God Bless America!

[Photo via Cajun Boy]

It's weird but I have a distinct memory of the first time I felt "Patriotic". I had our nations forefathers' looking down on me. Literally. I was in Mount Rushmore with my family. I must have been around 7 and, up until then, had heard people speak of being patriotic and nodded confidently in agreement without having a clue what that word meant.

I am as American as they get. My childhood vocabulary included words like "road trips, 'smores, slip n slides, Oreos, Tang, Dillards, Shopko, Council Bluffs, Pogs, John Deeres, Swanson Trucks and Dairy Queens." Milan and Barcelona were only places I read about in my hard covered Encyclopedia Britannicas and could as well have been Jupiter. My blood lines are a hodgepodge of Czech Republic, France, Sweeden, German, Bohemia, and probably a dozen others. I say words like "hodgepodge" also, "pop" (soda) and "hoss" (as in that Range Rover was a "hoss" of a ride). And I get excited at the thought of eating hot dogs with burnt grill marks on them.

So while some are insisting we have nothing to be celebrating today, and others are staying home counting their baseball cards, I am celebrating being American in every way I know how. (I'm even sprawled out on the couch right now-have been so for hours). Then, like musicmaven, I'm going to have some fried chicken, homemade ice cream and a whole bunch of Miller Lites before I sit back and enjoy an hour's worth of imported fireworks.

p.s. Dad, I'm not there this year to remind you in person that recently shot off fireworks should NOT be placed in garbage cans with dry grass clippings. I still think you are the smartest man on the face of this earth but don't push your luck.

[You Are Soooo "American"]