At the age of nine, John Deffenbaugh left his home in Glasgow and travelled across the Atlantic to the cornfields of Illinois.
Young John was born to American parents, you see, his father a manager at the Caterpillar plant in Uddingston.
Growing up in Glasgow the late 1950s, John spent his days kicking the football in the schoolyard with friends. He knew little about the States, other than a puzzle map his mother bought for him.
And then life changed in a flash.
“I tried to lose my old skin and adopt my new one,” he tells me of his years spent in American elementary schools.
“I stood out. And at nine, that is a good and a bad thing. People would always ask me to say something Scottish, so I’d say ‘Och aye the noo’ and that seemed to satisfy them.”
Fast forward a decade, and swap American Pie for Maggie Mae.
John returned to Scotland in the early 70s to study at the University of Glasgow.
He had lost his Scottish accent by then, and by all intents and purposes, was an American teenager.
But months became years and years became decades, and John never left Scotland. He raised a family and worked in management consulting.
And then, fifty years after he returned to Scotland, John decided to take a road trip.
“Having lived out of the States for over 50 years, I found I didn’t recognise America. When I left, it was all about baseball, Vietnam, and the moonshot. When we would go back on family holidays, I found it wasn’t the country I left behind in the 70s.
“So at the bottom of a wine glass, I decided to do a road trip and find out what it was like now. I was originally going to be on the road for four weeks, but the first trip in 2022 ended up being six months.”
John’s experiences on the road over a half dozen trips to the States inspired his travelogue - The Country I Left Behind: Conversations Across America.
Crossing the nation by car, bicycle, train, and plane; he spoke to more than 650 people of all races, religions, and political beliefs.
I ask if he has written a book before. John grins.
“During my career as managing consultant, I wrote lots of reports and some academic articles, but never a book. I knew it would be a long slog.”
Now, he is pitching the manuscript to publishers.
“America’s common word is divided and its common denominator is Donald Trump,” he tells me. “America came across as utterly divided.
“People are placing themselves in insular communities on social media, in churches, and in families. I can count on one hand the number of people I spoke to who had friends from the other side of the divide.”
He returned to the US in 2023, and again the next year, visiting five times in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, including a day out at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally.
“I think I was most surprised when travelling through the South,” he tells me when asked about his biggest takeaways from the trips.
“Frankly, it’s like going back to Jim Crow 2.0. When I left in the 70s, it felt like we had solved the issue with the Voting Rights Act and busing; but it feels like we have gone backwards.
“People are comfortable discussing something that doesn't affect such as the Holocaust, but not slavery, or Native American genocide, for that matter.
Of quotes, not all of the conversations touched on such serious matters.
Joking that he felt like a ‘Visit Scotland advert’ at times, John tells me about the fascination many Americans have with Scotland, even if it is somewhat misplaced.
“Lots of people wanted to know about Scotland,” he says. “They wanted to know about Harry and Meghan, royal family type of stuff, and a lot of people had watched Outlander.
“I went to a Highland Games in Montana. People had patches sewn onto their kilts instead of sporran.
“There’s a massive Scottish diaspora there.”
I ask John if there are any lessons Scots can glean from his travels, as the nation prepares for a contentious Holyrood election.
"Partnership is a big one,” he notes. “People were always political opponents, but Trump and many others have turned opponents into enemies.
“What Scotland needs to avoid is the partisanship that America has fallen into.
Read more:
- Fast-track visas for Americans? The bold scheme to lure US scientists to Scotland
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- Scotland is my home, but I might be forced to leave because of a ticking time bomb
“This coming election is a bit of a wakeup call for Scotland. We pride ourselves on being a very embracing national and tolerant of others, but we are 93% white.
“When other people are seen to push the boundaries, then Scots can react negatively.
“There is a whole history of sectarianism already and you don't want to take that into the political arena.”
Indeed, with the forces of bigotry on the march and rising hostility towards the most vulnerable in society, the work of people like John, who refuse to let the art of conversation die, is more important than ever.
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