What makes Americans who we are? I guess you could fall back on our diversity. You know the old melting pot stuff, but we're a whole lot more than a mix of around-the-world refugees.
Americans are a special breed in the light of our place in today's world. However, I don't think being the world's most powerful nation or the greatest economic power defines us. No, we're sure not one smooth, big ball of economic and military wax, and that's not all bad. We've got some rough edges, which also adds into what makes us who we are.
Yes, some of our rough edges make us prone to violence and that's not all bad either. When an American, sitting at a computer in Las Vegas, puts a Hellfire missile in the ear of a Somali warlord who is committing genocide, that American is reacting the same way our first troops responded at Lexington and Concord. But there's no doubt that we have violence intertwined in our souls. Watch two demonstrations meet---one right and one left---exercising their free speech complete with clubs and knives. You'll be looking at a wild fight.
We wouldn't have a country if our forefathers hadn't fought it out in the streets of Boston. We thrive on contact sports. Well, what do you call those gladiators who trot out on the field every Saturday in the fall? And we have the same little routine the ancient Romans had when one of them was hurt. They are carted off and the game goes on. It is part of who we are. But it's a little different since the Roman ones died right there on the field and the American ones take another 30 or 40 years to die from brain injuries.
But the true spirit of Americans comes through when fellow Americans are in need. The response to Hurricane Harvey is a good example. A few days after the city of Houston became Lake Houston, we drove to Dallas on Interstate 20. We were in east Texas when we passed a caravan made up of the Caddo Parish sheriff and police officers escorting several 18-wheelers loaded with relief supplies heading for south Texas.
That impressed me, but not as much as the pickup we passed a few miles down the road. It was an older, non-air-conditioned truck driven by a bearded young man who looked to be about 30. He had two large flags flying on the front of his truck: an American and a Christian. In the back of his truck he had an aluminum rescue boat with a motor, and the boat was packed to overflowing with cases of bottled water. He was doing just what Americans have been doing ever since there was an America: He was responding to other Americans in need.
We're not a perfect country but that's not all bad. I've visited Switzerland several times and it is as close to a perfect country as any place I've seen, but just the idea that I would live there and be bored to death is beyond my thinking.
I worked in Benghazi, Libya, of all places for a couple of years, and when I returned to the U.S., the customs agent in New York handed me my passport back and said, "Welcome home." It brought out a sense of pride and a smile.
I'm proud to be an American, and I like some of America's rough edges. When I go for a run or more likely a long walk and see beer cans at the stop sign, I know how long it takes one of our good old boys to drive from the convenience store and finish a Budweiser. That's not all bad either, because I know those guys are part of the backbone of our country and we'd be something like the French except with bad food if we didn't have them.
When I was in college and in love with a Smackover girl, I had to hitchhike 300 miles home on the weekends to see her, and I could always count on those good old boys for a pickup ride.
We have our chambers of commerce and even our governor out looking for new jobs for Arkansas, even though we can't fill the openings we have now. What if, instead of having 'em out beating the bushes for a Toyota factory, they joined the work force? Gosh, they would set productivity back 10 years, and that would be bad.
Of course, the 2020 Presidential race is about to start up, but that's not all bad. Wait a minute: That is all bad ...unless you're selling advertising.
Richard Mason is a registered professional geologist, downtown developer, former chairman of the Department of Environmental Quality Board of Commissioners, past president of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation, and syndicated columnist. Email [email protected].
Editorial on 12/03/2017