Enough is Enough
(The Universe is in your Hands edit)
Janet Kuypers
2/13/24
Waited outside in Bad Gastein for a bus tour
of a radon cave at a nearby mining mountain
with many German-speaking Austrians.
So out of my element, I ached for an American voice...
Until then heard a boisterous baritone, so I made my way
to the booming, distinctly American voice.
I merely asked, “American?”
Immediately the big man boomed,
“Hi, I’m Frank, and the little missus here is Mildred.
We’re from Detroit. I worked for GM for 35 years,
and now that the kids are all grown up, with my pension
I thought I’d take the little missus here to see the Alps...”
And that’s when I realized that I could have stood at fifty paces
and still heard Frank telling the entire neighborhood the epic of his life.
That’s when it occurred to me, how loud us Americans could be.
When first traveling through Europe
after the “war on terror” began,
the United States government and airlines
wanted to inform Americans traveling abroad
that if they were concerned about being a conspicuous target
by looking too American, they offered these simple guidelines:
Don’t wear a University sweatshirt.
Don’t wear a sports team baseball cap.
Don’t chew gum.
Don’t yell.
And all I could hear in my mind now
was Frank, not yelling, but somehow yelling nonetheless...
A part of me wanted to tell all
English-speaking Austrians on that tour
“Not all Americans are that loud,”
because even if some Americans want to rest on their laurels,
some of us know when enough is enough.
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