Hating America is a popular indoor sport, and I’ve been known to succumb to its pleasures. I also love America. This brash land sings its own praises with gusto, so there is no need here to enumerate its finer points. In the United States I have lived a series of brief episodes, non of them majestic, all of them taxing, some rewarding. As I string together the recollections in my mind, I can’t believe it’s the same ”me” who has ponced about on U.S. soil in a multitude of guises, over so many decades.