They’ve all come to look for America
All come to look for America
All come to look for America – Simon and Garfunkel

New York City, September 14, 1975: I am 19 years old and this is my first ever flight. We are on board a Laker Air DC-10, headed from London Gatwick to JFK New York. As we fly in to the city in the late afternoon, circling for the approach, the pilot comes on the intercom. “I’m going to dip the wing for a few moments. If you are on the left you should be able to see the Statue of Liberty.”

He does. I am. I see her. And the Manhattan skyline; and the Twin Towers.

So this anniversary snuck up on me. This means – you do the math – that as of this writing (September 15, 2025) I have been in the United States 50 years and one day.

I know that “50” is just a number. But oh my goodness that is quite the number!

Iconic Experiences:

I am so glad I had that iconic Statue of Liberty experience as I arrived in the USA for the first time. Because while I didn’t know it at that moment, and probably did not for another four or five years, I really was not going back to England to live, ever.

In that moment I believe that I am arriving as a tourist, visiting just for two or three weeks; but in reality I am checking in as an immigrant, beginning the rest of my life. I just do not know it at the time.

On that day in 1975 I am still just 19 years old and very much unclear as to what the future might hold.

So we take in a few of the sights in New York before flying on down to Florida, heading to Sarasota for my brother’s wedding. I have an amazing introduction to the state via beaches and water-skiing and alligators and Disney and wedding activities. 

Then my parents rent a car, and together we drive up the east coast prior to flying back from New York the first week of October.

Gone to look for America

Only I do not get on the plane. Instead, and in response to an invitation from my friend John, I board a Greyhound in Philadelphia and make my way to Bozeman Montana via a side trip to see another friend in Ontario.

Looping back in from Canada at the Michigan border, immigration did not want to let me in. I had my passport, a backpack, two changes of clothes, my guitar, my “Ameripass” Greyhound ticket and maybe two hundred fifty dollars in traveller’s checks. Oh, and my passport had fresh stamps from more than twenty countries over the previous seven months, including Israel, Turkey, Romania and the USSR.

“What are you, some kind of European Hippie?” one guy said, and for maybe an hour the question of my future – the one I had no idea about – hung in the balance.

Lines from two songs entered my head. “It’s late September and I really should be back in school…” (Rod Steward, Maggie May, 1971). But I wasn’t back in school. What I was doing – and this one hit me when the guy suddenly shrugged his shoulders, stamped my passport and let me walk on to the bus station – was “I’ve gone to look for America…” (Simon and Garfunkel, 1968)

So I made my way to Montana, endless hours of Greyhound bus across endless miles of endless states. Looking back, it’s another line from Maggie May that explains what happened to me when I found America:

“You stole my heart, I couldn’t leave you if I tried…”

50 years and still on this journey of discovery. I’m sure glad they stamped that passport! – DEREK