I was recently on the East Coast for the Thanksgiving weekend. I just wanted to share with the world as an individual the impact several different but related incidences had on me.
My wife and I landed in New York - and we got to witness the extravaganza that is the Macy's Day Parade. We toodled around New York City and visited the different stores and such that congregate around Central Park and the Times Square area. Lots of people. Lots of activity. Lots of people selling knock off purses out of trash bags and trying to evade the cops. Got on a bus and headed south to the Washington D.C. area and slept for the first time in 24 hours. That was Thursday, Thanksgiving Day.
Friday dawned and it was baking and running around to get things that you need. Namely Egg Nogg and ice for Strawberry Daiquiris. Family, watching White Christmas. Things that matter and fill up the days.
Saturday. We went off to Washington D.C. and toured around some of the museums, and met some very irritating people who closed the Smithsonian early so we could not see Old Glory. Too bad. We would come back the next day. From here we went to tour the different monuments that could not be closed because they just could not keep us away. World War II, Korea, Lincoln, Washington (though fenced), Vietnam. All of them you could walk up to and see, touch, feel. We headed back to Virginia where my brother had us sequestered in his basement.
Sunday. Church in the morning. Smithsonian in the afternoon. Leftovers for dinner. No big monuments to visit. Jefferson did not really seem that interesting to me. Maybe next time.
Monday. Board bus. Go to Pentagon. Laugh at demonstrators, if they can yell at me I can laugh back. Get on Subway. Go to bus. Ride back to New York City. Arrive New York City, debark from the bus. Shoulder my backpack and wife and I are on the move. What a BIG CITY.
So we go around on the subway - go to the Empire State Building. What a nightmare. Get there and have to go through 3 metal detectors. I told my wife I should have brought some coconuts with me. But alas no trees to get them from. As I recall most of the trees were dead. Up to the top of the building. Look around. BIG CITY, as verified by the teeming masses looking like rats in a maze.
Lunch at Katz's which is located on the Lower East Side. Reuben Sandwich cost me $13.50. Damn good sandwich.
Ground Zero. Debarked the subway and walked around the pit which once was two rectangular buildings. Now a grave of nearly 3000 people. Very quiet, for New York that is. There is the steel beams that form a cross - now erected on the East side of the pit.
Why my rambling monologue?
I will tell you why.
I touched pieces of a history. Pieces that assemble the framework of what makes America. Good or bad it makes up us as Americans. I cannot remember swearing an oath to any President. But I remember reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. To the Flag. Of the United States of America. To the Republic for Which it stands. ONE nation. Under God. Indivisible. With Liberty. And Justice. For All. Why so many periods (.)? I believe that I put them there because they are punctuation. Correct or incorrect they are placed there for emphasis. Emphasis on what my country is. What MY founding fathers wanted me to know. Something like the 1812 Overture - cannon blasts to accentuate a point.
Each one of the actions that this nation has taken. Admiral Farrugut - "Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead" John Paul Jones "We have not yet begun to fight" are woven together into what makes this nation.
Vietnam, Korea, World War I/II, Ground Zero. I reached out and touched these parts of my nation. Parts of Me. I felt the indentations of the names carved in the Vietnam memorial. I felt the granite of the World War II memorial. I felt the fence that separated me from Ground Zero. I walked the same ground as the larger than life troops of the Korean memorial. I touched them. Felt them. I bound myself to them as they are bound to me. Those memorials are a link for me. A passage into a place that tells a story. A story of America. Of men, women, and children. The struggles, woes, stife that have formed a nation. These pieces are part of a greater whole. The story is written with the tears and the blood of those that the memorials represent. There is no growth without sacrifice. Bonds do not get broken with out cumulative effort.
America is not easy. America is not a place on a map. America is not defined by who you vote for.
America is an intense patchwork quilt of fibers bound together by agony, sweat, anguish, and resolve. America is what others have toiled to build. America is all of the feelings and the heart beats that drive us to strive for something better. America is each one of us.
When I touched those monuments. I felt as though I was t0uching the rest of the America. I touched the good, bad, and ugly. I felt that I had connected to the rest of the nation. I felt that the nation was part of me. I felt that America is where I belong, who I am, and what I will become. Those things make me part of the quilt, bound to my friends, my enemies and my neighbors.
I feel blessed because I was able to make the journey. To touch parts of a nation. In parting - those monuments taught me something. They taught me to never take for granted the things that I have. Freedom. To never take for granted the blessing I have to be an American. Monuments are things. Object to remind us of those that will not be coming home for Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza, or any other Holliday. Those who have parts of themselves represented in those monuments made sacrifice far greater and far more poignant than most of us Americans will ever do. They will not be coming home, because they decided to do something that would guarantee us the opportunity to come home.
That is America to me.
Dave
