Posted Sunday, May 31, 2015 11:01 pm

Greetings from the Ridge.

"So–George Bush. Is he an evil man?"

That's the first question the young Russian student asked me when we sat down for coffee one night in a Moscow coffee house. He was referring to George the First and the poor kid had been fed such a line of propaganda that he was truly afraid that the elder Bush was going to blow up his city.

It's summer and that means travel for many of us. As I pour over memories of trips past I'm reminded not only of the wonderful sights, smells and sounds of the world, but of the remarkable people I've met and the questions they've asked me. I'd thought it was my job as tourist to be doing the quizzing but there's been hardly a day traveling abroad when I'm not plumbed by a bit of information by someone from the country I'm visiting.

We were eating in an exotic little restaurant in the Chinese section of London when the cook came out of the kitchen to ask how we liked his food. We told him that it was not only delicious, but so very different for what passes as Chinese cooking in the U.S. He said, "I am curious. I have been to New Yok and Cheecago. Why is all their Chinese food orange?" How do you answer a question like that?

Someone talked me into attending a bullfight in Madrid, Spain, and I was more than reluctant. There's something about teasing then killing a bull for sport that didn't sit well with my Midwestern constitution and when I looked away at the fatal moment our tour guide said, "I don't understand Americans. You carry guns and kill each other on the streets, but you think it is bad when we kill a bull?" Uh, I was stumped.

It was a hot morning in Leningrad and I was looking for a drink. I'd passed several orange juice kiosks on the streets, but in each case the entire town was required to drink out of the same communal drinking glass. When I entered a restroom with a paper cup to fetch a sip from the faucet the restroom attendant quickly grabbed my hand and asked, "You Amerikans drink from the tap? No! No!" I guess I'd taken water for granted.

A waiter in Paris once asked me why teenage American girls talk so loudly. I lied and told him that deafness was rampant among our country's adolescents.

One of the most common questions that I've been asked in many parts of the world is about our nation's refusal to adopt the metric system. "It's so simple!" a London cabbie told me, "Just ten, ten, ten bloody ten! What's so hard about that?" Sometimes I get far more questions than my traveling bag of answers will hold. I fumbled a bit and answered that perhaps it would cost too much to change all the road signs. He snorted, "Pff! You change politicians every few years yet you think nothing of ordering new stationery!" He had me there.

We were visiting the home of Anne Frank in Amsterdam and I'd come out early. The place was a bit crowded that day and I'd been there before so I walked out onto the street to chat with our bus driver. As irony would have it, he traveled to Quincy, IL, each winter to visit his girlfriend. I asked him what he liked best about the U.S. and he quickly answered, "The bowling alleys! They stay open late!" And what puzzled him about our country? The size of the automobiles. "You'll see a nice old lady trolling down the street in a car as big as a small house. Why? Seems such a waste." He went on, "And so many cars with only one person. Three people will be going to the same place and they all drive different cars." Even my penchant for making excuses ran dry on that one.

A few other unanswerable travel questions come to mind–Why is it that the further south you go in your country, the colder the temperature in the buildings? Why do American teenagers keep saying "awesome"? (Saves thinking.) Why are your walking shorts so long? (Because too many of us wear them and you don't want to know what's above the tan line.) What have you got against socialism? (We're not sure what it is.) Do you have to deep-fry everything? (Pretty much) What's with American men and beards? (We watch movies.) Why do all Americans carry guns? (We don't. Some keep them in our trucks.) Do you have to show your passport when you drive from state to state? (Only in Texas.) Is Walmart a real place? (Sur-real.)

You ever in Coonridge, stop by. Just don't ask me any questions.

In real life, Freida Marie Crump is Ken Bradbury, retired teacher, author, musician and playwright who hangs out in Arenzville.