Mod Betty can’t help it (she can’t help it, the girl can’t help it!) – even when traveling overseas her eyes are attuned to spying the vintage and the retro.
So even in Ireland while she was truly enjoying what that beautiful country has to offer and is famous for, she could not help but notice that even here, across the pond, there is an attraction to American vintage inspired lifestyle. Much like Irish Pubs in the US reflect a certain aspect of Irish culture in a foreign land, these snapshots also represent the United States overseas.
I could not help but think: If this is a slice of the United States that the world is interested in, why don’t we show it off to them when they visit the US?
I mean, here I am as a tourist in a foreign country, myself. I don’t want to go to the brightly lit “Irish Pub” attached to the chain hotel, where the guy in the corner is playing nothing but covers of American music. I want to see/experience the Authentic history of the country I’m in. The real old-fashioned stuff, not the”new stuff made to look like old stuff.” that I can’t get in my home country.
I want to go to the places that have been there a long time to feel the energy of those centuries/decades that came before me. I want to connect up with the real folks, and spend my tourist dollars in places like this. And while I’m having that authentic vintage Irish experience I want, I’m also helping out their local economy and the people who are keeping these traditions alive.
If I feel like that when I’m traveling, wouldn’t it stand to reason that there’s a foreign tourist somewhere who wants that same Authentic Experience when visiting the US?
They can’t get the authentic American Diner where they live, the closest they get is their Eddie/Johnny/Freddie Rockets. So when visiting the US they want the Real Deal! They want the original stainless steel vintage diner that has been around since the 1950s, not some sanitized Disney Corporate chain version of Vintage America – heck they can get that at home!
They want to rub elbows with regular people, not other tourists, they want to travel the real roads of the country, not just the ones lines with generic chain stores and the same fast food places over and over again, like a chase scene in a Flintstones cartoon.
They want to drive a vintage car down Route 66, see glorious neon signs, stay at quaint mom-n-pop roadside motels. They want to drink cocktails at swanky places and pretend they’re the Rat Pack , Jay Gatsby or Don Draper!
They Want to Re-Live the Jazz Age or the Post-WW2 Boom Lifestyle that is so Uniquely American. The optimism of having won the war, the return of manufacturing from war-goods to all sorts of exhuberant and exciting new cars and goods for the homes that were being populated with all the veterans returning from that war.
They want to eat in authentic diners, Drive the chrome laden cars, see the neon signs and watch movies at drive-ins. Listen to live jazz and dance to American rock and roll!
While in other parts of the world they were literally shell-shocked and rebuilding from the rubble of bombings, our countryside remained untouched. So we built places for new families to visit while they hit the road on family vacations, driving down the highways in their gleaming family-mobiles.
Heck, who wouldn’t want to relive those positive parts of our bygone eras?
So if they want this, and – here’s the part that will make you business types perk up – they want to spend their tourist dollars at authentic vintage places like this (help the local economy, yo) then why do we make it so difficult?
Why do we tear down our own authentic diners and replace them with boring box stores? Why do we obliterate our own history – however young it is compared to other countries? If we give them nothing but chains and genericism, tourists won’t want to visit, leaving their tourist dollars to be spent elsewhere.
Can you imagine going to Rome, and they had torn down the Coliseum because it was old and falling apart, and they replaced it with a chain store?
We can profit from our recent history instead of tearing it down.
The Best Part?It Can’t Be Outsourced!
The Real Authentic American Experience Can Only Happen in the USA!
Our country only goes back a few hundred years, but we have places and things within our recent past that No Place Else Has – places that people from other countries are interested in.
People in the US who want to make money – listen up:
- People from across the globe want to visit authentic vintage American Places!
- People from across the world will bring their money here to the US. AND THEY WILL SPEND THEIR TOURIST DOLLARS HERE, putting it in the pockets of our local business people who own these authentic vintage places.
- If your town or state has these places DON’T Tear Them Down! Keep them! Keep them in Good Condition so people will want to visit them. They will spend money in your town!
We will never return to being a country where we manufactured Things and made money by selling them.
But what we CAN do is to Make The Most of What We Have, that people want. And no, I am not talking about natural resources cut down, mined, hunted. Those will eventually be depleted.
I’m talking about our history – our fun, positive, UNIQUELY AMERICAN history. There are people all over the world want to learn about it and experience it for themselves.
That’s what I want when I’m on vacation in a foreign country…why wouldn’t they want it when they visit the United States?
Let’s Do This People!
Mod Betty
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