On a recent bicycle ride, a Trekkie on the ride told me about a Star Trek episode he liked in which the crew traveled back in time and visited great moments and times in history. He talked about times and places he would want to visit.
I would like to visit Florence when Dante was alive, Rome when Julius Caesar ruled, and be in the room when the Constitution was debated. But if I could live any time, anywhere, I would stay right here in America in the 21st Century. No question.
It's not like America is perfect. We have to be the biggest gathering of whining, privileged bitches in the history of the entire Universe.
But by living with whiners who have not missed a meal in their entire lives, I get to live in a time and place in which every injury I manage to inflict on my aging body can be fixed. I live in a place where I can choose to fast, but otherwise I can eat every meal, every day and if I want to eat snacks till my ass fills two seats on a Greyhound bus.
This month on my Army drill weekend, I swam underwater with a GOPRO Camera making video tape of pilots, crew chiefs and flight medics going through water survival training.
Wow!!
I am 61 years old and because of 19 different surgeries to repair more than two dozen broken bones, remove shrapnel from my eyes and repair torn ligaments, I can still serve in the Army. And I can run, shoot and swim underwater, not just fill out paperwork.
With all the whining about our military, our enemies never do anything more than push us then run. No nation is declaring war on us, invading our territory, or seriously threatening us in any way.
The protests in New York and Missouri and elsewhere say clearly that racial problems still afflict America in the 21st Century, but in my lifetime Black men in the South were lynched. Jim Crow laws were enforced in "The Land of the Free." In the 1950s America in which I was born, I could not have adopted two Black sons. Not in Boston, Birmingham or Boise.
On Fox News, there is a war on Christmas, faith is under fire, and Jesus wants you to Open Carry. But the freedom of worship in America is truly amazing. World history reeks with religious murder. In most Arab countries they will kill their own citizens if they convert from Islam. Our tolerance has led almost infinite stupidity in the name of faith. Just try to imagine Joel Osteen walking the roads of Sanai and Asia Minor with the Apostle Paul and facing persecution and death with Joy!
Next month I will have surgery for the 20th time in my long, healthy life. A life that keeps getting healthier! I am writing this post in a warm comfortable home while my strong, healthy sons clean the kitchen and their rooms. My wife is beautiful, brilliant and an Ironman, and she is the chair of the math department because women who have the drive and talent in America can do that stuff. Two of my daughters already own houses. One is having a baby next year. One is on her way to an academic career. Another works with very troubled Veterans.
In American in the 21st Century is where all this can happen. God Bless America!! He certainly has blessed me.
