Different Worlds

Reading from my Americans mail to me reminded me of the time I was in the early years of my business at the Kiosk.
It had no electricity and only had LPG as the only fuel. I had cause to call out the LPG engineer. He worked for Calor so it was an expensive call out.
Anyway when the guy called, he was not the most agreeable man and seemed to be rather unfriendly. I did however offer him a cup of tea which seemed to make him more agreeable. He told me that there was a call out charge which I understood. I paid the bill there and then and he told me that he would be calling in about a weeks time to complete the work when another part was in stock, he told me with a sort of grin that there would be no call out charge next time.
Within a week he arrived, on entering I asked him if he wished to have a cuppa first or after the job was completed. He surprised me by asking if he could have one straight away and he would work as well as drinking the tea. He was a lot nicer this time and told me that he would have to come again as there was something not quite right but he suggested he gave me his telephone number so that if anything went wrong he could call him therefore saving a call out charge. I agreed and told him that if he was ever passing he was welcome to visit us and have a cuppa. Well about 2 weeks later he called to see us. He first said that he was moving house soon but would let us know his new phone number. He also told me he was soon going on holiday. I naturally asked him where he was going. To the States he replied. Mind you he said I am not paying, it is Father in law. Oh I joked. I suppose you married into money. He then frankly admitted that he did. He told me that his Father in law knew friends in USA and they stayed at one of his homes. A four bed roomed house. He told me that he had only his wife and daughter approaching 13 so there was plenty of room.
He then proceeded to tell me all about America. He told me that for any young person willing to work, America was the place to be. He told me that as a qualified LPG engineer he would have no trouble in finding plenty of work, his only problem he said was the family. They said no way. He then told me that I should go there. There was plenty of work, even washing up jobs were advertised at $5 an hour with no takers. He told me that petrol was $1 a gallon and coke was also $1 a can. He told me that the snag was that you had to have, I think it was a Green Card to work permanently there but he also said that he met plenty that worked for 10 months then had to leave the country for 2 months only to go through it all again.
He said it was a different world to here. Food he told me was presented in huge portions, no wonder a lot of the younger generation were obese. He told me also that when you went into a restaurant with every meal coffee was served and it was free. When you had finished your cup it was automatically replaced by another full cup.
Driving was an obsession with them. Nearly all of the cars were huge gas guzzlers and he told me that nobody thought anything of travelling 60 miles for a morning cup of coffee.
My American friend told me that he once travelled 100 miles for a coffee.
Finally he did say that the Americans were the most friendly people that you could ever wish to meet.
Now to put this in perception this was in 1993 or 1994 at the latest. With petrol at just over $3 a gallon, perhaps even the Americans would think twice about travelling 60 miles for a morning cup of coffee. How times have changed. More soon.