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On #July4th2020, some reflections on America. I’ve had the good fortune to have traveled to 45 of the 50 states in my personal and professional life. From interstates to dirt roads, vast cities to ghost towns, deserts to swamplands, mountains to beaches...
2/...farmlands to factories. I walked on volcano-fresh lava in Hawaii, ate ocean-fresh lobsters in Maine, swam with dolphins in the Florida Keys. I’ve watched the sunrise over alfalfa fields in Alabama, camped in the rain in the bottom of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and made...
3/... enough money in a casino in Oklahoma to pay for the tire I blew out in Texas. No such luck in Louisiana, but I didn’t mind helping their local economy after Katrina. I bought amethyst crystals from an old rock hound in Arkansas, collected fish fossils in Colorado, toured...
4/... coal mines in North Dakota and Pennsylvania. I rode across Texas in an ice storm, across Mississippi and Alabama dodging tornadoes. In my travels, I’ve met panhandlers, multimillionaires, waitresses, contractors, lawyers, professors, business owners, factory workers...
5/...commercial fishermen, farmers, carpenters, preachers, students, retirees, musicians, government officials, protestors, clergy, social workers, politicians, engineers, scientists, athletes, entrepreneurs, and many other folks. Most of them were a lot like me. They got up....
6/...early to go to work. They made sacrifices for their families. They yearned to give their kids a better life. They looked after their elderly parents. They doted on their beloved pets. They worried about loved ones in war zones. They believed in the American Dream...
7/...For the most part, their aspirations transcended geography, race, religion, politicsand economics. A country as enormous and diverse as America could surely accommodate everyone’s dream. Now, it seems, we’re being divided, our dreams crushed and kicked to the curb...
8/...A president serving foreign interests divides us by race, by geography, by politics, watching with nauseating glee as everything good is overturned, leaving tens of thousands dead, dying, unemployed, grieving, financially ruined, and despondent. The whole idea of America...
9/... is under assault, and America has become a sad cautionary tale for the rest of the world. Can our collective decency and humanity keep our besieged Republic intact? I would like to think so, but we’ll have to vote out all those in government who have been complicit...
10/... in the American carnage that has brought us to this point. Leadership is needed in government, and in all elements of society to rebuild and reclaim our country and unlock its potential for everyone... and ensure that we never let our Republic slip from our grasp. End/
