Jl Deffenbaugh

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT JL DEFFENBAUGH

Writer - Photographer - Explorer Following a career in business and selling my company, I\'m setting out to rediscover America. I\'ve lived outside America for 50 years. My frame of reference is the 1960s when I grew up in Peoria, Illinois. I\'ve travelled back frequently since moving abroad in 1971, and these travels have reinforced how much America has changed - it\'s no longer the America that I knew. I therefore want to rediscover America, and plan to do this through a road trip that will reflect my personal journey of discover. The result will be a social-political historical travelogue,\"Rediscovering America\". My studies and interest in history and political science will frame my exploration. I\'ll visit places across the US that I\'ve been before, and new places that interest me. I\'ll listen to what people have to say, their views, and what underpins their thinking. I\'ll catch up with old friends who can tell me about the change they have experienced, and their personal journeys. I\'ll find out what has changed in America and explore what has caused this change. My challenge will be to listen, not advocate. I want to keep an open mind - to understand people I encounter, and to see what this tells me about American and me. I\'ll have flexibility to go where events are, where my curiosity takes me, and where I will be challenged in my thinking. Unlike John Steinbeck or William Least Heat Moon, I won\'t follow a set route nor use one mode of transport - I\'ll take trains, buses and planes, hire cars and campers, cadge lifts. The structure of the book will emerge from what I see, hear and understand. I\'ll comment on history, politics and culture, seeking to understand people and their politics at this pivotal time - the road trip will take place after one contentious election and before what will no doubt be another. I also want to explore my own contradictions. I was born in England, and carry both British and American passports, the consequence of an American father who worked for Caterpillar. I spent the 1950s in Britain and returned to the US in 1961. After a decade in the States, I came back to Britain to study and escape the Vietnam draft. My heritage as a white man has equally shaped my story. My ancestors settled in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. Many fought for the Confederacy. We enslaved people. I know little of this as I grew up in the Land of Lincoln. Through my expat lens, I\'ll not only explore contemporary issues in the US, but also compare and contrast these with what I\'ve experienced as an American abroad.