From “God Bless the USA” - Lee Greenwood
"And I'm proud to be an American
"And I'm proud to be an American
Where at least I know I'm free
And I won't forget the men who died
Who gave that right to me
And I gladly stand up next to you
And defend her still today
And defend her still today
‘Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land
God bless the USA”
Meme loves this country. She asked if today I could write about patriotism and love of country. For me my “country” is a very small place. I walk out my door and down our street and that’s my country. I know I love it. Meme says I’m “just a dog”. And I say “JUST a dog”???? What does that mean? I’m not “just” anything … I am a dog and I love my country.
I’m a small white dog. I walk down the street and I meet other white dogs, black dogs, brown dogs and dogs with lots of different colored spots. They’re all the same to me and I think they feel the same way. I don’t even know the difference when Meme says “here comes a really big dog!” I think, huh? Big? Looks the same as me to me.
I don’t understand when I hear people say that “their people” were treated badly a long time ago and because of the oppression their forebears had to suffer, they’re now held back and they still feel a resentment they can’t seem to shake off.
So Meme tells me that every person who is born on this earth should have a right to be whatever and whoever they want to be. The world should be open to them. Unfortunately that’s not true in some countries, but I’ve never been to those countries and all I know is here.
Here in the United States all things are possible for all people. Look around and you see people of all colors, all nationalities, at the top of their game. If a person really wants to be somebody, wants to excel, and they study hard and work hard, they can be whatever they want. It wasn’t always like that, but it is today. Meme says no one should use the crutch of a past oppression as an excuse for not fighting for what they want today. Some may have a harder climb than others because that’s what capitalism is all about. But if you really want something and you’re willing to work for it, it’s attainable.
Last night she watched a man defend himself for saying “God damn the USA”. She thought about it all night and she can’t get it out of her mind. I know because she was tossing around more than usual.
She wonders at what point do the sins of our fathers stop being our sins of today? And there were sins; there’s no doubt about that. We must never forget and we must strive to be sure nothing like it ever happens again.
But how many generations have to bear the responsibility for things that happened hundreds of years ago? And does anyone really believe that God was damning America when evil people who hate ALL Americans decided to fly planes into the World Trade Center killing 3000 innocent Americans?
This man says that because of the deeds of a time long gone by, the chickens came home to roost that awful day when innocent Americans of every color and creed were killed.
This is a good country. The people here are good, compassionate people. Every day people reach out to help others. Yet every day on TV we hear what a terrible world we live in, we hear that everything costs too much, and not everyone can find exactly the job they want for the pay they feel they deserve. People are being eaten by sharks and alligators are walking into people’s kitchens. Planes aren’t taking off on time or not at all. Bears are attacking people and tigers are mauling their handlers. Housing prices have come down and everyone mourns the loss of their investment yet no one was heard complaining when housing prices were creeping higher and higher each and every day and investors bought up homes before they were built so they could flip them over and make a fortune. Seemed to some like it might go on forever, but nothing ever does. Meme always says “what goes up must come down”.
But you know what? In this great country we live in people who say they can’t afford gas are crowding our highways and at least here where we live we haven’t seen any fewer cars on the highway. In fact, they're adding roads because they say the roads we have just aren't enough to fit all the cars that need to get somewhere they're not. And they’re not all going to work. Families still crowd the restaurants. People stand in doorways and street corners smoking cigarettes that cost a gizillion dollars a pack. And the planes take off as fast as they land because people keep traveling all over the place. They build cruise ships bigger and grander because so many people want more fun on those ships so they make them like huge resorts just to fit more people on them.
Poppy told me there are 30 sports stadiums in the U.S. Every single day each stadium is filled with over 30,000 people paying a huge wad of money to watch a ball game and then they pay a lot of money for hot dogs from some part of a pig (Poppy wouldn't tell me what part and I don't want to know). That’s 900,000 people every single day just sitting, eating and spending their money just to watch a bunch of guys toss a ball around.
There’s a Starbucks on every corner and people are going in there to buy a cup of coffee that costs big bucks (we don’t know how much because Meme makes her coffee at home, but we hear it’s pretty expensive). It’s coffee!!!! How good can a cup of coffee be?
And there are brave soldiers all over the world who are looking out for us, fighting for us, getting wounded and sometimes dying for us just to make sure we can live free, that we can enjoy our lattes and go out to dinner and and go to ball games and drive to the mall or along the ocean. And most of all they fight so we can say whatever we please and not get shot for it.
You know what Meme wishes? She wishes that at least one politician would come along to run for office, stand up on that podium with a thousand red, white and blue flags behind them and say …………
“Look at this grand and glorious country of ours! Look how far we’ve come and what we’ve achieved. Look at the pleasures we get to enjoy that we take for granted every single day. This is a great country, strong and bold and generous and good. We are living in an amazing land where we are free to say whatever we want and be whatever we want to be. Sure sometimes we make mistakes and sometimes there are hurricanes and national disasters and sometimes we get it wrong, but at least we try. And when we mess up, there are so many people in this great country who try to make it right. Every single solitary American should step up to the plate and do his share. No one should look to anyone else for a free handout. We all have to find a compromise, bend a little and start to work together instead of split down the middle as if there's an enemy within. If we all work together as brothers and sisters to fight our real enemies instead of bickering back and forth, if we all come together and combine our strengths against something far more ugly and evil than anything we have ever known, then and only then will our proud country come back to being what we all know in our hearts it can be. United we stand, but divided we most definitely can fall.”
She wishes she didn’t have to turn the TV on every single day and hear how bad everything is and read all the horrendous things that happened because she knows in her heart that for every bad thing that happened, something good happened too.
Someone was healed, someone was saved, someone brought a new life into the world, someone was kissed for the first time, someone cheered another person up, someone helped a lost soul find their way home, someone reached out a helping hand and felt the reward of knowing they had helped another human being. And all over this country, lots of people laughed and there's really nothing better than that.
We have got to stop with the gloom and doom and feeling that somehow we’re not getting enough, stop whining that the bubble we were living in burst.
We’ll get past this faltering economy. We’ve come through far worse and we will again. Most of us living today don’t even know what true hardship is. Only those still alive who lived through the Great Depression know what “giving up” is really all about. We are proud people. We pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and move forward with hope, strength and determination.
I know I haven’t had to give up much of anything. We drive around a little less, but Meme isn’t cutting her own hair yet and I know I’m still at that stupid groomer every month. I just got a pretty new collar and there's bones in the cupboard; what more could I want? We have a TV in just about every room and a fancy doohinkie that records the TV whenever I need to go out. And Meme tells me we’re not in that upper 1% who pays most of the taxes collected by the IRS. We’ve learned to live on less and we’re still in pretty good shape. We're happy and Meme says happiness is something that comes from deep inside and no amount of money in the world can buy that. She always tells me if I'm not happy in my heart, no bone is going to cure it. I'm not sure I would go quite that far, but mum's the word.
The sky is bright blue, the sun is warm, rain still glistens on the windowpanes when the sun shines on it after it stops and every now and then we see a rainbow. Ducks waddle along our back yard and great and glorious birds glide in over the lake behind our house. The trees still rustle in the breeze and I still get to sniff the grass, chase the birds and try to stare down an Armadillo every now and then.
There’s a reason so many people from so many other countries want to come here, live here, work here and enjoy our way of life. If it was so miserable here, nobody would be trying to come into our country by whatever way they can manage. And if it was so miserable here, all the unhappy people would move to all those other countries. But they're not ... even when they threaten to, they don't. Meme says if a certain person is elected President she's moving to Barbados, but she won't ... it will be fine.
Life is good. Meme, Poppy and I are darned proud we were lucky enough to be born here and we’re very proud to be Americans.
'Til next time!
Molly
Meme loves this country. She asked if today I could write about patriotism and love of country. For me my “country” is a very small place. I walk out my door and down our street and that’s my country. I know I love it. Meme says I’m “just a dog”. And I say “JUST a dog”???? What does that mean? I’m not “just” anything … I am a dog and I love my country.
I’m a small white dog. I walk down the street and I meet other white dogs, black dogs, brown dogs and dogs with lots of different colored spots. They’re all the same to me and I think they feel the same way. I don’t even know the difference when Meme says “here comes a really big dog!” I think, huh? Big? Looks the same as me to me.
I don’t understand when I hear people say that “their people” were treated badly a long time ago and because of the oppression their forebears had to suffer, they’re now held back and they still feel a resentment they can’t seem to shake off.
So Meme tells me that every person who is born on this earth should have a right to be whatever and whoever they want to be. The world should be open to them. Unfortunately that’s not true in some countries, but I’ve never been to those countries and all I know is here.
Here in the United States all things are possible for all people. Look around and you see people of all colors, all nationalities, at the top of their game. If a person really wants to be somebody, wants to excel, and they study hard and work hard, they can be whatever they want. It wasn’t always like that, but it is today. Meme says no one should use the crutch of a past oppression as an excuse for not fighting for what they want today. Some may have a harder climb than others because that’s what capitalism is all about. But if you really want something and you’re willing to work for it, it’s attainable.
Last night she watched a man defend himself for saying “God damn the USA”. She thought about it all night and she can’t get it out of her mind. I know because she was tossing around more than usual.
She wonders at what point do the sins of our fathers stop being our sins of today? And there were sins; there’s no doubt about that. We must never forget and we must strive to be sure nothing like it ever happens again.
But how many generations have to bear the responsibility for things that happened hundreds of years ago? And does anyone really believe that God was damning America when evil people who hate ALL Americans decided to fly planes into the World Trade Center killing 3000 innocent Americans?
This man says that because of the deeds of a time long gone by, the chickens came home to roost that awful day when innocent Americans of every color and creed were killed.
This is a good country. The people here are good, compassionate people. Every day people reach out to help others. Yet every day on TV we hear what a terrible world we live in, we hear that everything costs too much, and not everyone can find exactly the job they want for the pay they feel they deserve. People are being eaten by sharks and alligators are walking into people’s kitchens. Planes aren’t taking off on time or not at all. Bears are attacking people and tigers are mauling their handlers. Housing prices have come down and everyone mourns the loss of their investment yet no one was heard complaining when housing prices were creeping higher and higher each and every day and investors bought up homes before they were built so they could flip them over and make a fortune. Seemed to some like it might go on forever, but nothing ever does. Meme always says “what goes up must come down”.
But you know what? In this great country we live in people who say they can’t afford gas are crowding our highways and at least here where we live we haven’t seen any fewer cars on the highway. In fact, they're adding roads because they say the roads we have just aren't enough to fit all the cars that need to get somewhere they're not. And they’re not all going to work. Families still crowd the restaurants. People stand in doorways and street corners smoking cigarettes that cost a gizillion dollars a pack. And the planes take off as fast as they land because people keep traveling all over the place. They build cruise ships bigger and grander because so many people want more fun on those ships so they make them like huge resorts just to fit more people on them.
Poppy told me there are 30 sports stadiums in the U.S. Every single day each stadium is filled with over 30,000 people paying a huge wad of money to watch a ball game and then they pay a lot of money for hot dogs from some part of a pig (Poppy wouldn't tell me what part and I don't want to know). That’s 900,000 people every single day just sitting, eating and spending their money just to watch a bunch of guys toss a ball around.
There’s a Starbucks on every corner and people are going in there to buy a cup of coffee that costs big bucks (we don’t know how much because Meme makes her coffee at home, but we hear it’s pretty expensive). It’s coffee!!!! How good can a cup of coffee be?
And there are brave soldiers all over the world who are looking out for us, fighting for us, getting wounded and sometimes dying for us just to make sure we can live free, that we can enjoy our lattes and go out to dinner and and go to ball games and drive to the mall or along the ocean. And most of all they fight so we can say whatever we please and not get shot for it.
You know what Meme wishes? She wishes that at least one politician would come along to run for office, stand up on that podium with a thousand red, white and blue flags behind them and say …………
“Look at this grand and glorious country of ours! Look how far we’ve come and what we’ve achieved. Look at the pleasures we get to enjoy that we take for granted every single day. This is a great country, strong and bold and generous and good. We are living in an amazing land where we are free to say whatever we want and be whatever we want to be. Sure sometimes we make mistakes and sometimes there are hurricanes and national disasters and sometimes we get it wrong, but at least we try. And when we mess up, there are so many people in this great country who try to make it right. Every single solitary American should step up to the plate and do his share. No one should look to anyone else for a free handout. We all have to find a compromise, bend a little and start to work together instead of split down the middle as if there's an enemy within. If we all work together as brothers and sisters to fight our real enemies instead of bickering back and forth, if we all come together and combine our strengths against something far more ugly and evil than anything we have ever known, then and only then will our proud country come back to being what we all know in our hearts it can be. United we stand, but divided we most definitely can fall.”
She wishes she didn’t have to turn the TV on every single day and hear how bad everything is and read all the horrendous things that happened because she knows in her heart that for every bad thing that happened, something good happened too.
Someone was healed, someone was saved, someone brought a new life into the world, someone was kissed for the first time, someone cheered another person up, someone helped a lost soul find their way home, someone reached out a helping hand and felt the reward of knowing they had helped another human being. And all over this country, lots of people laughed and there's really nothing better than that.
We have got to stop with the gloom and doom and feeling that somehow we’re not getting enough, stop whining that the bubble we were living in burst.
We’ll get past this faltering economy. We’ve come through far worse and we will again. Most of us living today don’t even know what true hardship is. Only those still alive who lived through the Great Depression know what “giving up” is really all about. We are proud people. We pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and move forward with hope, strength and determination.
I know I haven’t had to give up much of anything. We drive around a little less, but Meme isn’t cutting her own hair yet and I know I’m still at that stupid groomer every month. I just got a pretty new collar and there's bones in the cupboard; what more could I want? We have a TV in just about every room and a fancy doohinkie that records the TV whenever I need to go out. And Meme tells me we’re not in that upper 1% who pays most of the taxes collected by the IRS. We’ve learned to live on less and we’re still in pretty good shape. We're happy and Meme says happiness is something that comes from deep inside and no amount of money in the world can buy that. She always tells me if I'm not happy in my heart, no bone is going to cure it. I'm not sure I would go quite that far, but mum's the word.
The sky is bright blue, the sun is warm, rain still glistens on the windowpanes when the sun shines on it after it stops and every now and then we see a rainbow. Ducks waddle along our back yard and great and glorious birds glide in over the lake behind our house. The trees still rustle in the breeze and I still get to sniff the grass, chase the birds and try to stare down an Armadillo every now and then.
There’s a reason so many people from so many other countries want to come here, live here, work here and enjoy our way of life. If it was so miserable here, nobody would be trying to come into our country by whatever way they can manage. And if it was so miserable here, all the unhappy people would move to all those other countries. But they're not ... even when they threaten to, they don't. Meme says if a certain person is elected President she's moving to Barbados, but she won't ... it will be fine.
Life is good. Meme, Poppy and I are darned proud we were lucky enough to be born here and we’re very proud to be Americans.
'Til next time!
Molly
Copyright HBS 2008
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