Mission: “Find America”

I’m on an adventure. An adventure that is really the first opportunity for me to conquer the American midwest. Sure I’ve made trips to Florida and even West Virginia, but nothing across the great wide Mississippi River (St. Lois doesn’t count) and especially not to Montana. It’s an adventure similar to those first pioneers of the great red, white, and blue who set out not only on an adventure but often times to create for themselves a new life. Life was full of hardship and struggle but at the end of the day they had what mattered most, freedom and “America”. I’m after “America”.

“America” used in this context ushers on a feeling of pride, a sense that nothing in the world can topple us. It reminds us of when the U.S. hockey team beat the Soviets in the Olympics, when we got to the moon first, and when you take a large swig of Coca-Cola Classic. “America” is the white picket fences in front of the red barns, it’s the crack of a baseball bat and a six-four-three double play, it’s the older gentleman on his front porch smoking a worn tobacco pipe. It’s the old beat up Chevrolet truck sitting in the grass lot next to the country church with two big white doors and a steeple that reaches into heaven. It’s the highways and the interstates, the schools and hospitals, the little league fields and the professional stadiums, it is the urban areas and the suburbs, it’s the drug stores, shoe stores, and super stores. America is a place but it is and always has been a way of thinking. A wise man once told me “You don’t find love, love finds you” and I would have to agree that you don’t find “America”, it finds you. 

Advertisement

3 Comments

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI