The message
from Frogleg contains these words:

Yeah, but...having an over-large mouth isn't a characteristic
exclusive to any one nation. I realize it's more, um, interesting or
notable when it's a foreigner. Particularly if the behavior can be
related to some popular stereotype. However, Americans seem to be a
free-for-all target. Many say Americans all enjoy this or behave like
that, while few would *dare* to write "all Irish or Italians are..."

In this part of the country the Americans are remembered with great
affection, and dwindling numbers of wartime aircrew are especially
warmly received when they visit the area and the old airfields.

The two nearest ones to me are still in use - on by a glider club and
the other for light aircraft. These two airfields (Tibenham and Old
Buckenham) were Liberator stations, and their CO was James Stewart.

Until he got too infirm, he used to return fairly often, and a quieter
more unassuming chap I've yet to meet. Our village church has a separate
memorial to those lost when two Liberators collided over the parish.
Survivors of that came to the dedication, but JS was not well enough to
attend.

Jack Kennedy's elder brother was killed flying out from another (very
secret) local airfield, Fersfield. Old Liberators, Fortresses etc which
were not economically repairable were patched up and taken there, where
they were packed out with explosives.

A pilot would take one up, set it on a course for a target in Germany,
and bale out over the coast, to be fished out of the briny by the Royal
Navy. Unfortunately, Kennedy's flying bomb just couldn't wait, and
exploded before the coast was reached.

I'm sorry to be so sensitive, but I *do* get tired of persistant
slanging about the manners, speech, habits, food tastes, and general
alertness of "Americans," and being accused of blind chauvinism when I
beg to differ. (Not that *you* have, but some do.)

We in East Anglia have proprietorial rights over Americans, you know.
They are 'our boys' just as much as the RAF aircrew, and accordingly, we
can dig at each-other as only good friends can.

OTOH, having grown up in New Mexico, I'm free to go on at length about
how awful Texans --- all Texans of any stripe whatsoever -- are. :-)

Unfortunately (FSVO of unfortunately) he population is so mobile
nowadays that when I go on about Silly Suffolk there's no reaction
because I'm talking to someone who came from somewhere else entirely,
and doesn't know where the 'silly' epithet came from in the first place.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/