’s the California Coastal Highway and then over to Arizona, I suspect some laughs will befall us. I need some laughs the way work has been.

So far it has been remarkable that I haven’t got an American speeding ticket, unlike my colleague Vrinder who got done in Yellowstone for doing 65 in a 40. And despite a passport photo that makes him look like a terrorist dear boy, they didn’t lock him up. My major incident was being stopped in Calgary by a Mountie. He seemed to think that steering with my knees while taking a picture of the skyline was a mistake. I groveled, he was a real Mountie, what was that TV program?

In the grand tradition of the American Dream, even a 12 year old gets a year book at the end of the year. But unfortunately for poor Ben, they had forgotten to put him in it. I was incensed for him, demanded the phone off the wife, intent on ringing the principal and telling him what I thought of the way they had treated my youngest. Did I say I wasn’t very patient…..now where has Heather hidden the phone?

Please don’t tell my wife, but I’ve dented the car.
The good news is that I never ever wash any of my cars, in the UK they only ever turned up clean on two occasions. Firstly after a service at the BMW garage, or alternatively when using valet parking at Heathrow airport. But now in America I don’t have a BMW, I have a Subaru, the only company that would give me credit, and lets face facts, they are not going to give me a free car wash. And the Audi with 140,000 miles on the clock is such an odd colour that is deserves to be dirty. Funny that it is this one that I always end up driving.
So the Suburu has 6 months of dirt on it, after two road trips you can’t really see what colour it is either, I think that perhaps she won’t notice the dent.
The weather has been bizarre in Denver these last few weeks of April, although the locals say this is normal for Spring. Last Monday I went to work in my shorts, at noon it was 60F, with lovely blue skies. But at 4pm it started snowing, the temperature had dropped by 30 degrees in 4 hours. Lots of strange people here do wear shorts at this temperature, but I just felt like a fool. A cold fool.
The boys are doing very well at school, it took some time for them to settle down, but they are now well entrenched in the US education system and can comment on the differences. Needless to say, Jake at 17 is quite vociferous, but having achieved 103% in his World History, he can probably comment from a position of strength.
I have degree in Maths (sorry Math), and in my day to get 100% you had to get all the answers right, even in a multiple guess exam. And to be honest, in my school days I wasn’t going to worry anyone with regard to getting too close to those kind of numbers. Luckily, Jake doesn’t take after either of his parents in his attitude to study, he works very hard, so I ask him “how do you get 103 out of 100?” The answer lies in a bizarre marking scheme which means that work is continuously assessed by the teachers, and they award extra marks when they see fit.
Yep he’s smart, he works hard, and they like him. I hope he grows up wanting to support his father in his ill funded dotage, perhaps I need to be nicer to him while there is still time.
Jake was very frustrated initially because the US school system wouldn’t recognize his UK achievements, but now a 35 out of 36 in his ACT has gained him recognition, and has put a smile on his face. He deserves what he gets, but unfortunately he now thinks that going to Harvard might be a good idea. With fees of $85k per year.
Ben at 12 is much more cautious about broadcasting his achievements. Last week a fantastic report arrived from the school on his work so far, and his mother then chose to ask him about the Honor Roll. This is a strange, but very common occurrence across America, I see bumper stickers all the while boasting about children’s achievements and cringe.
Anyway, it then becomes clear that Ben has been on the Honor Roll for some time, and has been given bumper stickers, but was so embarrassed that he hadn’t told us. Furthermore he had cut them up, re-arranging the letters into interesting anagrams far removed from the original intended sentiment.
His mother doesn’t know whether to be proud or to tell him off. She jokes that she wants the next one to put on the car.
And then I realize that this might just save me, I could use one to cover the dent on the bumper. The problem is I need two stickers, yes, I dented both cars. All I can say in my defense is that I have never had a working garage before. In 38 years of house owning, it is not something that has ever troubled me, why would you need a garage? But in this part of the US, everyone has two car garages, some have three car garages.
So without checking, I backed one car out of the garage into the other which was sat on the drive. I, one of the 2 people in our street that has actually taken a test that ensures you can drive safely.
Now I must go and search Ben’s room for a bumper sticker or 2. Proud, that’s me.

The English & the American Dream

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