What is American?

At the most pedantic and technical level, all citizens are Americans. But that is not what I am thinking about. I am thinking about the quintessential spirit of America.

I admit, I was put onto this path by reading Manuel Garcia, Jr.'s essay about being American. I've read it once and I will need to read it a few more times to absorb what he is saying. There is some truth there, but neither he nor I can clearly put it together. But, for my part, I want to talk about what is American. And please, though I get no comments anyway, please do not pass along comments about how x, y or z REALLY originated here or there and was hijacked by America. These are my thoughts of what is American, so whether they are technically right or wrong, by definition, they are right. Also, I am not writing the negative or cynical - this is a celebration.

• Baseball, during the day, on grass in the summertime. Either in person, or on a radio while puttering about.


• Elvis, Bruce, James Taylor, Jimmy Buffet, The Eagles, Don McLean, The Ramones


• The National Air and Space Museum


• Sousa marches


• The Simpsons


• 1960s Era Ford Mustangs


• The Western, in books or movies


• The National Air and Space Museum


• Amber Waves of Grain


• Motown


• The Music Man, but only with Robert Preston


• Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and the rest of their ilk


• Johnny Cash


• Star Trek and Star Wars


• Beaches, the Beach Boys, Surfing and Dick Dale


• Apple Computer


• Big game day on a college campus


• Johnny Appleseed


• Comic books


• Kevin Smith


• Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell


• Langston Hughes


• The oratorical greatness of Martin Luther King, Jr.

I wish I could identify a unifying theme (except that this list is VERY white male, note that the last two items were added after I realized this). Perhaps it is just me. There is definitely a whiff of the little guy, a taste of the mythical. I don't honestly know. But, to me, these are all quintessentially part of the American thing.

Ronald Reagan

Look, I didn't like the man as president. I thought of him in much the same way I think of Dubya - a buffoon surrounded by very competent people, whose ideas and ideology are abhorrent to me. I was glad to see him leave office.

I also am glad he has died. The idea of losing one's mind is frightening to me, perhaps the most frightening thing I can imagine happening to me. Furthermore, the thought of being the family member of one with Alzheimer's is also frightening and saddening. It is, perhaps, the most horrible way to die, death of the mind, death of the self, but with the horrible addition of leaving a shell of a stranger in your skin for your family to take care of. In my mind, I think when Ronald Reagan reached heaven, the first thing he met was his mind again, and that comforts me.

There is a lot of glowing talk about the man on the occasion of his death. Conservatives are serving up the icon of St. Ronald, champion of freedom and the everyman. Liberals, while saying the want not to speak ill of the dead, contend they must counter this hagiography and proceed to speak ill of the dead.

Me, I want to let it go. For one week, let whoever say whatever about the man. He has died, he was president, and he deserves respect enough that we should let the bickering cease for seven damn days. If the conservative side wants to make him their Roosevelt, so be it. If they want to try to get the luster (and teflon) of President Reagan to rub off on the clearly inferior Dubya, go for it, though I think it is in very bad taste to do so, at least during this period of mourning. To the liberals, of which I count myself one, let it be. There is time enough for partisanship in the next six months. I think any attempt to make Dubya the next Reagan will work to our advantage, since, to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, "He is no Ronald Reagan."

Let's take a week off from this bitter wrangling. Remember Reagan as you wish, fondly or with enmity. On the occasion of his death, I am finding a place in my heart to forgive him the bad things he did and recall the things that made me laugh or feel better about my country. He was president from my 12th year through to my 20th year - truly my politically formative years. In some ways, I am politically what he helped make me.

Finally, remember, this is the guy who called out James Watt on the single most preposterous thing a government official has ever said, that the Beach Boys are un-American.

If you are liberal and feel the need to do something in memory of Reagan, donate to Alzheimer's research, or to one of the stem cell research advocacy groups. But please, no more bickering this week.

Why We Should Care

In the late nineties, I lived in Battle Creek, Michigan. It is a fairly nice town, a (former?) company town. One of the local referenda that came up during my time of residence there was a millage increase to pay for school improvements, new schools and various other school related upgrades. It was defeated, though the need was clearly there. One of the reasons for the defeat was a concerted "no" effort by those who did not have school age children. Their argument was that they should not have to pay for schools when they did not have children in the schools.

I won't get into a discussion of that specifically, but I want to use it as a highlight to demonstrate what I do want to talk about. America is the world capital of individualism, in all the good and bad ways that can be taken. This country is, though, a community, dedicated to the ideal that "all men are created equal". We are a community because we care about our neighbors. We hold open doors, we help people struggling with too many parcels, we do a lot of little things, simply because we care or we like to believe that our good deeds are repaid in kind by others when we need a good deed done for ourselves. I've been on both the giving and receiving end of funeral casseroles - kind gifts of food from neighbors and friends during a time of grief.

I want to write some well reasoned and eloquent post about how we of this country are no better than the least of us. But, honestly, I am suffering from some variety of writer's block or verbal constipation or something. I think the latter is closer to the truth - for the past six months I have been bingeing on political information - books I read, news I read, websites I visit and so on. I think it has all formed into some gelatinous/fibrous mass in my head that has blocked out my ability to think or reason verbally.

So, I am going to sum this up and try to write about some other things for a while and think about some other things for a while, so maybe I can get back on track. Ultimately, we are, as a nation, what we make of ourselves. If we feel that we owe nothing to the community, unless there is tangible, direct benefit to us, then that is a powerful statement about who we are. We are no longer America the nation, but rather America the collection of individuals, and down that path lies only darkness.