The gum of the bridge

Today I got news from my cousin Dominic who just returned with his wife Barbara from a week-long winter vacation to the Grand Canyon. He said that his trip sounds meager compared to my being in Rome, but this is absolutely not true. The Grand Canyon is impressive against any measurement, and from the sounds of it, Dom and Barb had a wonderful trip

In Italy there is a lot of notoriety to certain American landmarks, and I remember when I lived here in the 1970s that there was a television ad for "Brooklyn Gum" -- it is a chewing gum brand that is Italian, but of course no respectable Italian would chew gum, so by giving it an American name, it suddenly became stylish for young people to do so.

That ad on TV started with a boy offering a girl a stick of gum, and as both of them put the gum in their mouths (all smiles, of course), they were instantly transported to the Brooklyn Bridge, which they crossed to enter into the Grand Canyon, and as they turned, chewing and smiling, they fell into an embrace and a long kiss in front of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

Geographically, the advert presented some logistical problems, but what really made me wonder as a 25-year old was why two people would want to kiss their lover with gum in their mouths. One of my friends saw the question mark on my face as we watched TV, and promptly told me that this is how American couples like to kiss.

I don't know if that is true or not, but the fact remains that the Brooklyn Bride, the Grand Canyon and the Golden Gate Bridge are the dream places that every, gum-chewing Italian longs to visit.