Posted by Gracie2 on January 2, 2002, at 20:38:53
In reply to LOL » Cam W., posted by susan C on January 2, 2002, at 18:09:54
Not that I'm not enjoying this thread (oops, double negative) but how did we get from Elvis Presley to...well, to the rest of this conversation? I sure wish we were all in a room together with our lattes or Merlots and some kind of sound system for us leper smokers so we can keep up with the conversation while we freeze off our arses on the sidewalk.
I think someone mentioned that all Americans are pretty much alike due to commercialism, etc., and I must disagree. When I was in the Army about 250 years ago, I was stationed all over the country and always found people in one region to be very different from the locals at the last place I had lived. When I moved from Texas to New York, it seemed prudent to remove the Confederate flag and gun rack from the window of my pick-up. (Just kidding! I kept the gun under my seat.) In Massachusetts, I called the telephone company to have my phone service hooked up, and the operator started laughing at me. She said, "I'm so sorry,
but WHERE are your from?" I said, "Honey, I do not have an accent. YOU have the accent."
In Colorado, I was a passenger in a car driven by one of the natives, and he was flying through a mountain pass like it was flat terrain. If the FBI ever wants my fingerprints, they are embedded
in the dashboard of this guy's car, although he was not apparently driving any faster than usual
for the natives.
We Americans ARE more alike than, say, the Germans, as I also spent two years in Germany. For instance, we tend to like our beer cold. There is no speed limit on the autobahn, and there are (or there was not) a law against police brutality. One is imminently respectful to the polizei.
In closing, here, I would like to say that everywhere I look these days, I see an American flag and it never fails to gladden my heart. I happened to be home on September 11th and watched the terrorist acts on TV as they happened. At first I was shocked and horrified, and I wept uncontrollably when the towers collapsed because I knew there were firemen inside, and my husband is a fireman. I know how the survivors feel, because my brother was killed in a military aircrash caused by a terrorist bomb. It is difficult not to hate and wish mass destruction on those who may be even marginally responsible, even though I tell myself that these feelings will only bring me down to the level of the terrorists. But it does make me proud to see how Americans have reacted to this evil; the blood, the money, the work, the time donated to help other Americans in trouble. We are still patriots.
-Gracie (all over the map)
poster:Gracie2
thread:11539
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020102/msgs/16180.html