What America Means To Me

America is tops!

Hiya, Friends!  Today is Memorial Day, and I hope everyone takes time to reflect and remember those who served and paid the ultimate price for all the freedoms we enjoy here in America.  Freedom isn't free. 

Like what?

Well, like lotsa things, Friends.  I know we Americans can be kind of a whiny buncha whiners sometimes, and that really isn't cool.  It's human nature, but it really isn't cool.  Let's take a little minute and count our blessings, mmmmkay, Big People?

Here in America, we're all created equal.  That doesn't mean that we all have the same, or equal abilities, or that we all get treated the same.  What it means, to me, at least, is that we all have the potential to rise above where we're born and become whatever we wanna be.  This wasn't the case when our Constitution was written.  The class-structure was very rigid, so if you were a little boy in Colonial America, and your father was a cobbler, you were probably going to turn out to be a cobbler, too.  You probably weren't gonna just magically become the most powerful merchant in all the Americas. 

Unless you left your cobbler's bench and became a pirate.  I could see some upward mobility if you became a pirate, because pirates just take what they want.  Probably much like the landed nobility did, which was how they got to be landed nobility.  They got out their swords, took what they wanted, and convinced the masses that they were Less, somehow, and that they lived to serve the landed nobility.

And if you were a little girl, you didn't even have those choices available to you, if one is to believe what one reads in the history books.

In America, boys and girls alike get to go to school and learn things.  Math and science and languages and music and art... so many things we get to learn.  We get grumpy about havin' to go to school, sure, but it's a really big deal that we have all this learning available to us.  For free, even!

In America, we get to expect that we're going to be safe.  I mean, there are dangerous places anywhere you'd go, but mostly in America, the norm is that you can expect to cross the street to pick up your mail without a band of robbers robbing you.

We pretty much have access to good food and clean, safe drinking water, here in America.  The basic-est of the basics.  Some places in the world, they can't say that.  Water's scarce and food's scarcer. 

We have heat, and lights, and running water, and lotsa books to read, and the education available to help us learn to read 'em, Friends. 

We have it pretty great, here in America, Friends.  And there are men and women who go away from their own families to risk their lives day-in and day-out, to keep America the great place that it is, even if we at home don't always appreciate it.  Even if we at home don't always appreciate them. 

Some of them don't come home, and they're the ones we remember today.  Reverently.

But I still think that if ya see a veteran today, tell 'em thank you, even if they don't think they deserve to hear the thanks because they came home, and those we're remembering today didn't.  They deserve to be told thank you, whenever we get a chance.  The ones who do get to come home don't come home the same as they were when they left.  They all deserve our thanks, because America is a great place... because of them.

Just, could we stop using the phrase "Happy Memorial Day?"  That kind of messes up the whole point.  Memorial Day isn't "happy."  But we can wish each other a "Good Memorial Day."  "Have a good Memorial Day," we can say.  I like that.

Have a good Memorial Day, Friends, and tell a veteran 'thank you,' if you see one today.  Even if they don't wanna hear the thanks.  They deserve thanks.  Be respectful at the Memorial Day services you attend.  Remember that we live in a great nation, and these people are the reason it's such a great place.

I'll see ya tomorrow!  Muah!