Made in America by Bill Bryson

Made in America was published in 1994. In principle, it is a book about English words that originated in the area that is now the United States of America. However, it is much more than that. It is a book about people, places, customs, and languages. The history of words is often a pretext for Bill to tell an interesting story about a person, an invention, about immigration, film making, aviation, advertising, sex, or car manufacturing.

Here is a sample of Bill Bryson's style from chapter 15, The Movies:

"It is a curious fact that this most American of phenomena was created almost entirely by non-Americans. Apart from Mack Senett and Mary Pickford (who were in any case both Canadian), the early studios were run by a small band of men who had begun life from strikingly similar backgrounds: they were all eastern European Jews, poor and uneducated, who had left Europe in the same decade (the 1880s), and had established themselves in the New World in the mostly lowly trades before they all abruptly - and instinctively, it seems - abandoned their careers in the first decade of this century and became seized with the opportunities to be found in the nickelodeon business." 

This introduction is followed by detailed stories of many men, among them Samuel Goldwyn, whose name makes the middle part of Metro Goldwyn Mayer, and who was born Schmuel Gelbfisz in Warsaw. Goldwyn's memorable contributions to the English language include 'Gentlemen, include me out', and 'You've bitten the hand of the goose that laid the golden egg'. :-)

Washington, DC

Originally posted 2010-04-18.

During this spring break we went on a trip to Washington, DC. After a long winter the flora was eager to flourish again. A thick layer of pollen was obstructing visibility and making life difficult for people with allergies all the way from Florida to DC.

In South Carolina we saw this fine specimen of Luna Moth.

 We spent most of the time in Washington around The Mall - the downtown area where most important institutions of the U.S. government are located.

Here is one of them, the well known classical Capitol building.






 

The most famous museums in Washington belong to the Smithsonian Institution, and the most famous of them is the Air and Space, which takes pride in the quality of their artifacts: it showcases only originals in perfect condition. The admittance is free and the guided tours are excellent. Here are some examples of what is on display.

A nose section of Boeing 747.

The Enterprise orbiter. Smithsonian will get a real space shuttle after they are retired by NASA, if it can find the 20 something million dollar fee NASA wants for shipping and handling.

The retired British-French supersonic passenger jet - the Concorde.







Do you know why the windows are so tiny? It's because Concorde was flying much higher than other passenger jets, and if it lost a regular sized window, it would not be able to descend to safe height before suffocating everybody on board.

Enola Gay is the name of a B-29 plane that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. This specimen, like all others at Smithsonian, is an original.

   

The underside of a Predator UAV.

Finally, the UAVs. Boeing X-45 was an experimental Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. UAVs are the future of military aircrafts.

Our volunteer guide, a retired pilot, said that the F-35s are probably the last manned fighters the U.S. will produce.






Some less known museums and attractions.

Botanical Gardens near the Capitol.














The Building Museum was originally a home to the U.S. Pension Bureau headquarters.

Imagine that floor with a fountain in the middle, and plenty of air and natural light filled with desks.

This is what I call a decent office space.













The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception - the largest Roman Catholic church in North America.















Ghostly Korean War Memorial.










The Postal Museum located near the Union Station is new and surprisingly interesting. You can learn that parts of U.S. Route 1 were originally a trail used by native Americans, and later by mail riders.  You can learn that pneumatic mail delivery systems were operating in major U.S. cities in the XIX century.




U.S. Mail travelled under the seat of the driver of that stagecoach.













An ingenious postal snow mobile.

   


     








On the way back to Florida, we stopped again in South Carolina and visited Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum near Charleston.

Slowly deteriorating USS Yorktown aircraft carrier at Patriot's Point in South Carolina.

Towards the end of the war, the kills consisted mainly of trains, planes on the ground (sitting ducks), and ships.












The legend for the stats.

International maritime signal flags.







Most planes on USS Yorktown are displayed with their wings folded allowing us to peek into the folding mechanism.