My Two Most Memorable

Independence Days

(Part 1: 1966)

While still in high school, I had formed a long-term goal of leaving Switzerland and becoming an emigrant. Post-war Switzerland felt too constraining with its prevailing social and political pressures.

Switzerland was still dominated by the rule of the political and business establishment which had built a tight-knit power structure during the Second World War. Patriotism, anti-communism, paternalism, monopolies and cartels fixing prices, allocating resources as well as markets were considered normal and necessary. Myths and legends of the heroes of Switzerland’s history were like holy cows. One major Swiss writer, Max Frisch, dared to question the existence of William Tell as a historical person. He was attacked by the majority of the Swiss Establishment.

The younger generation was told to obey their elders and accept their authority without question. Well known Nazi sympathizers and war profiteers could not be mentioned by name, their pasts whitewashed. Police brutality was considered acceptable, or at least tolerated. Free speech was repressed, both on political policy and business matters. The ruling compact was protecting its prerogatives by their political majorities, friendly judges, economic power, etc. Business and industry associations were used against upcoming competitors and importers.

Many contemporaries in my hometown felt this same lack of economic and political freedom and left Switzerland in the 1960s and 1970s for the US, Canada, South Africa, Japan and Chile. One of my friends found work as a diesel mechanic on an ocean-going cargo ship. There was a wave of departures. Some eventually returned, many never did.

I considered multiple destinations and rejected the US because of the Vietnam War; Australia because it was a far-away island continent; South Africa because of Apartheid. None of the European or Asian countries attracted me either. In the end, Canada emerged as the most desirable destination. It was one of the top countries when ranked by Per Capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Therefore, it was important for me to graduate from a Swiss university, gain some business experience, improve my English in a North American setting all while progressing to an officer rank in the Swiss militia first, just in case I needed to return to Switzerland for whatever reason.

A student summer job in North America would be a good steppingstone, if I could get one, both for English and for business experience.

Therefore, I applied for a summer job as an exchange trainee through the local chapter of the International Association of Economics and Business Students at my business school in St. Galen, Switzerland.

I was initially offered a six-week assignment in France on the Atlantic coast by a company that manufactured beach chairs. I turned it down and anxiously waited, hoping for a better offer.

When I was next offered a twelve-week trainee position at a copper rolling mill near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I gratefully accepted.

I booked a cheap return ticket to New York on a DC-6B turboprop from the Swiss Student Travel Agency; then I went to the U.S Consulate General in Zurich to obtain the visa I would need to work in America; and then I paid ninety-nine dollars for a Greyhound ticket for unlimited travel anywhere in the continental USA, good for ninety-nine days. I was ready for my adventure and confirmed my acceptance to Hussey Metals/Copper Range Company in Leetsdale, PA.

I left Zurich airport on Saturday, July 2^nd and arrived at JFK airport in New York on Sunday, July 3^rd.

I vividly remember the day of my arrival in New York and taking the airport shuttle bus to Manhattan where I put my suitcase into a locker at the bus terminal. That left me ample time to explore downtown New York City until my overnight Greyhound bus was scheduled to leave for Pittsburgh.

Everybody was saying that it was one of the hottest days ever in New York -- 107 degrees Fahrenheit, something I had never experienced in Switzerland before. And there I was wearing a business suit and tie, on a blazing hot and humid midday.

Culture shock started quickly. The neon lights at Times Square; Orange Julius booths; alternating green (Walk) and red (Don’t Walk) signs at pedestrian crossings; yellow taxi cabs, etc.

As I was getting hungry, I started reading menus on the outside of air-conditioned diners and restaurants, looking for familiar items at affordable prices. I thought I had found something familiar when I saw the term “Cottage Cheese.” Since I liked anything with cheese in it, I went inside the drugstore diner and ordered it, waiting, sitting at the unfamiliar long counter. To my dismay, Cottage Cheese was nothing like hard Swiss cheese. Instead, it was soft crumbly white fresh cheese with pineapple pieces and it came with little cellophane two-packs of salty crackers. I had never seen cottage cheese before, nor such crackers.

I was expected at Hussey Metals on Tuesday, July 5. Luckily for me, I would be traveling by bus. I heard that the record heat had buckled some of the railway rails, cancelling a number of evening trains. Overheated cars were stuck in one of the tunnels under the Hudson River, but our bus used a bridge over the river to leave Manhattan, avoiding the traffic jams.

The next culture shock came in the middle of the night at a rest stop somewhere along the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Everybody got off the bus to have a drink or snack. I was thirsty and picked up a little cardboard container of milk out of the cooler. I looked at it, turned it around multiple times, read the instructions on how to open it. Somewhere it said “Pull [or push] to Open,” but I did not know where or how. Thankfully, another passenger noticed my problem, showed me how to separate the two “wings,” spread them apart and then push/pull to make a spout. Finally, I could quench my thirst.

The bus finally arrived at a mostly deserted Greyhound depot in downtown Pittsburgh early Monday morning, probably around 5 a.m. Because it was Independence Day, most businesses were closed; downtown streets seemed to be waiting quietly for the afternoon parades.

Not expecting anybody to meet me to tell me what to do, I told the only waiting taxi driver that I needed a ride to Leetsdale, located somewhere along the Ohio river. The driver was black, one of the first black people I ever met. (There were hardly any black people living in Switzerland at the time.) He loaded my suitcase into the trunk.

I got scared when the driver got lost in a maze of alleyways in an undeveloped area of scrap yards, construction sites and abandoned buildings in what is now known in Pittsburgh as its Golden Triangle. Then the road we were on dead-ended at an unfinished bridge across the river.

Turning around and backtracking, the driver eventually found the real bridge to the Ohio River Boulevard leading to Leetsdale. It seemed that we had been driving quite a while and still were not in Leetsdale. The driver admitted that we were outside the area he was familiar with. And the taxi meter kept ticking.

Just south of Leetsdale, he drove up to a motel where we could see guests outside. It was the “Sewickley Motor Inn,” a fancy place with an outside swimming pool. The taxi driver asked about the rates at the motel, $35 per night, which was way unaffordable for me on $250 pay for four weeks. We found out that there were no other “affordable” accommodations in Leetsdale at all, that it was strictly an industrial town. We were told we would have to continue north on the Ohio River Boulevard to a company town called Ambridge, named after the famous company called “American Bridge Company.” There we would have to turn west at the only traffic light in town and go one block to a small inn, called a “rooming house.” What a relief. They did have a vacancy for me, at affordable weekly rates.

I thanked the driver and gave him a tip, which I’d been told was customary in America. I’ve often wondered what became of him. Back home in Switzerland, I had been reading about the growing demand for Civil Rights in America and it was Independence Day.

I checked into my new quarters and immediately had a shower, as the day again was sunny, hot and humid, and I had not changed out of my business suit since leaving Switzerland. I also had not shaved in three days and felt uncomfortable. Therefore, next, I had to find some electric pre-shave. I found it at a drugstore on the main street, which was open, even on Independence Day. Outside, I noticed numerous American flags on six-foot wooden poles set into matching metal rings along the concrete sidewalk. It was quite an impressive wall of flags on both sides of the main street.

Back at the inn, I asked how I could get to the factory in Leetsdale the next morning to report for work.

“No problem,” was the answer. “Our son works there. He will give you a ride when he leaves in the morning.”

That night, lying in bed, listening to the sounds of fireworks outside, I felt like I had come to the end of one great journey and the time had come to embark on the next. Independence Day, 1966. A day I would never forget.

(to be continued...)