What were they thinking, those men in that room 250 years ago? They thought we could do a better job ourselves, and thus far, have proven themselves correct.
No, we aren’t perfect as a nation. There are still too many people who are struggling with providing the necessities, food and housing and medication. Too many in prison because the legal system did not protect them as well as it protects those with more money than they. Too many veterans living in cardboard refrigerator boxes because they need mental healthcare and aren’t receiving it.
But we are a nation where we care about those people. All it takes is a little research to locate an organization anyone can join to help with any cause that they espouse. Want to attack homelessness, help abandoned pets, support veterans’ care? It isn’t hard to find a way.
Caring in America – especially rural America – is more than that, though. It is the small, everyday things we do that go a long way toward making our nation what it is.
The news is full of the bad that goes on. The streets are full of the good.
It’s picking up a plastic pop bottle blowing down the sidewalk. It’s holding the door for someone at the hardware store. It’s greeting the fellow in the next pew at church on Sunday.
The good is having the guts to start a small business even knowing the odds are not in your favor. It’s renovating a house in a small town to create a home for someone else, maybe making a little work for somebody along the way and helping support the nearby hardware store and lumberyard.
It’s pulling up beside a car along the highway, not to get in their business, but to make sure that everyone is all right and if they aren’t, it’s helping change the tire or summon a tow truck. It’s never expecting a reward for those actions and refusing it if it’s offered.
The good is getting out and seeing America, whether that means a cross country trip or going out to Roman Nose State Park to see what there is to see.
Good is getting involved in the politics and causes that you believe make life in this nation better. And while we are a nation of rebels and rabble rousers from way back, the good is agreeing to disagree and in the event that the other side wins, it is tipping your hat to a job well done and congratulating the winner, even if it hurts.
That is what is good and kind and memorable about this nation. It’s what makes us great. It’s what makes us ready to take on the next two and a half centuries. Happy Birthday, America.