November 9th, 1989. My wife Elizabeth and I were hold up in some dilapidated campground in Tennessee. We managed to pitch our tent just before the heavens opened up and transformed our surroundings into a muddy bog. I had turned 24 the day before and in celebration we abstained from our normal diet of tuna fish sandwiches and potato chips and splurged on a fancy restaurant, Shoney's.
Being stone-broke and living out of the back of my pickup truck we took a pragmatic view of restaurants: if the food was cheep and there was lots of it, we'd eat there. Thus we tended to frequent all-you-can-stomach chains like Fir's Cafeterias and, when we felt flush, Shoney's.
Anyone who has passed through the American South has doubtlessly encountered a Shoney's. They're part of the quintessential Red State dining experience and, along with morbid obesity, inbreeding and homophobia, a proud Southern institution. In fact, with menu items such as the Deluxe Pancake Platter (1609 calories, 32.3g of fat) and the Sausage and Biscuits Breakfast (1057 calories, 65.7g of fat) one might say that Shoney's is leading the charge to keep redneck asses the widest in the world. USA!!
Be that as it may, twenty years ago when faced with the choice of having a birthday dinner served up cold with the help of a can opener and an individually wrapped cheese slice or presented to me in the form of a ten-yard long buffet overflowing with deep-fat-fried goodness, I found myself reaching for a plate and elastic waistband trousers.
But I digress.
The campground where we found ourselves that wet night in 1989 was almost unique in its luxury: it had flush toilets and hot showers- two items of almost palatial indulgence after weeks spent pissing in gas stations and washing our hair in MacDonald's bathrooms (Those hand dryers that everyone hates? When you're homeless you learn to love their hair drying ability.).
Even more exciting than the prospect of standing under warm water until our skin shriveled up was discovering that just off to the side of the reception hut there was a heated room with a pool table and a colour TV. After months on the road, a good portion off which was spent in willful ignorance of the goings on of the larger world, we were positively giddy with excitement at the possibility of whiling away an evening partaking in what, to a sheltered individual, would seem the most mundane of activities: shooting pool and watching television.
Elizabeth racked up the balls, I bought two grape Nehis and flipped on the tube. She leaned over to take her first shot, a cigarette between her lips, blue jeans and cowboy boots; black hair almost touching the green felt of the table. I watched her move around taking her shots, pushing her hair back from her eyes, taking a drag and letting the smoke curl up toward the ceiling. Totally confident, completely focused, unbelievably sexy.
Elizabeth cleared the table without me so much as getting a cue on a ball and I made a mental note never to play her for money. She racked 'em up and dropped two stripes on the break. Seeing that it could be some time before I was a participant in the game I figured I'd try and catch up on what was happening in the larger world; I flipped channels until I found CNN and settled into what at one time was probably a padded chair.
The picture quality was dreadful and it took me several minutes to realize and then come to grips with what I was seeing. When the reality had sunk in I could only say:
"I don't fucking believe it!"
"I don't FUCKING believe it!"
"I DON'T FUCKING BELIEVE IT!!!"
By this time my wife had abandoned her game and was standing next to me watching in jaw-dropping amazement as the world changed before our eyes: The Bornholmer Strasse bridge was open, thousands of people were pouring into West Berlin from the East, there were people standing on the Brandenburg Gate waving German flags and popping corks! There was no gunfire, no tanks in the streets, like air from a balloon the old world order was deflating and no one, seemingly, was being killed over it.
We looked around for someone to share this moment with but there was no one to be found. Cold and darkness had driven everyone back to their tents or RVs. We stood in the blue and white TV light holding hands and crying as half a world away a monumental wrong was being made right.
Now, 20 years on, there is only one Germany and its leader is a woman who walked across that bridge, east to west, on that bitterly cold November night. There's a lot of old wounds that still need to heal and a long way to go before the formerly divided sides reach socioeconomic parity. Yet it does seem that they continue to make the best out of a most amazing start.
