If time machines weren’t so expensive, I’d rent one out for an hour just to send Jesse back in time to interview the authors of this book.
In 1935, Pravda sent two Soviet writers to New York with enough money to rent a Ford and enough time—two months—to drive to California and back. In words and pictures, they report back to the Motherland:
The sidewalks are empty. Instead, the road is full of automobiles. At first, we found this circumstance striking. Then we quickly got used to it. Even in Washington, there are almost no pedestrians. It’s impossible to say whether they’re sitting at home or hidden away in their automobiles. … There are exactly as many pedestrians as absolutely necessary to contradict the unbidden but persistent impression that the entire population of the city has perished. You see the same pavement, the same automobiles, and the same billboards.
So much for “small town charm.” At the same time, though, the two are stunned by the unvarnished kindness of the locals:
About a week later … we had our first automotive incident. In America it’s called an accident. We almost landed in a ditch. … The very first car to go by (it was a truck) stopped and out came a man with a rope in his hands. Without saying a word, he tied one end of the rope to the truck and the other end to our car and within a minute he had pulled it out onto the road. All the drivers who passed us while this event was taking place stopped and asked whether we needed help. … Our rescuer wished us a pleasant journey and left. He didn’t even want to hear out our thanks.
Ilf and Petrov collected tons of little vignettes like this. Cowboys and other bygones share the book with still-fresh observations about us Americans (we’re naïve, not so curious, but pretty nice).
When, in a fit of Christmas shopping desperation, you remember this book and buy it for your stepbrother, and from then on he thinks you’re The Cool Step-, you don’t have to thank me.