RedPants

In Alabama a man said "Roll Tide" to me as a greeting. Later that same day, the same man said "Roll Tide" as a goodbye. I asked a woman at the store what it means. She said, "Roll Tide." I asked what it means. She said, "It means Roll Tide, sugar." So I began collecting evidence. I kept a list. I am not embarrassed about the list. I have now heard "Roll Tide" used as: hello. Goodbye. Thank you. I am sorry. Congratulations. That is unfortunate. I agree. I disagree. And once, in a hardware store, as a complete set of instructions for installing a ceiling fan. I heard it said at a funeral. It was appropriate. It was the most appropriate thing anyone said that day. I began using it. Carefully at first, the way a man handles a borrowed sword. I said it to a cashier. She said it back. I said it to a police officer who had stopped me for a broken taillight. He looked at me for a long moment. He looked at my face. He looked at my taillight. Then he said it back, and nodded once, and did not write the ticket. I wish to be extremely clear that I am not claiming those two events are related. I am also not claiming they are unrelated. A man at a gas station heard my accent and asked where I was from. I told him Japan. He said, "Roll Tide." He meant welcome. I knew he meant welcome. There was no ambiguity at all. I have been in Alabama eleven days. I have one word. It has been enough for everything. I have started saying it in other states. It does not work in other states. I said it in a warehouse store in Oregon. One man turned around. He was from Alabama. He said it back. We did not speak after that. We did not have to. I say it anyway.

Hello again. We’re currently in Clemson, South Carolina. I’ve decided to come back here to document the final part of our road trip. The main reason I deactivated my account two weeks ago was that things became increasingly toxic. For some people, it’s unfortunately unfathomable that a good story can exist without some kind of hidden agenda behind it. There was even a Reddit group going through my entire account trying to find anything they could use to reveal my identity. I know this was only a small percentage of people, but after a while it became exhausting. During the last two weeks, I received so many kind messages on Instagram, and they really made me realize how many people genuinely enjoyed following the trip. Some people even told me that their grandparents regularly ask them, “What are the Germans up to today?” I think that’s really cool. I decided to continue because I realized that the overwhelming majority of people loved following along. A small group of very loud people shouldn’t be able to ruin something that brought so many others joy. I also want to clear something up, as people who follow me on Instagram already know. I’ve been to the United States before. This is not my first visit, and I’ve never claimed that it was. The last time I was here was in January 2022, when I visited New York and Philadelphia. A lot of people shared my Raising Cane’s post from November 2025 to make it look like I was secretly American. That post wasn’t from the United States, it was from my trip to Saudi Arabia. This is my first time back in the U.S. in more than four years, and apart from Boston, I’d never visited any of the places we’ve been to on this trip before. That’s probably why many people assumed it was our first time in America, because for all of these places, it actually was. And let me tell you, Ohio and Alabama are very different from New York City or Los Angeles. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Thanks for reading.

Kevin Keegan at the Bombonera Argentina v England 1977 🇦🇷 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

“There will be no rowing in New York”