Talke talks – witches puritanical

Howdy from Texas, dear readers! Germans go south in the summer to heat up, while Texans flee the heat in the fall to states like New York or Colorado to finally experience “fall foliage” – i.e. the changing foliage colors of the season that doesn’t exist here. They finally want to be outside sweat-free, sipping hot coffee instead of iced and wearing all those jackets that they won’t wear in Texas even in the winter because then you won’t get out of the car (it’s an unwritten Texas law that its residents allow). , to wear flip-flops even at 0 degrees. And yes, before any further questions arise: you drive in flip-flops here).

We went to New England this fall break, perhaps not necessarily because of the fall weather, which we have neither forgotten nor will miss thanks to decades in Hamburg, but to show our daughter the Halloween town of Salem shortly before the festival. Ok, we had selfish plans too, my husband wanted to see the landscapes of Maine and New Hampshire (read: eat lobster rolls); I wanted to go to the legendary Isabella Gardener Museum in Boston (i.e. have my husband take as many photos of me there as possible).

The progressive East Coast was supposed to be the opposite of our redneck summer vacation in Alabama. As is well known, it is the cradle of American democracy, steeped in history, with a European touch, rejecting fast food chains and generally culturally up to date. The Pilgrims and Puritans were among the first settlers of New England in the 1620s and 30s. It remains to be doubted whether they were such highly cultural beings with their ultra-religious views and infectious diseases.

But in colonial times, New England, which today includes six states, rose rapidly economically and intellectually. The elite Harvard University was founded in 1636 and, despite tuition fees of around $65,500 a year, is now too poor to have trash cans on campus (the website claims this is a “zero waste” initiative). Our Pomeranian dog pooped on the manicured Harvard grass as soon as she arrived at the honorable institution and my poor husband had to carry the store in a pink bag the entire walk. He didn’t look so sophisticated, but luckily in the end it’s the photos (of us girls) that count.

In 1773, the Boston Tea Party came, when white people dressed as Indians (thankfully that’s not even acceptable for Halloween these days) threw East India Company tea chests into the Boston docks as a protest against British taxes. Good tea hasn’t been seen in the US since the boycott, but shortly afterwards America was free of the British; Brexited before it was cool.

And while the backwoods South profited more and more from the slave trade, abolitionist efforts began in New England, inspired by the Enlightenment. It’s all the more surprising how many Trump supporters live there today with their bumper stickers and front yard signs. What I found particularly shocking was the “Make America great again” along the highways: Donald’s fans set up cranes on their lands from which monster posters dangle, reminding those driving by that the Enlightenment and liberalism could soon be a thing of the past in New England. The Boston art, the landscapes and the lobster rolls cleverly distract me from my cloudy thoughts.

But Salem also proved to be a contradiction. I expected the little town made famous by Halloween films to have pretty streets with cute costume shops. Instead, Loser Las Vegas: confused witch-hat crowds in the not-so-pretty streets, overcrowded parking garages for $50, the stores full of junk and still queues like when the Soviet Union collapsed. But the most unpleasant thing is the commercialization of the witch trials of 1693. Instead of more forcefully denouncing the misogyny and brutality of the Puritans, which left twenty people dead, the most important thing is to profit in the ever so progressive Salem, Massachusetts. The east coast is not that different from the south. And apparently I’ve been in the States too long because I’m dressing up as a witch this Halloween.