Tondeleo: This past Summer, my friend from South London, Cyril Baptist came to the States to spend a few weeks with Doc and Marilyn and their friends. Cyril is a great bloke and an incredible musician. I have never heard anyone as versatile nor as skilled as he is on the guitar. Plus he is funny, flexible and always up for an adventure.
The morning after he arrived, he rang me up to let me know that Doc and Marilyn had bought him camo clothes to wear and a ballcap and that they said he would need to dress like that so no one would pick on him. He said it was humiliating, and asked me if he truly had to wear those clothes. I told him that actually, yes, he'd be safer if he blended in than if he stood out. He was truly not pleased! I had Doc talk a bit, on a few occasions about Cyril's visit. Here is how it went:
Doc: Yeah, this was pretty crazy at first. That boy Cyril wrote me an' Marilyn an e-letter saying he was planning on coming in to Dallas and would just take a bus and a cab to our house, so we wouldn't have to worry about picking him up.
I e-wrote him back and tole him that Dallas is like more than 2,000 miles from Maryland, so he better not be coming in to Dallas. He changed his ticket to Dulles which is in VA but that he was still just gonna hop on a bus and then take a cab to us here. He don't know nothin' about America!
You ain't taken a bus to Western Charles County from Dulles or a cab. You would spend all day, get lost, get on the wrong bus and probally spend a couple hundred dollars after riding six or seven hours. That's why Americans got cars and trucks. It's quicker an' cheaper unless you live in the city which we don't.
So on the day he is comin' here, he calls me an' says he will be out front of Dulles and wearing a "petro" blue suit. What the heck is that? We drive the panel truck up there and circle round and round the front of the airport looking for an English kid in whatever a petro blue suit is. After about ten times and no kid, we pull into the pay parking lot and get out of the truck and go inside. Marilyn gets them to announce for Cyril Baptist from England to meet her at the desk.
In a few minutes this kid in a shiny blue suit that looks like a uptown sissified pimp comes walking up. We asked if he was Cyril and he said he was. Asked if he heard the 'nouncement and he said no. He was just walkin' around lookin' at stuff!
We got his bags an' put him in the back of the truck. He had never been to America so he was looking out the window the whole time, commenting on how uncrowded everything was. When we started gettin' down into Charles County, he said it was just so "rural," whatever that is s'posed to mean.Marilyn kept tryin' to get him to say things 'cause she likes that English accent... he talks like YOU, Tondy! a true Brit. She'd ask him to say somethin', then he'd say it, and she'd giggle an' try to say it back to him in Brit talk, and he'd tell her she made a right mess of it. She'd say that she sounded just like him and he'd say it was rubbish and that she sounded like a Yank tryin' to sound like a Brit but failin'. I had to listen to that all the way back! I didn't mind really. It was pretty funny.
When we pulled up to our place there was some deer in the yard. He couldn't believe that. He started takin' pictures on his phone. He didn't know if he'd be able to sleep with the deer in the yards, and the geese over in the pond makin' noise and the chickens in the yard walkin' around. We let him know that the chickens eat the ticks what falls off the deer, and keeps you from gettin' ticks. He wasn't so sure about that.
We showed him his bed he'd be stayin' on and where everything was, and he said he needed to go to bed.
Well, he slept all evenin' and all night and all mornin' til after lunch time! And he didn't know if he'd be able to sleep!
When he woke up, me an' Marilyn showed him the clothes we bought for him, so he wouldn't have people pickin' on him. He ain't like them one bit! We 'splained to him what could happen if he went around here in those English city-boy clothes, so he rolled his eyes and went back into the room an' came out lookin' a little more like someone from 'round here. He did it, but he didn't like it. Said he looked like a "right American hobo." Marilyn told him he looked like an English guy wearin' camo and ain't no one gonna think he's an American hobo. After a couple hours he did at least manage to smile a bit. But you could tell he was 'barrassed.
