Behind the counter lay a couple of charged magazines, the sort you’d use with an automatic rifle. Casually stacked on some paperwork, as if forgotten. Chris was an ex-cop. Now running the Grizzly Country Store, west of the small town of Glennallen on the Glenn Highway.
He thought the riots in the UK were "everywhere". I suggested it was just a small, opportunist minority. But what was this jaywalking thing, I asked? At home, we took a fairly practical stance. If you walk out in front of traffic, be prepared to get run over. Tough, I explained. He pointed to the Israeli flag flying outside, beneath the Stars and Stripes, and questioned the British Palestinian Mandate. I didn’t pursue this, instead side-stepping the issue by suggesting all nations had history they might be less than proud of.
Chris was a passionate advocate of the US Constitution. Sensing my interest, he gave me a copy, explaining he’d handed out over five hundred in the last year alone. I smiled, thanked him, promised I’d read it, adding that whilst almost all of the UK’s Constitution is written down, it simply wouldn’t fit in your pocket. Instead, strewn across various Statutes, the Magna Carta, legal precedents and conventions. But we did have one.
