I'm from Planet Earth

[Robert E. Spenger]

Sally Haden wrote:

> I am not walking on the Camino right at this minute, but my imagination and
> desire to have a bit of fun  with the topic prompts me to pretend that I am
> and that someone walking with me just said "where are you from?", and I
> reply "I am from Planet Earth"!

That reminded me of the title of James Michener's autobiography, "The World Is
My Home."

> In actual fact I am English, which also means British, but that's another
> debate, another story, which a fellow list-serve member from my country can
> take up as a topic if he so wishes! (ie Jeffrey, except I think he already
> made a comment about this.)  There was a study done recently, reported in
> the news yesterday, about people's sense of identity in the UK.  Those whose
> parents emigrated to Britain years ago and who were born in Britain, call
> themselves British apparently, even though they were actually born in
> England.  But those whose parents and grandparents etc etc were born in
> England call themselves English.

Another memory pops up. On my first day of my first pilgrimage, I arrived in
Saint Gilles around noon and went to the local tourist office to find out about
accommodations. I had a copy of the CSJ guide for the Arles route, which I
showed to the lady in charge of the T.O. It mentioned a chambre d'hote in a
little hamlet a few kilometers to the west, and she enthusiastically seized on
that, made a telephone call and handed me the phone. All this had been done
with no verbal communication - she knew no English and my own command of French
was useless, so I took the phone with a bit of apprehension. After I said
hello, I was relieved to hear a response in a cheerful, crisp English voice.
Then I made the mistake of asking speaker if she were British. She answered
very indignantly that indeed she was not British - she was Irish. Frankly,
there was not the slightest hint of Irish in her speech and she told me later
that she spent her formative years in London, part of it during the Blitz.
Fortunately she forgave my transgression and we had a very pleasant
conversation over dinner at  her chambre d'hote. Since then I have been
particularly careful about jumping to conclusions about peoples' origins - or
at least about expressing these conclusions.

regards,

Bob Spenger