Every parade needs a gorilla

On July fourth, I’m almost always asked how long I have lived in the states. And as the years have racked up – somehow I’ve reached fifteen years stateside already – the reaction has slowly changed from interest in why I’m here to a simple bestowing of acceptance. “Fifteen years? You’re practically an American,” is a common retort. Time, rather than citizenship papers, is the great arbiter of assimilation stateside.

Now as a full-time resident, parent to two American-born children, I’m far from graduate school days avoiding amped-up geezer boys in downtown bars yelling rude epithets about the British. In short, I don’t have to make up great excuses to avoid the celebratory pageantry. Instead, I’ve now fallen hook, line and sinker, working diligently on Independence craft projects, decorating the children’s Radio Flyer wagon to join in the classic Old Chatham parade. The fourth may not technically be my national holiday, but the morning parade – and its nod to all things good about America - is intrinsic to our own family tradition. We wave flags, wear red, white, and blue, and don Uncle Sam hats. This year I even succumbed to sporting a festive USA headband. Fearing I may have gone too far, I stashed a Union Jack umbrella as protective talisman under a blanket in the back of the wagon, and tried to convince the parade queen (a fellow ex-pat), that we could be insurgents. At any rate, if it rained my true colours would be on display.

After living here for fifteen years you might imagine assimilation would be complete. After all, it only took Madonna about six months of living in London to start talking with a British accent. But no matter how long I’m here, there are always things that will pop up and smack me in the face as reminder that I’m living abroad. I can honestly say I never gave lorries a second thought in the UK, but over here I feel as passionately about flat-nosed American Mack trucks as my two-year old son. When I point them out and yell “Truck! Truck!” it’s only partly for his viewing pleasure. The rest is purely visceral. Another reminder, one among the more peculiar, is the moment I try to pull out of my drive onto a car-less road. Without any other vehicles for reference, parked or otherwise, it can take a few bewildering seconds while I work out which side I’m going to drive on.

At the epicenter of my American life is the humble bagel. My entire stay in the states could be dished up and served on one. From an student years to lost loves and career moves, I’ve always had a favourite bagel place ready to mop up the tears or break bread in celebration. Despite being readily available in British supermarkets nowadays, I don’t know anyone who actually buys them other than in a vague attempt to recapture the magic after a weekend trip to New York. Give me any year in the past fifteen and I can tell you where I was living, what was going on in my life, and my daily bagel order. If that doesn’t make me a quasi-American I don’t know what does. Take 1997, for example. Working in the NYC Mayor’s Office and ordering hot buttered cinnamon and raisin morning bagels from a Manhattan street vendor parked on Center Street. How about 1999? Running a program for young offenders, living with my German best friend in an apartment complex, and living on sesame bagels with lox and cream cheese. I was in love for much of the 2000s, mostly with a sun-dried tomato bagel sandwich I’d invented at the upstate Brueggers Bagels chain, while working on research projects for the feds.

I love it when my borrowed American traditions throw me a curve ball. Just as I think I’ve tried every bagel in the shop, someone has the bright idea to make a square one. News this past weekend that H&H Bagels, a long-standing bagel bastion of the Upper West Side, and one of my favourite leisurely weekend haunts, has shuttered its doors. This week the Old Chatham Parade readied itself for a traditional start -- fire engines and classic cars jockeying for position, small children dressed in revolutionary garb, hunt club beagles braying, tractors, ATVs and Radio Flyer wagons all tarted up to the nines in sparkly spangled banners, flag carrying WWII vets in the lead, and neighbours hosting 8am champagne and bloody mary breakfast. And as I revelled in the familiar scene, a gorilla showed up. Not any gorilla, but one to accompany the parade queen in the back of an open top Mustang. To be honest, no-one even batted an eyelid, the extraordinary being a quintessential part of American tradition after all. We marched, and sang, and then stopped in the country store for a toasted bagel.