Promised You America

A memoir: While growing-up in Holland, with the constant rain and wind, Magnum, P.I. was my only view to a world of palm trees, white beaches, beautiful women and a red Ferrari. In 1983, at the age of eighteen, I moved to America where I found my first job as a busboy in a restaurant on the highest floor in San Francisco.

Then one night at a new-wave dance club, I meet my first girlfriend, Briona, who introduces me to the Ayn Rand novel, The Fountainhead. Soon thereafter the two of us chase after rainbows and skyscrapers together until we separate in Dallas, Texas, Briona’s hometown.

Thirty years later, I revisit some of our romantic landmarks in San Francisco, and realize that I still miss Briona, but also the America that once was.