The Great American Way – Grade School, Great, Great Grandpa to Great. Great Grand Child

Today was award ceremony and promotion day for my child First to Second grade. I owe my son great gratitude. I am really a self-deprecating man. Perhaps due to insecurity and being youngest of 6 humility bordering on shyness formed much of me. And I pretty much buy into that Bible deal about pride in the ego sense being bad, bad and bad.

But do not even suggest that I not be prideful of my family and close friends. I am proud of them and I am proud that they call me friend, dad, brother and husband. What greater gift than who calls us close and loving to them?

So bring it on buddy. I want to talk about my great American way. This may sound counter intuitive. My Native Americans stood real proud and for the most part did not run off. White man was conquering and decimating. But the darn take away is not about who won and who lost. It is that nobody left the battlefield and ran.

My brothers and sisters who fought the Civil Rights wars. Wow! Lynching’s and murder and mayhem and near genocide. And those great Americans did not leave. They stayed and they stayed proud.

Just go to our Brother Caesar Chavez and he did not commit to the retreat he went forward facing much loss and overcame and stayed in my great country.

Gays and that alphabet soup of LGBT and more. They have not left but have carried the fight to the masses and even death on occasion.

Those danged wars. We marched to end some and we marched to support some. And we did not leave. We stood or marched our ground and were humiliate and jailed but we had resolve.

Now we face a new great group of people who oppose and assault our President of the United States. Most I do not agree with and yet I am so down right proud of them. They did not leave and they do not remain silent. They love the Great American way and are working in our way to preserve it for all.

God bless my country!

“I know not what is right or wrong, but I know that love and passion for my country cannot be bad”.

“I have spent sometime around prisons and jails, and I never there did meet a man who wanted to get out and leave America”

“Of many I have two great heroes known the White Man way as Cochise and Geronimo, I have laid my head as they did and worshipped the morning sun as they did – But I could never be as brave as they were”

“Of those interned as Japanese during our second great war, I have never met one or one of their children who did not love America”.

“He told me of his grandmother who had met the great Harriet Tubman, and then got off that train because she was an American, more than a slave”.

“In all my years in America I have never looked at a person and judged whether they were American or not and silly truth be told I have never met a man who has”.

“Women like my mom had to kind of battle against chauvinism, my mom doing quite well, and I never ever heard her speak about going away”.

“I have no idea about where you come from but one of my pleasures in life is to walk a mile in fresh clean morning air to my son’s school. Then before he is let into his classroom a 12 year old comes across a public address system. And we take off our hats and cross our hearts and proclaim our allegiance to our country”

“A totally crazy man wrote and sang a song, that my momma made me memorize on a chickenpox day home from school, momma was a nurse in factories serving in WWII. I wonder if she did that for my grandpa. The song is Woody Guthrie, “This Land is My Land”.

“If you know who you are and you are an American, please do not stop learning.”

“Perhaps I will be an American when I grow up.”

A prayer of thanksgiving; Thank you great nation for giving me the chance to get it right.

“In a day not so long ago I was summoned to teach a nation that was communist but wanted to enter our world of market freedom, I reckon I walked one hundred miles along the Mekong thinking about what I could really help them with. Maybe I missed the mark. But what I taught was the freedom to fail.”

“One day I was clearing land, stumps and brambles and such. It kind of hit me that I should leave all that alone and grow around it.”

“Believe or not Jesus once talked to me. He was rather curt. He told me to shut up, thanks bro!”.

I have a scythe and a hoe and I have a shovel and I got rakes. I got water. I do declare I have a garden. I know I have no right as I have not earned it as good has come too easy to me. I partly grew up on land that just two generations ago was actually bought from Piute for real money and deeds, not beads and trinkets. It is a land still called Indian Gardens. And I reckon in truth I grew up on a road named Indian Road. Truth be told many of us kids grew up there. The hunting of a mountain lion that killed a calf and take down of hundreds of Diamondback Rattlers all the way to the last big old bear. I am glad that my pappy found it prudent to keep me safe. I don’t think I know a single man who understands that you have to kill predators to be safe. Or maybe today it is other predators.

America is different to each of us. I hope I get that. My fine wife moved here from a place I wanted to move to. Funny or normal, she won as to where to raise a boy. I took that boy on a fine hike just the other day. A very pretty canyon. Special in nature. Did you know that Opie could pick up 1,000 rocks with Andy Griffith and toss them all before fishing? I beg thee to look that up.

Thank each and every one of you. Nowadays we all hold the mantle from Finland to India and from Nairobi to Beijing and for sure that longest distance from San Diego to Bangor.

Please, the next person that reviles you, do the American thing and hug them and pick something out to build.